Neon Genesis Evangelion Characters

The fourteen-year-old pilot of Evangelion Unit-01, known as the Third Child. His mother, Yui, vanished in an accident when he was small, and his father left him with a guardian for about ten years, calling him back to Tokyo-3 only because NERV needs a pilot. Shy, passive and afraid of being rejected, he keeps telling himself that he mustn't run away, yet he walks out on NERV twice, in episodes 4 and 19. Part of what keeps him in the cockpit is the hope of a word of praise from his father.

The First Child and pilot of Unit-00, a quiet girl whose personal records have all been erased. She carries out orders without question, keeps nearly everyone at a distance and is open only with Gendo. Her bond with Shinji begins after Operation Yashima, when he pulls her out of the damaged Unit-00 and she smiles for the first time. After Unit-00 is destroyed stopping the Angel Armisael, the truth comes out: Rei is one of many clones made from Yui Ikari, and the soul of the Angel Lilith is inside her.

The Second Child and pilot of the red Unit-02, a child prodigy of Japanese and German descent who was raised in Germany and had already graduated from university when she arrives in episode 8. Proud, loud and fiercely competitive, she needles Shinji constantly — "Anta baka?", or "Are you stupid?", is her catchphrase — and soon moves into Misato's apartment with him. As Shinji's results overtake hers and the Angel Arael attacks her mind from orbit, her confidence gives way and she can no longer pilot.

Head of NERV's tactical operations, Shinji's commanding officer and, from episode 2, his legal guardian; Asuka and the penguin Pen Pen share her untidy apartment too. Decisive on the bridge and carefree to the point of chaos at home, she devises Operation Yashima and many of the other battle plans, and is promoted from Captain to Major. As a teenager she was the only survivor of her father's expedition to Antarctica at the Second Impact, and she joined NERV to take revenge on the Angels. The cross-shaped pendant she wears was his last gift to her.

The supreme commander of NERV and Shinji's father, born Gendo Rokubungi; he took the surname Ikari when he married Yui. After Yui vanished during Unit-01's activation test he left their son with a guardian, and he summons Shinji back in 2015 only to pilot. Cold, calculating and willing to use anyone, he answers to SEELE on paper while pursuing his own version of the Human Instrumentality Project, through which he hopes to be reunited with his wife. Only his deputy, Kozo Fuyutsuki, seems to understand what he is thinking.

The Fifth Child, sent by SEELE in episode 24 to replace Asuka as the pilot of Unit-02. He befriends Shinji at once, with a warmth that asks nothing in return, and speaks of human music, such as the 'Ode to Joy' he hums, as humanity's finest achievement. He is in fact the Seventeenth and last Angel, Tabris, and was born on the very day of the Second Impact. When he finds that the giant in Terminal Dogma is Lilith, not Adam, he asks Shinji to kill him so that humanity can survive, and after a long hesitation Shinji does.

NERV's chief scientist, one of the main developers of the Evangelions and the keeper of the Magi, the three supercomputers her mother, Naoko, designed. A friend of Misato's since university, she is rational, disciplined and reluctant to talk about herself. When the Angel Ireul takes over two of the Magi, it is her plan that defeats it. Late in the series, feeling used by Gendo, she turns against him and shows Shinji and Misato what NERV keeps hidden in its depths.

Misato's boyfriend from university and Asuka's guardian in Germany, who escorts Unit-02 to Japan in episode 8 and quietly hands the embryo of Adam to Gendo. Officially a NERV inspector, he also works for the Japanese government and reports to SEELE: a spy paid by three organisations at once. Easygoing on the surface, he grows watermelons near NERV headquarters and becomes a mentor to Shinji, talking him into returning to fight Zeruel. He is killed in episode 21 while chasing the truth about NERV, and leaves what he found to Misato.

NERV's deputy commander and Gendo's closest associate. As a professor at Kyoto University he taught Yui Ikari and distrusted Gendo from their first meeting; after the Second Impact he investigated it for the United Nations before agreeing to work with Gendo. Calm and humane with the staff, he shares NERV's aims but not always its methods. In episode 21 SEELE has him seized and questioned, and his memories tell the story of how NERV began.

A classmate of Shinji's in class 2-A who hits him in his first days at school, because his younger sister was hurt during Shinji's first battle, and makes up with him after seeing what piloting costs Shinji. Loud and proud of being tough, but honest and kind underneath, he becomes one of Shinji's closest friends along with Kensuke Aida. In episode 17 he is chosen as the Fourth Child, the pilot of Unit-03, and accepts on condition that his sister is moved to NERV's hospital. He survives the Bardiel incident that follows, badly hurt.

Misato's pet, one of a new breed of 'hot spring penguins' that is probably the product of a biotechnology experiment; he wears a serial number on his collar. He is unusually intelligent, bathes himself, reads the newspaper and gets on with life in Misato's apartment more or less on his own terms. Yoshiyuki Sadamoto designed him as the series' mascot after the staff's first idea, a monkey, was dropped. Late in the series he is sent to live with Hikari Horaki's family.

The head of SEELE, the secret organisation that oversees NERV, and chairman of the Human Instrumentality Committee. A German in his late sixties whose body is kept going by cybernetic implants, he speaks for the shadowy council that keeps Gendo under watch. SEELE works to a plan based on its reading of the Dead Sea Scrolls and wants the Third Impact to happen on its own terms, and Gendo's divergence from that plan sets the two on a collision course.