Shinji Ikari

Kaworu's body appears to have been created as a result of the Contact Experiment with Adam, wherein DNA from an unknown human donor dove into and fused with Adam's flesh, explaining Hyuga's discovery that Kaworu was "born" on the day of Second Impact. SEELE salvaged Adam's disembodied soul into Kaworu, whom they may have recovered in embryonic form in Antarctica.

Kaworu is brought to NERV as the Fifth Child to replace Asuka, who is no longer able to pilot Unit-02. He is only able to pilot Unit-02 whilst its soul is in hiding. In his first test, Kaworu immediately achieves impressive synchronization results. It later emerges that Kaworu is able to achieve whatever level of synchronization he chooses with Unit-02. Though he seems to have been sent to destroy it, Kaworu shows a marked interest in human culture, as well as human issues of pain and loneliness.

Kaworu (渚カヲル) is both the 17th Angel and the Fifth Child. Although classified as an Angel, Kaworu is similar to Rei Ayanami in being a Seed of Life that inhabits a human body. Despite his human form, Kaworu does not seem to consider himself to be human, referring to humans as "the Lilin" in differentiation from himself.

Kaworu appears comfortable in his identity (far more than Rei), and also warmer and more emotionally open. However, he does show a detachment from human protocols and shares Rei's tendency to speak in universal rather than personal terms. He is considered the Angel of free will, which is considered a gift of God; Although Kaworu was sent by SEELE for a specific purpose, he also has his own agenda.

Unlike the Angels who came before him, but like Rei, Kaworu has a Lilin body, with no visible physical difference from a regular human except for very pale skin, light grey hair and red irises. Also unlike the other Angels, Kaworu wears human clothes. He wears a white shirt and high waisted trousers, like Shinji. He also wears white high top sneakers. Although his body is presumably composed of the same "particle-wave matter" as Rei and the Angels, it is impossible to say if he possesses a core and S² Engine. Tabris is the only Angel to infiltrate Terminal Dogma.

Kaworu's human body is a vessel for the salvaged soul of Adam itself, and wields all of the power that comes with it. He is in effect Adam reborn as a human. His A.T. Field is described by the Magi as the strongest yet encountered (until it is surpassed by Rei's). Kaworu is observed using it for levitation, to control Unit-02, as a massive barrier that prevents the Command Center from receiving wave transmissions, and, (evidently) to bypass the LCL Plant's locking mechanism.

By being both the First Angel (Adam, whose body and soul were separated in Second Impact) and the Seventeenth and final Angel, he is in effect both the first and the last of his kind.

Around the age of three, Shinji lost his mother to the Unit-01 Contact Experiment. As he witnessed this event, he was subjected to considerable trauma that had lingering effects upon him.

First appearing, Shinji Ikari is 14, he summoned to Tokyo-3 by his father, Gendo Ikari to pilot Evangelion Unit-01. After initially refusing, Gendo calls for the heavily injured, stretcher bound backup pilot, Rei Ayanami. Suddenly, an earthquake knocks Rei out of her stretcher and Shinji rushes to her aid. After lifting her off the ground, Shinji looks to his hand which had been covered with Rei's blood. Realizing he both literally and metaphorically has her blood on his hands, he reluctantly agrees to become the pilot of the Evangelion.

Shinji enters the Evangelion and is lifted to the surface where he comes face to face with the angel, Sachiel. At first, Shinji is able to take a few steps, but he very quickly trips. The Evangelion is picked up by the angel and takes multiple direct blows to the head before Shinji passes out, waking up in the NERV infirmary some time later with no recollection of the events which took place. It is later revealed that after passing out, Unit-01 went Berserk, acting without the pilots control, and defeated the angel. After Shinji recovers from his first fight, Misato Katsuragi takes to live with her rather than letting him live on his own.

Though fans have speculated on the exact nature of Shinji's relationship with Kaworu, it is clear that Kaworu represents a sort of idealized figure to Shinji, as he appears out of seemingly nowhere when Shinji is completely desperate for any sort of connection with anyone, as all of his friends are either dead, unreachable or alienated from him. Kaworu had premeditated encountering Shinji in the lake. He immediately shows great interest in Shinji, making him initially uncomfortable.[43] However, Kaworu telling him he liked him surprised Shinji as he is afraid of talking to Asuka, Misato or Rei, as Shinji has internalized his belief that nobody cared about him thanks to his own partly self-imposed isolation - afterwards, feeling that Kaworu has simply used him further reinforces this, as he thinks everyone is lying to him, because Shinji is unwilling to recognize the ambiguity and insecurity in other people, and the risk and uncertainty involved in reaching out to them himself, something Kaworu temporarily allowed him to ignore. Kaworu uses the ambiguous "suki" form which includes intimacy or friendship or anything more and can simply mean "like" or "fond of", and that he is deserving of "koui" (好意), which means simply "good will" or "favor", not "koi", "love". Similarly, public baths are casual, even public social occurrences in Japan, especially in the countryside that Anno is from.

Shinji initially shows a passive and laid-back personality, inheriting such traits from his relaxed life with his sensei. When he is told to pilot Unit-01, he denies, not wanting to do it. Though Shinji denies it, he yearns for praise, and he eventually begins to pilot Unit-01 to gain the approval and love from his father. He also continually tells himself "I mustn't run away!", further demonstrating his need to move forward and let go of the past.

Shinji shows a great fear of emotional pain and of being hated or left behind, likely due to his perception of being abandoned in his youth and, subsequently, blaming himself for not being good enough to make his father stick around. In general, Shinji is shown to be introverted and disconnected from physical reality due to having little to no meaningful contact with others. In social party situations, he is shown to be quite uncomfortable, and he often has difficulty controlling his emotions around others due to his hard time letting go of the past. He is shown to the extreme of this, forsaking many lives (even his own) to save one person.

Due to Shinji's high nostalgia and fragile emotional state, he chooses to shut out the world, as evidenced by the headphones he wears rather often, plugged into an SDAT music player. Through all this, Shinji is also aware of his own faults, has a detailed memory of the past, and generally is outwardly gentle. He is the only one who tries to find a reason to fight the Angels, and sometimes his justification for fleeing from piloting is to avoid hurting others.

Shinji has short straight brown hair and grey-blue eyes. Shinji is also very skinny, and often has his shirt tucked in, showing that he is a rather tidy person. When spending time at NERV or out in the city, he wears his uniform which is a white dress shirt, blue t-shirt, dark pants and white sneakers, though when in his apartment, he will often wear something more casual. Shinji's plug suit has a very light blue torso, complemented by the rest being a dark blue color with black portions as well.