Characters / Neon Genesis Evangelion – NERV Staff

Neon Genesis Evangelion Main Character Index
The Children (Asuka Langley Soryu) | NERV Staff | GEHIRN Staff | Other Characters | Extracanonical Characters

This page contains unmarked spoilers. You Have Been Warned.

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NERV Staff

As a whole

• Weak Boss, Strong Underlings: Due to NERV's military-like hierarchy, this trope comes in layers and could be seen as an inversion of Rank Scales with Asskicking. First, we have the Children: teenagers with no military training who synchronize with and pilot Humongous Mechas known as Evas — the Evas are kind of sentient and contain the souls of the Children's mothers and that's why only the kids can control them. Then we have Major Misato, the children's tactical commander in battle and the Parental Substitute of two of them as well as an accomplished Action Girl. So, she is only stronger than the kids when they aren't piloting the Evas. Above them are NERV Commander Gendō and his Deputy Fuyutsuki; neither of them is an action guy and their strength lies on respectively being The Chessmaster and The Professor. Finally, there's SEELE, the shady global organization funding and overseeing NERV. SEELE's Cosmopolitan Council comprises regular politicians with a penchant for theatrics.

Leadership

Gendō Ikari

Commander Gendō Ikari

Voiced by: Fumihiko Tachiki (Japanese); Tristan MacAvery [ADV], John Swasey [Director's Cut], Ray Chase [VSI] (English)^note Other languages: Humberto Solórzano [Locomotion, Animax], Idzi Dutkiewicz [VSI] (Latin American Spanish); Juan Carlos Gustems [TV series], Joan Massotkleiner [films], Luis Bajo [VSI] (European Spanish); Fábio Moura (Brazilian Portuguese)

"Forgetting is what lets people go on living.
But there are some things we must never forget.
That's an important lession that Yui taught me."

"There is no one else who can pilot the Evas. As long as they survive, that is what I'll have them do."

Gendo Ikari (né Rokubungi) is the secretive head of NERV and Shinji Ikari's estranged father. While he is not the series' true Big Bad, he is one of the main antagonists. He is NERV's liaison to SEELE, and a member of SEELE's Committee for Human Instrumentality, but in reality he is running his own scenario which runs counter to SEELE's plans. To see this plan succeed, he is more than willing to use and betray everyone around him without hesitation, from his own son to NERV's central personnel to SEELE itself. He is confident, brooding, self-possessed, self-controlled, cunning, intimidating, cold-blooded, amoral, humorless, and utterly ruthless.

Yet, for all of this, the series gradually makes clear that Gendo's primary motivation for all of his bastardry is, in fact, love. In college, he met and fell in love with Yui Ikari; while it's possible that he had ulterior motives for approaching her initially, his love for her was genuine, so much so that he took her surname when they married. After Yui's contact experiment with Unit 01, Gendo became focused on a plan to reunite himself and Yui through a modified version of SEELE's plans for Third Impact that would involve the Angel Adam and the Evangelion which now held Yui's soul. Everything that he does in the series is just step after step toward seeing this plan to completion.

For some, Gendō appears to be quite the ladies' man. First, Yui fell in love with him, and he with Yui. After Yui's death, he took Naoko Akagi as a lover, then her daughter Ritsuko after her death, although in both cases it's revealed that these trysts were solely to use them for their knowledge. He also has a brief and thin friendship with Rei, which is a sore point with Ritsuko; he shows more concern for Rei than he does for his actual son, but to Ritsuko (and the audience) the whole thing seems to have some unpleasant... undertones.

Gendo's abandonment of Shinji shortly after Yui's death is one of the key factors behind Shinji's emotional problems, and over the course of the series, Gendo does little to bridge that gap. Indeed, Gendō and Shinji spend as much time opposing each other as they do fighting the Angels. He is merciless where Shinji is kind, confident where Shinji is fearful, calculating where Shinji is hopelessly naive. He is Shinji's twisted and sinister mirror image, and it's obvious that on some level there is an Oedipal conflict taking place. What the story doesn't reveal until End of Evangelion is just how similar Gendo and Shinji really are under all their differences.

Gendo's depiction in the manga differs somewhat from the original. His villainous traits are more emphasized, while the glimpses behind his harsh façade are downplayed, to the point where his character has a hint of madness and willful cruelty to it, rather than emotional distance and calculating pragmatism, especially when it comes to his ultimate goal, which, as it turns out, is not quite the same as in the anime.

