>>7269A comment in respond to that one (I'll avoid greentext for readability):
Regarding Pixis' being modelled after the Japanese general Akiyama Yoshifuru; I think there is more to unpack here. In interviews, Isayama said his favorite work of all time is the historical novel "Saka no ue no kumo" by Shiba Ryotaro.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saka_no_Ue_no_KumoWhile I haven't read the novel myself (it's really long), I've seen Japanese fans pointing out how the character of Pixis, and even some of the dialogue, is pretty much a copy and paste of Akiyama Yoshifuru from the novel. In other words, the character of Pixis is based off a fictional version of Akiyama from a novel, rather than the historical figure himself.
Why is this important, you may ask. It's important because Shiba's historical narrative had a enormous impact on the perception of national history in Japan. Shiba's narrative in many of his novels (and I've read some of them) can be summarized like this: "Meiji good, Showa (or rather 1931-1945) bad". In his novels, Meiji period is glorified as a period of triumphal modernization and overcoming of foreign power like Russia (while completely sidelining the issue of imperialism). On the other hand, Showa period is depicted as a period of fanaticism and brutality, where militarists hijacked the country and ultimately lead to its destruction (while also sidelining the continuity between Meiji and Showa period).
Shiba's novels sold tens of millions of copies, and his influence still continues to this day. I think one of the reason his narrative got so popular is because it allowed the Japanese populace to indulge themselves in nationalistic pride for modern Japan, while shoving all the "bad stuff" to the short period of 1931-1945 and treating it as an mere aberration in the history of modern Japan, ignoring the fact that what happened in that period was a culmination of everything that happened after Meiji restoration.
Since Isayama's favorite work is one of those novel, one can ask how much Shiba's narrative influenced Isayama's view on Japanese pre-WW2 imperialism.