The Children (Asuka Langley Soryu) | NERV Staff | GEHIRN Staff | Other Characters | Extracanonical Characters
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Yui Ikari
Voiced by: Megumi Hayashibara (Japanese); Kim Sevier [ADV], Amanda Winn-Lee [End of Evangelion], Ryan Bartley [VSI] (English)note
"Any place can be paradise, as long as you have the will to make it so."
Shinji's mother, Gendō's wife, creator of Evangelions... she is a linchpin for a lot of things that happen in the story, and while Shinji is the main character, Yui is more central to the overall plot. Despite this, her presence in the story is almost entirely in flashbacks, and a great deal about her is left open for the viewers to interpret.
Prior to the beginning of the story proper, she was a star student in the field of bioengineering at Tokyo University, through which she met Fuyutsuki and Gendo. After her graduation, she and Gendo got married, and following Second Impact, their son, Shinji was born. After this, Yui joined Gendo in leading the "Artificial Evolution Laboratory" (the publicly used cover name for the U.N.'s secret research organization GEHIRN) in Hakone, were she headed the research on the Evangelion project. But her life was suddenly cut short by a tragic accident she suffered in the line of carrying out her research. Well, that's the official story, anyway...
Yui's treatment in the manga is virtually identical, but certain aspects of her attachment to Unit 01 are changed, and also played with in a very disturbing fashion. She also has a little more involvement in the manga's version of End.
- Action Mom: In a very odd manner. Yui's soul being bound inside Unit-01, combined with Shinji synchronizing with the Eva, is what allows it to move and fight.
- All There in the Manual: One of the Evangelion games tells us that Yui is a daughter of a SEELE member, which is why she received their backing in the first place. Canonicity is debated.
- Ambiguously Evil: Heated debate
often stems from why Yui thought it was absolutely necessary to both initiate the "ill fated" Contact Experiment, and have Shinji, at four years old, not only present but watching, knowing full well that she'd get absorbed into Unit-01. While it's often suggested that the Contact Experiment came about as a direct threat to her life by SEELE, the fact that she thought it necessary for The Plan to deliberately inflict a serious trauma on her own child puts her morality into question. There's also her behavior in The End of Evangelion, where she by all indications made a point of waiting to intervene in the situation until after Asuka had died a brutal death at the hands of the MP Evas, and she later abandons her son once again to pursue another higher purpose. - Ambiguous Situation: Her role in Gendo's Instrumentality sequence is quite open to interpretation. Is it actually the real Yui that Gendo speaks with during the sequence, or is she just yet another Lilith-created transition guide? And when Gendo is devoured by the demonic Unit-01, is it a representation of Yui punishing him for his sins and how he treated their son, or is it Gendo's own self-loathing conjuring up the punishment he himself believes he deserves?
- Anti-Nihilist: Indicated to be this judging by her Rousing Speech she gives to Shinji:Yui: Anywhere can be paradise as long as you have the will to live. After all, you are alive, so you will always have the chance to be happy. As long as the Sun, the Moon, and the Earth exist, everything will be all right.
- Badass Bookworm: A geneticist at the absolute top of her field who creates the EVA units.
- Badass Labcoat: It emphasizes her skill as a scientist.
- Beware the Nice Ones: In the pre-Contact Experiment flashbacks, Yui is shown to be kind and pleasant. However, Unit-01's fits of bloodlust and outright Ax-Crazy insanity may be explained as it being a part of her, and that wrath tends to be turned on anyone who threatens her son.
- Big Good: End of Evangelion presents the entire series as part of an elaborate plot by her to subvert the goals of both SEELE and Gendo while also resolving Instrumentality. Certain interpretations throw the "good" part of the title into question, but she's still the closest thing the Mind Screw series has to one.
- 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 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 him. 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 Eva-01, Gendo became The Stoic whose only purpose is to bring her back from the dead.
- The Chessmaster: It's very much implied that Yui's absorption into Unit 1 was done on purpose so she could derail SEELE's plans for instrumentality and help Shinji grow as a person.
