Mikasa mouse pads for the desk

Our Mikasa mouse pads and desk mats carry art inspired by Mikasa Ackerman of Attack on Titan, printed edge to edge on a 3 mm neoprene pad with a fabric top, a non-slip base and stitched edges. Sizes begin with the 11.8″ × 15.7″ (30 × 40 cm) pad, which is just enough for a mouse, and go up in eight steps to a 23.6″ × 47.2″ (60 × 120 cm) mat; we print yours once the order is placed.

This page is part of Attack on Titan and stays with Mikasa. The Titans, the walls, Eren, Armin and the rest of the series are on the Attack on Titan page, and Levi, the other Ackerman in the Survey Corps, has a page of his own.

The red scarf

Mikasa's scarf is the most recognizable thing about her. When she was nine, traffickers killed her parents and took her, and a boy she barely knew, Eren Yeager, came after her. When it was over, he wrapped his own red scarf around her neck and told her it was warm. She wears it through almost the whole story, and it comes to stand for everything she feels about him.

That makes the scarf a design in its own right. A red scarf against a plain background, or caught in the wind with no figure at all, is a small, quiet image for the 11.8″ × 15.7″ (30 × 40 cm) pad. People who know the series read it instantly; people who don't just see a strip of red.

One red accent on a muted desk

Most of Mikasa's look is dark and muted: black hair, the brown leather of her harness, the olive cloak of the Survey Corps and the gray of her blades. The only bright thing is the scarf. On a desk, that gives you an easy rule. Keep the setup neutral, black, white or wood, and let the red on the mat be the single accent, perhaps picked up by one red keycap or a red cable.

Avoid adding red RGB everywhere. With a Mikasa design, the point is that the red stays small and deliberate, the way it does in the show.

Growing up in Shiganshina

After the rescue, Mikasa lives with the Yeager family in Shiganshina, and the early chapters show the three friends, Eren, Mikasa and Armin, as children in a warm, ordinary town of tiled roofs and narrow streets. Those flashback scenes are drawn in soft, sunny colors, very unlike the rest of the series.

A childhood design, a small Mikasa in her scarf beside a sunlit wall, is the gentlest Mikasa you can put on a desk. It suits a light wooden desk, daylight and anyone who remembers the first episode better than the last.

First in her class

When the 104th Cadet Corps graduates, Mikasa finishes at the top of the class, and her instructors single her out as an exceptional talent in every part of the training. It is a fitting image for a study desk: a training-uniform portrait for someone working through exams or long nights of coursework.

Training-era designs use the cadets' brown jackets and the crossed swords of the Training Corps, a warmer palette than the Survey Corps green. They suit a desk with brown leather or wood accents and a lamp rather than an overhead light.

The Ackerman strength

Mikasa's surname matters. The Ackerman family carries an inherited strength that can wake up suddenly, and for Mikasa it wakes up during that childhood rescue, when Eren tells her to fight and she does. From then on, she moves with a speed and precision that few soldiers can match.

Levi shares the name and the same kind of strength, and his page covers him. On a Mikasa design, the Ackerman side usually appears as pure motion: a blur of cables and blades with her at the center, eyes fixed on the target.

Twin blades and thunder spears

Like every soldier in the Survey Corps, Mikasa fights with omni-directional mobility gear and two blades drawn from the cases at her hips. In the final season she also uses thunder spears, the explosive lances developed to break through a Titan's armor. Blade designs are all diagonals, a figure leaning into a swing with steel catching the light. Thunder spear designs are louder, with smoke and a flash of orange.

A diagonal composition suits the long M, 11.8″ × 27.6″ (30 × 70 cm), or the XL, 15.7″ × 35.4″ (40 × 90 cm). Look for one where she flies in from the end opposite your mouse, so the swing reads clearly above the keyboard.

Long hair, short hair

Mikasa's look changes across the story, mostly through her hair. In the early episodes it reaches her shoulders; for most of her time in the Survey Corps it is cut short, and by the final season she is older, with the scarf still around her neck after years of wear. Each version pins a design to a stage of the story. Short-haired designs from the middle seasons are the classic Survey Corps look, and the final-season Mikasa is older, quieter and dressed in the new dark uniform.

The crest on her wrist

Mikasa carries a family crest marked on her wrist, passed down from her mother's side. In the final season it connects her to the Azumabito family of Hizuru, a nation across the sea, and to a heritage she knew almost nothing about. A crest motif like that is the most discreet Mikasa design there is: a small symbol with no portrait, for a small pad or a corner of a desk mat at work.

