Is Asuka Langley Soryu a Clone?


Short answer: Asuka Langley Soryu is not a clone in the Neon Genesis Evangelion and The End of Evangelion universe. This was known during one of the episodes where Asuka Langley Soryu was shown having both parents where her father is an American and her mother is a German. The only child that has been seen in the cloning lab is Rei Ayanami.

In the Rebuild of Evangelion universe, Asuka is the clone of the original Asuka but the process of cloning is quite different from Rei Ayanami. That is because Asuka is the last of the series of clones from the human Asuka which was revealed in one of the flashbacks, unlike Rei, who was created in an unnatural genetic way by combining both Shinji’s mother and the Angel’s DNA.

Did Asuka Langley Soryu really die?

Asuka Langley Soryu died during the fight against the mass-produced Evas. During the fight, she was able to kill all nine enemies. However, Unit-02’s battery runs out giving the opponents a chance to mutilate and dismember Unit-02 using the replica of the Longinus Spear. This makes Asuka’s body experience the same pain incurred to her mecha.

During this last attack, Asuka was able to reactivate Unit-02 through pure rage, however just enough for it to move its arm only, not even close to activating the “Berserker” mode that Shinji was able to accomplish. Her last words were a murmured “I’ll kill you”, over and over again until her EVA got pierced by the remaining lances which killed her.

Here’s a video of Asuka’s last battle against the Eva series. Check it out!

Why did Shinji and Asuka survive at the end of Evangelion? 

The thing about Instrumentality is that everybody can choose whether they want to become human again or be a part of a shared mind entity assuming they have the will and desire to go back. Before the Third Impact started, Lilith the second angel using the form of Rei Ayanami asked Shinji what he wishes for as he entered Instrumentality. Shinji concludes that both he and mankind should disappear after his confrontation with Misato, Rei, and Asuka and of Asuka’s refusal to act as his escape.

Answering Shinji’s desire, Lilith sucks the Unit-01 through a third eye that arises on her brow. This allows her to make an Anti-A.T. Field so strong that people aren’t able to retain its original form. Individuals all around the planet break down into LCL, the early stage soup from which all Lilith-based life started. Each human spirit is gathered inside the Black Moon and gets back to the Chamber of Guf. There, the gathered spirits merge into a single living thing, completing the Human Instrumentality.

However, Shinji observes that Instrumentality is a lonely type of existence. He understands that his previous association and relationships in the pre-Instrumentality world gave him genuine happiness. So, even at the expense of getting hurt once more, Shinji asked for another opportunity to experience that bliss by being with humans and chooses to reject Instrumentality to allow himself that opportunity. Asuka on the other hand also rejected the Instrumentality due to her strong will to go back as a human again.

Here’s the third impact scene from the end of evangelion. Have a look!

Are Asuka Langley Soryu and Asuka Shikinami the same person?

Asuka Langley Soryu and Asuka Shikinami Langley are not the same character. Though they appear to be identical, talk and dress similarly, both piloted Eva Unit-02, both a child prodigy, both dislikes Rei, both suffer eye wound and acts very similarly to a certain degree, they are not the same character. To start, they have different origins which are both revealed late in the story.

Asuka Soryu has an American father and a German mother and her mother causes her psychological trauma by witnessing her mother’s death through hanging. Unlike Asuka Soryu, Asuka Shikinami in Rebuild of Evangelion has no parents and is the last clone from the Shikinami series. Another difference is that Shikinami has piloted the Eva Unit-03 while Soryu hasn’t. In addition, Asuka Soryu has a crush on her former guardian named Kaji but Asuka Shikinami never shows any interest in Kaji since they don’t have the same history and experiences with Asuka Soryu.

What happened to Asuka Langley Soryu’s parents?

Asuka Soryu’s mental health problems were caused by her parent’s abandonment and suicide. Her mother, Kyoko Zeppelin Soryu, was a vital researcher in the German division of Gehirn and the building of Unit-02. She was also the subject of the Contact Experiment with Unit-02, however, during the testing her spirit merged with the EVA, resulting in serious mental injury to Kyoko. Kyoko became mentally impaired to the point where she thought that one of Asuka’s dolls was her daughter itself.