- Color-Coded Characters: Subtly done. While her introduction scene has her in a pink button up shirt, she is wearing a purple sweater on the day she becomes absorbed by the equally purple Unit-01, a hint at her soul residing in it before it is actually confirmed.
- Determinator: Spends over a decade trapped inside an unmovable giant mech Eldritch Abomination for the purpose of achieving her aims.
- Empathic Weapon: Because her soul is inside Unit-01, the unit has become this.
- Faking the Dead: Her getting absorbed into Unit-01 was this, at least to Shinji — who was too young at the time to fully understand what was going on — and the general public — who came to believe that she was killed in a freak accident with experimental technology. Although people who were more knowledgable about the workings of the Evas, like Gendo and Fuyutsuki, knew that she was not truly dead.
- Genius Bruiser: As Unit-01, her brilliant mind is trapped inside the body of an incredibly strong and powerful monster.
- Happily Married: To Gendo, before her "death".
- Hijacking Cthulhu: Merges with the Giant Naked Rei creature in End Of Evangelion.
- Hope Bringer: Qualifies as this to Shinji at the end of the series, where she provides a motivational speech on the necessity of holding onto life and hope for him going forward before leaving. She also served as this to Gendo, but subverted it in the cruelest way possible.
- I Am a Humanitarian: Played with, in that Unit-01 partially ate Zeruel in order to take in its S2 engine.
- I Did What I Had to Do: She all but directly says a pre-emptive version of this during her heart-to-heart talk with Fuyutsuki in Episode 21. The point of the conversation is to make sure that Fuyutsuki understands that Third Impact is inevitable and that she feels that she must do whatever she can to prevent SEELE's plans for it from coming into fruition, both for the sake of humanity and for the sake of her son.
- Living Emotional Crutch: She was the only person who brought Gendō some happiness and she helped him act like a more functional human being. Then he lost her and things went downhill for him.
- The Lost Lenore: Everything Gendō does is to try to bring her back to him through Instrumentality. Also eventually subverted. One of the major reveals of the latter part of the series is that Yui is not truly dead, but has continued to be an active player in the plot all along.
- Mad Scientist: There are a lot of hints dropped that she wasn't exactly flawless when it came to sanity. Plus her most famous creation are bio-mechanical monsters the size of skyscrapers made from the corpses of clones of an Eldritch Abomination.
- Manic Pixie Dream Girl: There are implications that she was this to Gendō; especially with how she saw a softer and more vulnerable side in him and helped him to overcome his bleak mindset and be a happier person. It can even be argued that the whole thing is deconstructed a bit, seeing how that when she — for the lack of a better term — left him, he backslid, badly.
- Mama Bear: The Eva her soul is imprisoned in goes apeshit more than once to protect Shinji, complete with actual bear-like movements and mannerisms, making her a near-literal example.
- Missing Mom: Her contact experiment happened when Shinji was 4.
- Minor Major Character: Having been "dead" (well, sort of) for ten years, Yui doesn't play much of a direct role for most of the series — or at least not in a way that is immediately obvious. In the first half of series, she is only acknowledged through a few oblique references here and there, but her absence is still pretty noticeable from the fact that is heavily implied that it plays a large role in the rift that exists between Shinji and Gendo. While she slowly gets more prominent in the latter half of the series, she doesn't yet fully appear in the flesh before Episode 21, which is a Whole Episode Flashback. Yet by that point, it also becomes increasingly clear that she not only casts a long and heavy shadow both over the backstory and the current day events, and she actually was around all along, and even in very pain view, seeing how she is the resident soul of Unit-01.
- Morality Chain: She is the only person Gendo ever truly loved; she turned his life around and taught him to be a better and happier person. Losing her was what turned him into The Unfettered.
- My Beloved Smother: In a benign sense — it's a given that if Yui shows up in any Neon Genesis Evangelion work as an actual character (games, fanfic, Episode 26), it's abundantly clear that she wears the pants in the Ikari household and Gendō and Shinji simply follow her lead.
- My Death Is Just the Beginning: It's ambiguously implied in certain flashbacks that she had planned both her "accident" and Shinji's presence during it in advance, and thus her subsequent "rebirth" as Unit-01. Why is a matter of endless speculation in the franchise.
