Asuka Langley Soryu, one of the main characters from Neon Genesis Evangelion, is designated as the Second Child of the Evangelion Project and pilots the bright red Eva Unit 02. Her ethnic background is three-quarters German, one-quarter Japanese, and is a native of Germany; she was raised there, but her nationality is American. She is a child prodigy and has a university degree as a teenager, though it is not specified what field her degree is in. She is characterized by her fiery red hair and equally fiery temper. She is NERV's most consistently competent pilot, a fact on which she prides herself greatly, though her skills are no match for Eva 01's berserker mode (Shinji, 01's pilot, is usually catatonic in this state, although it can be assumed that his mind partially merges with the EVA, as shown by his complete assimilation during the 400% incident battling Zeruel). Rei Ayanami is the First Child and pilot of EVA-00. She is socially withdrawn and hardly interacts with anyone, except for Commander Ikari, to whom she initially displays some loyalty but with whom she has a much more distant relationship than is commonly believed (she says in Episode 15 that she "doesn't know what kind of person he is", and seems confused by Shinji's belief that the two are close). She lives by herself in a nearly barren apartment in Tokyo-3. Toward the end of the series, Shinji comments that her apartment is very similar to the place where Ritsuko Akagi says she was born. |
