Misato Katsuragi

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Misato Katsuragi
Misato Katsuragi
葛城 ミサト
Rank / Title Captain (01~11), Major (12+)
Affiliation(s) Nerv (formerly Gehirn)
National Heritage Japanese
Relations Dr. Katsuragi (father),
Ryoji Kaji (lover), Pen Pen (pet)
Age 29
Birthday 12/08/1986
Seiyū Kotono Mitsuishi
Voice Actor (English): Allison Keith, Carrie Keranen (Netflix)
(Italian): Stella Musy (series), Francesca Guadagno (movies)
(Brazilian): Vanessa Alves
(French): Laurence Bréheret
(Latin Spanish): Toni Rodríguez
(German): Julia Kaufmann , Gundi Eberhard (Rebuild) , Anna Amalie Blomeyer (Netflix)

Misato Katsuragi[1] (葛城ミサト) is a Captain, and later a Major, at Nerv. She is in command of Nerv HQ's Tactical Operations branch, responsible for coordinating the Evangelions in actual combat (as opposed to the Science Division, headed by Misato's longtime friend Dr. Ritsuko Akagi). She is the daughter of Dr. Katsuragi, and the sole survivor of his expedition, otherwise wiped out as a result of Second Impact. As an adult, Misato is transferred to Tokyo-3 shortly before the Angels reappear. She takes Shinji Ikari, and later Asuka Langley Soryu, into her home. She also seems to have worked directly with Asuka in Germany[2]. She has a pet "hot springs penguin" named Pen Pen.


First week in Tokyo 3

Misato's first appearance comes in Episode 01 , when she comes to pick up Shinji in the car right in the middle of the attack of Sachiel, the first angel. She gets him out of danger in her car driving as fast as she can to safety. After they introduce themselves to each other and arrive in the Nerv facility, Misato tells Shinji she arrived here recently once they get lost. After being found by Ritsuko Akagi, she guides both Misato and Shinji the cage of Unit 01, where Gendo is waiting for Shinji. After Shinji refuses to pilot, Misato tries to support him and give him advice, but that doesn't do much for changing Shinji's decision.

Eventually, Shinji agrees to pilot. After being discharged from the hospital due to injuries sustained, Shinji is told about the set-up to live with his father. With Misato already aware of the complicated relationship the two have, she decides to have Shinji live in her apartment as her surrogate mom.


Misato in the Proposal. Note the lipstick and the shoulders of the uniform.

Misato is described by Hideaki Anno as someone who "lives life so lightly as to barely allow the possibility of a human touch. She protects herself by having surface level relationships, and running away"[3] Misato has certainly shown fear to commitment, responsibility, and emotional disclosure throughout the series, specifically the psychological arc.

In another interview, Anno also described Misato as an older Tsukino Usagi/Sailor Moon (whose hair is similar)[4].

In the series, our first time seeing Misato, she appears to have two sides to her personality: at work she is a tough, competent Tactical Operations director, and at home she is a goofy, uninhibited person who likes to wear skimpy clothing and knocking back beer after beer[5] in her messy apartment.

However, overtime, the hidden Misato is revealed to be a deeply troubled woman, with multiple unresolved family and social issues. Part of this is due to trauma from being on the site of Second Impact, but it has as much to do with her family life, particularly her conflicting emotions towards her father.

Despite being the head of Nerv's Tactical Operations division, Misato is apparently a relatively new arrival at Nerv HQ, as she gets lost on her way into the base, prompting Ritsuko to comment that she's "lost again". In the next episode, Misato says that she just moved to Tokyo-3 "the other day" and there are still many unopened boxes in her apartment.

Misato's Relationships

With her Father

Young Misato being kept under observation following Second Impact

According to her, Misato’s father was very much like Gendo Ikari[6] in that he buried himself in work and shrank from human contact, but also like Shinji in that he was described as fragile and weak. Misato thought she hated her father, but then he saved her life during the Second Impact by placing her in an escape pod. With Dr. Katsuragi dead and no chance to explore what she saw as a sudden turn in their relationship, Misato was left both extremely ambivalent about her feelings for him and with a burning desire for revenge against the Angels. In Episode 12, Ritsuko even accuses her of putting her vengeance ahead of the fate of the world by concocting a mission that had virtually no chance of success.