Due to this, Kyoko was taken to the mental institution for recovery. While Kyoko was institutionalized, her husband had an affair with her doctor which eventually led to her suicide. We do not have a lot of information about Asuka’s father, but we do know that Asuka’s father is an American citizen, and his last name ends up with “Langley”.

Is Asuka Shikinami an angel? 

In Evangelion 3.0+1.0, it was uncovered that a piece of the Ninth Angel is yet alive and merged with Asuka’s left eye. While attempting to make Evangelion 13 unusable, New Unit-02α’s own A.T. Field blocks it from happening. Due to this turn of events, Asuka eventually decided that she should transform into an Angel herself. She takes off her eye patch and removes the seal inside her eye so she could utilize the Angel’s power turning her into the Ninth Angel and infuses the blood of the Angel with the unique code 999 to change her remaining unit into a massive being made of different lights.

What is the Eva series mass production that killed Asuka?

The Mass Production Evangelion at The End of Evangelion is the last Evangelion unit created. They were secretly produced under SEELE’s command at seven unique NERV offices all over the planet. They are a simplified design of an Evangelion with its shield having mostly white tones and black color in the arms. They have all been outfitted with S² Engines, taking out the umbilical cable or internal batteries.

Unlike the Angels, they don’t use their organs for regenerative purposes. Instead of being constrained by having a pilot, they synchronize with a dummy system produced from Kaworu Nagisa’s thought process. This makes the level of command over the Evangelions higher than with a pilot, who might be defenseless when under panic, fear, or fury which would impede the Evangelions’ battle capacity. The Mass Production Evangelions, similar to any Evangelions, will only be killed provided that their centers are annihilated.

They don’t carry other weapons aside from a replica of the Spear of Longinus, shaded with a blue-gray tone, and at first, it was camouflaged as a huge, gray Heavy Spears, which looks like an enormous club-like weapon. The Heavy Spears twist and reshape to transform into the Spear of Longinus when required. Altogether, there are a total of 9 Mass Production Evangelions which are very identical to one another.

Our Final Thoughts:

In conclusion, whether Asuka is a clone or not depends on what universe Asuka is in. If Asuka is in The Rebuild of Evangelion, Asuka was a clone. But since we are talking about Asuka Langley Soryu of Neon Genesis Evangelion and the End of Evangelion, then she was never once a clone. As previously discussed, it was proved when her origins were shown in one of the episodes where she was born with parents and had a traumatic past. This much is enough to debunk that Asuka Langley Soryu is a clone. 

If you want to know more about Asuka Langley Soryu’s complicated but intriguing life, then I urge you to watch both Neon Genesis Evangelion and The End of Evangelion. Regardless of whether one is not an anime fan, the action, the drama, the comedy, and most of all the wonderfully portrayed characters make this show more than worthy of your time.

You might also like: Darling In The Franxx

If you are into Neon Genesis Evangelion, then you might also like Darling in the Franxx. They almost have a lot in common with Neon Genesis Evangelion and one of those is the concept of humankind battling against huge monsters using powerful mechas and is piloted by youngsters. The only difference is that each robot should be piloted by a boy-girl tandem. Another similarity is that they have a co-pilot who is non-human. There is a female lead who wears radiant red garments and has a major impact on the psychological strife of our hero.

Aside from the similarities between the characters, the world development has a striking similarity as well.  While Evangelion takes more looming destruction in the future, Darling in the FranXX takes the more dramatization and character-building approach, and a lighter and brighter future. These two animes catch the depth of humanity and slap it with the best dark, sci-fi, and action-filled genre created. The mecha at its finest! So, if you want to learn more, click the link above.

If you made it this far, you are awesome!

Thank you so much for reading!

If you liked this article, be sure to check out our other articles for more Mecha and Gundam fun!

demby

Hi! I'm Demby and I've been a fan of Mecha since I was a little boy. Now I enjoy writing about all things mecha to answer questions that you guys have. I hope you enjoy my articles. :D

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