Character · Neon Genesis Evangelion
Kaworu Nagisa
He turns up in episode twenty-four, sits on a rock humming Beethoven, and says something nobody has said to Shinji before.
In Otakana the clue reads: Silver-haired boy who appears late and changes everything
- Type
- Character
- Series
- Neon Genesis Evangelion
- Letters
- 6 · Normal
Kaworu Nagisa is the Fifth Child, delivered to NERV late and by SEELE rather than through the usual channels. He is grey-haired, red-eyed, and immediately, disarmingly kind to a boy who by that point in the series has almost nobody left to talk to. He offers unconditional regard in an episode where every other relationship has already failed.
The show gives him roughly one episode. That is enough. His scenes are shot with a stillness the rest of the series has no time for, and the Beethoven he hums is the Ode to Joy, which Anno reaches for again in a later climax. What Kaworu actually is becomes clear before the episode ends.
The Rebuild films expanded him enormously, handing him a piano, a history with Shinji and a much larger share of the running time. Fans who came to Evangelion through those films often find the original appearance startlingly brief. He remains the character most likely to appear on a t-shirt worn by somebody crying.
Spelling KAWORU
KAWORU is spelled with a W that nobody pronounces. The Japanese is 渚カヲル, using the archaic kana ヲ where modern writing would use オ, so the name sounds like Kaoru and is printed KAWORU across every English release. That W is the whole puzzle: type what you hear and the row fails. Six letters, and the game wants the given name.