diff --git a/kallithea/lib/db_manage.py b/kallithea/lib/db_manage.py
--- a/kallithea/lib/db_manage.py
+++ b/kallithea/lib/db_manage.py
@@ -97,7 +97,7 @@ class DbManage(object):
                 engine = sqlalchemy.create_engine(url)
                 with engine.connect() as conn:
                     conn.execute('DROP DATABASE IF EXISTS `%s`' % database)
-                    conn.execute('CREATE DATABASE `%s`' % database)
+                    conn.execute('CREATE DATABASE `%s` CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci' % database)
             elif url.drivername == 'postgresql':
                 from psycopg2.extensions import ISOLATION_LEVEL_AUTOCOMMIT
                 url.database = 'postgres'  # connect to the system database (as the real one might not exist)
diff --git a/kallithea/model/db.py b/kallithea/model/db.py
--- a/kallithea/model/db.py
+++ b/kallithea/model/db.py
@@ -167,7 +167,6 @@ class BaseDbModel(object):
 
 _table_args_default_dict = {'extend_existing': True,
                             'mysql_engine': 'InnoDB',
-                            'mysql_charset': 'utf8mb4',
                             'sqlite_autoincrement': True,
                            }