Misato Katsuragi is the head of the Tactical Operations division at NERV, initially holding the rank of captain and later promoted to major. She is responsible for coordinating the Evangelion units in combat against the Angels. Her background is defined by the Katsuragi Expedition, a scientific venture led by her father that inadvertently triggered the Second Impact. Misato was the sole survivor of that expedition, saved when her father placed her in an escape pod moments before his death. This event left her with lingering trauma, ambivalent feelings toward her father, and a deep-seated desire for revenge against the Angels.

On the surface, Misato presents two contrasting personas. In her professional role, she is composed, decisive, and strategically sharp, commanding operations with confidence. In her private life, she is disorganized, heavy drinker, and prone to immature behavior, living in a messy apartment with little regard for household order. This dichotomy is a coping mechanism; she uses a frivolous and exuberant exterior to keep others at a distance, avoiding genuine emotional closeness. Hideaki Anno described her as someone who lives life so lightly as to barely allow human touch, protecting herself with surface-level relationships.

Beneath the carefree mask lies a deeply troubled individual. Misato struggles with survivor's guilt, unresolved grief over her father, and a fear of intimacy. Her motivations are partly altruistic—she genuinely wants to protect humanity and care for the Eva pilots—but also stem from a need to confront her trauma. She takes Shinji Ikari and later Asuka Langley Soryu into her home, acting as their legal guardian. With Shinji, she attempts to provide the warmth and stability she never had, though her own emotional instability often complicates their bond. She approaches Asuka with maternal patience, aware of the girl's difficult past, even when Asuka responds with hostility.

Misato's romantic relationship with Ryoji Kaji is central to her development. They were lovers in college, but she ended things abruptly, later admitting it was because Kaji reminded her of her father. She feared the implications of that resemblance and fled. They rekindle their relationship during the series, but it remains fraught with tension and insecurity. After Kaji is killed, Misato becomes more isolated and changes her habit of drinking beer to drinking canned coffee, signaling a shift in her coping methods. Throughout the story, she uses sex and alcohol as escapes from loneliness and reality, a pattern she acknowledges during the Instrumentality sequence.

Her development over the series shows increasing resolve and self-awareness. Initially focused on vengeance, she gradually becomes more aware of NERV's darker secrets and the true nature of the Human Instrumentality Project. By the end of the original series and the film The End of Evangelion, she takes personal risks to protect Shinji and oppose the conspiracy, demonstrating a willingness to sacrifice herself for the sake of others' freedom to choose. Her notable abilities lie in strategic planning, tactical command under pressure, and directing complex combat operations. She is also an avid car enthusiast and a skilled driver, frequently piloting her sports cars to navigate Tokyo-3. Misato's character embodies the themes of coping with trauma, the difficulty of forming genuine connections, and the struggle to find purpose in a broken world.