- Nerves of Steel: Even when threatened with her life from SEELE in the past, she stayed calm and collected.
- Offing the Offspring: Rather brutally kills the Humanoid Abomination formed from Rei, who is created from her genetic material and therefore technically her daughter (or clone). This is thankfully not that big of a deal because she barely reacts and Rei/Lilith is able to manifest outside of her physical form and has her memories, idea of self and care for Shinji intact, which is demonstrated by her manifesting on the beach at the end of End OF Evangelion.
- Posthumous Character: Subverted; she isn't truly dead since her soul is bound to Unit-01, but she's treated as such until this becomes clear.
- Present Absence: She appears and is mentioned sporadically, but her impact on her husband and son, as well as the entire plot as a whole, is constantly felt as soon as the audience is made aware of her.
- Pro-Human Transhuman: Leaves her human vessel in order to go against the shadow organization suppressing humanity, and (secretly) guides humanity to a new path of existence.
- Professor Guinea Pig: She offered herself up as a test subject for the contact experiment for Unit-01. It's implied this may have, in fact, been deliberate, as well as Shinji bearing witness to it.
- Rousing Speech: Provides one as her final words given to Shinji. See above in Anti-Nihilist.
- Sci-Fi Bob Haircut: One that immediately brings Rei to mind...
- Sealed Badass in a Can: Her goodness might be debatable, but her badassery is very much certified. Whenever Yui's soul seizes control of Unit-01, shit gets wrecked. Of course, how much of that is stemming from her original personality and how much is stemming from being a bundle of raw emotion stuffed in a giant bio-mechanical monster that doesn't obey human biological laws is hard to say.
- Sealed Good in a Can: For an interpretative definition of "good" but Yui's soul is, essentially, locked within Unit-01.
- Small Role, Big Impact: Hardly appears (at least in human form) in the series itself, yet is arguably the linchpin for the entire plot.
- Strong Family Resemblance: Most obviously, she pretty much just is Rei in appearance, but with brown hair. She also looks nearly identical to if Shinji was an adult woman.
- The Unfettered: Yui was willing to give up her physical body to ensure her plans would succeed for a start. Taking into account her manipulation of Shinji and Gendo, it's clear Yui has few if any limits to what she will do to ensure humanity's salvation.
- Unstoppable Rage: To giant alien monsters who may be reading this: Do not give Yui a reason to take control of Unit-01, because she will kick your ass.
- Walking the Earth: Takes complete control over Unit-01 and leaves Earth after End of Evangelion.
- Walking Spoiler: Her appearance alone spoils Rei's origins, while her actual character is critical to understanding Gendo, the Evas and the final moments of the series.
- What If God Was One of Us?: Ultimately an example of the Shepherd, though an incredibly questionable one.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Part of her goal is to induce this realization onto Shinji. It works.
Doctor Naoko Akagi
Voiced by: Mika Doi (Japanese); Laura Chapman [ADV] (English)note
"I acted like a mother only when it suited my desires... which wasn't often."
Naoko Akagi is Ritsuko's mother, and was the creator of the MAGI supercomputers, basing each on a particular aspect of herself. Her dialogue hints that she and Ritsuko are not close, and Ritsuko dyeing her hair is a way of distancing herself from Naoko.
Naoko and Gendo were lovers for some time after Yui's incident with Unit-01, but she learned through the first Rei that Gendo was only using her for her genius. She killed Rei, and died violently shortly thereafter.
- Adaptational Jerkass: Downplayed regarding her treatment of Rei, but still there: In the anime, after killing Rei, she's immediately shown to be horrified and regretful of her action. However, the manga only lets her keep an angered expression as she commits suicide, implying that she kills herself out of spite rather than regret.
- Chalk Outline: Shown at the base of the MAGI; in the anime this is the only thing revealed about her fate, while in the manga she's shown falling to her death.
