Misato Katsuragi

Misato Katsuragi is one of the main characters from the Neon Genesis Evangelion franchise.

Misato is the operations director at NERV, initially with the rank of captain; she is later promoted to major. In Rebuild of Evangelion, Misato's initial rank is lieutenant colonel. Her duties at NERV include acting as a field commander for the Eva pilots, issuing orders and relaying battle strategies as well as processing input from Ritsuko Akagi and the technicians monitoring the Evas. She also handles many bureaucratic aspects of NERV's operations.

At the beginning of the series, Misato first brings Shinji Ikari to NERV and is able to convince him to pilot the Eva Unit-01. She then chooses to have Shinji move in with her rather than live alone, and later takes in Asuka Langley Soryu. As the series progresses, through her former lover Ryoji Kaji she learns the truth behind the Human Instrumentality Project and the depths of deception that NERV and SEELE have gone to keep the Project secret, even from her.

In the AWA fics, Misato was given a second chance in life in ZeroTopia. She is currently a part of the AWA as one of it's instructors.

Appearance
Misato is a young woman with a long dark-purple hair and has dark-blue eyes. She wears a red jacket over a black qipao dress, black boots and cross pendant around her chest.

Misato sometimes wears a red jacket, tight white pants, black combat boots, and a yellow top which showed she was all natural. A pair of holsters rested on her child-bearing hips.

Personality
While on the job, Misato is very professional and capable, in stark contrast to her life at home. Until Shinji's arrival, her living space was a complete mess. She cannot cook for herself and relies solely on instant food (she is often considered gross by Shinji and Ritsuko for combining food like ramen and curry). She also drinks copious quantities of beer, and drinks one first thing in the morning to get her day started (later in the series she apparently switches to canned coffee as a supplement). She also smokes, though only occasionally and only during chaotic events.

For most of the series, Misato has no apparent issues with displaying and emphasizing her femininity, and enjoys the attention this gains her. She enclosed a picture of herself in the NERV materials sent to Shinji when he was summoned to Tokyo-3. In the picture, she is wearing a skimpy outfit with an arrow pointing to her breasts and a caption which is translated in English as "Pay attention" in the Platinum Edition subtitles and "note the cleavage" in the manga. In volume 2 of the manga, Shinji returns home from school to find the apartment unlocked and Misato in the shower; he thinks to himself, "That's not safe...anyone could walk in!" Shinji's friends Kensuke Aidaand Toji Suzuhara develop crushes on Misato, attention she appears to enjoy. Misato's subordinate, First Lieutenant Makoto Hyuga, also falls in love with her (though as opposed to Toji and Kensuke, his feelings are sincere, as shown in The End of Evangelion). He often risks his life and job by providing sensitive information to Misato, and agrees to set NERV HQ to self-destruct when Tabris attacks.

Series director Hideaki Anno described Misato as "...a woman, twenty-nine, who lives life so lightly as to barely allow the possibility of human touch. She protects herself by keeping relationships on the surface, and by running away." The disparity between her professionalism on the job and her slovenliness at home, as well as her issues in her relationships with her father and Kaji and the ambiguous nature of her relationship with Shinji, ties into her psychological issues. While grateful to her father for saving her life, she also admits to hating him, as he devoted his life to his work and neglected her and her mother. Her reason for joining NERV (and later, her drive to fight the Angels) is related to her issues with her father. Kaji implies in one discussion that Misato suffers from nightmares about her past, as he describes her as "sleeping uncomfortably." Also, Misato admits "seeking her father in Kaji's embrace."

Abilities
Misato is not an Eva pilot like Asuka and Rei, but she's incredibly competent in her own right.

Trivia

 * Like many characters in Evangelion, Misato was named for a ship: the Katsuragi, an Unryū class WWII Japanese aircraft carrier. Her given name is from a heroine in Minako Narita's manga Aitsu.
 * Misato drives a bright blue Renault Alpine A310. She is a devotee of this particular marque of car, as on her bedroom wall she has a poster of an earlier Alpine A110 shot from the back during a race. She also carries an Heckler & Koch USP as a sidearm. It is only seen a few times throughout the series, but she is revealed to be quite the sharpshooter it.
 * In the Super Robot Wars games featuring Evangelion and Gundam (UC timeline), Misato gets a crush on ace pilot Amuro Ray, alluding to their seiyuus' other famous anime roles as Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Kamen respectively. She also makes some Sailor Moon comments when admiring the Nobel Gundam from Mobile Fighter G Gundam on Super Robot Wars MX, and points out similarities in voice with Vega from Gear Fighter Dendoh and Murrue Ramius from Mobile Suit Gundam SEED (two other characters voiced by Kotono Mitsuishi).
 * In Rebuild of Evangelion her hair has been darkened so as to appear black rather than purple. Also in Rebuild, from what can be gleaned from Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone, she is more involved in what's going on at NERV and her rank is Lieutenant-Colonel. Because of that, she actually knows about their possession of Lilith.