Shinji Ikari

Shinji Ikari is the main protagonist from the Neon Genesis Evangelion franchise.

Shinji is known as the Third Child and the designated pilot of Evangelion Unit-01. He is the son of "deceased" Gehirn bioengineer Yui Ikari and NERVCommander (formerly Chief of Gehirn) Gendo Ikari. After his mother's death, he was abandoned by his father and lived for 11 years with his sensei, until he was summoned to Tokyo-3 to pilot Unit-01 against the Angels. He lives initially just with Misato Katsuragi; they are later joined by Asuka Langley Soryu.

In the AWA fics, Shinji is a student at the AWA Academy. Shinji is also part of the AWA Rookie 20 and is ranked # 11.

Appearance
Shinji has medium-length straight brown hair and grey-blue eyes, two traits he inherited from his mother, Yui. Shinji is also very skinny, and often has his shirt tucked in, showing that he is a rather tidy person. When spending time at NERV or out in the city, he wears a white dress shirt and dark pants, though when in his apartment, he will often wear something more casual. Shinji's plug suit has very light blue torso, complemented by the rest being a dark blue color with black portions as well.

In the AWA fics, Shinji wears a large gray cloak that didn't look natural at all. Beneath it he had a blue military jacket zipped up, a bandolier on his right shoulder that went to his left hip carrying dozens of large bullets, a pair of gray cammo pants, black military boots with his pants' leggings inside them, and black fingerless gloves.

Personality
Shinji initially shows a passive and laid-back personality, inheriting such traits from his relaxed life with his sensei. When he is told to pilot Unit-01, he does so without questioning it, choosing simply to go along with what everyone else says. Though Shinji denies it, he yearns for praise, and he eventually begins to pilot Unit-01 to gain the approval and praise of others, as well as the love of his father. He also continually tells himself "I mustn't run away!", further demonstrating his need to move forward and let go of the past.

Shinji shows a great fear of emotional pain and of being hated or left behind, likely due to his perception of being abandoned in his youth and, subsequently, blaming himself for not being good enough to make his father stick around. In general, Shinji is shown to be introverted and disconnected from physical reality due to having little to no meaningful contact with others. In social party situations, he is shown to be quite uncomfortable, and he often has difficulty controlling his emotions around others due to his hard time letting go of the past. He is shown to the extreme of this, forsaking many lives (even his own) to save one person.

Due to Shinji's high nostalgia and fragile emotional state, he chooses to shut out the world, as evidenced by the headphones he wears rather often, plugged into an SDAT music player. He usually plays tracks 25 ("You Are the Only One") and 26 ("Blue Legend"), though in episodes 02 and 23, the songs are varied to different background music and vocals.

Through all this, Shinji is also aware of his own faults, has a detailed memory of the past, and generally is outwardly gentle. He is the only one who tries to find a reason to fight the Angels, and sometimes his justification for fleeing from piloting is to avoid hurting others.

Shinji has never learned to swim.

Abilities
In the AWA fics, Shinji is a marksman and a medic. But his specialty is running away from danger.

In the AWA fics, Shinji learned how to use chakra and magic. He also learned six moves of the Rokushiki and also gained the power to use Kenbonshoku Haki.

Trivia

 * According to an interview with Yoshiyuki Sadamoto featured in volume 2 of the manga, Shinji's design is a male version of Sadamoto's design for Nadia, the title character from Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water, which Hideaki Anno also directed.
 * Shinji's birthday is the same day as his seiyu Megumi Ogata. This is a trait that can be found in several of the Evangelion characters, Rei Ayanami being an exception.
 * It could be seen that Shinji's preferred weapon in battle is the progressive knife seeing as he will usually go for that first in a battle.