After being forced to share the stage with that idiot Shinji during both her grand debut and her first official mission, Asuka Langley Soryu at last enjoys the full spotlight in Neon Genesis Evangelion’s tenth episode. No collaborating with wimpy boys, no interference from that creepy Rei Ayanami, no one at all to stop Asuka from demonstrating her brilliance as the greatest of Eva pilots, a hero with the talent, beauty, and courage necessary to inspire humanity’s future. Stand back and secure those dropped jaws, folks. Asuka has arrived.
Asuka asserts her dominance from the very first moments of this episode, as we open on her dragging Kaji around for a shopping trip. Preparing for a school trip to Okinawa, Asuka immediately tries to prove her beauty and maturity through showing off the racy swimming suits she’s planning on wearing. Of course, for his part, Kaji doesn’t really do anything to support Asuka’s argument; he hangs back with a half-mocking smile, and lightly remarks “aren’t you a little young for that?”
As we saw in Evangelion’s previous episode, Asuka is ferociously eager to prove her maturity, and constantly frames the world and people around her in terms of “childish” versus “mature.” But as both her arguments with Shinji and infatuation with Kaji demonstrate, her understanding of these concepts is still incredibly simplistic. Asuka is fourteen years old; she can’t actually relate to anything about Kaji’s life, and as their discussions of school trips indicate, even their frame of reference for adolescence puts them in entirely different generations. But Asuka doesn’t really care about that; to her, Kaji represents “mature, confident masculinity,” and impressing a figure like that is exactly the kind of validation she seeks.
As the two discuss Asuka’s trip, the camera hangs high overhead, emphasizing both the distance between them, as well as the fact that they sit at the only occupied table. Ever since the first episode, Tokyo-3’s population has dwindled, as the common people have come to understand the consequences of living in a city under Angel attack. Just as Asuka must play-act maturity, so must she play-act conventional civilian life; in spite of being the hope of all humanity, Asuka and Shinji actually have very little frame of reference for what humanity is actually like. Small wonder that they place so much stock in proving themselves through their work, and impressing the people they’ve defined as both superiors and surrogate parents.
Back at home, Misato breaks the news: Eva pilots are to remain on standby, and Okinawa trips are out of the question. Shinji responds to this with his usual complacence, which prompts Asuka to once again rant about his lack of masculinity, as Misato and Shinji maintain pleasant, uninterested smiles. While Shinji’s life at Misato’s apartment came across as pretty sad when he was the only pilot here, Asuka’s introduction has actually made Shinji himself into a funnier and more relatable character; Asuka sets up a pitch with her prideful, juvenile energy, and Shinji drops the bat, countering her by capitulating immediately.
Misato justifies her choice by briefly assuming the role of a concerned parent, using the two pilots’ egregious test scores against them. And Asuka’s response speaks to the heart of her personality, as she counters with “who cares about grades? I’ve got no interest in their old-fashioned grading system.” Though many aspects of her personality are founded in experiences unique to her, Asuka on the whole comes across as a very common kind of competent, self-assured teenager. Asuka is the teen who’s already got it all figured out – she learned very young that adults aren’t necessarily any more mature than children, and she’s extrapolated from that revelation to assume she already knows all the things she needs to know, and can easily figure out anything she hasn’t by herself.
This fantasy of the self-reliant individual is an incredibly popular one (it’s essentially the foundational myth of modern conservatism), but it’s still a fantasy. No human being is an island, none of us have all the answers, and all of us must at some points embrace ignorance and humility in order to learn from others and grow. But the unsustainability of this belief doesn’t change its importance for Asuka; it is her extreme pride and self-assurance that actually fuels her strength, as that pride always pushes her to prove she’s actually as impressive as she believes. It’s a quality Misato already abused last episode, when she introduced Rei as a rival in order to give Asuka the motivation to excel.
