is a fictional character from the Neon Genesis Evangelion media franchise, created by animation studio Gainax. In the eponymous anime television series, Misato is head of the operations department of the special agency Nerv, and is in charge of directing and devising war strategies needed to defeat mysterious beings named Angels. Due to childhood emotional traumas, she developed a frivolous, exuberant character and a disordered lifestyle. The character also appears in the franchise's animated feature films and related media, including video games, the original net animation Petit Eva: Evangelion@School, the Rebuild of Evangelion films, and the manga adaptation by Yoshiyuki Sadamoto.
For the creation of the character, Neon Genesis Evangelion director Hideaki Anno took inspiration from his personality. Misato is also inspired by several real-life figures and other anime characters, including Usagi Tsukino from Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon. Critics have drawn parallels between Misato's characterization and concepts of philosophers and psychologists such as Carl Gustav Jung, Arthur Schopenhauer, and Søren Kierkegaard; Misato's feelings for her father have been linked to Jung's Electra complex, her personal philosophy to Schopenhauer's hedgehog dilemma, and her psychology to Kierkegaard's concept of existential despair as presented in The Sickness unto Death.
Misato has been widely popular with audiences and has appeared at the top of popularity polls. Some critics have contrasted her histrionic personality and sexual overtones with her 14-year-old subordinate and Evangelion protagonist Shinji Ikari; others have appreciated her spontaneity, tenacity, and endearment. She has also inspired merchandise and other subsequent anime characters.
Conception
The franchise's creator Hideaki Anno initially proposed to include a female protagonist in Neon Genesis Evangelion, a young woman similar to Asuka Langley Soryu accompanied by a female soldier in a "big sister" role similar to Kōichirō Ōta's character from Anno's previous work GunBuster. At the request of Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, the series' character designer, the initial scenario was changed and Shinji Ikari, a male character, became the protagonist; ideas for the "older sister" character went into what would become Misato. As with other Neon Genesis Evangelion characters, the character's name was inspired by a Japanese Imperial Navy ship, the aircraft carrier Katsuragi, and Misato Izumi, a female character from Minako Narita's manga Aitsu. To outline her personality, Anno took inspiration from Usagi Tsukino, the 14-year-old protagonist of the series Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, thinking of Misato as an adult version of Usagi. Sadamoto also drew Misato taking his cue from Usagi's character design and picking up her hair.From the interview contained in Genesis 0:0 as part of the Evangelion Renewal edition bonus extras. The characters' aesthetic similarities were emphasized by the choice of Kotono Mitsuishi, the original performer of Usagi, as Misato's voice actress.
For her facial features, the staff took inspiration from Fujiko Mine from the anime Lupin III and Japanese writer Aya Sugimoto. Sadamoto tried to give Misato a "girl next door" role; she was originally thought of as a fashion-conscious woman who constantly changes her clothing and is apparently unsuited to military life; she was also conceived as emotional, stubborn and frivolous, and able, if forced by events, to sleep with all of the men at Nerv.Interview with Yoshiyuki Sadamoto in The artist, inspired by the clothes worn by racers, decided to portray her with motorcyclist dresses. As a motoring enthusiast, he also poured his passion into the character, depicting her as an admirer of sports cars. It was his idea to equip her with a modified Renault Alpine A310, which Ikuto Yamashita designed, as a nod to the first episode of Lupin III, in which a Renault Alpine A110 appears. In the seventh episode, it was decided to have Misato drive a red Ferrari 328 GTS, while in the Rebuild of Evangelion series she drives a Mazda Cosmo Sport 110.
During the production of the series, Anno read romance novels written by women so he could better understand their feelings and make Misato's characterization more realistic. He also relied on his personality, as well as with all characters in the series. The staff also relied on Anno to create the room and the character's handwriting. Anno himself stated during the production of the series: "I don't know what will happen to Shinji, Misato or Rei. I don't know where life will take them. Because I don't know where life is taking the staff of the production." In some proposals put forward by animator and screenwriter Mitsuo Iso, Misato and Ritsuko would have become pregnant as part of a plan to address the severe birthrate decline in the Evangelion world following Second Impact. In the finale, Misato, in Gendo's absence, would have attempted to rebuild Nerv during a difficult time. Together with Shinji, she would have deciphered the final code of Arqa, an ancient ruin located deep within Nerv's headquarters, and then escaped with Shinji.
