Glossaries _ Characters _ Asuka Langley Sohryu

Name: Asuka Langley Soryu
Designation: Second Child, Pilot of Eva Unit 02
Age: 14
Relations: Kyoko Soryu Zepplin (Mother)
Episodes: 8-26

Japanese Voice: Yuko Miyamura
English Voice: Tiffany Grant

About Asuka: Asuka is perhaps the most deeply scarred of the characters in Evangelion, without a doubt the most scarred of the children.  Of all the characters, the circumstances that led to her being the way she is are the most clearly defined, making her easier to relate to than most of the other characters.

For the better part of the series we are unable to grasp why she is the way she is.   We simply assume she's a narcissistic bitch who really needs to be put in her place.  She is only introduced after the other children are fleshed out, making her new, unfamiliar, without her being fleshed out in a way that defins her motives and behavior.  In fact, her backstory doesn't get revealed till episode 22, which is getting quite close to the end.  We get an idea about her character, that she defines herself and determines her self worth through her accomplisments and prowess as an Eva pilot.

Once we get inside her mind, we feel a bit like Touji.  We complained about and laughed at her until we saw what it was like to be her, then... we stopped.  We stopped short, much in the same way as when Asuka saw her mother dangling from the ceiling.  It is the kind of traumatic moment that would scar just about anyone for life.

I sympathize with Asuka greatly.  She is a product of her upbringing, something she would gladly change should she be given the chance.  I imagine she wouldn't find anything wrong with herself psychologically.  When you come from the kind of childhood Asuka has had, and you look at it in retrospect, simply not being depressed would be an accomplishment.  But in my opinion, I think Asuka is one of the most depressed characters in the series.

She's gone through a lot.  And she isn't bothered by any of it, because she represses it, just in the way she represses her own depression.  Her encounter with Arael alters her perception, just in the way that Shinji and Rei are altered by their encounters with Leliel and Armisael, respectively.  What could have served to further her emotional growth sets her back.  She re-experiences some of the tragic pitfalls of her life, but instead of confronting, she represses, causing her self to fail, and fall into depression and later, a comatose state.  Despite her strong exterior, beneath she is weak, emotionally.  She never learned to deal with her own problems, she simply hid them away from herself, till one day, they all came back, too much to handle.

She is partially the product of her upbringing, and partially the product of her own devices, she made her own choices in life, and some of them were to be as strong as she could, as good as she could, as smart as she could.  But all that time she spent refining the wrong parts of herself, she never developed emotionally, never matured.   She was in many ways at odds with the word, convinced that the world was at odds with her, and that it was not her that needed to change.

Her paranoia, her narcissism, her biting personality, make us hate her at first, but later we get to know her, get to know her pain.  She went through more emotional trauma in her life than I would care to, and if I were in here position, I could not say that I would have turned out any differently, and doubt anyone else could claim otherwise.   For Asuka, life is existing to be better, and feeling inadequate, something we can only begin to comprehend, and hope that we never have to experience.

Relevent Resources:
Miyamura, Yuko - A Place For Asuka In The Heart
Grant, Tiffany - In Defense of Asuka