Misato Katsuragi

Misato Katsuragi (葛城 ミサト, Katsuragi Misato?) is one of the main characters from the Neon Genesis Evangelion franchise. She is the operations director at NERV, initially with the rank of captain; she is later promoted to major. Her duties at NERV include acting as a field commander for the EVA pilots, issuing orders and relaying battle strategies as well as processing input from Ritsuko Akagi and the technicians monitoring the EVAS. She also handles many bureaucratic aspects of NERV's operations.

At the beginning of the series, Misato first brings Shinji Ikari to NERV and is able to convince him to pilot Evangelion Unit-01. She then chooses to have Shinji move in with her rather than live alone, and later takes in Asuka Langley Soryu. As the series progresses, through her former lover Ryoji Kaji, Misato learns the truth behind the Human Instrumentality Project and the depths of deception that NERV and SEELE have gone to keep the Project secret, even from her.

Misato is a young woman with long dark violet hair that is wavy with bangs parted to the sides and dark brown eyes. She wears a sleeveless black flapper dress with a cross necklace, a fancy red jacket with stylized accents, green socks, and black boots, but she wears more outfits throughout the series. Misato is known to be a very attractive woman, as she has been cited multiple times throughout the entire series to be a "babe", by Ikari's male classmates.

As revealed in a flashback, when Misato was 14, she accompanied Dr. Katsuragi (the leader of the Katsuragi Expedition and Misato's father) to Antarctica and she was badly injured as the Second Impact was beginning, but her father placed her in a protective capsule (resembling an Entry Plug) just before he was killed. The capsule saved her life, but her injuries left a large scar on her chest. Another flashback reveals that she was aboard the ship which brought Kōzō Fuyutsuki and Gendo Ikari to the ruins of Antarctica two years after Second Impact. After seeing her in her room, Fuyutsuki was told that she had not spoken since the incident. Her mutism went away when she began to attend college, and she became more social and talkative, so much so that Ritsuko, while reminiscing about her friendship with Misato and Ryoji Kaji at that time, thought that Misato seemed to be attempting to "make up for lost time."

Misato's job(s) before being employed at NERV are not specified, but in the manga, her last job involved genetic experimentation on animals, as Pen Pen was a result of one such experiment. She chose to keep Pen Pen as a pet rather than let him be euthanized and converted a refrigerator into a heated sleeping area for him.

The cross pendant that she always wears was put around her neck by her father just before sealing the protective capsule. It is not revealed in the anime or manga if the pendant has significance to Misato beyond a link to her father, or was of any significance to her father.

According to Misato's ID card, she is 1.63 meters tall (slightly over 5 feet 4 inches) and her blood type is AO (however the sections of the card listing her age and weight have been scribbled out). A copy of her ID card before vandalization appears in Episode 25, which lists her weight as 47 kg (approx. 103 pounds); the card also lists her bust-waist-hip measurements at 83-59-82 in the metric system (approx. 33-23-32 in inches).

Misato drives a blue Renault Alpine A310

Shinji Ikari

Misato appears to have some sort of affinity for Shinji despite being over twice his age. She finds Shinji's presence to be a grounding and stabilizing influence. In the manga, when talking with Shinji at the train station after his first attempt to run away from NERV, Misato confesses to Shinji that she took him in not because she thought it was her duty to do so, but because she was lonely. It becomes apparent to Misato that many of Shinji's problems in dealing with people closely echo her own, although their coping mechanisms are opposites of each other, and that they seem to be caught in a "Hedgehog's dilemma," as Ritsuko calls it. After Asuka Langley Sohryu moves in, Misato finds herself often acting as a mediator between Shinji and Asuka. There is also sexual tension between Shinji and Misato, but this aspect of their relationship is only hinted at, as Misato herself has difficulty reaching out to people without the use of sexuality. A notable exception is the "adult kiss" scene in The End of Evangelion; however, the context of the scene gives this action multiple possible meanings. More prominently, she tries to be both a friend and a maternal influence for Shinji (which carries over to the other pilots), balancing this with her duties and responsibilities as his commanding officer at NERV. Near the end of the series, Misato and Shinji's shared and separate traumas put distance between them, and Shinji can neither let himself comfort her (see next paragraph) nor be comforted by her (in the wake of Rei Ayanami's death). During her Instrumentality, she expresses regret that she was not able to "be a mother for Shinji" in the end. Still, Shinji is devastated upon losing her, and he carries her pendant from then on.

Ritsuko Akagi

Misato and Ritsuko are close friends at the start of the series, and flashbacks reveal that Ritsuko was one of Misato's first friends in college. However, their friendship dissolves as Misato learns more about the Instrumentality Project and Ritsuko's role in its development, as well as her complicity in its secrecy. They also clash frequently (and sometimes violently) over the lives of the Eva pilots during combat, as Ritsuko is willing to sacrifice the pilots if the situation appears to warrant it while Misato is dedicated to their survival. Later, she snidely comments on the fractured relations between Misato, Shinji, and Asuka, which Misato angrily retorts by accusing Ritsuko of substituting her cats for human affection.

It is perhaps Misato's understanding of human sacrifice that sets her apart from Ritsuko in the end: both lost parents (Dr. Katsuragi and Naoko Akagi, respectively), though for different reasons. Misato's father died to save her, and this sacrifice and loss informs much of her lifestyle and actions for the remainder of her life. Ritsuko, on the other hand, sees her mother's suicide as a selfish act, a petty attempt at self-redemption after what she did to Rei I and realizing that she had been cast aside. Misato's love for Kaji and ultimately Shinji leads her to want to protect the pilots' lives, whereas to Ritsuko, they are initially just a means to an end. The women end up emulating the parents they hated throughout their final year, with vastly differing results. The circle is completed in The End of Evangelion when, just before dying, Misato gives Shinji her cross pendant—just like her father did to her before he died during Second Impact—and pushes him to safety. In contrast to Misato's sacrifice, Ritsuko's final act is not selfless but an act of petty revenge against Gendo. It fails, thanks to her mother's perceived betrayal, rendering her death essentially in vain—just like Naoko's.