Everyone knows the difference between Asuka and Rei. One is fire, the other is ice. Yet, the anime world nearly missed meeting Asuka Langley as we know her, because the voice behind that character went to the audition seeking something entirely different. Yuko Miyamura has just revealed on her official YouTube channel that during the fall auditions of 1994, she auditioned for the role of Rei Ayanami.

Miyamura’s agency had categorized her as a “traditional heroine” type and sent her to audition for Rei. She delivered the lines assigned to her calmly and reservedly, exactly as instructed. It was during the process that the director intervened with an unexpected question: would she like to try reading lines for another character?

That character was Asuka Langley Soryu. The direction was clear: to portray her with energy, in the same style she had been using. Miyamura admitted feeling confused at the moment, as she didn’t believe her performance was particularly energetic. Nonetheless, she followed the team’s direction, and the result was that she secured the role. What the director saw in her during that impromptu reading was exactly what Asuka needed, even though Miyamura herself didn’t realize it at the time.

There’s a contextual detail that makes the story even more interesting: at that point in the auditions, Neon Genesis Evangelion had not yet been confirmed as a TV series. The project was being developed as a 26-episode OVA. Miyamura auditioned for a project whose final format wasn’t even decided, and ended up bringing to life one of the most influential characters in anime history.

About Neon Genesis Evangelion

Neon Genesis Evangelion (Shin Seiki Evangelion) premiered as a series in 1995 under the direction of Hideaki Anno and quickly became one of the most influential works in the medium’s history. The story of teenagers piloting giant mechas to fight mysterious beings called Angels worked on multiple layers: action, psychological horror, religious critique, and personal drama in proportions no other series of its time had attempted to combine. Starting in 2007, Anno revisited and reimagined the story through the Rebuild of Evangelion tetralogy, with its final installment, Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time, arriving in 2021 and becoming the franchise’s highest-grossing film in Japan, surpassing 10 billion yen and attracting over 6.7 million viewers. The role of Asuka Langley Soryu, which Miyamura won thanks to an unexpected turn in an audition room over thirty years ago, remains one of the most celebrated in the history of Japanese dubbing.

Do you think Evangelion would have been the same series if Miyamura had landed the role of Rei instead of Asuka, or did the anime’s impact depend on other factors beyond the casting?