 Aki 's appearance was conceived by the lead animator of the project , Roy Sato , who created several conceptual designs for Sakaguchi to consider , and then used the selected design as a guide for her character model . Sato perceived Aki 's original look as a " supermodel " , and subsequently removed her make @-@ up and shortened her hair in order to give her a more intelligent look that would " convince people that she 's a scientist . " In an interview , Sato described actively trying to make her appear as realistic as possible , making her similar to himself in as many ways as he could in the animation , including elements of his personality through facial expressions . He concluded that Aki ended up being similar to him in almost every way , with the exception that " she 's a lot cuter " . The model for Aki was designed to closely follow human appearance , with Sakaguchi commenting in an interview " I think it 's OK to look at Aki and be convinced that she 's a human . " 
