Can You Name These “Neon Genesis Evangelion” Characters?

Rei Ayanami is known as the first child, the first to pilot an EVA unit, and something of a puzzle. There is a heavy implication that Rei is, in fact, a clone of Shinji's mother, or at least in some way created from her.

Misato Katsuragi runs the NERV program and is instrumental in bringing in Shinji as a pilot. Though Misato is twice Shinji's age and in some way seems to have taken him under her wing like a mother, there's a weird personal relationship between them that really comes out when she gives him a rather passionate kiss goodbye.

Asuka Langley Soryu is part American, part Japanese and part German, but she was raised in Germany and speaks the language as well. She is the second child and the pilot of Unit-02. Asuka has routinely appeared on lists of the best anime characters of all time.

The central character of the series, Shinji Ikari runs a very tragic but hopeful character arc that sees him fall deeply into despair by the end. However, one of the central themes of the series is exemplified in Shinji as he comes to terms with his own failings and pain and chooses to continue his struggle in life rather than give up.

Kaworu Nagisa showed up near the end of the series to replace Asuka as the pilot of Unit-02. He's actually working on the sly, having been sent by SEELE, and is trying to find Adam. The big twist for Kaworu is that he's actually the angel Tabris.

Toji Suzuhara was the fourth child chosen to pilot an EVA unit and is something of a jock. He manages to survive having his unit taken over by the angel Bardiel, but in the ensuring fight, he is severely injured and loses a leg.

Ryoji Kaji works in NERV but also spies on them for the Japanese government. His fate is arguably the most mysterious of all characters in the series as he's shot by someone we, as the audience, never get to see.

Ritsuko Akagi was a scientist at NERV who was, for a time, a close confidant of Gendo Ikari. She knew the true purpose of the entire EVA project but realized after a betrayal that it was a bad idea and tried to set off the self-destruct at NERV.

Though he serves as Gendo's second-in-command, Kozo Fuyutsuki was originally a professor and the sensei of Shinji's mother, Yui. His name, Fuyutsuki, means "winter moon" and was the name of a WWII destroyer in the Japanese Navy.

Gendo Ikari is Shinji's father and a key member of the team that developed the Evangelions. He is revealed to have wanted to create a sort of Utopia in which he would be reunited with his wife and suffers the grisly fate of losing his head for it.

Makato Hyuga is one of the three computer techs at NERV. It's clear he has feelings for Misato over the course of the series, but his feelings betray him when Rei/Lilith appears to him as Misato and give him a kiss that liquifies him into LCL.

Arael looked like a bird made of energy and had the power to break into people's minds. Asuka is on the receiving end of Arael's psychic attack, and while it has little effect on her in the anime, in the manga it puts her in a coma.

Pen Pen is a penguin who, in the manga at least, is the product of a genetic engineering who was given increased intelligence and was supposed to have been destroyed, but Misato took him home instead. He's smart enough to watch TV and read the newspaper.

Adam was supposed to be the only angel on Earth as a Seed of Life billions of years ago but Lilith crash-landed by accident and ruined the plan. He is the genetic basis for the Evangelion units and the father of all the angels, except Lilith.

Lilith is called the second angel, but she is not one of Adam's children and is actually on equal footing with him. While Adam is the parent of the angels, Lilith is the parent of the human race, and her legs were actually torn off to be the base for Unit-01.

Mari Illustrious Makinami isn't introduced until "Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance." She's meant to be an exceptional pilot who actually enjoys the job in a way the others don't. Her name is a mix of the Japanese warship Makinami and the British warship HMS Illustrious.

Maya Ibuki is one of the three techs at NERV and the one who works most closely with Ritsuko Akagi. Weirdly enough, Maya is a hugely popular character in terms of toys and other marketing tie-ins despite not having such a big role in the story.

Sahaquiel was the 10th angel in the anime, but the 8th in the movies. The movie version had a few style tweaks over the anime version, not the least of which was the fact it died in an absolute explosion of blood that partially flooded the city.

At first, it seems like Kaworu is a normal person, but we come to learn he's not even human. He is Adam's fifth child and the 17th angel known as Tabris. Though he seems like he's going to cause Third Impact and end the human race, he refuses at the last moment and sacrifices himself.

