Character Databook
Pronounced "AHS-kah." The designated pilot of Evangelion Unit-02, and the pride of NERV's German branch.
- Name
- Asuka Langley Soryu (惣流・アスカ・ラングレー)
- Age
- 14
- Height
- 157 cm
- Date of Birth
- December 4, 2001
- Blood Type
- O
- Gender
- Female
- Nationality
- American citizen (3/4 German, 1/4 Japanese)
- Education
- College graduate (Germany)
- Position
- Designated pilot of EVA Unit-02 — the Second Child
- First Appearance
- Episode #8 "Asuka Strikes!"
The Second Child
Asuka was identified as a pilot candidate around age 7 and trained at NERV's 3rd Branch in Germany, where she spent years drilling with Unit-02 — the red Eva she flatly considers hers and hers alone. By the time she transferred to Japan aboard the UN fleet, she was already a veteran in everything but actual battle.
That changed at 14, in Episode #8, when the Sixth Angel Gaghiel attacked the fleet mid-ocean. Asuka's first real combat took place over — and then under — the sea: Unit-02, packed in its shipping crates and still wearing its B-type equipment, fought the first underwater engagement in Evangelion history. She won, of course. She made sure everyone knew it.
Interesting Info
She is a genuine genius — a college graduate at fourteen — yet she still gets bad grades at school in Japan. The reason is almost comically mundane: she speaks Japanese fluently but can't read or write kanji well, so the tests might as well be written in code.
She held the highest synchronization ratio of all the Children until Episode #16, when Shinji quietly surpassed her in the harmonics tests. For someone whose entire identity is built on being the best pilot, that single result was the first crack in the armor — the beginning of her long downfall.
Raised between cultures, she peppers her speech with German phrases — Dummkopf! ("idiot!"), Schwein! ("pig!") — usually delivered at full volume and aimed at Shinji. The joke, of course, is that her German is actually rather broken and awkward despite being her "native" language.
Personality
On the surface: confident, aggressive, egotistical, and utterly unapologetic about it. Asuka doesn't enter rooms so much as conquer them. Within days of transferring schools she was instantly the most popular girl in class — the red-haired, half-German pilot of the red Eva is not a hard sell to fourteen-year-olds.
Beneath that, though, her self-worth is tied entirely to performance. Praise is oxygen; failure is annihilation. Winning with her Eva is not something she does — it is the only proof she accepts that she deserves to exist. "When I didn't win with my Eva, I lost whatever value I might have had." The arrogance and the fragility are the same thing, seen from two sides.
What's in a Name
Every part of her name is a little piece of history. Soryu comes from the WWII Japanese aircraft carrier Sōryū, while Langley tips the hat to the American carrier USS Langley — two navies, one girl. "Asuka" itself was borrowed from Saki Asuka, heroine of Shinji Wada's manga Chōshōjo Asuka — and her mother Kyoko is named after another character from the same manga, Aoi Kyōko. There's even a hidden calendar in the kanji: in Japanese, asu means "tomorrow" and kyō means "today." Mother and daughter, today and tomorrow.
Why is she like this? The answer is in her past — her mother Kyoko, the accident, and the day she was chosen as the Second Child. Continue to her story.