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• Abusive Dad:
  • On both ends no less. He's emotionally neglectful and abusive to Shinji, being absent for most of his life and the times they do interact, it's cold and aloof, leaving Shinji wanting to please his dad while being mad at him. In a bit of cold Irony, he tried to distance himself from Shinji out of fear of hurting him and his final words before death was apologizing to Shinji for hurting him. Furthermore, it's implied that his parents were little better, which could explain why he was an emotional mess and why he took his wife's last name in marriage. In the manga, he is more openly abusive, both verbally and emotionally.
  • Even Rei is not exempt. It is implied that Gendo in some ways sees her as a daughter ("Rei" is, after all, the name he told Yui he wanted to give their child if it turned out to be a girl), but he clearly doesn't want to get too emotionally attached to her and as such he is highly negligent towards her most of the time and evidently goes to some lengths to keep her out of sight and mind. This becomes even more evident as time goes on. He orders Unit-00's Angel-infected arm explosively amputated while her neural synch was still turned on, and his usage of her as a ephemeral vessel for Adam and Lilith at End of Evangelion implies he was willing to sacrifice her as a means to an end.
• Adaptational Jerkass: In the manga, Gendo's already-sparse Pet the Dog moments towards Shinji are completely absent. He is also more verbally abusive towards Shinji and shows no regrets for mistreating him as he does in the anime, and in his last scene with his son he gives a him a combined Breaking Speech and Motive Rant that paints him as a borderline Straw Nihilist with a god complex, during which he admits up front that he outright hates Shinji for taking Yui's attention and affection. However, he ultimately does have a Heel Realization and Death Equals Redemption.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: In several spin-off manga, other than Sadamoto's, he often is seen in a much better light, complete with smiles and laughter with his son. This can partially be attributed to his wife still being around, and like the rest of the cast, being much less depressive. Shinji Ikari Raising Project outright portrays him as a well-intentioned but somewhat awkward Bumbling Dad.
• All for Nothing: In the end, Gendo's years of effort come out to nothing. While Human Instrumentality is commenced, it's not to his plans, and it turns out his wife had been there, possessing the first EVA, and in exchange humanity has been devastated even worse than Second Impact and will likely take decades to recover.
• Ambiguously Evil: At the beginning it is unclear whether he does care about Shinji or is just an evil jackass. The fight against Bardiel seems to cement him as the latter to both Shinji and the audience, but his final confession in The End of Evangelion makes it clear that things are more complex than that.
• Anti-Villain: An absolutely wretched human being and abusive parent out of his absolutely inhuman, unbearable grief and desire to be with his wife.
• Beard of Sorrow: The fact that flashbacks show that Gendo was always clean-shaven while Yui was still around and that he by all appearances grew his beard shortly after her "death", strongly indicate that is the case.
• Beneath the Mask: End of Evangelion reveals his cold exterior is really just that; behind it is a lonely, sad, and ultimately fearful man who is filled with self-loathing and believes he is unworthy of being loved and deserves to die in agony for all the bad things he has done.
• Body Horror:
  • In the anime, he has fused the embryonic Adam to the palm of his right hand. It has a large, exposed eyeball, and seems to be also growing outwards.
  • In the manga, he actually swallows Adam, which eventually manifests as an eyeball in the middle of his left hand from which he can project an AT field.
• Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: In the flashbacks describing the birth of Nerv, Gendo was introduced as a Jerkass failure in life who kept getting into trouble. For example, when Fuyutsuki first met him, it was to bail him out of jail, as Gendo Rokubungi was a recluse and habitual drunk with a penchant for getting into bar fights. Fuyutsuki could not comprehend why such a beautiful genius as Yui would be paired with such a failure in life as Gendo. To boot, Gendo then said that he was used to being hated by everybody else. He needed Yui as a philosopher to teach him how to live and socialize like every other human being. As a result, after Yui sacrificed herself to be absorbed in Unit-01, Gendo became The Stoic whose only purpose is to bring her back from the dead.
• Byronic Hero: He certainly fulfills several of the list, even if calling him a hero is questionable, being a very intelligent, ambitious, brooding and ruthless man who does whatever he deems necessary for his goals, revolving around love. Furthermore, he is quite popular with the ladies despite having only one woman he ever loved. Then there's the mess of a relationship he has with his son.
• The Casanova: Gendo was not only able to earn Yui's genuine love, but landed both Akagis as lovers after Yui's death, although for the latter two it was solely to use them for their scientific knowledge.
• The Chessmaster: He's technically subordinate to SEELE, but he constantly makes moves to mess up their plans while advancing his own goals.
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Gendo's usual outfit is that of a black uniform jacket with a dark-orange turtleneck sweater underneath it. This makes it the inverse of Shinji's standard outfit of a white school-uniform shirt over a blue t-shirt, to underscore that he is a dark mirror image of his son.
• Comic-Book Fantasy Casting: Overlaps with Fake Nationality. His character design, although not character overall, is based heavily off of Ed Bishop in his starring role as Ed Straker on the British television show UFO (1970).
• Creepy Shadowed Undereyes: He has a hint of this, thought is not as noticable for most of the series, as it mostly hidden behind his glasses. But it was especially noticable when he was young, and it certainly lends his gace quite a bit of intensity.
• Daddy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You: Deconstructed. Where previous entries in the mecha genre show the scientist father who abandons the protagonist to build a giant robot as heroic, NGE delves into what a father who abandons their child only to call them back to fight alien horrors is actually like. Needless to say, his actual reasons for abandoning Shinji when he was five were not that noble, if understandable for his mindset: his plan is not to save the world, but to basically bring about Armageddon so he could reunite with his wife and Shinji's mother, Yui, and he abandoned Shinji simply because he came to the conclusion that he'd be a terrible father and Shinji would be better off without him. After seeing what Gendo's like when he becomes a part of Shinji's life again, he was probably right about the latter point.
• Dark and Troubled Past: The finer details before he met Yui are unknown, but he states he is used to being hated. alternate universe works portray him as having had a rough childhood and adolescence, and his only comment about his past seems to hint at it being the case in the series too. Though Yui's death definitely sent him off the edge, he was already there before he met her. It does go a long way to explaining his emotional issues, his devotion to Yui (to where he took her last name) and perhaps his fears behind parenting Shinji.
• Death Equals Redemption: Done in the manga, where he finally has a Heel Realization before he dies thanks to Yui, remembers that he used to love Shinji and thus wishes that Shinji will live on and lead a better life than the one he did.
• Death Seeker: Downplayed, but Gendo's hope that his plan will reunite him with Yui is clearly very much the only thing keeping him from giving completely up on life, and even then he shows himself to be at least passively self-destructive at several points, frequently placing himself at the frontlines of dangerous situations unnecesarily and without regard for his own health and safety. The most prominent example of this is him standing around to watch the fight between Unit-01 and Zeruel up close, and it ends up being down to pure blind luck that he doesn't ended up getting crushed.
• Defrosting Ice King: Appeared to have been something like this with Yui. As a young man he was a recluse and a bit of a delinquent, but she saw the softer side of him and he, in turn, opened up to her. Completely undone after Yui's death, to a point where he's probably incapable of ever defrosting again.
• Desperately Craves Affection: Like with Shinji, this is Gendo's main struggle in life. For Gendo though, this is compounded by Single-Target Sexuality; he has essentially convinced himself than no one but Yui will ever be able to look past his failings and problems and accept him with flaws and all, and he therefore wholeheartedly believes that she is the only one who can ever give him the affection he craves, which is why he is so desperate to bring her back at any and all costs.
• Diabolical Mastermind: In a sense. He's the true head of NERV, which is deeply corrupt, and controls the entirety of Tokyo-3.
• Dirty Coward: Downplayed, but in direct contrast to his son's Cowardly Lion status, he's this. It's easy to miss, because he's the commander of NERV, not a frontline soldier. Gendo spends most of the series hiding from most of the problems he creates or sending others to suffer something intended for him. The glasses and finger-tenting he always does hides his expression from those in front of him. Gendo admits to running away from Shinji out of fear of screwing up his life more than before. Rei I only dies because Gendo didn't have the guts to break things off with Naoko in person and didn't realize (or care) how unhinged Naoko had become. SEELE wants to interrogate Rei II? He sends Ritsuko to suffer being stripped, shamed, and interrogated by SEELE rather than facing them himself. Finally, he is absoutely frightened of having an honest and open conversation with his own son, even though it would probably help to clear up a lot of the conflicts and misunderstandings between the two of them.
• Dirty Old Man: Fanon and Alternative universe spinoffs sometimes imply he is one because of his creepy attachment to Rei. In canon, he was married to Yui Ikari (10 years younger than him), referred to his lover Naoko Akagi (probably only a few years older than him) as an "old hag" and has an affair with Ritsuko Akagi (18 years younger than him).
• Didn't See That Coming: He is caught completely off-guard by Rei turning against him in the 11th hour. Likewise in the manga, Ritsuko living long enough to shoot him dead was a nasty surprise.
• Dragon with an Agenda: Gendo may be the head of NERV and a part of SEELE, but his ultimate loyalty is to himself and to his plan to subvert Instrumentality for his own goals. In End of Evangelion, Rei has to defy him so that Shinji will have the power to disrupt the whole plan.
• Empty Shell: Yui's death has shattered him so completely he essentially has nothing left but his desperate wish to get her back through the hijacking of the Instrumentality project, no matter the cost or whatever might stand in his way.
• Eternal Employee: Implied. In contrast to the other NERV employees, the audience never sees Gendo being off the clock or at home in any regard, and he appears to be spending the vast majority of his time in an official capacity at NERV HQ. The closest thing we are shown that he has to some kind of "off-time", is when he has the occasional philosophical conversation or plays shogi with Fuyutsuki, and these things are either done in his office or when the two of them are travelling between destinations for work. It is indicated that he is so utterly subsumed by his quest to be reunited with Yui that any kind of personal life he might have had is now pretty much non-existent, and it is ultimately ambigious if he even actually has a home somewhere that he occasionally goes back to or if he literally sleeps at work.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: It isn't clear until The End of Evangelion, but despite his abusiveness, Gendo genuinely loves Shinji in his own twisted way.
• Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: Gendo was quite a Deadpan Snarker back in the day, as shown in the flashback episode, but when Yui "died" she apparently took his funny bone with her.
  Fuyutsuki: You said it was luck you left the day before but you took all your files with you... even though the expedition wasn't over!
  Gendo: Those weren't shredded? How careless.
  Fuyutski: And I've been looking into your finances as well, quite a sum for a college professor!
  Gendo: Remarkable, are you now teaching economics as well?
  • However, he is not entirely above it during the series proper either, such as during a discussion with Fuyutsuki about the whole debacle surrounding Unit-04 and the Second Branch's disappearance. While Fuyutsuki is quietly horrified about the loss of life, Gendo sees it fit to crack a very dry joke:
    Fuyutsuki: But the Committee is in a panic!
    Gendo: *matter-of-factly* Of course, it was an unscheduled accident.
    Fuyutsuki: *clearly amused, in spite of himself* SEELE must also be frantically adjusting the schedule...
    Gendo: Incidents not depicted in the Dead Sea Scrolls can occur. This ought to teach the old men a lesson.
• Evil Parents Want Good Kids: It is somewhat subtle, but at least part of of his motivation for sending Shinji away from him and going to some lengths to keep his involvement in son's life to an absolute minimum, can be read as him fearing (perhaps not incorrectly, but a terrible mistake anyway) that he would only be a bad influence on Shinji.
• Evil Sounds Deep: He's a villain and the Japanese, English, and Spanish versions give him a deep, charismatic voice.
• Excessive Mourning: He was so torn up by losing his wife that he abandoned their son and spent years devising a plan to reunite with Yui by bringing the apocalypse.
• Face Death with Dignity: In End of Evangelion, after realizing he's going to be killed by Unit-01 instead of being absorbed into Instrumentality, Gendo finally talks through his many, many issues, and when Unit-01 is about to devour him, he simply apologizes to Shinji.
• Fallen Hero: Yes, really. The flashback episode makes it clear that he and Yui were planning to try to prevent the Third Impact after all of the Angels were defeated. After her absorption into Unit-01, he decides to change plans and plot out his own version of the Impact so they can be reunited.
• Finger-Tenting: Trope Codifier; Gendo spends a great deal of time in this pose, so much so that it received memetic status in the fanbase and became known as "the Gendo pose".
• Foil: Ends up serving for this for his own wife. Both are manipulative chessmasters who are willing to go to pretty much any means to achieve their goals, but Yui represents the most persevering though profoundly cruel ideal of hope and free will, whereas Gendo represents the absolute pit of despair and control.
• Fond Memories That Could Have Been: Three words. "Forgive me, Shinji."
• Former Teen Rebel: Gives the impression that he might have been one during the first meeting with Fuyutsuki. He still has hints of it, in that he's in flagrant breach of regulation by always wearing his uniform in an unzipped state, and frequently displays a lowkey devil-may-care attitude to his superiors, though that's also been seen as a sign that he is only focused on his quest and has pretty much moved beyond caring about what the world thinks of him.
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Okay, so they're more like sunglasses. It still counts.
• Freudian Excuse: Implied. It's strongly suggested he had a decidedly less than pleasant childhood.
• Generation Xerox:
  • It is implied a few times, especially in End of Evangelion, that Gendo shares most of his character traits with Shinji.
  • Shinji's seen briefly wearing Gendo's old glasses in episode 5. A young Gendo appears without his trademark beard or glasses in the flashbacks of episode 21. Comparing the two... yeah, Shinji strongly resembles his old man, both inside and out.
• Godhood Seeker: His true objective in the manga is becoming the new Adam and triggering the Third Impact with Rei so he can recreate the world and reunite with Yui. It fails because Rei rejects him and leaves the recreation of the world to Shinji instead.
• Happily Married: To Yui before her "death". The event utterly broke him.
• Hates Small Talk: While never stated outright, it is quite evident that Gendo treats having to say anything more than what he feels he absolutely needs to like having a tooth pulled. The only people he appears comfortable enough around to talk casually to are Fuyutsuki and Rei, and the case of the latter, they are usually very token attempts.
  Gendo: How is school?
  Rei: No problems, Sir.
  Gendo: I see. That's good.
• Henpecked Husband: In the Alternate Continuities where Yui is alive, she tends to be the one in the charge of the household while Gendo just quietly follows her lead. It is a Downplayed Trope most of the time, though, as the relationship tends not to be portrayed as overtly negative, and for his part, Gendo seems to be just fine with the arrangement.
• Heartbroken Badass: Light on the badass side, but very heavy on the heartbroken side.
• Hidden Disdain Reveal: In the manga, while he initially seems distant like his anime counterpart, he finally tells Shinji that he saw him as competition for Yui's attention and genuinely despised him for that.
• His Own Worst Enemy: Like with Shinji, his extreme self-hatred and subconscious fear that he is not worthy of being loved is really what is at the root of most of his problems.
• The Heavy: As the chief agent of SEELE, Gendo is directly responsible for triggering the events of Second Impact and organizing the global push towards Human Instrumentality.
• Hidden Heart of Gold: Yui certainly thought so, telling an incredulous Fuyutsuki that Gendo is "quite a sweet person. It's just that no one knows it." We also get glimpses of it through Yui's recollection, mostly notably from a moment after Shinji's birth, where an audibly worried Gendo questions if his child will even have much of a future to look forward to in the ruined Post-Second Impact world. It becomes more clear in The End of Evangelion, where it is explained that he truly does care about Shinji, and his dismissive attitude towards him stems from the fact that he sees himself as a bad influence and feared hurting his son. And, finally, in his dying moments he regrets everything he's done to Shinji. Largely averted in the manga, though, where he is pretty much every bit as horrible as he appears to be.
• Inconsistent Spelling: Depending on the romanization the translator uses, his name can be rendered as Gendo (or more properly, Gendō) or Gendou, with the former being more popular.
• It's All About Me: A shared trait with his son. While both are profoundly self-loathing, they are also incredibly selfish. It's made explicit at the end of the series that Yui didn't want this whatsoever to begin with (not to mention she initiated the plot to begin with) and is disgusted by his actions, granting him a Karmic Death though still giving him time to come to terms with himself.
• I Was Quite a Looker: In his youth, Gendo was much more ruggedly handsome and conventionally attractive (and actually strongly resembles an older version of Shinji, who was himself designed to be a Bishōnen). He's not bad looking at all at his current age, but looks are clearly the least of his priorities.
• Jade-Colored Glasses: Gendo used to be a more open and humorous person when Yui was alive. Once she died, he lost all these traits and became the monster he is now.
• Jealous Parent: Towards the end of the manga, Gendō admits to Shinji that he never loved him as a son. Instead, he's greatly jealous of Shinji for "taking all of Yui's love for himself".
• Jerkass Has a Point: Activating the Dummy Plug system that causes Toji to become crippled (or to die in the manga) was harsh, but the alternative was Third Impact. Asuka and Rei had already been defeated by Bardiel, and Shinji refused to do anything, so there really was no other way even if he wasn't a ruthless jerk.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: His relationship with Rei indicates a much kinder side to him, and while he does love her to an extent, she's ultimately still created to play a role as an emotional substitute for Yui and a puppet for his ultimate goal that will ultimately involve her sacrificing herself (Which she rejects to recognize herself with individual will and to go along with Yui's plan instead).
• Kavorka Man: Whether Gendo is attractive or not is completely up to the viewer, but as it stands he's a perpetually scowling recluse in his late forties with absolutely no social skills, a general disregard for other people and blatant mental issues. Despite this, he manages to win over Yui and both of the Akagi women with relative ease. Each of these can be at least partially explained by the fact that they took root while he was younger and more dashing and mentally stable.
• Karmic Death: In End of Evangelion, unlike everyone else who got to be embraced by images of their loved ones before turning into LCL, Gendo is picked up by Unit-01 (which has his beloved wife's soul in it) and bitten in two, AFTER Rei slices his left arm off. He deserved a good metaphorical smacking from the cosmos, his death drips of poetic justice, and in his Last Words he states that he's perfectly aware of this.
• Karmic Nod: As he is about to be devoured by a demonic Unit-01 during Instrumentality, he accepts it as a fair punishment for everything he has done.
• Kick the Dog: He has a few more moments in later Angel battles, usually through negligence like abandoning Asuka to her fate when Arael attacked or everything he does to Rei until her betrayal in End. Also the Dummy Plug incident, in which he has the new autopilot for EVA-01 tear apart EVA-03 while the pilot is still trapped inside. Initially this sounds like Shoot the Dog, but that smile on his face as Bardiel dies and Shinji is begging him to shut the thing off says otherwise.
• Kubrick Stare: One of the three "ingredients" of his signature pose.
• Large and in Charge: He's one of the tallest characters in the series, and the head of NERV.
• Laser-Guided Karma: At one point, Gendo has EVA-00's arm severed, ostensibly to prevent the Angel Bardiel from infecting it, but without severing Rei's connection first so she has to feel the agony. Fast forward to End of Evangelion, Rei's next clone returns the favor by tearing Gendo's arm off herself.
• Lean and Mean: While it isn't too noticeable in the show proper due to his bulky jacket, the art book Evangelion Chronicle has him shown without said jacket, revealing that he is actually quite slender of frame (a trait Shinji has clearly inherited) to the point where he wears both a belt and suspenders.
• Love Makes You Evil: Deconstructed Trope. He takes the phrase "you're worth the world to me" to its (ridiculously) logical conclusion. He tries to bring about the apocalypse, in fervent belief that this will reunite his mind and soul with that of his wife, Yui. Technically, while the plan actually began working, Yui's soul rejected Gendo's at the climax, due to the untold suffering he brought, especially to their son. The moment is best summed up when the Eva her soul is in bites Gendo and Gendo's last words are an apology to his son.
• Love Redeems: Zigzagged. Before he met Yui, he had few friends and was a pretty bitter man. Though it is implied he might have sought Yui out initially because of her connections to SEELE, he genuinely fell deeply in love with her, and actually became a somewhat decent and caring guy. Then Yui "died", and he did a full 180 into Love Makes You Evil territory and spent the rest of his life trying to find a way to bring her back... and was willing to destroy the entire human civilization to do so.
• Like Father, Like Son: In his last moments, it becomes clear that Gendo and Shinji are quite alike, and that Gendo's actions, from his obsession with Yui to his neglect of Shinji, were born of his own Hedgehog's Dilemma.
• Manipulative Bastard: In every continuity. Though it's somewhat notable that he's almost always a Manipulative Bastard by accident. To paraphrase the man himself, he just isn't good at interacting with other humans. However, he does have access to psychological profiles on most of the main cast, so make of that what you will.
• Mask of Sanity: He's publicly the leader of the heroic organization fighting to prevent the end of the world. The truth of the matter is far more complicated as he's plotting to cause it himself instead in a mad quest to be reunited with his long-dead wife.
• The Mole: Before Gendo took command of NERV, he worked as an auditor on the Katsuragi Expedition. Him and his team conviently left the expedition's laboritory the day before Second Impact, the implication being that SEELE planted him there with orders to manipulate Dr. Katsuragi and his team into triggering the event. SEELE later has him inserted into the official UN investigation of the Second Impact. His orders are again somewhat ambigious, but Fuyutsuki strongly suspects that he was ordered to muddle up the results and make sure that SEELE's "freak meteor strike" cover-story is the only version of events that ends up being told to the public.
• More than Mind Control: Gives the impression of having this over Rei and Ritsuko, and they both break it by the end of the series. Same goes for Shinji.
• Motive Decay: Flashbacks indicate he initially participated in Yui's plan to subvert SEELE for her purpose of making Instrumentality reversible, but after her "death", he became profoundly stricken with grief and now only really cares about reuniting with her, with that motivation being tertiary at best.
• Motive Misidentification: On the receiving end of this from another villain. Keel and SEELE believe that his motivation is a hunger for power and that he wants to take control over Instrumentality for himself and become a god. In reality, his motivation is love, and all Gendo really wants is to be reunited with Yui. Averted in the manga, where SEELE actually are right about his plan.
• Necromantic: He still thinks of Unit-01 as Yui, and speaks to it often.
• Nerves of Steel: Does not flinch even when he gets splattered with blood from Unit-01 and Zeruel brawling right in front of him.
• Never Be Hurt Again: Ultimately, this what is at the core of Gendo's general attitude of detachment from, well, everything. Yui was the only person who ever managed to get emotionally close to him, and her "death" utterly broke him to a point where he is effectively pathologically unable to ever dare trying to be close to anyone again. It is, again, one of the strongest implications that whatever happened back in his childhood and adolescence had to be something really terrible to make him that way in the first place.
• Noodle Incident: His past prior to meeting Yui. He was a known rebel and drunk who was prone to getting into bar fights at his university, and nonchalantly told Fuyutsuki that he was "used to being hated" when reprimanded by him. While this suggests that he has a Dark and Troubled Past outside of his relationships with his wife and son, the audience never learns anything more about it.
• No Social Skills: Between his curt way of speaking, which betrays an obvious dislike for saying anything more than he feels he absolutely needs to, regularly making the effort to hide his face behind his glasses and hands so it is hard to get a read on him, and being quite the recluse in private, with Fuyutsuki and Rei probably being the closest he has to a friend and family respectively, it is evident that Gendo is not a people person. This is underlined by Ritsuko and other characters stating that Shinji and him are actually rather similar at this field.
• Not So Stoic: He has his moments, with many of them notably happening around Rei. This is especially evident with her betrayal in End of Evangelion which makes his true agony start to leak out, culminating with his final apology to his son. He also becomes noticeably agitated and irritated with Shinji in the fight against Bardiel, both during the battle and after when he's dressing down Shinji for his actions.
• Oh, Crap!: In the manga, when Shinji tries to assault him after Touji's death. Albeit very brief (it only lasts one frame) this is the only time that Gendo is seen genuinely shocked.
• Parental Favoritism: In a manner of speaking: while Rei isn't really his daughter, it's clear he sees her as one, and he clearly favors her over Shinji, treating her with unusual warmth while he largely ignores and is disappointed in Shinji. Played for Drama in that it's implied that this is because he sees her as an emotional substitute for Yui, and downplayed in that, even though he cares for Rei to an extent, she's still ultimately expendable to him.
• Parental Incest: His relationship with Rei is profoundly possessive and creepy, reaching it's apex where he directly touches her naked breast in End of Evangelion (non-sexually, but still), and numerous statements indicate that he more or less views her as his daughter even if he's not directly genetically related to her. This is ultimately a downplayed example, as despite him clearly having some uncomfortable feelings towards her and her being completely subservient to him, there is absolutely no indication he actually does anything sexually inappropriate with her otherwise.
• Perpetual Frowner:
  • While he shows off the occasional triumphant smirk when something goes Just as Planned, he spends most of the series with a downcast scowl on his face. His only truly warm smiles tends to happen when he is around Rei.
  • Notably, the flashback episode shows that the younger Gendo tended to default to a confident smirk for his standard expression. After losing Yui, the frown that his older self will be known for appeared and was there to stay.
• Pet the Dog:
  • The two occasions when he treats Shinji well, and his dying words in End of Evangelion: "Forgive me, Shinji."
  • He saves Rei a few times over the course of the series, but the later episodes prove she is expendable to him. Still, he's horrified when she's injured during the EVA-00 incident. The implication is he sees her as Yui.
• The Philosopher: Comments a great deal on science, scientists and the state of humanity.
• Psychotic Smirk: Whenever something goes All According to Plan for him. It's usually hidden behind his hands. Chillingly, when he sees that the Dummy Plug is actually working during the Bardiel incident, he does it openly.
• The Quiet One: He usually speaks little, and when he does he never says a single word more than he has to.
• Scars Are Forever: His hands are covered with burn scars, as a result of forcibly opening Rei's entry plug to rescue her after the failed activation of Unit-00. His scars are much worse in the manga, too.
• Scary Shiny Glasses: Former Trope Namer and so iconic that this coupled with his signature pose have long been the subject of meme and Shout-Out.
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: In his final (and only) soliloquy he states that the reason he abandoned Shinji was because he was afraid of hurting him and convinced his son would be better off without him in his life. Unfortunately, this act ended up being the root of all of Shinji's problems; Gendo realizes this painful truth just before his death.
• Shadow Archetype: Of Shinji. It's very noted that the two are not so different in their personality and appearances and indeed, Gendo appears to be what could happen to Shinji if he underwent similar circumstances.
• Single-Target Sexuality: He loves Yui and only Yui. After Yui's "death", he is perfectly fine with sleeping with other women if he can use them to further his goals, but he harbors no actual attraction to them. This raises further implications in his relationship with Rei, who looks remarkably like Yui.
• Smart People Play Chess: He is shown to occasionally play Shōgi with Fuyutsuki.
• Smug Smiler: As a young man, before crossing the Despair Event Horizon, his standard expression was a cocky, defiant smirk. The fact that he's a Perpetual Frowner in the present shows just how different he became after losing Yui.
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside: The scary, cold and mysterious façade he projects hides that he is more or less like his son underneath it all: someone with an exceptionally low opinion of himself, who fails to connect with other people due to being deeply afraid of hurting and being hurt by others.
• The Starscream: He's only going along with SEELE to hijack their Human Instrumentality Project so that he can reunite with his dead wife and attempts to betray them in End of Evangelion.
• The Stoic: His default facial expression hardly ever changes.
• Straw Nihilist: It's gradually revealed that his motivation is a result of his absolute grief and sorrow for Yui's death, and that he has no independent will to live and doesn't find any meaning in life. Ironically, Yui herself is an Anti-Nihilist.
• Strong Family Resemblance: The flashbacks we see of him where he doesn't have his beard show that he is basically just Shinji with a longer face. Design sketches of him without his bulky jacket also reveals that he actually has a very slender build and that Shinji has clearly inherited this trait from him.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Very icy, with the sugar only showing up around Rei and Yui.
• Sunglasses at Night: More like colored glasses in various poorly lit rooms in an Elaborate Underground Base. It is even justified; Gendo's normal glasses broke prior to the beginning of the series, his orange-tinted sunglasses are by all appearences the only pair of prescription glasses he has left, and it is implied that his private life is so utterly non-existent that he simply cannot muster up the motivation to go out and buy himself a new pair.
• Tall, Dark, and Snarky: He is one of the tallest characters of the cast, dresses like one of The Men in Black and he has a pretty dry wit. He was snarky in a more standard way when he was younger, too.
• Teeth Clenched Team Work: Though he seems to hold Fuyutsuki in a slightly higher regard than he does most people, their partnership is based on the mutual understanding that their goals align, not any actual friendship.
• Terse Talker: Gendo prefers answering in monosyllabic words, and he by and large clearly dislikes saying any more than what he feels he absolutely needs to. The only exceptions is when he discusses philosophy with Fuyutsuki or talks with Rei. It actually gets justified when it becomes clear how similar he and Shinji actually are to each other at their core. This manner of speaking is actually a strong hint towards the fact that Gendo might be just as socially awkward as his son and that the two of them have largely the same difficulties with small talk; Gendo is just better at hiding them.
• Theme Naming: Even Gendo's original last name, Rokubungi, continues the show's trend of using naval-themed names, as "Rokubungi" means sextant.
• Together in Death: Although he wasn't inducted into Instrumentality, Shinji's statement in the manga's penultimate chapter implies that like Yui, his soul was left inside the petrified Unit 01.
• Too Much Alike: He and Shinji are so very much alike, it's painful. Both of them are brooding, introverted, quiet people who have evident difficulty with the concepts of interpersonal relationships and small talk, and ultimately they are revealed to have the same Fatal Flaws, namely an immense sense of self-loathing and a subconscious belief that they are unworthy of being loved. They also have quite a strong willpower beneath their unassuming exterior, given how Shinji's berserk drive and Gendo's cold determination are not different (especially since Gendo implied he was more brash in his youth). Gendo's decision to abandon Shinji being driven by his fear of being a bad parent also mirrors Shinji's tendency to isolate himself from others out of fear that he will only be a burden to them. Especially the later is why the two of them find it so impossibly hard to communicate earnestly with each other.
• Took the Wife's Name: Gendo taking Yui's surname when he married her is the first sign that his love for her is no act. Furthermore, Word of God says that Yui was the only daughter of a SEELE member, and therefore of high social status. It also serves to reinforce the implications that Gendo had a very troubled childhood and adolescence and may have taken Yui's surname to cut all ties with his family.
• Troubled Abuser: His rather horrible treatment of Shinji is strongly implied to be at least partly be a result of his own childhood and adolescence being miserable. As he himself says in an off-hand comment, he is "used to being hated."
• The Unfettered: Lets absolutely nothing get in the way of his plans. Not the fact that his son is a puppet, not the fact that the closest he has to a daughter is a puppet, not common decency or sense, not thinking his wife may be horrified at all of this if it works, nothing.
• Villainous Breakdown: In End of Evangelion, he completely loses his composure when Rei takes his arm and abandons him in favor of helping Shinji, being reduced to a frightened, screaming mess, as he desperatedly begs Rei not to leave him. He does, however, gain some dignity in his last moments, apologizing to Shinji just before he's killed.
  Gendo: "I beg you! Wait, Rei!"
• Villainous Cheekbones: His somewhat prominent cheekbones serves as one of the few physical traits he doesn't share with the more soft-faced Shinji.
• Wardrobe Flaw of Characterization: Unlike the more proper and prim Fuyutsuki, Gendo wears his uniform's jacket always open, lampshading his latent rebellion against his superiors.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Zigzagged. We don't have a great idea of what his goals were before Yui's contact experiment, but he seemed to be firmly on her side. After the contact experiment, he merely wants to be with his wife again and doesn't seem to care much what happens to everyone else.
• White Gloves: First used to hide the burn scars he got from the incident with Unit-00 prior to the series' beginning. Later used to hide the embryonic Adam, which has either been fused with his hand or is actually looking out from his hand, in the anime and manga respectively.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds:
  • In End of Evangelion, the implications that Gendo's a lot like Shinji become flat-out stated, with him having tried as desperately as possible to revive the one woman he cared about, at the cost of his empathy, all his friends, and, as part of the endgame, all of humanity. Gendo's shown to be a hollow shell of a man, and even admits outright that he was so terrible toward Shinji because he genuinely didn't believe he (Gendo) deserved love and thought he would only hurt Shinji if he were near him, only to hurt him anyways. Gendo's just as much of a mentally-ill mess as his son; he's just better at pretending he's not, and keeps himself calm long enough to play The Chessmaster.
  • Definitely in the manga, which shows exactly how broken he was before falling in love with Yui. Losing her (who was his Morality Chain) and her starting to love Shinji more than him were both factors for his "father of the year" attitude.
• Would Hurt a Child: Not directly himself but the Eva program runs off of children, he has no problem risking Toji getting killed to test the Dummy Plug (all he does is grin when he see that the Plug actually works), and in one instance he has the staff apply extra pressure to Shinji's plug to choke him out for daring to question his methods (the aforementioned Dummy Plug "test").
• Yandere: Initially, he appears to be an aloof, collected leader. But as it turns out, he's greatly obsessed with his dead wife. He's willing to initiate The End of the World as We Know It to get her back. Plus, given that she's not so much dead as trapped inside the Eva-01 mecha, part of his plan to "reunite with her" involves getting his son to "ride inside her cockpit" unknowingly. And he takes a particular liking to his wife's fourteen-year-old clone, Rei Ayanami. It is taken up a notch in the manga, where he declares open resentment for Shinji for getting "preferential treatment" from her. No, he is not a very sane individual; why do you ask?
• Zen Survivor: Absurd as he eventually is revealed to be under it all, he explains to his son that his "meh" attitude towards everything is a survival mechanism when they meet at Yui's grave for her anniversary.