- Driven to Suicide: Both the anime and manga imply that Naoko dies by jumping from the top of the MAGI tower immediately after killing Rei-I. The manga leaves less room for interpretation here by showing her falling after the murder (worse yet, Ritsuko witnesses it and is too late to stop her). The anime, on the other hand, gives the event a more ambiguous portrayal by cutting from the murder to a Chalk Outline on the floor sometime later, leaving time for someone to "help" her commit suicide.
- Glamorous Single Mother: Downplayed. While Naoko's achievements in the field of computers meant that her and Ritsuko were at the very least well-to-do for all of Ritsuko's childhood and adolescence, it is evident that there was some sort of rift between mother and daughter, and according to Naoko's own admission of that she only really acted like a mother to Ritsuko when it was "convenient" for her, so some kind of Parental Neglect was apparently involved.
- Love Makes You Crazy: Wanted Gendo enough to be happy when Yui "died," (albeit with some shame as she recalls those feelings) and when Rei I insults Naoko and confronts her with the truth of Gendo's feelings and him calling her an "old hag" behind her back, Naoko sees Yui in place of Rei I and
strangles her. - 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 daughter Ritsuko, 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 how Naoko (and her daughter after her) was 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.
- Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: Just pure crazy, up to and including murdering Rei I - who was still a child.
- Mum Looks Like a Sister: In the year 2008, 7 years before the series◊, Naoko barely looked any older than her then-23 years old daughter Ritsuko. This implies that either Naoko had Ritsuko at a young age, or she was just Older Than She Looks.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Her guilt after killing Rei is what drives her to kill herself.
- Posthumous Character: Sort of, since she survives in some form as the MAGI.
- Room Full of Crazy: The interior of at least one of the MAGI cores is covered with post-it notes left by Naoko, some of which are notes, some of which are threats, and one of which reads, "Ikari, you jerk!"
- Sci-Fi Bob Haircut
- Sleeping with the Boss: She was in love with Gendo, even though he was her superior and married, and they started a covert sexual relationship after Yui's "death". It becomes clear to her that Gendo still hasn't gotten over Yui several years after the fact that and he probably never will, but she pushes these misgivings aside, content just to finally be with him. Learning that he not only doesn't actually care about her, but even dislikes her, breaks her.
- Tuckerization: According to Anno, her first name comes from an old friend of his back from elementary school.
- Wetware CPU: Heavily implied to be this to the MAGI.
- Yandere: Over Gendo. She was very much in love with him, even as he was Happily Married to Yui, and she was, somewhat to her own shame, relieved when Yui "perished", as it meant Gendo was "available" once again. She and Gendo eventually started a sexual relationship, but she quickly noticed that he had very much not gotten over Yui. However, she was willing to overlook this as she was happy just to be with him, even if she would only ever be the second best to a dead woman. When Rei (I) revealed that Gendo thinks of her as an "old hag" and will dump her the moment she's no longer of any use to him, she completely snapped and murdered the young girl in a fit of blind rage.
Kyoko Zeppelin Soryu
Voiced by: Maria Kawamura (Japanese); Kimberly Yates [ADV] (English)note
"Come die with me, Asuka..."
Kyoko Sohryu was Asuka's mother, and developed Unit 02 at NERV's Germany Branch. When Asuka was five, Kyoko went through the same contact experiment that fused Yui Ikari with Unit-01, but only the maternal part of her soul was absorbed into the Eva. As a result, Kyoko lost her mind, and became, amongst other things, unable to recognize Asuka and take proper care of herself, and suicidal. The damage was considered serious enough to result in her being committed to a psychiatric hospital. While there, she became convinced that one of Asuka's dolls was actually Asuka, referring to the real Asuka as "that girl there" and ignoring her. On the day that Asuka was selected to be Unit-02's pilot, she came to the hospital to tell Kyoko the news, but found that Kyoko had hanged both herself and the doll.
Her manga portrayal is basically the same, although she has a different character design from the intentionally vague one used in the anime. An extra scene is added to the time before her suicide that compounds the tragedy and how it damaged Asuka, and the reveal of her presence in Unit-02 to Asuka before fighting the Mass Produced Evas is more detailed.
- Action Mom: For about five minutes?
