Asuka Langley Soryu

General

Asuka Langley Sohryu (惣流・アスカ・ラングレー, Sōryū Asuka Rangurē?) is a fictional character from the Neon Genesis Evangelion franchise and one of the main female characters. Asuka is designated as the Second Child ("Second Children" in the original Japanese versions) of the Evangelion Project and pilots the Evangelion Unit-02. Her surname is romanized as Soryu in the English manga and Sohryu in the English version of the TV series, the English version of the film, and on GAINAX's website.

Background Part 1

Asuka is one-quarter Japanese. Asuka is a native of Germany, having been raised there, though her nationality is American. Asuka's native language is German, and in both the series and the manga she tends to curse in German. Asuka was born to an American father, known only as Mr. Langley and a German-Japanese mother, Kyoko Zeppelin Sohryu. In addition, she also has a step-mother, Langley's second wife. She is a child prodigy and has earned a university degree in an unspecified field as a teenager; she also speaks fluent Japanese, but has trouble reading and writing kanji. Asuka had years of training starting from a young age to become a pilot for the Evangelion. Asuka is very proud of being an Eva pilot, and near-constantly wears her A10 nerve clips in her hair because she wants everyone around her to know that she is a pilot. Asuka's iconic catch-phrase (always directed at Shinji) was "anta baka?!" (あんたバカァ?!?), "anta" being a contraction of "anata" meaning "you" and "baka" literally meaning "fool" or "idiot". The official English voice recording renders this as "What are you, stupid?!" Character designer Yoshiyuki Sadamoto explained that he "first designed an Asuka-type girl as the lead character", but felt it might be too similar to previous anime that he and Anno had worked on, such as Gunbuster and Nadia. He suggested to Anno that they change the lead character to a boy, which would be more in keeping with the robot genre. In the initial project, she was described as "a determined girl" who adapts to the situation in which she finds herself, passionate about video games and "aspires to become like Ryoji Kaji". In the nineteenth episode, she would have had to be seriously injured in her attempt to protect Shinji, who would have thus "proved his worth" trying to save her. As Sadamoto and Anno designed the series, Sadamoto came to believe that Asuka would occupy the position of an "'idol' in the Eva world".

Background Part 2

Asuka should have represented "[Shinji's] desire for the female sex", as opposed to Rei Ayanami's "motherhood", and would have been "the idol of Neon Genesis Evangelion". He also described his belief that the relationship between Asuka and Shinji would be similar to the relationship between Jean, Nadia's love interest and eventual husband in the earlier Nadia. Asuka's personality, as well of those for the other characters, was designed so as to be understood at a glance. Anno also thought of her as a Nadia with a different hairstyle. During most of the serie, younger than Shinji by almost half a year.

Appearance

Asuka has long burnt orange hair and dark blue eyes. Asuka's hair is loose, with the flanks held in twin tails with her red Interface Headset. She wears a school uniform as her most iconic outfit, which consisted of a dark blue pleated overall dress over a white button-up blouse with short puffed sleeves, a red bow attached to the collar, white knee socks with red stripes and black Mary Jane shoes. She wears a red watch on her wrist. She also wears outfits such as her pale yellow dress with a lavender choker and red Mary Jane shoes. Her plugsuit is red, stylized with fancy layers and accents with a 02 symbol printed onto the plugsuit.

Character and Relationships

Asuka is a very proud individual, especially in her piloting, and comes across to others as proud and strong, with a very high opinion of both her appearance (particularly her recently "busty" body) and her skill as an Eva pilot. She is stubborn and finds it difficult to express her true feelings to others. She does not like being looked down upon or told what to do as she wants to be viewed as an adult. She is aggressive and can be very opinionated. However, this personality is a front that protects a very vulnerable and insecure girl, a side which the viewer sees in her dreams or thoughts. She is often violent and intrusive of other people's space, especially Shinji's. She also has a strong need to be self-sufficient, and has a great deal of difficulty dealing with her self-perceived failure when she does need help; as her seiyuu Yuko Miyamura wrote of her experiences playing Asuka: Thus her relationship with Shinji is one of the core aspects of the series, and affects both characters on multiple levels (see next section). Her best (and seemingly her only close) friend is her class representative, Hikari Horaki. Although Asuka and classmate Toji Suzuhara constantly argue, she gives Hikari advice about pursuing Toji. Shinji and Asuka are seemingly attracted to each other, but neither is able to properly express their feelings. Asuka's overbearing attitude and inability to admit her vulnerabilities keeps her from opening up to Shinji. This develops into a central part of the series, culminating into their kiss and Shinji's inaction is later one of the motivations for her worsening state in the series. Besides her attraction to Shinji, Asuka is infatuated with Ryoji Kaji, her former guardian after her mother died, and makes a number of advances toward him which he politely refuses, even as Shinji supplants Asuka's early affections for him. For this reason, she envies her and Shinji's guardian, Misato Katsuragi, especially after Misato and Kaji rekindle their romantic