Doctor Kozo Fuyutsuki

Deputy Commander Kozo Fuyutsuki

Voiced by: Motomu Kiyokawa (Japanese); Guil Lunde [ADV, series], Michael Ross [movies], John Paul "JP" Karliak [VSI] (English)^note Other languages: Jesse Conde [Locomotion, VSI], Rolando de Castro [Animax] (Latin American Spanish); Jordi Ribes [TV series and films], Luis Fernando Ríos [VSI] (European Spanish); João Batista [Locomotion], Sidney Lima [Animax], Carlos Campanile [Netflix] (Brazilian Portuguese), Stella Musy (Italian)

"As long as one soul still exists, it will be eternal proof that Mankind once existed."

Dr. Fuyutsuki is the Deputy Commander of NERV, Gendō Ikari's right-hand man, and is as close to a confidante as Gendō will allow. In his life before NERV, he was a college professor at Tokyo University, teaching in the somewhat obscure field of metaphysical biology. Yui Ikari was one of his interns, and he carried a torch for her for some time. He never acted on his feelings, but was shocked when Yui told him that she was marrying Gendō. Years later, Fuyutsuki discovered the truth of Second Impact and confronted Gendō, but was persuaded by Gendō to assist him with the Eva project rather than exposing the coverup.

Fuyutsuki is far more ethical and a much more decent human being than Gendō, but he has allowed himself to be carried along by events until it is too late to act on his ever-growing misgivings. His being The Stoic (and in comedic situations, The Comically Serious) doesn't exactly help.