Asuka’s power stance is proven incapable of yanking their classmates’ plane out of the sky, and thus the pilots commiserate by enjoying some time at the pool. Opening with a shot once again aligning Rei with the (false) moon, we soon find Shinji is studying just like he was told to, while Asuka shows off her bikini. As in episode nine, Asuka’s flirting is as aggressive as it is unreciprocated; she leans deeply over Shinji’s table, showing off her figure as she brags about how smart she is. Asuka wants someone willing to push back against her, but Shinji is just not that person; even when she somehow turns the topic of thermal expansion into an assessment of her own boobs, all he can respond with is “I wouldn’t know about that.” Temporarily thwarted, she ends the scene on one more demanding “look at me!”, as Shinji stews in horny discomfort.
Asuka at last gets a chance to truly shine when she’s selected as the sole pilot for their next mission, after NERV discover an embryonic angel growing inside a nearby volcano. The nature of this mission offers cryptic hints regarding a variety of mysteries – the Angel’s location seems to imply that these creatures are born of the earth itself, whereas SEELE’s insistence on a live sample points to further machinations behind NERV’s objectives, and Kaji’s surreptitious behavior implies he may be working against NERV altogether. But Asuka doesn’t care about any of that; her biggest concern is that the thermal plugsuit makes her look like a balloon, and Unit 02 looks stupid in its diving apparatus. But just like in episode nine, Asuka straightens out the moment Rei volunteers; her pride couldn’t possibly allow that cold, distant girl to pilot her own Eva to glory.
After essentially being made a fool of by the base variables of the mission itself, and once again demonstrating how badly she feels she must beat Rei, there’s almost a quiet sadness in Asuka’s final “look at me, Shinji!” as she descends below the magma. Even in a position where she could very easily die, and where failure means everyone she knows is likely doomed as well, she can’t help but return to that proud “look at me, look at me!” Asuka’s profound need to be noticed and appreciated won’t be fully explained for many episodes, but even in this goofy early material, it still guides her actions.
This offhand illustration of trauma’s influence, offered without context and years apart from its formative incident, reflects another of Evangelion’s key strengths and emotional insights. Psychological trauma isn’t just a single event, a self-contained incident to reflect back on; when we experience trauma, that trauma becomes a living fact of our personalities, and can even guide our fundamental perception of how to interact with others. Our scars don’t exist apart from us, or remain isolated within one aspect of our selfhood – when we are deeply cracked, those cracks spiral outwards, influencing every facet of our personality in a myriad of subtle ways.
For Misato, that trauma isn’t a weakness – it is a resource. Her cold command emphasizes how she must ultimately view her charges, even as she play-acts as their concerned mother. Descending to a depth below the safe range of their shielding apparatus, Misato urges Asuka to keep sinking, and Asuka’s pride makes her comply without a question. Asuka’s pride is likely why Misato chose her for this mission; both because she knew Asuka would be honor-bound to see it through, and because ultimately, Asuka’s uneven temperament means that if she dies, Misato still has two more useful pilots in reserve. Asuka has found pride and self-assurance in her mastery of the Evangelion, but to the people who control her, she is no more than a fickle tool.
But while Misato’s concern for Asuka can’t really be trusted, Shinji is at least sincere. After Misato defeats the young Angel by applying the mechanics of thermal expansion (stay in school, kids!), she is rescued from certain death by Shinji, who actually plunges the unshielded Unit 01 into magma to save her. Asuka and Shinji are both deeply fractured children who deserve far more understanding caretakers, people who are willing to engage with and respect their trauma, and not simply use it to manipulate them. But even if they are both broken, they at least can share an earnest concern for each other; two hedgehogs, holding close together in a profoundly unkind world.
And in Misato’s case, she might not actually be as mature as she seems, anyway. After the battle, our heroes head off to a hot spring to recuperate, where Asuka notices a long scar across Misato’s chest. Misato admits she received this scar during the second impact, and further acknowledges that she knows all about Asuka’s own dark history. Reflecting on both their pasts, Misato articulates the great and tragic lie that unites them: “it’s ancient history for both of us. We shouldn’t let it bother us.” It’s a comforting lie that goes against everything this episode has revealed about Asuka, and everything we’ll come to learn about Misato in turn. Just as the scars of the Second Impact must not be forgotten, so too must these heroes come to term with their painful histories. Either we acknowledge and come to terms with our trauma, or we live in service to it, assuring ourselves the past is only history.
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