Asuka Langley Soryu
Asuka Langley Soryu is a female anime and manga character who features in Neon Genesis Evangelion.
Contents |
Biography
Asuka Langley Soryu (惣流・アスカ・ラングレー, Sōryū Asuka Rangurē, IPA: [soːɾʲɯː asɯ̥ka ɾaŋɡɯɾeː])
When Asuka was very young — prior to her selection as an Evangelion pilot — her mother was involved in a contact experiment with Evangelion Unit-02 and lost her mind as a result, thinking that a rag doll was her daughter and ignoring Asuka. At the same time, Asuka's father proceeded to have an affair with Kyoko's doctor. Kyoko eventually turned suicidal, and asked Asuka to die with her, which Asuka agreed to, as she was too young to understand what her mother asked of her and believed it was the only way she could convince Kyoko to be her mother again. After being selected as an Evangelion pilot at a very young age, an overjoyed Asuka rushed to tell her mother, only to be devastated on finding that her mother had committed suicide, having hanged the doll in Asuka's place. At Kyoko's funeral, Asuka refused to cry, declaring she would have to look out for herself now. Following Kyoko's death, her father married his mistress. Asuka's new stepmother initially tried to bond with Asuka, but she ended up being discouraged as she found the young girl's overly serious disposition for her age and coldness towards her to be somewhat disturbing, and the two have kept each other at a mutual distance ever since. Her mother's death and her father's infidelity and remarriage have left deep scars on Asuka's psyche.
Asuka Langley Soryu traveled from Germany to Japan aboard a massive United Nations naval escort fleet, accompanied by her newly constructed biomechanical weapon, Evangelion Unit-02, and her guardian, Ryoji Kaji. Having graduated from college at a young age due to her staggering cognitive metrics, she looked forward to her formal deployment as the designated Second Child for the paramilitary organization NERV. Her maritime transit was violently disrupted when a colossal, aquatic extraterrestrial entity known as the Sixth Angel, Gaghiel, launched an unprovoked undersea assault to intercept the fleet. The monster systematically decimated the naval perimeter, dragging Unit-02 into the deep ocean currents. Asuka Langley Soryu immediately took command of the tactical situation, forcing the newly arrived Third Child, Shinji Ikari, to step into the dual-pilot cockpit alongside her to maximize their neural synchronization. While submerged underwater without standard ranged armaments, she utilized her elite combat piloting skills to systematically maneuver against the monster's high-velocity kinetic strikes. She held the Angel's jaws open while the naval fleet executed a desperate, synchronized point-blank torpedo strike down the entity's throat, completely incinerating the threat and securing her formal introduction to the Japanese defense force.
Overview
Personality and attributes
In appearance, Asuka Langley Soryu was a human female of mixed German, Japanese, and American descent with a slender, highly athletic build and fair skin. She possessed long, vibrant copper-red hair that fell past her shoulder blades, which she wore meticulously styled with two symmetrical, high-tech interface headsets known as A10 Nerve Clips pinned to her hair, paired with prominent large blue eyes and a fierce, highly expressive facial demeanor. Her civilian wardrobe reflected contemporary mid-1990s youth fashion, consisting of a simple, bright yellow summer dress with shoulder straps, paired with a thin black choker around her neck. Upon transitioning into her tactical operations role, her specialized uniform shifted into her form-fitting red Plugsuit, a high-grade technical bodysuit engineered with black and orange panels designed to optimize her biomechanical connection to her weapon. The suit featured long sleeves, a high protective collar, and a integrated structural interface panel centered over her spine. Her footwear consisted of integrated, flat-soled armor boots suitable for rapid cockpit athletics, maintaining a highly polished, stylized, and distinctively combative presentation.
Her mother, Kyoko Zeppelin Sohryu, was a scientist at Gehirn's German branch of the Evangelion Project. When Asuka was four years old, Kyoko participated in a contact experiment with Unit-02, similar to the experiment performed by Yui Ikari with Unit-01. She survived the test but became insane, believing that Asuka's doll was her daughter and refusing to acknowledge the real Asuka, referring to her as "that girl over there." She eventually commits suicide by hanging herself; Asuka found her body when she went to tell Kyoko the good news that she had been chosen to become an Eva pilot.
Powers and abilities
She was 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.
Notes
- Asuka Langley Soryu was created by Gainax, Hideaki Anno and Yoshiyuki Sadamoto where she featured in the setting of Neon Genesis Evangelion.
- 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 other media
Television
Films
Video games
Appearances
- Neon Genesis Evangelion:
External Links
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