- Adaptation Dye-Job: Both a dye-job and a hairstyle change. She has shoulder-length, straight brown hair in the anime, but long and wavy blonde hair in the manga.
- Adaptational Villainy: The manga gives Kyoko a mysterious rival (a woman with glasses) that she for some not-completely-disclosed reason is bitterly angry at (though it is indicated that she stole Kyoko's husband). Asuka's backstory is tied in with this by having Kyoko essentially create and groom Asuka as a Tyke-Bomb in what can only be described as a petty attempt to get back at her rival, namely by making a daughter that was to be superior to her rival's own daughter. The whole affair paints her (or at least her pre-insane self) in a much more unhinged and unsympathetic light than her anime counterpart, whose worst failing as a parent was apparently being somewhat neglectful (and this was according to her husband who might have been an Unreliable Narrator on the matter). Perhaps most infamously, there is also the fact that the manga shows her trying to strangle Asuka at one point between the reveal of her insanity and her suicide.
- Ax-Crazy: After losing part of her soul.
- Baby-Doll Baby: One aspect of her Contact Experiment-induced insanity is that not only can she not recognize Asuka anymore, but she comes to believe that a doll that originally belonged to said daughter is really Asuka.
- Damaged Soul: Only the maternal part of her soul became part of Unit-02, rendering her Ax-Crazy.
- Driven to Suicide: Kyoko eventually hangs herself, along with the doll that she thinks is Asuka.
- The Faceless: Kyoko's face is never shown in the anime, either being out of frame, or as the picture above shows, covered by her hair. Averted in the manga, where her face, though marred by a Thousand-Yard Stare and a Broken Smile, is clearly seen in a flashback.
- Ironic Hell: A definite interpretation. The maternal part of her mind is trapped in Unit-02 and can only watch as Asuka suffers, not even realizing that the mother Asuka loved resides within Unit-02 until the very end... and by then, it's too late...
- Meaningful Name: Like her daughter Asuka, her surname uses different kanji from her namesake, being one of only four characters with such a name (the other two being Naoko and Ritsuko Akagi). The Theme Naming's "fakeness" in her case appears to allude to her post-Contact Experiment insane self being effectively a "shell" that is only inhabited by a sanity-shattered fragment of Kyoko's soul, and thus not truly her.
- Offing the Offspring: She was convinced that she was doing this when she hanged herself and the doll. In the manga, she did try to strangle the real Asuka once◊; it's even the trope's page image.
- The Ophelia: Her Contact Experiment with Unit-02 was only partially successful, as only the maternal aspect of her soul was absorbed into the Eva. This left the woman so deeply insane that she would not recognize her daughter at all, instead being convinced that one of said daughter's dolls is really "Asuka".
- Parental Neglect: One of Asuka's father's lines implies that already before she went insane, she would regularly neglect Asuka in favor of her research work. Whether he was telling the truth, exaggerating things, or just lying out of his ass is unknown, but the trope is definitely played straight after the contact experiment damages her mind.
- Posthumous Character: Ssssorta. Like Yui, she still survives as the soul inside Unit-02, but it's only a fragment of her as opposed to the entirety of Yui's soul inside Unit-01. However, the crazy half of Kyoko's soul appears to be inside Unit-02 as well. Her voice in the Eva chanting that Asuka must live during End of Evangelion is occasionally mixed in with an insane voice demanding that Asuka die with her. Given that Asuka was chosen as the pilot candidate on the same day Kyoko died implies that either the rest of her soul was salvaged to 'complete' 02's control system for Asuka, or that the two halves of her soul re-united when her physical body died.
- Professor Guinea Pig: Like Yui, she used herself as a test subject for contact experiments with an Eva unit. Whether she had also planned on getting absorbed by said Eva unit is never really disclosed, but either way the experiment can be said to have gone horribly wrong for real in this case, as she by all appearances hadn't expected to come out on the other end of it as an insane shadow of her former self.
- Slasher Smile: When her face is revealed for the first time in the manga, she wears a pretty unsettling one of these... right before she tries to kill Asuka.