Since no one likes giant spiders, Matriel is an especially creepy angel. Not only is it a giant spider covered in eyes, but the eye that exists on its underside is able to produce an acid that can melt through steel and stone.

Sandalphon was an embryonic angel discovered inside a volcano. Despite the fact it was a baby and making baby sounds when it was discovered, Asuka still kills the little guy with a Progressive Knife that was modified to handle the heat.

Though Sachiel is the third angel, it is also the first to attack Tokyo-3 and one of the few in the series that pops up in more than one episode. It also has the ability to create an energy explosion that looks like a traditional Christian cross.

Shigeru Aoba is a computer tech at NERV. While we don't get to know a ton about him as a person, he does die one of the most bizarre and terrifying deaths in the series during the Third Impact when he's taken out by an army of giggling Reis.

Kensuke Aida is best friends with Toji, and though he really wants to be an EVA pilot, he hasn't managed to get called up. His enthusiasm seems to indicate he's not 100% aware of just how intense and stressful being a pilot can be.

Ramiel is the second strongest of the angels but also oddly passive. Ramiel's form is mostly the same from the anime to the movies, but the movie version has shape-shifting abilities that the original did not display.

Hikari Horaki is Asuka's best friend and the class rep for the class that all the EVA pilots attend. She is also shown to be in love with Toji but afraid to express her feelings openly. In the movies, for whatever reason, Hikari and Asuka aren't actually friends.

Naoko Akagi was Ritsuko's mother and one of the scientists who developed the Evangelion project. We don't really get to meet her in the show, but we learn about her in the stories that Ritsuko tells.

Yui Ikari is the mother of Shinji and the wife of Gendo. She was a scientist who specialized in genetic engineering, but things didn't work out well for her since she died in the midst of an experiment. Somehow that transferred part of her soul into Unit 01.

Clearly the Soryu are fond of unusual middle names, with Kyoko Zeppelin Soryu following Asuka Langley Soryu. Kyoko is a tragic character who is driven mad and eventually believes a doll is her daughter rather than Asuka.

Shamshel was the fourth Angel and looked a little bit like a squid. It was able to fly horizontally and stand vertically for battle, and while it looked like its giant head, it had a pair of eyes that were not actually eyes but distracting decorations.

Leliel is not in the manga nor the "Rebuild of Evangelion" film series, but it does appear in the anime series. When it first appears, it's a black and white sphere, and its body is a shadow, making it a two-dimensional enemy.

While the angels are obviously the biggest threats in the series, if you were picking a main villain, it would be Keel Lorenz. He wears a visor like Cyclops from "The X-Men" or Geordi La Forge from "Star Trek," but production drawings show that he's still supposed to have eyes beneath it.

Midori Kitakami is a member of WILLE, the organization formed to oppose NERV. Like the rest of the crew of the AAA Wunder, she's pretty new at her job and inexperienced. When "Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo" begins, they have very limited resources and clearly don't even know how to operate the Wunder.

Bardiel manages to infect Unit 03, which causes a serious problem for the team. Shinji Ikari is forced to destroy Unit 03 in order to prevent any further damage, and while in the movie this severely injures Toji, it actually killed him in the manga.

Hideki Tama shows up in "Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo" in the engineering section of the Wunder. The character is seen reading a lot of books and it's implied that he's actually so new to the job he's brushing up on what he needs to do.

Sumire Nagara show up in "Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo" as a member of WILLE. She works on the battleship known as the Autonomous Assault Ark Wunder, or AAA Wunder. The ship has a containment chamber that is set up to use an Evangelion as a power source.

Koji Takao first appears in "Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo." Decked out with a goatee and a shaved head, he's good friends with Ryoji Kaji and is generally a calm guy. The name Takao is shared by a heavy cruiser from the Japanese navy.

Sakura Suzuhara is the younger sister of Toji Suzuhara. Sakura shows up for the first time in the second film "Evangelion 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance," but she doesn't get a name until she returns in the third film of the series.

Armisael appears as a ring that breaks into a thread, so it's not much to look at physically at first. It is able to merge with and sort of take over the things it touches though, which is how it starts turning Eva into a monster. It's the last of Adam's natural children

In the comic book that also had a crossover toy line, Optimus Prime and the Transformers come to the Earth of "Neon Genesis," and Optimus, rather than scanning a truck like in the normal "Transformers," scans Eva-01 and becomes a giant transforming Evangelion.