With Kaji

When she met Ryoji Kaji in college, Misato was at first happy with him, but later dumped him by telling him she loved another person. Later on in the series (episode 15) she admits to him that this was a lie, and that actually she found that Kaji reminded her too much of her father, and fearing the implications of this, Misato fled from him.[7] It is also implied in Episode 25 that Misato was in some way afraid of the pleasure she felt with Kaji, because (among other reasons) she did not feel she deserved it.

In Episode 25, Misato also says that though she first wanted to be a "good child" for the sake of her mother, she grew sick of that, and wanted to stain herself and her reputation. She is asked if that’s why she slept with "that man" (presumably Kaji), but is unable to sort out her feelings. The other characters in Instrumentality call her disgusting, and Misato has also said that of herself, admitting using sex as an escape from reality and loneliness.

Despite the intimate nature of their relationship, Miasto and Kaji address each other rather formally, using their family names, Katsuragi and Kaji, rather than their personal names, Misato and Ryoji.[8]

After Kaji's death, Misato switches from drinking beer to apparently equal amounts of canned coffee.

With Shinji

"Pay Attention!"

Misato's relationship with Shinji is a very multilayered one, with certain aspects of it being the subject of strong controversy.

Misato's first action regarding Shinji sending him a photograph of herself to let him know what she looked like when she picked him up: A humorously inappropriate (and revealing) photo of her wearing cutoff jeans and leaning forward in a tank top, winking at Shinji and giving him the V-sign (She also left a lipstick kiss on it). The Japanese writing on it translates as "To Shinji: I'll be picking you up, so wait for me, okay?" (apparently written in creator Hideaki Anno's own handwriting). Misato also punctuated the photo with the highly inappropriate message, "Pay attention!!" with an arrow pointing to her breasts. This could be an early indication of Misato's unusual personality even before she appears on screen.

As the series progresses, Misato's role and relationship with Shinji grows up to be more than just a legal guardian and proceeds to be a rather complex one, although mainly of a family type of bond.

With Ritsuko

In college, Misato was really close to Ritsuko, the daughter of scientist Naoko Akagi of Gehrin. After recovering from her trauma from witnessing the Second Impact, Misato has put on her bubbly persona.

Over time, they become co-workers at Nerv, and a friendship grows. However, once Misato starts digging around the secrets of Nerv, Ritsuko starts becoming more hostile and cold. When suggesting to destroy Leliel by firing missiles at its body without minding that Shinji is still trapped inside the angel, Misato gives her a hard slap across the face.

The two grow more and more apart as Ritsuko refuses to tell classified info to a frustrated Misato. It comes at a climax when Ritsuko shows her and Shinji the tank of Rei clones. As the clones break apart at the control of Ritsuko, she starts to break down and weep about how she was such a fool, wishing for Misato to kill her. Misato doesn't, only replying that she really was a fool her entire life.

In Rebuild of Evangelion

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Misato Katsuragi (Rebuild)
Misato Katsuragi

Misato Katsuragi in 3.0

Misato Katsuragi in 3.0
葛城 ミサト
Rank / Title Lieutenant Colonel (1.0), Colonel (2.0)
Captain(of the AAA Wunder) (3.0)
Affiliation(s) Nerv
Wille (3.0)
National Heritage Japanese
Relations Dr. Katsuragi (father),
Pen Pen (pet)
Age 29
43 (3.0)
Birthday 12/08/1986
Seiyū Kotono Mitsuishi
Voice Actor (English): Allison Keith
(Italian): Francesca Guadagno
(Brazilian): Vanessa Alves
(French): Laurence Bréheret
(Spanish): Toni Rodríguez
(German): Julia Kaufmann

Unlike her series counterpart, Misato knows that the giant in Terminal Dogma is Lilith, and even identifies it as such to Shinji.