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• Adaptational Jerkass: The manga subtly implies him to be this. During his Motive Rant, Gendo blames "God" for taking Yui away from him, even though getting absorbed by Unit-01 had been her own plan all along. This is in contrast to the anime, where Gendo and Fuyutsuki talk openly about Yui's reasons to get absorbed by Unit-01. This at least strongly implies that, in the manga, Fuyutsuki never offered Gendo any insight at all into Yui's plans and basically just left him to suffer in uncertainty.
• All Love Is Unrequited: Heavily implied to have been attracted to Yui, who was his student at the university they met, including looking jealous when he first heard of her and Gendo dating. It seems neither Gendo or Yui are aware of his feelings.
• Big Good: Some fans see him and Yui as co-Big Goods of the series thanks to a very ambiguous flashback in End, which can be interpreted as them planning or at least predicting all the heroes' moves ahead of time to ensure Keel's plan would fail.
• The Call Left a Message: Episode 21 strongly implies that Gendo wanted to recruit Fuyutsuki into GEHIRN from the beginning, and left an incriminating paper trail following Second Impact to lure him to their headquarters.
• Comic-Book Fantasy Casting:
  • Just like Gendo, his character design is based off of a star from UFO (1970), in this case George Sewell who played Alec Freeman. In fact, his character design mirrors Sewell so much that the only difference in appearance between them is hair color. This means that he canonically looks British, not Japanese... certainly not the weirdest thing in this show.
  • He also bears more than a passing resemblance to Peter Cushing.
• The Consigliere: Fuyutsuki often spars verbally with Gendo, mostly by questioning his motives, alternatively trying both to remind Gendo to act with patience and not do something overly reckless in his ploys against SEELE, and also acting as a conscience of sorts, trying to remind him of the human costs of his actions.
• Cool Old Guy: Even as a former university professor, he has the guts to challenge Gendo over SEELE's plans, despite the risk to his life doing so causes.
• Deadpan Snarker: His sardonic wit injects some much-needed levity into the series and can sometimes be rather poignant depending on the situation.
• Face Palm: In episode 9 once Shinji and Asuka begin bickering immediately after dispatching Israfel.
• A Good Way to Die: He accepts his fate in End of Evangelion with no fear, and actually seems to welcome it. In the manga, he speaks for some time to the Rei-turned-to-Lilith before being absorbed.
• Hot for Student: Towards Yui, although he didn't make his feelings known (not that it would have made a difference, since she loved Gendo).
• Not So Stoic: Having to deal with the rest of the cast and their various mental problems occasionally gets him to react in a frustrated or exasperated manner.
• Not That Kind of Doctor: Downplayed. It is implied that a focus on metaphysical biology includes a working knowledge of physiology and anatomy. At any rate, Fuyutsuki appears to know enough about the human body to be able to perform amateur surgery in a pinch, and with the woeful lack of medical professionals to fill the need in the aftermath of Second Impact, he feels compelled to step up and help the desperate masses however he can, and operates an unlicensed clinic in the ruins of Toyohashi City for a couple of years until Gendo catches up with him again.
• Number Two: To Gendo, meaning he usually has to deal with the more mundane functions of NERV.
• Only Friend: There are quite a few signs that Gendo, in some kind of sense, views him as such, as Fuyutsuki is the only person he regularly socializes with and has even shared his true plan with him. Fuyutsuki doesn't quite return that sentiment, but he doesn't outright dismiss Gendo either, and at points it is implied he pities him for the kind of life he has brought upon himself.
• Only Sane Man: One of the few adult characters who is relatively well-adjusted and if not satisfied, then content with his lot in life.
• The Philosopher: Engages in some philosophical banter with Gendo on occasion.
• The Professor: Yui was one of his interns when he was a college professor. Gendo refers to him as "Professor" during flashbacks and his final descent into Terminal Dogma.
• Reluctant Mad Scientist: It is subtle, but he has some traces of it, with how his expertise in metaphysical biology are all but outright said to have played a big role in both the creations of the Evangelions and Rei, as well as the latter's cloned dummy bodies. While his feelings on his contributions to the development of the Evangelions aren't made entirely clear, he appears to have at least some regrets about his hand in the making of Rei, if his comment about her being "the product of my despair" is anything to go by. He also outright admits to Yui that his continued employment with NERV after being recruited by Gendo is entirely down to SEELE holding a gun to his head, as he was threatened with "erasure" for knowing too much should he ever try to resign.
• Resigned to the Call: By all appearances, he's resigned to stay with NERV because he is aware that he knows far too much about SEELE's plans and would likely not live for long should he try to leave. It is subverted when his real reasons are revealed and turn out be far more idealistic in nature; namely that his true agenda is helping Yui to undermine SEELE's plans.
• Satellite Character: Beyond some limited interaction with the rest of the NERV staff, Fuyutsuki only ever has any meaningful screentime with Gendo and Yui.
• The Stoic: Is generally pretty reserved, though not as much as Gendo.
• Teacher/Student Romance: He developed an attraction to Yui when she was his student.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Neither he nor Gendo like each other too much, and a flashback heavily suggests that Fuyutsuki hated Gendo back when he was his student, but both of them work closely together due to having similar goals. By the series proper, Fuyutsuki seems to have developed a certain amount of pity for Gendo, but he still clearly doesn't like him.
• What a Senseless Waste of Human Life: He often ruminates aloud on the loss of innocent lives that Gendo and SEELE's plans tend to leave in their wake. He might have resigned to the idea that he is powerless to do anything to stop it from happening, but that still doesn't mean he likes it.

Members

Misato Katsuragi

Captain / Major Misato Katsuragi

Voiced by: Kotono Mitsuishi (Japanese); Allison Keith [ADV], Carrie Keranen [VSI] (English)^note Other languages: Toni Rodríguez [Locomotion], Marisol Romero [Animax, VSI] (Latin-American Spanish); María Moscardó [TV series], Carmen Calvell [Death & Rebirth, The End of Evangelion], Olga Velasco [VSI] (European Spanish), Laurence Bréheret (French); Vanessa Alves [Locomotion], Lene Bastos [Animax], Priscila Franco [Netflix] (Brazilian Portuguese)

"The hedgehog's dilemma...the nearer we get, the deeper we hurt each other..."

Misato is the beautiful 29-year-old Bunny-Ears Lawyer who is appointed to be the guardian and personal tutor for Shinji and Asuka, as well as the pilots' tactical commander in battle.

Misato is a study in contrasts. When she's on the job, she's a force to be reckoned with—tough, smart, cunning, hard-nosed, determined, ultra-competent in strategy and tactics (particularly as the series nears its end), and an all-around Action Girl. At home, it's a completely different story. She guzzles beer, wears skimpy clothes, has a pet genetically-engineered penguin named Pen-Pen who can beat her at chess, and is a borderline Cordon Bleugh Chef. She's cheerful, optimistic, ditzy, hedonistic, and quite the slob. She even has her own theme music for these scenes, which sounds like a sort of musical paraphrase of all the wacky 1960s sitcom theme music you ever heard.

As the series progresses, it's gradually revealed that these contrasts in personality are two halves of a facade. Despite her age, Misato, like Shinji, is a broken-hearted child, striving to live up to crushing responsibilities, yearning for love and acceptance, and trying desperately to hide deep sadness, loneliness, and fear (by episode 21, after Ryōji Kaji dies, the mask cracks). Despite her lighter side, her insecurities cause her to be childish, touchy, and short-tempered; for instance, she hates being teased yet loves to tease people, especially Shinji. Most of her problems come from conflicting feelings toward her father, who neglected her and her mother in favor of his work but sacrificed his life to save hers during Second Impact... an event that she's all but certain he had a hand in causing, but as a horrific accident.

She hates the Angels, blaming them for her father's death and her own near-fatal injuries in the cataclysm of 2000, and that hatred drives her to amazing feats of cunning to defeat them. Unfortunately, it also causes her to misinterpret the reasons why Shinji acts the way he does when he pilots Unit-01, and drives her to say the worst possible things at the worst possible moment to Shinji near the end of episode 24, in the aftermath of Tabris' attack on NERV (see Kaworu's entry for details), traumatizing him even further and pushing him into his final slide toward a nervous breakdown.

She and Shinji become very close, perhaps even coming to love one another, as the series goes on — though not in any openly romantic way. She even kisses him just before her own heartbreaking heroic death, though her motivations for doing so are subject to debate. It is very sad to watch, as the series goes on, that whenever Shinji is in the most pain and needs Misato the most, she's either wallowing in drunken self-pity, angry that he doesn't share her rage, or her efforts are misguided and seemingly inappropriate, and whenever Misato is in the most pain and needs Shinji the most, he can't handle seeing her in pain and tries to ignore her—not because he doesn't care, but because he doesn't know what to say or do and fears he'll only hurt her more if he tries. ^note See quote above; this is what they describe as the Hedgehog Dilemma, and is the best way to describe her relationship with Shinji.

Her on-again, off-again boyfriend is the aforementioned Ryōji Kaji; their relationship, at least at first, is all about Belligerent Sexual Tension.

