What is "personality" in the context of anime characters? Using an example of your choosing, please explain what gives a character "personality".

	Personality in the context of anime characters is a rather overblown and misused sort of terminology that I find to be a poor way of judging characters. Of course, I could shift the definition of personality to include what I find interesting in a character but I find that to be disingenuous. In the classic sense of the term, people might use personality to describe how uniquely a character acts, how eccentric or markedly different they are from other characters, maybe how memorable they are. Those are all perfectly fine ways to judge a character, but in my opinion, this is flawed for several different reasons. To start, I think all possible personality types have been done to death in anime. Just look at the broad variety of personality types we have to classify characters by: tsundere, deredere, kuudere, etc. The outward personality of a character means close to nothing in how I judge a character. Rather, I prefer to judge a character by their development and how much I feel as though they’re a real person I can understand. I suppose that would be my definition of ‘personality’ in the context of anime characters, or what makes them a good character. Relatability, believability, and relative depth of character are what I consider to give a character ‘personality’. I’ll be talking about Asuka Langley Soryu from Neon Genesis Evangelion as an example of a character I think has personality.
	As stated above, I think most characters can be boiled down to an archetype or put into a category as to why type of character they are and Asuka is certainly no exception, being hailed as the mother of the tsundere archetype as it is (even though I disagree with this entirely, but that’s besides the point). Essentially, Asuka is a bit of a brat who excels extremely well at the job she is given. Due to her high position she is extremely sure of herself and wants to be seen as a serious adult to be respected by those around her when in reality its obvious to everyone that she is just posturing as such and is just a child. I’m sure we’ve all seen a tsundere character before and that is exactly why I think it is dishonest and frankly unfair to the artistic intentions of the character to judge them by their ‘personality’ in the classic sense. It isn’t about how uniquely Asuka acts when compared to the different characters of her archetype or how far she can subvert or distance herself from those characters via her characteristics and traits. Rather, it is about how believable Asuka is as a character and how much I can relate to her struggle; its about how much I can see her as a real person, get inside of her head and understand her actions in the context of her character and empathize with her. So, to bring my example to light, how does Asuka become a character with ‘personality’ as I define it?
To begin, I’d like to talk about the posturing that Asuka does throughout the series to try to make herself seem like an adult despite being a scared child with no one to love. The conceit of her character is one of extreme arrogance, at least through our protagonist’s eyes. She never stops telling Shinji how stupid he is, how much better she is at her job than him, and how much of a kid he acts like. Despite this, she decides to kiss Shinji for whatever reason in one of the episodes (which is where we get the tsundere misunderstanding from). Does Asuka actually have a crush on Shinji? The answer is no. Once we learn Asuka’s backstory about her father’s untimely death and her mother going insane and calling her a complete fake (utter rejection by both of her loved ones) and seeing her trying to seduce Kaiji throughout the series to try to get to date him, one of Asuka’s underlying character traits becomes very apparent. She is incredibly desperate for love. Not even just romantic love. She needs someone to praise her, to tell her she matters, and that they love her. Anyone will do. Asuka no longer has anyone that cares about her other than the fact that she can pilot the Evangelion. Were she to lose this skill, she would become useless to everybody (but more on that later). The point being made here is that Asuka acts out like a brat but desperately seeks any sort of affection that she can get, anyone to care about her. Some see this as an absurdly irritating character, and I don’t blame them, but to me it creates the perfect amount of believability and relatability. Its such an odd part of human nature to focus on, pushing those away that you seek affection from. Its nonsensical, completely emotional, and utterly foolish. Yet I understand it perfectly. I know people like that, I’ve been a person like that at points in my life. I understand intimately how Asuka feels in these situations, not wanting to be viewed as weak but still desperately seeking that affection. That is what gives Asuka ‘personality’ in my opinion. My intense understanding of her feelings and why she acts the way that she acts.
Moving forward to the latter half of the show is where most of Asuka’s character development takes place and where I feel as though I can really get inside of her head and understand her actions working with the previously established framework of the last paragraph. It starts as a slow decline but around episode 20 is where Asuka starts to lose her skills at piloting the Evangelion, her only worth in the world. This can be attributed to several different things, the rage that she feels for being beat by Shinji, the previous psychological problems she’s had, the stress, but that isn’t what is important to the context of this essay. What’s important is her reaction to it. I think most people are able to expect what Asuka does in this situation if they had been paying attention to the show up until this point: she doubles down, screams even louder at Shinji, and gets back in that robot to show him who the alpha is. Obviously, since how well you pilot the Evangelion is reflective of your mental state, things don’t go too well for Asuka and she gets attacked by the Angel whose power it is to attack mentally rather than physically. This sends Asuka over the edge and is the final blow to her psyche in the Evangelion TV series. With nothing left in the world for live for, no talents, no one to care about her, and no reason to live, Asuka falls into a deep depression of which the specifics are heavily debated. Some think she was self-harming in the tub, others think she was going to kill herself, but that isn’t the point of what’s going on here. The point of these developments in relation to Asuka’s character is to evoke a sense of empathy, perhaps one that hadn’t been there before. Seeing prideful Asuka fall the hardest out of any of the characters in the series, being reduced to almost nothing, and seeing not a single person even care that this happens is heart-wrenching. Again, it isn’t how different Asuka would act from other characters in this situation, but its about how much I can empathize with how she is feeling in that moment. How I can follow the trajectory of why Asuka acted and continues to act the way she does given her situation, and at her lowest point, I feel as though I completely understand the tragedy that is Asuka’s character.
	As for the finale of Asuka’s character, I’ll be talking about the End of Evangelion movie just because I like it more (fight me). From where we left off with Asuka in the bathtub, she is forced back into the Evangelion to fight for NERVE against SEELE like the tool she is viewed as by everyone else in the series. As she sits in the cockpit waiting for the fighting to start, she’s curled up in the fetal position crying. Literally reduced to a child, repeating “I don’t want to die” over and over again. At her lowest point in the Evangelion, her mother’s voice calls out to her (deep lore: the evangelions are created with the soul’s of the pilot’s mothers). At once she comes to a realization that her mother (her REAL mother) has always been with her in the Evangelion. Someone who cares about her is with her. For the first time in the series Asuka is genuinely loved by someone, even if it’s the soul of a robot who is debatably not even real. This support gives her the strength to pilot the Evangelion once again. Not for NERV, not for any other character in the show. She does it for herself to prove that she can again, that she won’t be knocked down and stay down. The ensuing fight scene is pretty inconsequential for the most part up until the end where she is defeated. All of the other characters look on in agony as Asuka is torn apart. None of them help, they all watch as this child is beaten down. Asuka who finally got some positive development, who finally had something good happened to her, who finally had someone love her, is cut down from the climax of her character arc. In typical fashion of her personality, she is unable to accept that she has lost and lies there struggling despite already having been beaten fully. She is then killed. Tragic to say the least.
	And therein lies how I think ‘personality’ should be defined in the context of anime characters. It was a long-winded overview of the arc of my favorite character, but its what I think is necessary to judge a character. You don’t come to love a character’s personality after watching them for a single episode, you come to love it over the course of spending time watching them across several episodes, seeing them grow, struggle, fail, redeem themselves and get back up again. All of this meandering and explaining how Asuka thinks and acts is what gives a character personality. I can without a doubt say that Asuka Langley Soryu is the character who resonates most deeply with me and who I understand the most, giving her the most personality of any anime character in my opinion.