Misato's rank in Evangelion 1.0 is "Lieutenant Colonel" while in Evangelion 2.0, she is promoted off-screen to "Colonel". This places her higher in Nerv's hierarchy (However, any officers outranking her, apart from Gendo and Fuyutsuki, are yet to appear). In Evangelion 3.0, Misato is the naval Captain of Wille's airborne flagship, the AAA Wunder. She wears her hair in a knot and speaks in a far sterner tone of voice, but otherwise appears to have aged little over the 14-year timeskip.

Misato in Other Media

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In the Manga


  • Misato's ID card is fully visible in episode 25. Her age is listed as 29. Her blood type is AO (both the genotype "AA" and "AO" are indistinguishable as the "type A" phenotype). Her height is listed as 1.63m (5'4"). Her bust is 83cm (32.7 inches). Her waist, 59cm (23.2 inches). Her hip measurement is listed as 82cm (32.2 inches). Her weight is 47kg ( 103.4 pounds).
  • According to Sadamoto, Misato is a car buff[Source needed], and her apartment is littered with several car magazines; Gainax character designer and animator Yoshiyuki Sadamoto is himself a car enthusiast. Misato's Car is Renault Alpine A310, and in the new Evangelion movies, she eventually drives a Mazda Cosmo.
  • She has a faint scar running diagonally under her right breast. This scar was a result of an injury inflicted (presumably by flying shrapnel) while Misato was taken by her father to safety minutes before Second Impact.


It is unknown why Misato was in Antarctica for Second Impact. One doesn't normally take one's daughter along on a classified and highly dangerous mission. Thus it has been speculated that perhaps she was intended to have some part in the experiment, especially as she is, at this time, approximately the same age as the pilots will be fifteen years later. However, there is no evidence presented in the show to support this theory. Also, Yui seemingly had no trouble bringing Shinji along for her Contact Experiment[9], so perhaps like her, Dr. Katsuragi wanted to show his child the "bright future".


  1. Misato is named after the Aircraft Carrier Katsuragi, which was built too late to enter World War II and scrapped before construction was complete. As in the case of Maya Ibuki, her name in Kanji is identical to that of the warship and the mountain it was named after. For more on how Misato and the other characters were named see Character Name Origins.
  2. in Episode 22 Asuka comments, "Oh, Misato's the person who was in Germany before you, Mr. Kaji."
  3. Hideaki Anno: What were we trying to make here?
  4. http://lists.onegeek.org/pipermail/oldeva/1997-November/002387.html
  5. The brand of beer that is Misato drinks is "Yebisu" which is actually a real-life brand of beer in Japan. When the series was originally broadcast in Japan, the TV network the series was airing on complained that they didn't want to advertise for Yebisu for free like this, so by Episode 2 the name was changed to the fictional "Yebichu" (named as a direct homage to the manga series, "Oruchuban (Ebichu)"). However, when the series was released on video and DVD the name "Yebisu" was restored.
  6. When Shinji says he doesn't get along with his father, Misato says he sounds just like her.
  7. The Kaji seen in the series doesn’t seem to relate to Misato’s descriptions of her father, a weak workaholic; perhaps this is an unseen side of Kaji.
  8. Misato only calls Kaji by his given name once, when she catches him sneaking into the LCL Production Plant, and, even then, only because she is addressing him formally by his full name and title.
  9. Episode 21

Main characters: Shinji Ikari | Rei Ayanami | Asuka Langley Soryu
Nerv staff: Misato Katsuragi | Gendo Ikari | Ritsuko Akagi | Kozo Fuyutsuki | Ryoji Kaji | Maya Ibuki | Makoto Hyuga | Shigeru Aoba
Classmates: Toji Suzuhara | Kensuke Aida | Hikari Horaki
Other characters: Kaworu Nagisa | Yui Ikari | Naoko Akagi | Kyoko Zeppelin Soryu | Dr. Katsuragi | Keel Lorenz | Pen Pen
Rebuild of Evangelion: Asuka Shikinami Langley | Mari Makinami Illustrious | Sakura Suzuhara
Miscellaneous: Minor Characters | Minor Characters (Rebuild) | Extracanonical Characters
Theory and Analysis: Name Origins (Warships) | Designs | Relationships | Profiles
Resources: 2015: The Last Year of Ryohji Kaji