, real name , is a fictional character from the Neon Genesis Evangelion franchise created by Gainax. In the series, he is the pilot of a giant mecha named Evangelion Unit 02 for the special agency Nerv. Kaworu is the seventeenth and final member of the Angels which threaten humanity. When he arrives at Nerv, he meets Eva-01 pilot Shinji Ikari, showing great affection towards him. After revealing his nature as an Angel to Shinji, he asks him to kill him to allow humanity to survive. Kaworu appears in the franchise's animated feature films and related media, video games, the original net animation Petit Eva: Evangelion@School, the Rebuild of Evangelion films, and the manga adaptation by Yoshiyuki Sadamoto. He also has a prominent role in Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo, the third film of the Rebuild saga.
The character, originally conceived by Gainax as a cat controlling a boy, was supposed to appear in the series' twenty-second episode. After several changes, director Hideaki Anno and screenwriter Akio Satsukawa decided on him being the last Angel, and he was included in the twenty-fourth episode.
Although Kaworu only appeared in one episode, he was popular with audiences and animation enthusiasts and topped popularity polls. Some critics disliked his ambiguity and the undertones of his relationship with Shinji; others praised his personality, finding him to be open, affectionate and sociable. His role in the film Evangelion 3.0 also attracted the attention of critics, with reviewers generally appreciating his relationship with Shinji. Merchandise, particularly action figures, based on Kaworu have been released.
Conception
Akio Satsukawa, a screenwriter who contributed to writing for the series' twenty-fourth episode, "The Beginning and the End, or 'Knockin' on Heaven's Door, chose Kaworu's name. He opted for the surname Nagisa (Japanese for "shore") as a homage to Japanese director Nagisa Ōshima. The choice of a term related to the sea allowed him to connect to the names of other series' characters inspired by Imperial Japanese Navy ships and in the surname of Rei Ayanami. The name Kaworu was not written with the contemporary spelling with the katakana , but with the archaic character . The kanji was chosen for its connection with the katakana and the kanji , a detail referring to the Japanese title of the episode: . Satsukawa then created a pun with the phoneme shisha, which can mean or .
Two years before the series began broadcasting, Gainax published a presentation about the series entitled . Kaworu was originally going to appear in the twenty-second episode of the series as a "bishōnen constantly accompanied by a cat". Nerv would have allowed the boy to enter its laboratories and, after a clash in which his fellow pilot Shinji Ikari found himself "in the dilemma of having to fight against an anthropomorphic enemy", "the greatest secret of the organization" would be revealed.
In the first drafts, the Angel would have been a cat controlling a boy; however, this idea was abandoned, and elements of it were merged into Kaworu. In preliminary proposals, he had an organ characteristic of Angels called a Core and the ability to modify his appearance through metamorphosis, ideas which were set aside during the series' production. Anno conceived him as an "ideal male"; and according to him, "The plan was that the 'unconscious Shinji' would be Ayanami Rei, the Shinji who appears on the surface would be Ikari Shinji, and the 'ideal Shinji' would be Nagisa Kaworu". Character designer Yoshiyuki Sadamoto conceived him as "more elegant and more refined" than Shinji, and compared to him he would be "taller, thinner and with a smaller face". For the somatic features of his face, he decided to combine those of Rei, Shinji, and Asuka Langley Soryu. Following a personal request from the director, colorist Harumi Takaboshi made his eyes red to be analogous with Rei's and give him "a distinct impression". In one of the drafts of the twenty-fourth episode, he is described as a blond-haired boy. Although he was conceived to appear only in the final episodes, during the making of the opening theme the main staff decided to depict him with a sketch by Sadamoto; in the editing phase, the sketch was inserted before a frame depicting Rei Ayanami and the caption "Angels". While designing him, Sadamoto envisioned him with a "younger" voice than in the final version.