Several character-centered fan service scenes were added in the early episodes, particularly exploiting the "Gainax bounce", a jerking of the female characters' breasts which had been used in Daicon IV and other previous Gainax works. At the end of almost all post-credit previews of the episodes, the authors also inserted Misato's voice shouting "Service, service!" or equivalent expressions, promising more fan service to the otaku audience. This was removed from the second half of the series, which has more adult and violent content than the first half. In the same episodes, Anno included some sex scenes, breaking a taboo in Japanese television, although Evangelion was broadcast on TV Tokyo in a protected time slot, with the idea of wanting to show the audience, and more particularly children, that sex and violence are an integral part of human life. In the twentieth episode, "Weaving a Story 2: oral stage", Anno introduced an implied sequence with a long off-screen shot of Misato uttering verses of pleasure and arguing while having sex with her lover, Ryōji Kaji. The character's words were left up to Mitsuishi's sensibilities; the script had only Anno's direction that read, "Mitsuishi, I look forward to working with you". For the series finale, he decided instead to have Misato die in an armed confrontation and inserted a scene in which her bloody corpse is glimpsed for a few seconds; due to time constraints, the main plot of the series was abandoned, and the episode script was quickly rewritten. The corpse scene was revived in 1997 for the film Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion, a remake of the classic series finale. Anno, while facing criticism, defended himself by saying he wanted to show younger viewers that the world contains frightening realities, arguing that contemporary society and television tend to shield children from them. He argued that children's programs should contain a certain amount of "poison", enabling young viewers to become "immune" to the hardships of life. He also contrasted this with his own childhood, recalling that he grew up surrounded by reminders of death and by adults marked by the experience of war.
Voice actors
In Japanese dubbing, Misato is played by Japanese voice actress Kotono Mitsuishi. Like other Neon Genesis Evangelion voice actors, Hideaki Anno chose Mitsuishi because of her Misato-like personality during a dinner. To draw parallels between them, the writers decided to match the birthdays and blood types of the character and her voice actress. Mitsuishi found the role both pleasing and difficult, because Misato cannot easily talk about her feelings. According to Mitsuishi, "During scenes where her feelings exploded or she poured out her heart, I also became a bit over-emotional ... My hands shook and it took all my might to keep the script I was holding from rustling and making noise". She cried while reading the script of the penultimate episode. For the character's last scene in The End of Evangelion, in which Misato says goodbye to Shinji by leading him into an elevator, Mitsuishi received approval as early as the first cut.
Mitsuishi reprised the role for the video game Neon Genesis Evangelion: Girlfriend of Steel 2nd and the film tetralogy Rebuild of Evangelion, produced ten years after the conclusion of the classic series. During the recording of the first chapter Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone (2007), Mitsuishi was asked to strain her voice to sound younger due to the time elapsed between the works. For the third chapter in the saga Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo (2012), which is set fourteen years after the first, Hideaki Anno asked her to act naturally and to be as cold as possible. Working on You Can (Not) Redo, Mitsuishi asked the production what had happened to Misato, but no one gave her an explanation; she assumed something terrible had happened to the character and read her own lines as though everything was Shinji's fault. In the concluding chapter of the saga Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time (2021), Anno used theatrical techniques to ensure even in Misato's case the camera did not point at her face in particularly heavy scenes so Mituishi's interpretation would not be affected by her lip-reading. As Mitsuishi prepared for the character's last scene, she cried so much at the sight of the script she could not continue.
In the English adaptation of the series and Rebuild of Evangelion she is voiced by Allison Keith, while for the international Netflix release of the series she is dubbed by Carrie Keranen.
Appearances Neon Genesis Evangelion At the beginning of the anime, Misato is the Captain of the Tactical Operations Department of the special agency Nerv. Under her command, most of the important decisions in the battles between the Evangelion mechas and the enemies known as Angels are made, and she takes responsibility for the outcomes. Her past is explored in the twelfth and twenty-first episodes of the series. At the age of thirteen, Misato followed her father Dr. Katsuragi on a scientific research expedition to the South Pole. On September 13, 2000, a natural disaster known as Second Impact occurs in Antarctica; all members of the expedition, including Dr. Katsuragi, die in the accident. Misato, the only survivor, is rescued by her parent in an escape pod. Shortly before his death, her father gives her a pendant in the shape of a Greek cross. The event causes Misato emotional trauma, which causes her to fall into a state of psychogenic aphasia. To prevent an information leak on the Second Impact, she is detained in a research ship for at least two years.
Five years after the catastrophe, Misato heals and enrolls in the university in the city of Tokyo-2, where she meets the student Ritsuko Akagi. In the same period, she meets Ryoji Kaji, with whom she forms a romantic relationship that lasts two years. In 2009, after finishing her university studies, Misato joins the German division of a research center called Gehirn and meets Asuka Langley Soryu, a pilot assigned to command the Eva-02. She is later transferred to the Nerv special agency and returns to Japan, where she is promoted to the rank of Captain. In 2015, she picks up Shinji Ikari, a pilot assigned to command the Eva-01, escorting him to the Nerv headquarters in the city of Tokyo-3 in the first episode, "Angel Attack". After a short time, the woman becomes his legal guardian, hosting him in her apartment with her pet penguin Pen-Pen.