- Spared by the Adaptation: Although she still hanged herself as she did in the anime, the MP Evas don't manage to eviscerate Unit-02 due to Shinji intervening at the last second during the manga's climax.
- Spurned into Suicide: Implied, since Asuka at least knew that her father was having an affair with Kyoko's doctor and Kyoko might have known as well.
- Walking Spoiler: Almost every detail that is known about Kyoko from the anime and manga is a huge spoiler, as they're only revealed late into the story during and after Asuka's Mind Rape, and explain pretty much everything about why Asuka became a Jerkass Attention Whore.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Unit-02 survives until Third Impact begins in the manga, but nothing is ever mentioned about Kyoko's soul, even after the Cosmic Retcon.
Doctor Katsuragi
Misato's father. A brilliant scientist (though also an emotionally frail man, as well as very lacking husband and father, at least according to Misato), he led the eponymous Katsuragi Expedition to Antarctica for the ostensible purpose of acquiring proof for his groundbreaking "Super Solenoid" theory. Unbeknownst to him, SEELE, the sponsors of the expedition, had other plans for it...
A somewhat enigmatic character in pretty much all versions of the story, the only adaptation so far that expands upon his character is the somewhat obscure PlayStation 2 Elseworld Adventure Game Detective Evangelion, which both gives him an active part in the plot and even the amusing first name "Hideaki".
- Absent-Minded Professor: It is at least implied, with Dr. Katsuragi by all accounts appearing to be a brilliant and visionary scientist, but having problems socially and isolating himself from his family, perhaps even inadvertently by forgetting himself in his work. The latter element means that the trope is perhaps even deconstructed a bit.
- The Apocalypse Brings Out the Best in People: He was a frail, timid man, who had severe difficulty connecting with his family in his everyday life, but when the Contact Experiment with Adam made everything go to hell in a handbasket, with his team dead or dying around him and he himself sustaining a lethal injury in the process, he proved his inner fortitude and deep love for his daughter by using every ounce of his last strength to save her life. It is arguably deconstructed a bit, since many of Misato's issues stem from how she cannot mentally reconcile the image of her neglectful, distant father who always made her mother cry with the image of the man who compassionately sacrificed himself to save her.
- Determinator: Despite having sustained heavy injuries from having been up close to the event of Second Impact, he still walked quite a ways through the frozen ruins of his expedition's camp, carrying his teenage daughter in his arms. He only succumbed to his injuries once he knew for certain that she was safe.
- The Faceless: Downplayed. The lower part of his face is shown, but the whole of it never comes into full view.
- Heroic Sacrifice: If his injuries compared to Misato's is anything to go by, it appears that he saved her life by shielding her with his body when Adam broke loose, fatally injuring himself in the process.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Misato mentions that when she as a child, she thought he was hit with this when her mother decided to divorce him, and that the anguish he faced from this event was a just punishment for all of the negligence he put both of them through. Her adult self's feelings about it are much more conflicted to say the least.
- Married to the Job: He frequently buried himself in his research work, severely neglecting his wife and daughter in the process, driving the former to the edge of a depression and saddling the latter with severe abandonment issues. Eventually, his wife just couldn't take it any more and got a divorce.
- No Name Given: The show never goes any further than acknowledging that his name was "Dr. Katsuragi".
- Redemption Equals Death: After repeated failings to be there for his wife and daughter, causing both of them lots of anguish and grief in the process, he uses his last ounce of strength to save Misato's life, showing that he did care deeply for his family after all.
- Parental Neglect: Judging from his last actions, he clearly loved Misato dearly. He was just very bad at being there for her.
- The Voiceless: He never gets a speaking line in the anime. Averted in the manga, where he delivers some Last Words to Misato: "Take care of Mom for me."
- When You Coming Home, Dad?: He would bury himself in his research work, to a point where he actively neglected his child and wife. Many of Misato's abandonment issues stems from this.
- Workaholic: Misato believes that he indulged in this behavior as a way of escapism, as the responsibly of being a husband and a parent scared him.
- Unwitting Pawn: SEELE tricked him and his team into triggering Second Impact.
