However, she is also quite stubborn and has trouble with expressing herself.
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Shinji Ikari is the main protagonist of the NGE series, He can also be reffered to as the 'third child' who pilots Eva unit-01.
Before the plot, Shinji lived with his 'sensei' as he was abandoned by his father after his mother 'died.'
At the start of the series he is called upon by his father to pilot Eva-01 and fight angels, to which he breifly refuses.
(he ends up doing it anyways because they bring out Rei to fight, who is hospitalised.)
Initially, he was going to live by himself in Tokyo-3 during his time as a pilot, however Misato objects and allows Shinji to live with her instead.
Shinji is a very introverted and skittish character, as there has been multiple instances where he will run away from NERV and his problems,
only for him to come back (usually in the same episode) because he yearns for praise.
As well as this, most of his nature can be linked back to his fear of being hated or left behind due to how his father abandoned him.
And also because of his father, he almost always blames himself for not being good enough.
Despite all this, he still tries to be kind and gentle to those close to him (MOST OF THE TIME).
This can be seen by the fact that Shinji will sometimes refuse to pilot the eva to avoid hurting others.
(this is futile in some cases, as his inatibilty to let go of the past also causes him to kill others to save one person)
your favourite!!(?)
Asuka is the 'second child' and pilots Eva unit-02.
She is also a mix of nationalities, namely Japanese, American and German.
Because of this, her native language is German and she usually swears in German.
Asuka is also a test-tube baby, which she is proud of.
Her mother and father were unable to concieve, which drove Asuka's mother to withdraw sperm from an 'elite sperm bank',
where the donors were extremely intelligent and skilled
These genetics passed onto Asuka, which she gloats to Shinji about.
During the series she also lives in the same apartment as Shinji and Misato,where some important things do happen.
At the start of the series, Asuka can come off as obnoxious, as she is seen proudly bragging to Shinji about her skills, and intelligence.
However, she is also quite stubborn and has trouble with expressing herself.
Ontop of this, she hates being told what to do or being looked down upon, as she wishes she was viewed as an adult.
this causes her to try and make advances towards her former guardian, Kaji, who refuses because she's still a child (Misato could never)
Throughout the series Asuka's mental state becomes increasingly unstable,
which gets even worse when an angel makes Asuka remember repressed memories of from her past.
(namely her mother commiting suicide and her stumbling across the body when she wanted to tell her mother she got accepted as an EVA pilot.)
Because of all this, it's safe to say that Asuka's mean and abrasive behaviour is nothing more than a projection to hide her insecurities and trauma.
Rei is the 'first child' and pilots Eva unit-00, and actually has no real origin because she is technically not a real person
Rei was actually created from the salvaged remains of Shinji's mother, Yui Ikari, after she willingly was absorbed into Eva unit-01.
However, most employees at NERV do not know this, as Gendo just refers to her as an 'acquaintance's child' who he is taking care of.
This only gets more confusing when in a director's cut of an episode, Kaworu refers to himself and Rei as human vessels for the souls of adam and lilith
ALSO, there is a hidden room in NERV that has a wall full of soulless Rei clones floating around in LCL.
Ritsuko refers to these clones as 'spare parts' or 'vessels'. These clones are also said to be the cores of the dummy plugs
At the start, Rei is portrayed as socially withdrawn, emotionless, and quite mysterious on the account that she would never interact with anyone apart from Gendo.
She also lives by
herself in an apartment in Tokyo-3
As the series is progressing, Rei begins to form relationships with others that aren't Gendo, and even shows genuine emotion such as sadness or anger.
Her voice actor has said before that Rei is not devoid of all emotion, and that she does have some humanity,
though it is clouded by negative-self worth and her knowledge that she can be replaced by any of the other Rei clones.
Kaworu is the 'fifth child', but is also the 17th angel known as Tabris. He was originally sent to NERV by SEELE as a replacement for Asuka as she was unable to pilot Eva unit-02.
However, instead of piloting the Eva, he breaks into Terminal Dogma to return to Adam.
once when he notices that Lilith is there instead of Adam and that he's been betrayed by SEELE, he lets Shinji 'kill' him.
The reason why he let Shinji kill him was because if he didn't die, humanity would cease to exist. However, his death still kickstarted the events of End of Evangelion.
Despite 'dying here', there is a popular theory that Kaowru (and to an extent the entire story) is in a time loop.
This is because in the rebuild movies (which the original author works on), Kaworu is in a loop where he dies shortly after meeting Shinji.
Ontop of this, he is aware of his pasts lives/deaths, which just makes things more interesting.
Suprisingly, Kaworu isn't as emotionless or quiet as Rei, who is technically an angel like him.
Instead he has a much more open and 'warm' personality, which may be a contributing factor to why he is so popular in the fandom.
Kaworu also shows lots of interest in humanity, such as human culture and the pain and loneliness that they endure, even though he had been sent to destroy humanity.
To be clear, he isn't the exact opposite of Rei, as he does have the same tendency to speak in universal terms like Rei does.
I originally only wanted the adults to have this part, but I think it's important to mention Shinji and Kaworu's relationship.
In the original english subtitles for the anime, Kaworu quite literally says to Shinji "It means, I love you".
(This is censored to say "I like you" in the netflix dub/sub)
And although Shinji doesn't say it back, it is implied that he did love Kaworu back.
'how is it implied?' well, in EoE we know that Lilith/clones will morph into people's loved ones before they explode into LCL.
When Lilith saw Shinji in his panicked state, it morphs into a fake Kaworu (morphing into someone the person loves) to calm him down.
But additionally, upon seeing this Shinji lowers his A.T. Feild,
which is the only thing defending himself from the surrounding Lilith and mass produced Evangelions.
Pretty fruity, no?
Toji was supposed to be the 'fourth child' who would pilot Eva unit-03.
We were first introduced to Toji when Shinji went to school and revealed he was the pilot of Unit-01,
which caused Shinji to get punched since Toji's sister was hospitalised because of him.
Toji later agrees to be a new Eva pilot so that his sister can have better medical care in NERV,
however this leads to disaster as Eva unit-03 was taken over by an angel shortly after he got into it, which causes the Evangelion to go on a rampage.
All other pilots are then ordered to kill Eva unit-03 with Toji inside, and as both Rei and Asuka's units are taken down
, the dummy plug overrides Shinji's control of Unit-01 and causes the machine to violently tear Unit-03 to shreds.
Luckily, Toji survives but is critically injured and is evacuated from Tokyo-3 along with the rest of his classmates.
There is a lack of info on his personality, but in the manga he was given a new york accent.
He was also best friends with Kensuke Aida, had some sort of conflict with Asuka, and that the class representative had a crush on him