Sisudatu, known simply as Sisu, is the divine water dragon and deuteragonist of Disney's 2021 animated feature film Raya and the Last Dragon. Awakened five hundred years after channeling her siblings' magic into the Dragon Gem to defeat the Druun, Sisu journeys across the five lands of Kumandra to reassemble the shattered gem and unite humanity.
La Scena
In the Kingdom of Tail, warrior princess Raya reaches a desolate shipwreck at the river's end, concluding her five-year search across Kumandra to find the legendary dragon Sisu. Upon being awakened, Sisu materializes in her long, serpentine dragon form, initially disoriented and searching for her lost siblings Pengu, Amba, and Pranee. Upon learning that the Dragon Gem has been shattered and Kumandra is once again terrorized by the plague-like Druun, Sisu agrees to help Raya restore the land. Shortly after at the Tail chief's skeletal altar, Sisu touches a recovered gem shard containing her sister Pranee's magic, causing her to involuntarily shapeshift into a human form to escape Fang soldiers led by Namaari.
Significato
Sisu's reawakening serves as the turning point for Kumandra's revival. As the sole remaining dragon, Sisu is uniquely linked to the Dragon Gem's magic, absorbing her petrified siblings' individual powers—including shapeshifting, glowing, making rain, and fog-walking—as each stolen shard is retrieved. Beyond her magical capabilities, Sisu provides the moral and philosophical foundation of the narrative. Where Raya approaches the fractured world with distrust and self-preservation, Sisu counters with unyielding faith, forgiveness, and optimism. Her fundamental belief that trust can heal division ultimately inspires Raya and the land's rival leaders to set aside their feuds, restore the Gem, and save Kumandra.
Design
In her true dragon form, Sisu is a long, spindly, serpentine water dragon inspired by the Southeast Asian mythic Nāga. Her body exhibits a dark blue tone along her back with a paler blue shade covering her underside, arms, and face. She features short dorsal fins along her spine, two dark blue horns, sharp teeth, expressive purple eyes, and a white-bluish-violet hair mane ending in a small fluffy tail tuft. In her human form—visually modeled after her voice actor Awkwafina—she appears as a tan young Southeast Asian woman with messy white-bluish-violet hair and goofy teeth. Her human clothing consists of a blue long-sleeved patterned robe with a white furry collar, gray jeans cropped below the knee, and soft blue open-heeled shoes.
