Maya Ibuki

At 24, Maya is among the youngest officers on the command bridge, and her small stature is distinctive; she stands roughly midway between Misato's height and that of the teenage pilots, which appears to be why she perches on a pink cat-shaped pillow to sit at the proper level for her console. Girlish touches follow her everywhere, from that pillow to the rabbit-face sticker decorating her laptop. She holds the rank of first lieutenant on the Central Dogma bridge crew alongside Makoto Hyuga and Shigeru Aoba.

Optimism and cheer define Maya, though a sensitive streak runs underneath. Gore unsettles her badly; during the more brutal Evangelion battles she looks away or gags at the sight of blood and viscera, and when JSSDF troops storm headquarters in The End of Evangelion, she refuses to return fire, admitting she lacks the nerve to take a human life.

Her trusting nature extends into outright reverence for technology. Old enough to have lived through the chaos that followed Second Impact, Maya seems to idealize the science that pulled civilization back from collapse, gushing that the era belongs to science while Aoba dismisses the sentiment as old-fashioned. In Episode 11 she even admires Gendo and Fuyutsuki for staying cool in the sweltering, blacked-out headquarters, unaware the deputy commander is secretly soaking his feet in a bucket of water.

Toward the pilots she is warm and protective. Watching their vital signs from her station gives her intimate knowledge of what the children endure, and she voices doubts to Ritsuko about dangerous developments such as the Dummy Plug system. Her command of the MAGI makes her indispensable in combat, and Ritsuko openly praises how fast she types. How much she understands of NERV's hidden agenda is unclear; she expects the war to end once the final Angel falls and cannot fathom why SEELE would slaughter so many people for the Evas, suggesting the Human Instrumentality Project sits beyond her knowledge.

Her feelings for Ritsuko run deeper than professional admiration. Maya addresses her only as Senpai, and during Instrumentality her guide manifests as Ritsuko, folding hands over Maya's on her laptop to type the words "I need you" before embracing her. Maya dissolves into LCL crying out for her senpai through tears of ecstasy, an ending widely read as confirmation of a hidden love, though whether Ritsuko recognized or returned it stays uncertain.

Throughout Neon Genesis Evangelion, Maya operates one of the primary stations on the command bridge, tracking the condition of each Evangelion and its pilot as battles unfold and coordinating support alongside Hyuga and Aoba. As Ritsuko's principal assistant she also helps maintain the MAGI supercomputers that govern the base, and she proves a reliable aide to both Ritsuko and Misato in every crisis through the series and The End of Evangelion.

Outside the main continuity, Neon Genesis Evangelion: Gakuen Datenroku reimagines her as a daytime math teacher whose true employer is NERV, and altered versions of her appear in both Rebuild of Evangelion and Neon Genesis Evangelion: ANIMA. Miki Nagasawa voices her in Japanese, with English performances by Kendra Benham, Amy Seeley, Monica Rial, and Christine Marie Cabanos across the various dubs. Her name honors two Imperial Japanese Navy warships, the cruisers Maya and Ibuki, and despite her supporting role she enjoys outsized popularity in merchandise that her fellow technicians never receive.