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• Action Girl: She's not an Eva pilot like Asuka and Rei, but she's incredibly competent in her own right. This is especially evident in episode 7 when she takes down Jet Alone and in End of Evangelion when she saves Shinji from the JSSDF.
• Addiction Displacement: Replaces beer for coffee later in the series after Kaji's demise.
• The Alcoholic: Borderline. Her fridge is practically stuffed with beer, and downing at least one can is the first thing she does when she gets home from NERV. She also drinks notably more when she is under stress, something Ritsuko comments on with some concern in a later episode. It makes her entirely quitting beer and instead drinking pretty much only canned coffee following Kaji's death that more noticeable.
• Anti-Hero: Downplayed. She's a good person, but her motivations to work with NERV are largely personal and she has serious psychological issues that impair her ability to relate to people, which greatly affects Shinji in particular.
• Badass Driver: At least hinted at. Because of the nature of the show, she doesn't get that many chances at showing off her driving skills, but she swiftly and professionally manages to evacuate Shinji from the frontlines in her car in the first episode, and later she shows that she can pull off high-speed Parallel Parking without breaking a sweat.
• Bad Bedroom, Bad Life: Misato's bedroom (let alone the rest of her apartment complex) is a complete mess, with empty beer cans, instant meal wrappers, dirty laundry, and other sorts of junk. While it initially demonstrates her lax, carefree nature, it also displays her unresolved trauma from the Second Impact along with other deep emotional struggles.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Subverted. It seems that her drinking, poor eating habits, and lack of proper hygiene haven't affected her looks, but she has a large scar on her chest (briefly revealed in the anime, seen full-on in one panel in the manga) from her brush with death during Second Impact, and she's seriously injured by Unit-03's destruction of its launch site, wearing a head bandage and an arm sling for the next couple of episodes.
• Beergasm: The happy yell she lets go of when she knocks back her first cold one after work provides the current page image.
• Beware the Nice Ones: She's friendly, but it's not wise to piss her off.
• Big-Breast Pride: Our (and Shinji's) very first image of her is a picture she included with Shinji's NERV materials that has an arrow she drew pointing to her cleavage and "Get a load of these!" written on the picture.
• Big Eater: She binges on junk food like ramen and curry during her free time, as displayed by the gigantic mess in her apartment complex.
• Bizarre Taste in Food: She really likes to play mix-in-match with different instant foods. She especially likes curry on top of instant ramen, a combination which Ritsuko and Shinji don't really try that hard to hide that they find rather off-putting.
• Broken Ace: Initially introduced as a beautiful, hard-drinking, hard-fighting and improbably young elite officer of NERV sent to mentor and guide Shinji, the cracks start showing throughout the series and by the end she is barely holding it together following serious injuries, the resurfacing memories of Second Impact, her increasing awareness that NERV has been lying to her all along, her old friendship with Ritsuko coming apart at the seams, and the death of Kaji. In the finale, having failed to motivate Shinji as a friend and as a substitute mother, all she can do is offer herself and she dies asking if she did the right thing.
• Broken Bird: Her personality is mostly a coping mechanism for her childhood traumas.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: She is certainly a Hard-Drinking Party Girl, who often fails to act her age and definitely marks for Plucky Comic Relief, but there is a very good reason why she is at the top of the military chain of command within an organisation like NERV.
• Butt-Monkey: She has her moments, mainly when the series gets comical and she finds herself on the receiving end of Ritsuko or Shinji's snide remarks.
• Buxom Beauty Standard: Her large chest often has men fawning over her, especially Shinji's classmates.
• Character Catchphrase: When she's describing something as slight, she uses chocchi instead of the conventional chotto.
• *Click* Hello:
  • To Kaji when she catches him about to sneak into Terminal Dogma.
  • To Ritsuko when she was about to reveal Rei's origins to Shinji.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: She gets quite jealous whenever Kaji runs off to flirt with another woman. In one early episode, when Kaji gets a little too touchy-feely with Ritsuko, she stares at him with a look of utterly hilarious fury through a window.
• Cool Big Sis: Subverted. Misato attempts to be this towards Shinji to get closer to him, but their mutual issues derail her efforts.
• Cool Car: Has a penchant for driving around in sport cars, most notably her Renault Alpine A310. One episode also shows her driving to Shinji's school in a Toyota MR-2.
• Cordon Bleugh Chef: Her cooking is best described as completely unrelated instant meals gathered in the same vessel. She's better off leaving the food to Shinji.
• Cowardice Callout: She gives several callouts to Shinji in some instances where he wants to no longer be a pilot; in The End of Evangelion, Misato's last words to Shinji are telling him to stop fleeing and wanting to kill himself and to instead make a choice.
• A Day in the Limelight: Episode 7, where she is the key factor in taking down the Jet Alone mecha after it goes awry during its debut performance.
• Deuteragonist: Per Word of God, Misato is the secondary hero, following Shinji.
• Disappeared Dad: Her father was a scientist who was caught in the middle of the Second Impact with his crew.
• Drowning My Sorrows: Inverted. After Kaji's death, she entirely quits drinking beer, switching instead to drinking an apparently equal amount of canned coffee.
• Dumbstruck: Following Second Impact, the teenaged Misato was found in a borderline catatonic state and she didn't speak for at least a couple of years afterwards. When they're in college together, Ritsuko notices that Misato is quite the Motor Mouth and speculates that she talks so much then to make up for her time as a mute.
• Earned Stripes: Misato gets a promotion but doesn't say anything about it. Only Kensuke, a military otaku, notices the change in her ranks, and Shinji is surprised when he congratulates her on it.
• Extreme Doormat: After the Second Impact, she spent years being unemotive and barely speaking. It was only when she got into college that she started to become more social again, which is implied to be why she's such a Womanchild.
• Functional Addict: Even though she is a borderline alcoholic, it never shows when she's on the job, where she is one of the most well-adjusted people working at NERV (relatively speaking) and a military genius.
• General Ripper: It is hinted that she often pushes her wards to danger due to her hatred of the Angels.
• Generation Xerox: Ironically, despite the large emotional distance between her and her father, she ends her life pretty much the same way he ended his: using her last minutes alive to do everything in her power to save her children, in spite of both having suffered a fatal injury and the fact that the apocalypse is literally happening around her.
• Genki Girl: Deconstructed. Even though she is 29 years old, she is quite giddy and carefree during her free time. However, it turns out this served as a coping mechanism for all her hardships in life, mainly the events of the Second Impact.
• Hard-Drinking Party Girl: A far more serious example than most. To begin with, her drinking habits are generally played for laughs, but it becomes increasingly evident as the show progresses that she drinks in an attempt to cope with the stress of her job and the ghosts from her past.
  Ritsuko: Misato's drinking too much, isn't she? She's acting a little out of control.
  Kaji: Sometimes one drinks to keep oneself under control. We all do.
  Ritsuko: As someone who has lived with her, your words carry a certain weight of truth.
• Half the Woman She Used to Be: In EoE it isn't ultimately blood loss from her gunshot wound that finally does her in, but the explosion from the charges the JSSDF had planted. Going through the explosion frame by frame reveals that it ends up literally tearing her in half.
• Heroic Sacrifice: She receives a fatal gunshot while protecting Shinji and sending him to pilot the Eva one last time.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Ritsuko, until the pileup of NERV's secrets and the traumas suffered over the course of the series shatter their friendship.
• Hot-Blooded: A milder example. She's quite grounded and serious when needed, but she's still emotional, and said emotions are likely to dominate her.
• Hot Teacher: In the alternate reality Shinji sees in Episode 26, Misato is his and his classmates' teacher, and Shinji ogles her just as much as Toji and Kensuke do.
• Hypocrite: Misato is greatly annoyed at the fact that Shinji has no personal stake in being an Evangelion pilot beyond the fact that doing so might please his father, but she herself is only invested in killing the Angels out of personal revenge and to please her now-dead father. However, it's implied that part of what makes her so angry at Shinji is that so many of his motivations mirror hers, and she encourages him to do it for himself.
• Hypocritical Humor: Says that Kaworu is "in serious need of a therapist" when she spies him seemingly talking to himself. In reality, Kaworu is one of the only characters who doesn't need a therapist, Misato included.
• I'll Tell You When I've Had Enough!: When she's pissed off and drinking, don't try to stop her.
• In Vino Veritas: When she's sober, she's a force to be reckoned with. Drunk... not so much. She lampshades this in episode 15 before her meltdown in front of Kaji as she admits why she ended their relationship.
• Informed Poverty: Episode twelve has her claim that a single steak dinner for two kids is enough to make her broke, which makes one wonder how she manages to afford her adequate (if modest) apartment and pair of cars, one of which is a Renault Alpine A310.
• Intergenerational Friendship: With Shinji, who is 15 years younger than her. This is yet another deconstruction, as Misato bouncing back and forth between Shinji's commanding officer when they're on duty and a Cool Big Sis at home keeps them from truly being able to relate to each other in a way that would be mutually beneficial. Things are clouded even further by the ambiguity of exactly what she feels for him and her near-complete inability to actually help him with his problems due to her own issues.
• The Lad-ette: She enjoys drinking copious amounts of beer, has an interest in cars, and is quite the disorganized slob in private. She also has a notable aversion to wearing high-heeled shoes, judging from Kaji's surprise upon seeing her wearing them at a wedding.
• Last Kiss: Knowing she's about to die from the bullet wound in her back, Misato kisses Shinji as she sends him off to pilot the Eva, possibly to snap him out of the near comatose depression he's in.
• Last-Name Basis: She pretty much only refer to Kaji by his last name, to the point where Kaji's first name, "Ryoji", is only ever spoken by her once in a Full-Name Ultimatum.
• Leg Focus: Misato wears shorts and miniskirts that show off her long legs, which the camera focuses on when she exits her car.
• Lethal Chef: Misato is such a lousy cook that she can only heat up cups of ramen and order takeout. Shinji and Ritsuko have both admitted to finding her actual cooking repulsive.
• Like an Old Married Couple: Ritsuko notes that Misato and Kaji's interactions are like this in episode 15 after Misato snaps at Kaji like a Henpecking Wife for missing the wedding ceremony, not bothering to shave, and even grabs his tie to fix it. Only Kaji is amused by Ritsuko's comment.
• Like Parent, Like Spouse: She is attracted to Kaji because he reminds her of her father. This realisation is what led her to break up with him.
• Little Black Dress: Her standard work outfit is a short, sleeveless dress, though most of the time, it tends to be covered by her red officer's jacket.
• Majorly Awesome: Proves her badass credentials several times in the anime, End of Evangelion, and the manga. She starts out as The Captain in the original anime and manga before being promoted to Major.
• Mama Bear: Fiercely protective of the Children, especially Shinji. The best example comes in End of Evangelion, where she leaves the command center mid-battle to rescue him, as well as hiding Asuka and her Eva at the bottom of the Geofront lake to keep her out the reach of the JSSDF.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: A subtle case with Kaji. While Kaji is clearly quite manly, he also enjoys gardening, drinks coffee and specializes in espionage, in contrast to Misato, who enjoys cars, drinks beer and specializes in combat. This is notable due to the series' recurring analysis of gender roles, particularly Misato's worries of failing as a mother figure.
• The McCoy: The emotional, empathetic, and idealistic counterpart to Risuko's Spock.
• Mentor Occupational Hazard: Throughout the series, she mentors Asuka and Shinji in defeating the Angels. By the time of The End of Evangelion, however, she helps Shinji escape from the JSSDF to pilot Unit-01, but not before she gets fatally shot in the process.
• Motor Mouth: During her college days, according to Ritsuko, making her assume that Misato is compensating for her Cute Mute years (see above).
• Must Have Caffeine: After Kaji's death, she switches from beer to copious amounts of canned coffee, perhaps because she's now motivated to work all hours to find the truth about NERV.
• Mrs. Robinson: Throughout the series, there are several moments that suggest she may have an attraction to Shinji, though how much of this is simply due to her issues with communicating with men in any way other than sexual and her own parental issues is up for debate. (Documents related to Episode 23 explicitly indicate that she is offering Shinji sex when he's depressed over Rei's demise.) She also doesn't seem to mind the attention from younger men (probably due to her insecurity), such as Toji and Kensuke, as well as using the feelings of her subordinate Hyuga to her advantage at times.
• Ms. Fanservice: Competes with Asuka and Rei for this.
  • Played up in the previews of next episodes, in which she regularly comments on how much fanservice she's giving (at least until things start going south).
  • Taken further in the manga, especially in still art.
• Mundane Luxury: In episode twelve, she sends Shinji, Asuka, and Rei out on an incredibly risky mission with a miniscule chance of success that, even by her own admission, is being put together based entirely on assumptions and guesswork. Their reward if they succeed? A steak dinner. Shinji and Asuka pretend to act excited and impressed by the offer, as they know that Misato can't afford anything better, and even end up going for a meal at a cheap ramen place rather than forcing Misato to spend all her money on steak.
• Nice Girl: For all of her flaws, Misato is one of the most friendly and kindhearted characters in the show who always tries her best to look out for Shinji and Asuka.
• Not a Morning Person: Especially when she has to attend Shinji's parent/teacher conference.
• Old Maid: She's 29-years-old and and there are a lot of jokes about the fact she's too old to still be single.
  Misato: It's like everyone's in a rush to get married before they turn 30.
  Ritsuko: And you don't want to be the last one still single, do you?
  Misato: Excuse me?!
• Parental Favoritism: Despite taking Asuka in as her guardian like she did with Shinji, Misato is largely hands off in her guidance of Asuka in comparison to Shinji. While Misato goes through great efforts to break down Shinji's barriers to grow closer to him, she had a habit of engaging Asuka in Passive-Aggressive Kombat by comparison. Misato's presumed favoritism towards Shinji, along with her relationship with Kaji, both play into Asuka's growing resentment towards both her and Shinji.
• Parental Substitute: Usually comes across as a mother-figure for Shinji but ultimately she fails to succeed, which she even admits in End of Evangelion. The reason she points out is that she's probably just as messed up as Shinji is. Nevertheless, she still loves and protects him like a mother and would die for him, which she does in the end.
• Parents as People: Misato means well for Shinji and tries her best to make him happy, but her own shortcomings and struggles make things difficult. She evens admits her flaws as a Parental Substitute towards Shinji in The End during her Heroic Sacrifice.
• Physical Scars, Psychological Scars: The audience is first shown that she has a large, rather gnarly looking scar on the right side of her abdomen some ways into the series, in Episode 10, when Asuka also notices it as they are relaxing in the women's section of the hot springs. At this point, Misato rather nonchalantly waves it off as something she "got in the Second Impact". But then, in a later episode, Misato has a prolonged flashback that shows what she actually experienced during the moment of Second Impact. The flashback ends with a cut to in Misato in the present, quietly regarding her scar in a mirror with an uncharacteristically grim and solemn expression on her face. Both of these serves as the first serious glimpses the audience gets of the trauma she hides under her cheerful surface.
• The Pig-Pen: A downplayed example — she isn't visibly filthy, but she doesn't seem to care much for her personal hygiene, let alone keeping a clean apartment.
• Pin-Pulling Teeth: Done beautifully for her death scene in the manga. JSSDF soldiers approach her slumped and fatally-wounded body; she turns her head towards them, revealing a pin in the corner of her mouth. She then shows them the hand grenade she's holding.
• Poverty Food: Downplayed. She seems to genuinely enjoy eating the instant ramen and curry that her kitchen shelves are entirely stocked by, even if Shinji and Ritsuko find it somewhere between unappetizing and disgusting. However, episode twelve reveals that she can't even take Shinji and Asuka out for a nice steak dinner without rendering herself broke, so it seems like her choice in diet is at least somewhat forced upon her by her financial situation.
• Precision F-Strike:
  • From the Manga dub of End: "So fucking what if I'm not you?"
  • In volume 4 of the manga, albeit the one there is censored.
• Rank Up: Is promoted from Captain to Major in episode 12.
• Scars Are Forever: A large scar on her chest, which she got in Second Impact.
• Secretly Selfish: Downplayed. Misato is actually one of the most morally upstanding characters and has her genuinely selfless moments, but while she is working to save humanity from the Angels, she's largely operating out of revenge and personal interests rather than for the good of all mankind. She spends a good deal of the show annoyed at Shinji's own selfish motivations for piloting an Evangelion, but admits in the final episode that she's no better; one of the themes of Evangelion is that everyone is Secretly Selfish.
• Sensei-chan: She is one in the alternate universe depicted during Instrumentality in episode 26.
• Sex Goddess: Implied by Kaji, who claims she's "wild in bed". He is supposedly talking about her sleeping habits, but his coy expression and her mortified reaction make clear what he really meant.
• Sexy Mentor: Implied so to Shinji, whenever we are shown his thoughts. Although Kensuke and Toji don't care whether everyone knows about their crush on Misato or not, Shinji later turns out to be not so different because images of Misato (particularly nude) appear just as much as Rei and Asuka. It's somewhat "foreshadowed" at breakfast in episode 7 when Misato (in her midriff-baring pajamas) folds her arms, pushing up her breasts, which makes Shinji turn to the wall behind him in embarrassment. Misato doesn't appear to notice.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: She has a rather unkept style of clothing outside of when she wear her work uniform. When she grooms herself up for a wedding, however, she is absolutely gorgeous.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: A rare example of a character who becomes one over the course of the series, as her injuries, past traumas and Kaji's death pile up and finally get to her.
• Slut-Shaming: Misato's introspection sequence in Episode 25 makes it clear that she struggles with a lot of internalized slut-shaming. Much of the sequence is her berating herself merely for having sexual thoughts and desires, and being mortified and deeply ashamed that others, especially Shinji, are able to access her memories of her sex life now that there are no personal barriers between people's minds. The ultimate irony is, that despite thinking of herself as a "dirty" woman and the playfully flirty facade she usually projects, Misato does, by all measures, actually appear to be quite chaste; in fact, everything seems to indicate that Kaji might be the only person she has ever had sex with.
• Smarter Than You Look: If one were to catch her off-duty, they'd probably see an airheaded, silly, drunken party girl, but she's actually very intelligent. Not only is she a gifted enough strategist to be made operations director over numerous personnel with higher ranks and more experience, but she's also a competent hacker and was able to keep up with Ritsuko when they were in college.
• Smoking Hot Sex: It's the only time she ever smokes nowadays, she tells Kaji in episode 20.
• Sole Survivor: She was at ground zero of Second Impact, and was the only one who got away alive thanks to her father getting her into an escape pod in the nick of time.
• Stacy's Mom: Toji and Kensuke are both quite enamored with her. She notices and appears to be flattered.
• Stepford Smiler: Acts like a Hard-Drinking Party Girl to hide her daddy issues and emotional problems.
• The Strategist: To an exceptional degree, and enough that even Gendo recognizes her skills.
• Taking the Bullet: When she and Shinji are suddenly ambushed by a JSSDF patrol, she quickly shields him from their gunfire with her body, resulting in her sustaining a lethal injury before they are able to get away.
• Taking You with Me: In the manga. Dying from a gunshot wound, she is found by JSSDF soldiers but blows both herself and them up with a grenade.
• Tank-Top Tomboy: When not wearing her work uniform, she is shown wearing tank tops — either in yellow, pink, or blue — to demonstrate that she is The Lad-ette.
• Team Dad: Misato's approach to Shinji, at times, is like this, especially in the movie finale, where she makes it very clear that she has no time for Shinji's apathetic-like depression and accuses him of "cowering under the skirt" of Asuka. Compare Kaji's Team Mom, where he frequently encourages Shinji to think for himself, somewhat boosting Shinji's confidence.
• Token Good Teammate: Of the NERV staff, she is the one with the strongest moral compass, her personal struggles notwithstanding.
• Tomboy with a Girly Streak: Misato is hardcore, owns a sports car, shamelessly chugs on beer, is a lousy cook, sports tank tops and short shorts, and is quite slovenly. She also doesn't mind wearing dresses on special occasions, gushes over boys, and has a motherly-type relationship with Shinji.
• Tragic Keepsake: The cross pendant that she has was given to her by her father, just before he sealed her in a capsule to save her from the Second Impact.
• Trash of the Titans: The first time Shinji enters the apartment, Misato warns him with a sheepish smile that it's a little messy. He steps in and is appalled at the piles of beer cans, instant meal wrappings, dirty laundry...
• Tsundere: Has shades of this towards Kaji. She is frequently exasperated and annoyed by his flirting and goofing around, but she is very much still attracted to him and they eventually rekindle the relationship.
• Two Girls and a Guy: Formerly with Ritsuko and Kaji, back when they were university students.
• Unkempt Beauty: She has an unkept manner of clothing when she is off-duty, but she is quite stunning nonetheless.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: There are clear traces of this in her and Ritsuko's relationship. Ritsuko clearly likes to playfully insult Misato, especially about her more immature behavior and moments, to which Misato always bashfully grumbles at her to shut up. However, as the series goes on, and the stress of the situation starts wearing on their friendship, Ritsuko's insults gradually lose their playful edge, and instead become increasingly cutting and venom-filled, and instead of getting bashful, Misato starts displaying deadly serious annoyance and even anger at Ritsuko's insults and even begins insulting her right back.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: She's the closest thing the series has to a sexpot, so there's plenty of sexual tension to go around. The tension with Kaji is resolved, at least in the most literal sense, so that leaves the winner of this trope as Shinji.
• Urban Legend Love Life: Her flirtatious facade hides a desperately lonely woman who only has eyes for Kaji and (on a more ambiguous level) Shinji. One of her lines also strongly implies that Kaji might be the only person she has ever actually had sex with.
• Womanchild: She has some childish sides to her. Most notably, she is messy and lazy in private and likes teasing people whenever she gets the chance but is very much unable to handle being teased herself.
• Work Hard, Play Hard: Misato is serious and competent on the job, but off the job, she is a Hard-Drinking Party Girl whose house is full of beer and junk food.

