Misato Katsuragi
| Misato Katsuragi | |
|---|---|
| Neon Genesis Evangelion character | |
 |
|
| First appearance | "Angel Attack" |
| Created by |
Gainax Yoshiyuki Sadamoto |
| Voiced by |
Japanese: Kotono Mitsuishi English: Allison Keith |
| Profile | |
| Title | Captain Major Lieutenant colonel |
| Relatives |
Pen Pen (pet) Shinji Ikari (ward) Asuka Langley Soryu (ward) |
Misato Katsuragi (葛城 ミサト Katsuragi Misato?) is a fictional character from the Neon Genesis Evangelion franchise created by Gainax. She is the operations director at Nerv, initially with the rank of captain; she is later promoted to major. In Rebuild of Evangelion Misato's rank is lieutenant colonel. 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 the Eva 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 she 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.
Yoshiyuki Sadamoto found Misato's design the most difficult—conceiving her as an older "girl next door" who was in the military. He wished to have Misato be a fashionable character, changing her clothes constantly, but found that his own lack of fashion sense made him unable to show this. Furthermore, he envisaged Misato as a "loser girl" who would be promiscuous and not take things seriously.
Director Hideaki Anno described Misato as "a woman, twenty-nine, who lives life so lightly as to barely allow the possibility of human touch. She protects herself by keeping relationships on the surface, and by running away." He has described her as an adult Usagi Tsukino, with whom she shares a voice actress as well as hair design. The disparity between her professionalism on the job and her slovenliness at home, as well as her issues in her relationships with her father and Kaji and the ambiguous nature of her relationship with Shinji, ties into her psychological issues. (Incidentally, her psychological issues resemble Shinji's, so the two gradually begin to retain sympathy for each other as the story develops in spite of their clumsy relationship.) While grateful to her father for saving her life, she admits to hating him, as he devoted his life to his work and neglected her and her mother. Her reason for joining Nerv (and later, her drive to fight the Angels) is related to her issues with her father. Kaji implies in one discussion that Misato suffers from nightmares about her past, as he describes her as "sleeping uncomfortably." Misato admits "seeking her father in Kaji's embrace."
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Wikipedia