What is Sasha's Gender?

[Meadows]

I'm pretty sure she's q female, otherwise I will be disappointed...

 

[watercolorwish]

tired gender trope identification in character design made me think “female cuz sparkly eyes + lashes = feminine = female ***obviously***” as lots of people stated. I thought the lashes and glimmer indicated a peppy villager. They would fit in well with the rest of the idol types. But its cool they might be a jock or lazy male

And If thats the case I hope this shows we’re moving past tropes and Sasha is an appreciated and a desired villager as a feminine male character, whatever the personality is. At least until personalities are fluid and gender is less played up at least lol

 

[kiwikenobi]

I voted "don't know, don't care," because, well, I don't know, and I don't care. Sasha is cute. If I have the good fortune to get a Sasha card, I'll probably scan Sasha right onto my island. I wonder if the new villagers will be locked to amiibo cards like the Sanrio ones, and never appear on mystery islands. I hope not.

Also, I keep seeing people referring to Shino as female, but Shino has horns/antlers, and all of the female deer in the game have no horns (other than Chelsea, who is clearly wearing a bunny ears headband as her "horns") so... is Shino going to be the first female deer with horns, or a male deer? Is there some clear evidence one way or the other in the Direct? Once again, I don't know and don't care, since I don't particularly like Shino's design, and I probably wouldn't move Shino onto my island if I had the opportunity. But now that this thread has brought up this topic, I'm curious.

 

[Fey]

I voted "don't know, don't care," because, well, I don't know, and I don't care. Sasha is cute. If I have the good fortune to get a Sasha card, I'll probably scan Sasha right onto my island. I wonder if the new villagers will be locked to amiibo cards like the Sanrio ones, and never appear on mystery islands. I hope not.

Also, I keep seeing people referring to Shino as female, but Shino has horns/antlers, and all of the female deer in the game have no horns (other than Chelsea, who is clearly wearing a bunny ears headband as her "horns") so... is Shino going to be the first female deer with horns, or a male deer? Is there some clear evidence one way or the other in the Direct? Once again, I don't know and don't care, since I don't particularly like Shino's design, and I probably wouldn't move Shino onto my island if I had the opportunity. But now that this thread has brought up this topic, I'm curious.

The general idea is that Shino is not just a regular animal but a mythological/magic creature (some say they are based off of a Hannya (demon) mask from Noh theatre, while others say they could be a Kirin—these are either exclusively female or can be either gender, respectively).

On top of that, Shino’s names across all languages, including the original Japanese, are pretty unambiguously feminine, as is the outfit they are wearing.

I’m not saying Shino is undoubtedly female, but I think it’s a pretty safe bet for that villager. I’d be very surprised if they weren’t.

 

[Dunquixote]

I forgot to mention that I’m fine with Sasha being a boy or girl. I still love their design regardless . The only reason I would prefer one over the other is the type of gifts I receive from them. Only male villagers send artwork so even though I have all the art, as a hoarder, I don’t mind getting sent more.

 

[kiwikenobi]

@Fey Ah, interesting, I didn't know about the Hannya before. Probably that's what Shino is based on, then. All the Kirin that I've seen only had one horn in the middle of the forehead, like a unicorn. Though, of course, being imaginary creatures, probably there have been depictions of them with any number of horns.

 

[Fey]

@Fey Ah, interesting, I didn't know about the Hannya before. Probably that's what Shino is based on, then. All the Kirin that I've seen only had one horn in the middle of the forehead, like a unicorn. Though, of course, being imaginary creatures, probably there have been depictions of them with any number of horns.

In media I’ve only seen them with one horn too, but an image search shows everything from zero to two. Interestingly, it specifically says that the Japanese Kirin is more deer-like in shape, which would fit with the design.

 

[mintycream]

This thread is making me have doubts lol. Initially I thought Sasha was a female because of the eyes with possibly the sisterly personality type. Now I'm thinking they could be male with the jock personality hmm. Either way, I want her/him on my island but I hope they're not a jock bc I have enough jocks on my island

 

[Loriii]

I thought of Sasha as female (preferably a peppy), but I wouldn't mind if it's the other way around as long as they're a jock or probably smug. Please don't be a lazy because they're already tons of awesome lazy villagers. It'd be hard to choose.

 

[Altarium]

I think they might be playing with androgyny and ambiguity, as they've done with other characters in the past. Their Japanese name is ミッチェル, which at first is clearly Mitchell, but it also sounds very close to how Michelle is spelled and pronounced in Japanese (ミッシェル). I think this is intended, just like how Saharah's Japanese name (ローラン) is both Roland and Lauren, as Saharah is quite androgynous too.

Look no further than Marshal and Julian. They both have female-sounding names in Japanese, as they can appear female at first sight, but they're actually male. I think the same goes for Sasha.

 

[Splinter]

Clearly female by design, no idea why anyone would even question it, it's blatently obvious. Nintendo are pretty black & white most of the time, what you see is what you get. Birdo still confuses me though.

 

[Aardbei]

Clearly female by design, no idea why anyone would even question it, it's blatently obvious. Nintendo are pretty black & white most of the time, what you see is what you get. Birdo still confuses me though.

Have you read the first post to see why people question it ?

 

[Splinter]

Have you read the first post to see why people question it ?

Yes and I read it a few hours before when it was posted on reddit.

 

[b100ming]

Most interesting debate in the history of acnh. Honestly I think they’re a girl, but who knows? We have to wait and see. I could see it going both ways. We can’t accurately depict it until they actually arrive.

 

[Millysaurusrexjr]

I think Sasha is a girl, based solely on looks. They sparkly eyes, the eyelashes, idk, just seems obvious to me! Not that it really truly matters though, they're cute either way

 

[Sweetley]

Not sure if this was mentioned here already (I just skipped through the pages tbh): Gerrit, Sasha's German name, is both a variation of the male name Gerhard but also the female name Geralde, so the name is both male and female.

Also, a bit off-topic, but since Petri got mentioned here too, their name could be inspired by the German microbiologist Julius Richard Petri.

 

[t3llusagi]

I wanted him to be a girl bc I wanted a cute chi bunny but as soon as I found out the name I was like "oh yeah that's a boy"

T-T nintendo give us a cute uchi pls

 

[b100ming]

Sasha is a girl name here in the US

 

[nerfeddude]

When I first saw them in the Direct I thought "ooooo that's a cute female bunny". But "Sasha" is a unisex name where I live. Plus having eyelashes is not a definitive "female" trait(Julian has eyelashes as well). So, now I'm leaning more towards Sasha being a pretty boy rather than a girl.

 

[JKDOS]

It sounds like Sasha's name is unisex in all translations. Either by coincidence or they purposely wanted a unisex name for this villager, which could hint towards something unexpected.