Doctor Ritsuko Akagi

Doctor Ritsuko Akagi

Voiced by: Yuriko Yamaguchi (Japanese); Sue Ulu [ADV], Erica Lindbeck [VSI] (English)^note Other languages: María Eugenia "Maru" Guerrero [Locomotion], Gabriela Gómez [Animax], América Torres [VSI] (Latin American Spanish); Montse Moreno [TV series], Maria Rosa Guillén [films], Sandra Jara [VSI] (European Spanish); Cecília Lemes [Locomtion], Silvia Suzy [Animax and Netflix] (Brazilian Portuguese)

"The interaction of men and women isn't very logical."

Ritsuko is NERV's resident computer scientist, tasked with the development and upkeep of the MAGI supercomputers and research on the Evas. She, Misato, and Kaji have been friends since college, and she often acts as a foil to Misato. She is also something of a Crazy Cat Lady. She dyes her hair blonde — late in the series we see her in a Flash Back as a teenage girl with dark brown hair.

Ritsuko is extremely intelligent and competent, but has a coldly logical and often cynical attitude, and can be callous and petty. She also doesn't seem to really understand human nature, and is in some ways childishly naïve. Secretly, she is romantically involved with Gendō Ikari, as was her mother Naoko before her death ten years before the series opens. Despite Gendō's ambiguous intentions, she has convinced herself both that he loves her and that Rei is actually her rival for his romantic attention, and she deeply resents Rei because of this. She also shows little concern for the lives of the pilots during battle, and is ready to sacrifice them should such a tactic seem necessary, a position Misato vehemently disagrees with.

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• Adaptational Jerkass: Her treatment regarding Rei. In the anime, while Ritsuko still dislikes Rei enough to destroy all of the Dummy clones, she is at least never shown to be mean to Rei herself, whether physically or verbally, and keeps a professional if cold attitude toward her. However, in the manga, Ritsuko at one point mocks Rei before immediately attempting to strangle her in a fit of rage, when Rei makes a surprisingly cutting remark back at her, although she at least regrets her action afterward.
• Affectionate Nickname: Her mother Naoko called her "Ricchan" in the letters they used to write to each other. However, that seems to be as far as Naoko's affection went, due to their distant relationship and Naoko herself admitting that she was never a very hands-on parent.
• Ambiguously Absent Parent: Ritsuko's father is by all means conspicuously absent from the story, and doesn't seem to have played any kind of role in her life. The only real sort-of acknowledgement of this in the series, is when Naoko writes in a letter that Ritsuko has "never been good around boys", and speculates that it is due to her having been only raised by a woman.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: When Ritsuko tries to activate NERV's self-destruct, Caspar (the part of the MAGI that is Naoko as "woman") rejects the order, which floors Ritsuko.
• Berserk Button: She goes nuts directly after destroying the Rei clones, realizing that she's repeated all of her mother's mistakes, and even asks Misato to kill her before being arrested.
• Blown Across the Room: In End when Gendo shoots her.
• Boxed Crook: Following her betrayal in Episode 23, Gendo has her incarcerated. She's let out of prison to install a firewall in End Of Evangelion.
• Bond Villain Stupidity: She has every opportunity to just straight up shoot and kill Gendo when confronting him in End of Evangelion. Instead, she attempts to activate NERV HQ's self-destruct function and takes the time to gloat about ruining his plans and savoring her revenge. This is actually a downplayed example, as her plan would certainly have stopped Gendo and likely scuttled SEELE's invasion. Its only shortcoming was depending on the cooperation of a supercomputer that was based on a woman who loved Gendo and was capable of defying orders. Ultimately, her confusion at the self-destruct failing to trigger causes her to drop her guard at the worst possible moment, giving Gendo the opportunity to shoot her to death.
• Brainy Brunette: Defied; she's a natural brunette but dyes her hair blonde to distinguish herself from her mother.
• *Click* Hello: Courtesy of Misato. Ironically, she gets to do this to Gendō and Rei in the manga adaptation of End Of Evangelion.
• Color-Coded Eyes: Both Ritsuko and her mother are the only characters with green eyes, which may be intentional, considering how the two of them believed they were in a love triangle with Gendō, and Rei and Yui, respectively.
• Crazy Cat Lady: Misato spits that Ritsuko uses cats as a substitute for human affection.
• A Day in the Limelight: Episode 13, when she hacks the MAGI to stop Ireul's invasive attack.
• Deadpan Snarker: She has a rather dry speaking manner and often lets Misato suffer her remarks. While this is Played for Laughs at the beginning, after episode 16, it seems Ritsuko starts meaning every insult to Misato at this point, who gladly reciprocates.
• Death Seeker: She begged Misato to kill her after she destroyed the Rei clones. She lampshades this to Gendo in End Of Evangelion.
  Ritsuko: I will kill you first, then I will die myself. They say this happens often. In cheap dramas.
• Dirty Business: Ritsuko is in deep with Gendo and is often the one who is left to carry out the more practical and unpleasant sides of his more shady doings. As the series progress it becomes obvious that both this nasty work and the additional stress of having to keep NERV's dirty secrets from her best friend greatly wears on her conscience. When it dawns on her that it was All for Nothing as Gendo betrays her by handing her over to SEELE, she snaps.
• Disappeared Dad: Ritsuko's mother Naoko openly states that her father was never around during her upbringing and even suggests that her trouble around men had to do with this.
• Dye Hard: In-Universe example. As her strangely dark eyebrows for a blonde person hints at first, and a flashback later goes on to full-on reveal, Ritsuko is actually a brunette. It is strongly implied she dyes her hair in yet another one of her attempts to differentiate herself from her likewise brown-haired mother.
• Even the Girls Want Her: Maya surely does, although this isn't revealed until her final moments in End.
• Family Theme Naming: Ritsuko and her mother, Naoko.
• Fanservice: Two brief scenes, with the latter edging into Fan Disservice due to the circumstances^note her being interrogated by SEELE while unclothed.
• Firing One-Handed: When she confronts Gendo in Terminal Dogma.
• Friendless Background: By her own admission, she had no real friends until she met Misato in college, as her peers were typically reluctant to speak to her due to her prestigious name.
• Foil: To Misato, as she provides the more cold, logic-minded, and grounded counter to Misato's warm, emotionally-driven and somewhat high-strung personality... at least, until her own issues overtake her in the latter half of the series.
• Generation Xerox: Her and Naoko's relationships with Gendō, despite her attempts to defy the trope. Like mother, like daughter.
• Girls Behind Bars: Averted, as she was let out to put her computer skills to use.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Played with. Despite being the only blonde in the main cast, she's actually cold, aloof and deceptively amoral. Tellingly, it's eventually revealed she is not a natural blonde.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Misato, at the start of the series. By the end, this is completely dissolved.
• Hidden Depths: As with many of the other characters in Evangelion. Although she pushes for Shinji to be sent into the Eva, she is more vocal about Shinji's well-being than either Gendo or Misato at the beginning of the series and openly states that Rei is a very nice girl. She really does have a caring, compassionate side to her, but this better nature is overshadowed by her breakdown later in the series.
• I Did What I Had to Do: Her explanation as to why she destroyed the Rei clones.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: In the manga. Mortally wounded, she somehow manages to regain the strength to pick up her gun and shoot Gendo right in the jugular.
• Instant Death Bullet: She dies about a half a second after getting shot in End of Evangelion.
• Intelligence Equals Isolation: Ritsuko might be one of, if not the smartest person when it comes to technical matters at NERV, but she is also easily the loneliest. Even though she is friends with Misato and Kaji, it is clear that she is also somewhat distant from them, due to the fact that she is privy to NERV's dark secrets and tries to keep them hidden from them, and this becomes pronounced as Misato and Kaji start investigating further into NERV. She also might have a secret affair with Gendo, but Gendo holds no actual love for nor attraction to her; he is just stringing her along as he sees it a means to keep her under control. As the series goes into the endgame, she becomes increasingly aware of how isolated she actually is, and the realization slowly breaks her.
• Kick the Dog: She coldly mocks Shinji for not being able to remember his mother's death, moments before destroying the entire Dummy Plug system out of sheer jealousy.
• Last Breath Bullet: Unlike the anime, in the manga she holds on to life long enough after Gendo shoots her to return the favour.
• Like Mother, Like Daughter: Despite her desire to get out from under her mother's shadow, she ends up making the exact same mistakes as her, especially in completely misjudging Gendo's character. In the manga, she even briefly throttles Rei after getting set off by one of her remarks, just her mother did with the first Rei. The bitter irony of this is ultimately not lost on her, and she acknowledges this during her breakdown.
• Lonely Rich Kid: It is implied that she has been this. In Episode 21, Ritsuko mentions in passing in a letter to Naoko that that the status and reputation that came with being her daughter has always meant that her peers have been somewhat less inclined to approach her and only ever looked at her "from afar", which is why Misato has quickly become her best friend as she is the only fellow student who treats her like a normal person and without any of the reservations her prestigious family name normally carries. There are even implications that Misato (maybe aside from Kaji) might indeed be the only person Ritsuko have ever truly considered a friend.
• Love Martyr: Ritsuko stays loyal to Gendo for a long time out of love for him, helping him to keep NERV's dirty secrets from Misato and the pilots, treating the fact that Gendo really doesn't care one iota for her or her feelings, but merely uses her for her intelligence and skill, as well as the fact that he hasn't and probably never will get over Yui, with a heavy dose of Selective Obliviousness. It is eventually subverted, as it finally dawns on Ritsuko how little Gendo cares for her, when he chooses to protect Rei by throwing her at the SEELE council for a very unconformable interrogation, when it was actually Rei they wanted to interrogate. This culminates in her turning against him, although she ultimately does so too late to do any real damage to his plans.
• Meaningful Name: Though named after an IJN warship like many NGE characters, she's one of only four such characters (the others being her own mother Naoko, Asuka and her mother Kyoko) whose ship-based name uses different kanji from her namesake, in her case 赤木 (Red Tree) instead of 赤城 (Red Castle). This "fakeness" in the Theme Naming mirrors Ritsuko dying her naturally brown hair yellow (i.e. a fake blonde) as a visual aspect of her attempts to distance herself from her late mother, yet undermining those attempts by having an affair with Gendo Ikari just like her mother did; it also mirrors how Ritsuko (and her mother before her) is nothing more than a "fake" lover for Gendo who could never displace his late wife Yui from his heart, and whom he simply uses as a tool to further his agenda.
• Mexican Standoff: With Gendō in Terminal Dogma. Needless to say, it doesn't end well.
• The Mistress: To Gendo Ikari
• Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: Because committing 2nd degree mass murder is a sane act. Also guilty of handling some of NERV's darkest secrets alongside Gendo and Fuyutsuki.
• Murder the Hypotenuse: There are clear elements of this in her destruction of the Dummy system. Ritsuko in the moment admits that she is angry that Gendo ultimately chose to protect Rei over her after all the Dirty Business she had already done and endured for him. When asked directly by Gendo why she did it, she answers that it was to destroy Rei and spite him.
• Must Have Nicotine: Though she rarely smokes on-screen, occasional shots of an ashtray brimming with lipsticked-stained butts make it obvious that she is a chain-smoker.
• Never a Self-Made Woman: The trope is a bit played with, as Ritsuko's mother, Naoko, by all accounts very much appears to be a self-made woman, while it is also clear her name and its attached achievements at least partly helped landing Ritsuko a place in a good college and later her job at GEHIRN. However, Ritsuko sees herself this way even if her relative is a woman, as she definitely resents standing in her mother's shadow. It is part of the reason she bleaches her hair.
• Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: She deals with the most nightmarish aspects of the Eva program and has her fun with it.
• Oh, Crap!: Her stunned reaction when the self-destruct is rejected.
• Old Maid: Like Misato, she's almost 30 and single, and pokes fun at Misato over it...but by the end of the story, the reason for her being so is tragically evident.
• Omnidisciplinary Scientist: While Ritsuko's speciality is ostensibly in computer programming and computer engineering, she is evidently also an expert in biology and bioengineering, as she is in charge of maintaining the Evangelions. Since she's also responsible for maintaining Rei's physical health, it can be inferred that she also has at least some degree of in-depth knowledge about medicine.
• The Philosopher: She does understand philosophy and even psychology to some extent and does raise pertinent questions on decisions and on the state of existence more than once.
• Please Kill Me if It Satisfies You: After destroying the Rei clones, Ritsuko begs Misato to kill her.
• Put Down Your Gun and Step Away: To Gendō in End of Evangelion.
• Scary Shiny Glasses: Sometimes, although nowhere nearly as often as Gendo.
• Showdown at High Noon: She faces off against Gendō in Terminal Dogma.
• Sleeping with the Boss: Like her mother before her, she is sexually involved with Gendo. She clearly wants something more romantic and emotionally intimate from their relationship, but it becomes increasingly obvious that, just as with her mother, Gendo doesn't care one bit about her and mostly, if not exclusively, sees their occasional trysts as a means of keeping her loyal to him.
• Smart People Wear Glasses: Downplayed, since she is occasionally seen wearing glasses at work, but these appear to be just simple reading glasses.
• The Spock: The controlled, aloof, and pragmatic counterpart to Misato's McCoy.
• Stop, or I Will Shoot!: The confrontation with Gendo in Terminal Dogma.
• Taking You with Me: She attempts to detonate Terminal Dogma to stop Gendo from instituting Instrumentality, or possibly for her petty revenge.
• This Cannot Be!: Practically a catchphrase of hers. Whenever an Eva or an Angel does something, expect her to declare that it is "Impossible!" or some variation thereof.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: The Director's Cut paints Ritsuko as a decidedly more horrid person than the TV version. This happens gradually in the original version as well, since Ritsuko starts out being a friendly, if somewhat rigid person, but gets much colder towards the later half of the series; she essentially goes through a reversal of the Defrosting Ice Queen process.
• Tuckerization: Anno has stated that Ritsuko's first name comes from one of his old friends from middle school.
• Two Girls and a Guy: Formerly with Misato and Kaji, back when they were in university.
• We Meet Again: To Gendō, when she confronts him in Central Dogma in The End of Evangelion. Unfortunately for her, Gendō ends out with the upper hand.
• We Used to Be Friends: Over time it becomes apparent that Ritsuko and Misato's friendship is strained at best because of many of the conflicts between them, and by Episode 23, it is effectively over.
• Where's the Kaboom?: She's caught completely off guard when the self-destruct order she keyed into the MAGI is rejected.
• Woman Scorned: Gendo ultimately choosing to protect Rei over her finally forces Ritsuko to fully realize he doesn't care about her, and as such she seeks revenge on him, first by killing Rei's back-up bodies and then later rigging the MAGI to trigger NERV HQ's self-destruct in an attempt at Taking You with Me. In the end, though, her attempts are rendered futile (the latter by some posthumous interference by her mother) and she fails to do any actual damage to Gendo and his plans.
• Yandere: Over Gendo. She tries to kill Rei just like her mother did (in the manga only), then destroys the Rei clones in a bid to get at her and Gendo. It may have actually made Rei better.
• You Always Hear the Bullet: And she does, when she is shot in cold blood by Gendo.