Mikasa and Eren

Almost every choice Mikasa makes is tied to Eren. She follows him into the Training Corps, joins the Survey Corps because he does and spends much of the story trying to keep him alive. That bond is what gives the series its ending, and designs that put the two of them together carry more weight than either portrait alone.

A two-figure design suits a long mat. Put Mikasa at one end and Eren at the other, with the scarf trailing between them along the top edge, and the keyboard sits in the space the story keeps putting between them.

Quiet portraits

Some of the strongest images of Mikasa have no fighting in them at all: Mikasa on top of a wall at sunset, Mikasa pulling the scarf up over her face, Mikasa sitting alone after a battle. In Japanese she is voiced by Yui Ishikawa and in English by Trina Nishimura, and both play her with the same restraint those images have.

Quiet portraits are the most versatile Mikasa designs for a desk. They suit a work or study setup, sit easily beside a monitor showing anything at all, and work on the TCG Mat size, 14″ × 24″ (35.5 × 61 cm), next to a laptop.

How the red reads under different light

The scarf changes with your lighting more than any other part of a Mikasa design. Under a warm lamp, around 2,700 K, the red deepens toward brick and blends into wood and leather tones. Under cool daylight or a white LED panel, it turns brighter and sharper, closer to the red of the anime. If your room is lit mostly by the monitor, the scarf reads darker still, almost maroon, against the black of her hair.

None of these is wrong, but it helps to know which one you want. For a warm, quiet desk, choose a design where the red is small. For a bright, crisp desk, a larger area of scarf holds up well and becomes the focal point of the setup.

A two-pad Survey Corps desk

If you share a desk between work and play, or simply have two surfaces, split the series across them. A larger mat with a Survey Corps landscape or the Wings of Freedom under the keyboard sets the tone, and a small Mikasa pad beside a laptop or a drawing tablet adds the character without the two designs competing. Because her palette is the same olive, brown and gray as the rest of the regiment, the pair reads as one setup, with the red scarf as the only interruption.

For gaming and study

A Mikasa pad behaves like every other pad we print. The fabric top gives a smooth, consistent glide for tracking and quick turns, the non-slip base holds firm on the desk, and the stitched edges keep the fabric from lifting or fraying where your arm rests. For study, a muted Mikasa design under a laptop and a notebook keeps the desk calm, and the cushioned surface is comfortable to write on.

Sizes for a Mikasa desk

Each Mikasa design shows its own sizes on the product page. These are the ones that suit her.

Setup	Size	Good for
Only a mouse	S, 11.8″ × 15.7″ (30 × 40 cm)	The scarf or the wrist crest
Laptop corner	TCG Mat, 14″ × 24″ (35.5 × 61 cm)	A quiet portrait on the wall
Short keyboard	M, 11.8″ × 27.6″ (30 × 70 cm)	Mikasa mid-swing
Mouse and keyboard	XL, 15.7″ × 35.4″ (40 × 90 cm)	Mikasa and Eren at either end
Deep desk	XXL, 23.6″ × 35.4″ (60 × 90 cm)	A thunder spear strike
Wall to wall	4XL, 23.6″ × 47.2″ (60 × 120 cm)	The three friends in Shiganshina

Long, shallow desks have two more options: the L, 11.8″ × 31.5″ (30 × 80 cm), and the 3XL, 19.7″ × 39.4″ (50 × 100 cm).

Gifts for a Mikasa fan

A Mikasa pad suits someone who still wears a scarf in her honor, a friend who loved the final season or a student who needs a calm, focused design on the desk. Her birthday in the series is February 10, which lands just before Valentine's Day, so a pad with the red scarf works for either. The pad is printed and stitched within 1–3 business days, sent from Turkey and in most cases delivered in the US 2–5 business days after it ships. Not sure how much room their desk has? XL is a comfortable fit for most keyboard-and-mouse setups.

Keeping the scarf red

Red prints are hardy, but the wrist area of any pad picks up skin oil over time. Wipe that spot with a damp cloth every week or so. For a full clean, hand wash the pad in lukewarm water with a few drops of mild soap, rinse it thoroughly, press out the water with a dry towel and leave it lying flat to dry. Don't put it in a washing machine or dryer, and don't use an iron. The fade-resistant print keeps the scarf as red as the day it arrived.

A note on names

Mikasa Ackerman, Attack on Titan and the names of its characters are used here to describe what our designs are inspired by. Padrift is not affiliated with, sponsored or endorsed by Hajime Isayama, Kodansha, Wit Studio or MAPPA.