Profile at a glance

  • Full name: Nagisa Kaworu (渚 カヲル)
  • Birthday: September 13 (the date of Second Impact)
  • Age: 15
  • Blood type: unknown
  • Japanese voice: Akira Ishida
  • Designation: Fifth Child (TV) / the First Boy (Rebuild), pilot of Evangelion Unit-02 (TV) / Unit-13 (Rebuild)

Who Kaworu is

Kaworu Nagisa is the Seventeenth Angel in human form — Tabris in the TV series, simply the Thirteenth Angel in Rebuild. He is introduced late, lives briefly, and his impact on every continuity is completely disproportionate to his screen time. In the TV series he has one episode. That episode put him permanently in the top three of every Evangelion popularity poll since.

The reason is simple. Kaworu is the only character who meets Shinji without baggage, without expectation, and without fear. He sits next to him at a piano, calls him worthy of love, and means it. For a boy who has spent twenty-four episodes convinced he is worthless, those few minutes are a lifeline. The tragedy is that Kaworu is also the enemy — and that Shinji has to end him personally.

TV Kaworu (Episode 24, End of Evangelion)

In Neon Genesis Evangelion, Kaworu arrives as Shinji's replacement roommate after Asuka's breakdown and Rei's disappearance. He is gentle, slightly alien, and unnervingly perceptive — within hours he tells Shinji "You are worthy of my grace" and shares a bath with him in a scene that has launched an entire sub-genre of anime readings. Within days, he infiltrates NERV, descends to Central Dogma, and reveals himself as the final Angel. Shinji, piloting Unit-01, is forced to crush him in a single, unbearably long held shot. It is one of the most quoted moments in anime history.

Rebuild Kaworu and the loop

Rebuild Kaworu is the single biggest piece of evidence for the theory that the Rebuild films are a sequel to (or a loop following) the original continuity. From his very first line in 1.0, on the moon, beside a row of coffins marked III, IV, V… he says, "So it's the Third again. You haven't changed, Shinji."

He should not know Shinji. They have never met. But he does, and he remembers. In 2.0 he promises, "This time, I will make you happy." In 3.0 he sits at the piano with Shinji again and plays a four-hand duet that is itself a kind of prayer — let this time be the one. And in 3.0+1.0, finally, the prayer is answered. Kaworu gets to stand down from the position of Angel-savior and simply be a friend.

The circular row of coffins on the moon, visible in multiple Rebuild films, is now widely read as a counter of how many times Kaworu has attempted this loop. The number keeps growing. He is Evangelion's Sisyphus, and Thrice Upon a Time is the film where he finally gets to put the rock down.

Music as Kaworu's language

Every Kaworu scene in Rebuild is scored around music, usually the "Ode to Joy" from Beethoven's Ninth or a four-hand piano piece. His first gift to Shinji is to put headphones on him and say, "This is what I call culture." Music is how this character expresses the things his mission will not let him say out loud. Fans have correctly identified him as the character most associated with the piano in the entire franchise.

Pilgrimage: where to find Kaworu

Hamamatsu Museum of Musical Instruments (Shizuoka)

The only public museum in Japan dedicated entirely to musical instruments, and during the Shin Hamamatsu Evangelion campaign (2025–2026), it hosts panels of Kaworu at the piano — tying his on-screen love of music to the real-world home of Yamaha and Kawai. For any Kaworu fan this is an essential stop.

Yamaguchi Ube Airport

A life-size Kaworu figure stands alongside Rei and Asuka in the airport's permanent Evangelion installation — the most iconic place in Japan to photograph him in person.

Machi-juu Evangelion 5 (Ube)

The 2025–2026 Ube city-wide exhibition features Kaworu tie-in goods and café items, including drinks referencing his famous first line "You are worthy of my grace."

Why Kaworu matters

Kaworu Nagisa is the character who makes Evangelion's 30-year loop story legible. Without him, the Rebuild films are just a retelling. With him, they become a story about someone trying, over and over, to save a boy who cannot save himself — and finally succeeding, not by dying for him, but by letting him grow up. That is why fans line up at a musical instrument museum in Hamamatsu to see a cardboard standee. Kaworu earned it.