Ryōji Kaji

Special Inspector Ryōji Kaji

Voiced by: Kōichi Yamadera (Japanese); Aaron Krohn [ADV], Greg Chun [VSI] (English)^note Other languages: Enrique Cervantes [Locomotion], Gerardo García [Animax, VSI] (Latin-American Spanish); Jose Luis Mediavilla [series and Death and Rebirth], Tasio Alonso [End of Evangelion], Iván Muelas [VSI] (European Spanish); Cassius Romero [Locomotion], Marco Antônio Abreu [Animax], Fábio Azevedo [Netflix] (Brazilian Portuguese); Anatole de Bodinat (French, second dub)

"The gulf dividing men and women is deeper and wider than any ocean."

Ponytailed, Perma-Stubble-ed, and confident, Kaji is half James Bond and half Handsome Lech—and he switches back and forth frequently and without warning. Exactly whose side he's on in the wheels-within-wheels world of Evangelion is almost impossible to determine. He seems to be a Double Agent at the very least; he may even be working for more than two powerful entities, although his own personal drive to know the truth of Second Impact, the Eva project, and the rest of SEELE and NERV's secrets are his truest motivation.

He and Misato were lovers in college, but by the start of the series have been broken up for several years. Asuka has a crush on him and is anything but subtle about it, but he does not take her up on her premature offers. It doesn't help that, in some continuities, he's strongly hinted to have been her guardian after her mother's death. Much to Misato's chagrin, Kaji flirts with several of the female staff, including Ritsuko and Maya. As the series progresses, Kaji and Misato renew their stormy relationship, and Kaji briefly becomes more of a father to Shinji than Gendō ever was. Tragically, he digs too deep when he rescues Fuyutsuki from SEELE after they kidnapped the old man shortly after the 14th Angel. SEELE (or NERV) responds by having him assassinated.

In the manga, Kaji's role is mostly unchanged, but he is given a tragic backstory: he was a war orphan and Street Urchin who carries a huge burden of guilt for ratting out his friends to soldiers so he wouldn't be killed for stealing their supplies.

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• Adaptation Personality Change: In the anime, Kaji is the most confident and mature character in the cast (admittedly not a big feat, but still), and it's only through hints and side materials that we learn he may not be as stable as he seems. Meanwhile, his manga version is infinitely more insecure and goofy, to the point where Asuka and Shinji turn him into a Nervous Wreck by teasing him about his relationship with Misato in an elevator, and also carries a serious case of survivor's guilt due to a traumatic event from his past.
• Ambiguously Bi: Or at the very least is confident enough in his heterosexuality to jokingly hit on Shinji.
• Anti-Hero: A roguish womanizer of questionable loyalties, he's nonetheless shown to be a genuinely good and compassionate person who is doing his best to stop SEELE from initiating the Third Impact.
• The Atoner: In a sense, in the manga. He says that he survived by "trading [his] brother's life", and now wishes to find out why Second Impact took place, thereby orphaning him and the other children who were forced to steal to survive.
• Big Brother Mentor: To Shinji. Compared to Misato's conflicting feelings towards Shinji resulting in her failing as a guardian, Kaji and Shinji share a much simpler masculine mentor-student relationship that results in him being a more effective form of emotional support and guidance to Shinji while he's around.
• Brutal Honesty: In the manga, he essentially points out that Shinji's inaction contributed to Toji's death, and that he survived because Toji died.
• Call to Agriculture: He likes to spend his free time tending to a watermelon patch he has planted inside the Geofront. As he explains to Shinji, he enjoys caring for something living, and sees it as a good learning expierence. Notably, during the Zeruel battle, Shinji finds him just standing calmly around and watering his melons, despite the battle raging in the background. He explains to Shinji that he wishes he could have been snuggled up in bed with Misato for this dark occasion, but since he didn't have the time or the opportunity to find her and gardening was the second-best activity he could think of, he decided it was the best way to go out if everything really came to an end. Curiously, his manga counterpart doesn't display this trait.
• Caring Gardener: He enjoys gardening as hobby, and it brings out the more caring, down-to-earth side of himself.
• Crush Blush: He often got these when was alone with Misato in the manga, usually when he was reminiscing or attempting to charm her, and occasionally had them in flashback stills of the times when the two of them were dating.
• Dead Man Writing: Knowing that either NERV or SEELE are going to make an attempt on his life in the near future, he leaves a phone message for Misato, apologizing for all the trouble he put her through and asking her to continue to pursue the truth behind The Conspiracy, now that he will no longer to be able to.
• Deadpan Snarker: Has a sly quip for every situation, even his own death.
• Double Reverse Quadruple Agent: He is working for NERV, but is secretly in league with SEELE, and is later revealed to also be an agent of the Japanese government. We later learn that he had an agenda of his own entirely separate from any of these three groups.
• Dying Declaration of Love: His final message to Misato ends with an implied marriage proposal, just before he goes on what he knew was very likely a suicide mission.
• Everybody Calls Him "Barkeep":
  • His first name isn't revealed until Misato confronts him at gunpoint and says his full name as she reveals that she has figured out he is a Double Agent. Other than that, he's just referred to by his surname.
  • Interestingly, the only person who is on a first-name basis with him is Ritsuko, who affectionately calls him "Ryō-chan" (and he calls her "Rit-chan"), but this is usually in the earshot of Misato to irritate her.^note The Japanese Honorific "-chan" is usually used to refer to children, so this is an intentional, couple nickname-like trolling.
• Face Death with Dignity: He calmly accepts that making the choice to rescue Fuyutsuki will likely firmly seal his fate (he knew that SEELE had by this point figured out that he was the one who stole Adam for Gendo, which meant that they were going to come for him sooner or later; and if not them, he would be on NERV's hit list too, for both knowing too much and having outlived his usefulness now that SEELE knew the truth about him). When confronted by his assassin, he greets them with a casual "Hey, you're late."
• Femme Fatale Spy: A rare male example that is downplayed, played with and then exaggerated. Played with because he chooses to flirt with numerous people to either throw them off as a Handsome Lech or win them over as a charmer but moments with Shinji and Misato have shown that this is mostly a facade. Then it turns out that he isn't on anyone's side and is a double agent for another group, but exaggerated when it's revealed that he is backstabbing several governments. Downplayed, because he doesn't go further than flirting. And, like some femme fatale characters, he is murdered after "redeeming" himself (i.e. informing Misato).^note Since Misato has only seen him flirting with other women and embarrassing her in front of teens, Kaji telling her about all he knows that NERV is hiding would show that behind the teasing, he still cares about her after all these years, thus redeeming himself, in her eyes
• Foil: Kaji is easy around people, confident in his relationships with the opposite sex, and a charmer in many ways—in other words, all the things most characters in the series aren't. This highlights not only the troubled inner life of Misato, his most immediate counterpart as a NERV worker, but also those of other characters like Shinji, Asuka and even Gendo. Possibly subverted, however, if we take in account hints and info from side materials that suggest this is actually a mask of empty social skills built around a cynical, bitter real self. If it is the case, it creates the ironic situation that the character that contrasts the most with the series's dysfunctional cast is actually not that different from them after all.
• The Gadfly: Enjoys messing with Misato, Shinji and Asuka to get a flustered reaction out of them. He attempts to do it with other characters at times, but is always much less successful.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: Although he doesn't show it, it's revealed in an artbook that Kaji is a self-hating mess. The anime mostly drops subtle hints about it, such as his talk with Ritsuko about the past, which reveals that he on some level doesn't consider himself worthy of Misato, believing that he himself is too immature to be in an "adult" relationship. In the manga, where this is expanded upon with a new background, he even says that he, Misato and Shinji, who survived by trading others' lives, don't deserve to be happy.
• Hidden Depths:
  • The anime gives off the impression that Kaji is the only character that is not maladjusted or unstable in any way. However, he does have some somber moments, which side materials point to as being signs that his laidback personality is only a mask concealing a self-hating cynic. The manga expands this as being due to survivor's guilt.
  • Invoked with the fact that under his playboy Double Agent persona is an avid watermelon gardener.
• Hope Spot: He's a relatively emotionally stable adult who has major positive effects on Shinji, Misato and Asuka's Character Development while also being cool and charismatic all the while. Of course he has to die.
• Hunk: He's tall, pretty muscular, and has a somewhat gruff look compared to other male characters, but is undeniably handsome.
• Informed Attribute: Misato's true reason for breaking up with up Kaji was that he reminded her too much of her father. However, the way Kaji behaves doesn't really match her description of her father's personality (a weak and frail workaholic who was outright afraid of interpersonal commitments). Perhaps there is a normally unseen side to Kaji only she has discovered.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: A skirt-chaser with a biting wit he may be, but Kaji has humanity's very best interests in mind and does his best to subvert both SEELE and Gendo's plans.
• The Kirk: Much more emotionally driven than Ritsuko, but also far more laid back and controlled than Misato. It really says something that shortly after his death, Misato and Ritsuko's friendship completely falls apart because he is no longer there to mediate between them.
• Last-Name Basis: He only ever adddresses Misato as "Katsuragi".
• Like an Old Married Couple: When Ritsuko points out that Kaji and Misato's interactions in episode 15 are like this, Kaji is the only one amused.
• A Man Is Always Eager: Played with. Kaji is shown to be flirtatious and often hits on the women around him, but as his Hidden Depths are gradually revealed it becomes clear that this behavior is at least partly an Obfuscating Stupidity act he employs as a part of his spying work. There are even several hints that he actually isn't all that interested in sex, but more uses it as a means to an end, most prominently in his pillow-talk with Misato which implies that his sex drive might be quite a bit lower than hers.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: A subtle case with Misato. While he's overtly masculine, there are many softer touches to his personality, such as his enjoying gardening, drinking coffee, being tidy and organized, and specializing in espionage. This is in contrast to Misato, who enjoys cars, drinks beer, is quite the slob, and specializes in combat.
• Mellow Fellow: No matter how much pressure he is under, Kaji reacts to pretty much everything in a laid-back and breezy manner, and never once raises his voice. He even greets his assassin with a relaxed smile and a witty remark. His calm disposition is only seen clearly slipping very few times. When Misato drunkenly insults herself, Kaji becomes visibly upset and begs her to stop it, and later, when she comes to him for information about the conveniently timed selection of the Fourth Child, he turns uncharacteristically serious and somber as he shares what he knows with her. And Kaji's cool is clearly shaken for the briefest of moments when Shinji of all people manages to catch him off-guard with an Armor-Piercing Question about his relationship with Misato.
• Mentor Occupational Hazard: Throughout the series, he often acts as a father figure and mentor to Shinji. He is eventually killed as the series goes into its final act.
• The Mole: He's all over the mole map. He juggles employments in NERV, SEELE, and the Japanese government, while trying to achieve his own goals on the side.
• Mr. Fanservice: Perhaps the closest thing the series has to eye candy for the women in the audience, unless you count the male teens for the younger girls. We don't see him with his shirt off onscreen even if it's implied (compared to Shinji, who is seen shirtless almost every episode), so the only things that might suffice are his wit, his voice, enjoying gardening, and being ruggedly handsome.
• Murderer P.O.V.: He speaks directly to his assassin in his final moments, even chiding him for his poor aim in the manga.
• Must Have Caffeine: Unlike Misato's alcohol addiction, Kaji seems to stick to canned coffee.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: It is clear that his promiscuous jokester attitude is at least partially an act to trick people into underestimating him.
• Only Sane Man: While he reveals himself to be surprisingly cynical in private, Kaji is generally presented as being the most easy-going, stable and mature character in the series.
• Parental Substitute: Becomes the closest thing Shinji ever has to a father figure later on in the series.
• Perma-Stubble: His face always sports some stubble, giving him a sloppy and laid back appearance at all times.
• Playful Cat Smile: A common facial expression of his is a mischievous cat smile (downplayed because it doesn't look like a typical anime one), most likely to throw people off to believe that he can't take anything seriously. It's probably the biggest reason that Misato exploded the way she did after he outed her sleeping habits to a room full of teenagers when they reunited in his first appearance.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The blue oni to Misato's red, often the one to comfort her whenever she gets heated. No wonder they get along.
• Spear Counterpart: Like Misato, he's an employee of NERV assigned as the guardian of one of the Eva pilots, who is unusually flirty and unprofessional for someone in his position. They are distinctly different in terms of personality, however, making them counterparts in terms of roles only.
• Seeker Archetype: Kaji's true goal is to get to the bottom of the whole conspiracy behind Second Impact, which is an obsession which runs underneath almost everything he does. He is willing to use and let himself get used in turn by SEELE, NERV, and the Japanese government respectively in his quest for knowledge, and in the end he even gives up his life to achieve it.
• Sleeps with Everyone but You: Well, flirts with everyone. He hits on every woman he meets and even (jokingly) puts some of his moves on Shinji, but shows an uncharacteristic amount of restraint when dealing with Asuka, who is constantly trying to come on to him. Unlike Misato and her relationship with Shinji, Kaji exclusively registers himself as a guardian in his relationship with Asuka.
• Stepford Smiler: Supplementary materials reveal that he's a self-hating wreck who's just very good at covering up his problems. This is one possible explanation for why he didn't do anything to stop his own death and was even nonchalant about it in his final moments.
• The Stool Pigeon: In the manga, of the Betrayer Barry model. As a kid, he and his friends and brother were stealing food and supplies from a military base; when he was caught on his own, he gave up his friends' location in order to save himself from a summary execution by the hand of the soldiers. While he managed to escape the soldiers, he would, upon returning to the hideout, discover to his horror that the soldiers had beaten him to it and killed everyone there.
• Street Urchin: His backstory in the manga, due to being a survivor of the wars that broke out after Second Impact.
• Survivor Guilt: In the manga, due to his friends and brother being killed by the soldiers he ratted them out to.
• Tall, Dark, and Snarky: Tall, good looking, and always ready to crack wise about the situation.
• Team Mom: A nurturing emotional support towards Shinji, compared to Misato's occasional "grow a pair of balls" Team Dad mentality.
• Two Girls and a Guy: Formerly with Misato and Ritsuko, back when they were in university. When they all meet up again at a wedding, he points out that "it's just like old times".
• Unkempt Beauty: He's scruffy and dresses casually, but is still suave and handsome at all times. It's suggested that he intentionally tries to cultivate a "just got out of bed but still look good" image for himself.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: He flirts with almost every woman he meets. Most (not all) are appreciative, or at least pretend to be. On occasion, he even seems to be trying to flirt with Shinji, although it's not entirely clear if this is out of genuine interest, just habit — flirting is possibly the way he manipulates people — or a simple joke at Shinji's insecurity.
• The Unreveal: Unlike the rest of the main cast, his backstory is never gone into, only having his shared history with Misato and Ritsuko shown to the viewer. As a result, the motivations behind his actions and personality traits are much more vague than any other major character. Averted in the manga, where he is given a backstory that gets covered over several chapters.
• Urban Legend Love Life: Behind his flirtatious facade there are hints that, regardless of any sex or love life he really has, he is in fact a very lonely man, and there's no question that he only has eyes for Misato.
• What the Hell, Hero?: In the manga, he calls Shinji out for trying to blame Toji's death on Gendo, pointing out that he could have done something to save his friend, but instead chose to just let the Angel kill him, which would have helped no one.

Maya Ibuki

First Lieutenant Maya Ibuki

Voiced by: Miki Nagasawa (Japanese); Kendra Benham [ADV], Amy Seeley [movies], Christine Marie Cabanos [VSI], Monica Rial [Director's Cut] (English)^note Other languages: Alma Wilhelme [Locomotion], Mariana Ortiz [Animax], Anette Ugalde [VSI] (Latin-American Spanish); Nuria Trifol [TV series and films], Ana Monleón [VSI] (European Spanish); Fátima Noya (Brazilian Portuguese)

"Oh God! I can't watch...!"

Dr. Fuyutsuki isn't the only one in love with someone he can never have; there is also Maya Ibuki, a shy, pretty, and kinda tomboyish woman in her early twenties. She is Ritsuko's assistant, and is very much in love with her, although this isn't revealed until her final scenes in the story. She is a very sympathetic character — bright, sweet, and one of the few happy, well-adjusted, and normal characters, though with this bunch, that isn't saying much.

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• Actual Pacifist: She really hates violence, being completely unable to watch the more brutal Eva battles and freezing up in terror when she herself has to shoot at JSSDF soldiers in self-defense.
• Adaptational Sexuality: She has some definite Ship Tease with Aoba in NGE 2, whereas in the series there is no evidence that she is attracted to anyone but Ritsuko (and that's only revealed in End) and the aforementioned Ship Tease is ignored by the fanbase for the most part as a result.
• Boyish Short Hair: Which ends up making her look quite a bit like Shinji.
• Bridge Bunny: Is almost always seen in the NERV command center alongside Hyuga and Aoba presiding over Eva missions.
• Doesn't Like Guns: During the JSSDF attack, she is seen cowering in terror under her console and completely freaks out when Aoba tries to give her a gun to defend herself:
  Aoba: *hands Ibuki a gun* Release the safety.
  Maya: I can't! I just can't shoot this thing, Aoba!
  Aoba: Of course you can! You've had basic training!
  Maya: But I shot at targets, not at other human beings!
  Aoba: Idiot! You kill or you die!
• Freudian Trio: Forms one with Hyuga and Aoba, Maya representing the id, being the most emotional of the three and the one most likely to go against orders if they compromise her morals.
• Gender Flip: Whether intentional or not, Maya is almost a female version of Shinji appearance-wise; this has carried over to some non-canon NGE works, such as Neon Genesis Evangelion: Campus Apocalypse, and has also fueled WMG that she may be a child of Gendo's from a relationship prior to Yui.
• Greek Chorus: Occasionally functions as this alongside Hyuga and Aoba.
• Ignored Enamored Underling: To Ritsuko, who is never shown to even be aware of her affections.
• Lipstick Lesbian: Her sexuality isn't immediately obvious in that while she is certainly boyish-looking, she's not really butch either.
• Machine Worship: She's extremely enthusiastic about the prospect of the MAGI supercomputers running everybody's lives, and most of her Ship Tease moments come from watching someone do something amazing with computers. Aoba even rolls his eyes at her blatant technophilia in episode 11, making him one of the few people in or out of the show to comment on this. That said, the one notable exception is the Dummy Plug, which she openly distrusts even before it's first activated and is the only thing that ever causes her to openly protest against Ritsuko's actions.
• Nice Girl: Easily the most bubbly and sociable of the bridge bunnies, and, by proxy, the rest of the cast. Her interactions with the pilots are limited, but she is one of the only characters to treat them as the emotionally vulnerable teens that they are.
• Only Sane Woman: Deconstructed. Compared to the character traits and emotional baggage of most of the other characters, Maya is pretty normal... perhaps even too normal for her own good, considering the very abnormal events that take place around her. She doesn't work well under pressure and often loses her cool during traumatic moments, particularly whenever an Evangelion is butchered in front of her eyes or when NERV HQ is under attack.
• Satellite Character: Beyond her two coworkers and Ritsuko she hardly interacts with anyone.
• Scully Box:invoked It has been assumed by some viewers that Maya's cushion (that she's seen holding in the movie) is for the ability to use the bridge controls.
• Similar Squad: The trio she forms with Hyuga and Aoba is frequently noted to resemble the trio of Toji, Hikari and Kensuke, fitting with the series' heavy analysis of maturity and adulthood.
• Two Guys and a Girl: With Aoba and Hyuga in the bridge crew.
• Vomit Discretion Shot: Twice in the anime, during Unit 01's destruction of Bardiel and when Unit 01 starts eating Zeruel, and again in End of Evangelion, when Unit 02 is being torn apart.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: As idealistic as one can get given the setting anyway. Her spiel on the wonders of technology becomes rather ironic given that technology begins to backfire on NERV from this point on in the series. Her interactions with others also give her a naively trusting demeanor.

Makoto Hyūga

First Lieutenant Makoto Hyūga

Voiced by: Hiro Yuki (Japanese), Matt Greenfield (ADV), Keith Burgess (movies), Daniel MK Cohen (VSI) (English)^note Other languages: Enzo Fortuny [Locomotion, VSI], Roberto Mendiola [Animax] (Latin-American Spanish); Eduard Itchart [TV series and films], Ricardo Escobar [VSI] (European Spanish); Alfredo Rollo (Brazilian Portuguese)

"It's okay, Major... besides, dying beside you wouldn't be a bad way to go out."

A geeky, bespectacled computer technician in the command center and member of the Tactical Operations division; he is Misato Katsuragi's chief aide, and in love with her, but is too shy to approach her. She is aware of his feelings and feels no shame about manipulating him to gain information (or to do her laundry), but otherwise she sees him as a friend and contact.

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• Cannot Tell a Joke: The one time he does, it's not very funny and he makes it at the worst possible time, causing the joke to die on arrival.
• A Day in the Limelight: Episode 11, where he alerts the rest of NERV to the approach of the 9th Angel.
• Freudian Trio: With Maya and Aoba, Hyuga representing the ego, being quite a bit more passionate than Aoba but much more detached than Maya.
• The Generic Guy: Fits this the best of anyone in the cast, seeming relatively mentally stable while lacking an interesting past or distinguishing characteristics.
• Hopeless Suitor: Might have stood a chance with Misato if Kaji wasn't around. Key word being might.
• Ignored Enamored Underling: It becomes progressively obvious towards the end of the series that he is in love with Misato. Unfortunately for him, she's still mourning over Kaji's death and either is unaware of or ignores his feelings.
• It Has Been an Honor: See the above quote, when it seems as though self-destructing NERV headquarters is the only way to prevent Third Impact during Shinji's fight with Kaworu.
• Only Sane Man: Compared to most of the rest of the cast, Hyuga comes off as a pretty normal guy. He also starts helping Misato towards the end of the series with investigating NERV.
• Satellite Character: Beyond his two coworkers and Misato, he hardly interacts with anyone.
• Similar Squad: The trio he forms with Maya and Aoba is frequently noted to resemble the trio of Toji, Hikari and Kensuke, fitting with the series' heavy analysis of maturity and adulthood.
• Smart People Wear Glasses: Wears glasses and operates some heavy tech. His ability to gain top secret intel also suggests that he's pretty sharp.
• Together in Death: A twisted example, but during Instrumentality, when everyone is greeted by visions of their loved ones as 'guides' to the other side, he is greeted by a vision of Misato, who passionately kisses him before his body reverts to LCL.
• Two Guys and a Girl: With the other bridge crew members Maya and Aoba.

Shigeru Aoba

First Lieutenant Shigeru Aoba

Voiced by: Takehito Koyasu (Japanese); Jason C. Lee [ADV], Billy Kametz [VSI], Vic Mignogna [Director's Cut] (English)^note Other languages: Ricardo Tejedo [Locomotion], Rodrigo Carralero [Animax, VSI] (Latin-American Spanish); Alex Messeguer [TV series and films], Juan Antonio Soler [VSI] (European Spanish); Wellignton Lima (Brazilian Portuguese)

"Idiot! You kill or you die!"

The long-haired, guitar-playing computer technician in the command center. Unlike everyone else in the series he seems to have no one he truly cares about, although he appears to get along well with Maya and Hyuga.

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• Air Guitar: Is seen playing one in a brief 'blink-and-you'll-miss-it' moment towards the middle of the series.
• All There in the Manual:
  • Supplemental publications and Word of God have stated that Aoba is an extreme atheist/nihilist, which is also why his Instrumentality is so different from everyone else's.
  • There's also a few references here-and-there to him having an Unrequited Love for Maya. How canonical this is is up for debate, as there is no evidence of it within the series.
• Aloof Ally: Apparently. His version of Instrumentality implies he has no loved or trusted ones at all, which all but means his cool relationships with his co-workers are all façade.
• The Anti-Nihilist: While it's shown he has nobody he's especially close to in life, he actually makes some effort to enjoy his time on Earth, gets along rather well with his colleagues, is generally quite relaxed when not on duty, and most importantly he takes his job in protecting the remainder of humanity very seriously.
• Ascended Extra: He gets far more screen time and characterization in End, and, like every other major character, gets his own scenario in NGE 2.
• Bit Character: Gets the least focus of all the bridge bunnies and mainly serves as a glorified extra for the most part.
• The Cynic: Implied by his nihilism and demonstrated by his rather beleaguered response to Maya overpraising the wonders of technology in Episode 11.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Implied Trope. Judging by the way that he was converted into LCL during EoE, he had no loved or trusted ones at any point in his life, meaning that he probably has quite the angsty backstory.
• Freudian Trio: With Maya and Hyuga, Aoba representing the superego, being the most aloof and detached of the three and having the greatest willingness to do inhumane things for the sake of humanity.
• Informed Loner: While he's a bit of a cynic, he's not really any more unfriendly than his coworkers are. Despite this, while Maya, Hyuga and Fuyutsuki are embraced by images of a loved one when they're being absorbed during Third Impact, all Aoba sees is a crowd of Reis who forcibly convert him into LCL as he screams in utter terror, implying that he has no one in his life who he truly trusts or loves.
• Mellow Fellow: When not on the job, Aoba is notably laid-back and relaxed in his manners. The only time he is ever seen being verbally aggressive is when he tries to convince Maya to help him and Hyuga out in the fight against the JSSDF.
• Only Sane Man: Compared to most of the rest of the cast, he seems like a pretty stable and rational person, if a bit cynical.
• Satellite Character: The worst of the trio. He only interacts with his two coworkers for the most part.
• Similar Squad: The trio he forms with Maya and Hyuga is frequently noted to resemble the trio of Toji, Hikari and Kensuke, fitting with the series' heavy analysis of maturity and adulthood.
• Technobabble: All of the Bridge Bunnies speak it fluently, but in his case it seems to make up the vast majority of his dialogue.
• Two Guys and a Girl: Making up the bridge crew with Hyuga and Maya.
• Undignified Death: In marked contrast to the calm Instrumentation the other characters get, he goes out hiding under a table and shrieking in terror.

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