Seventh Angel

The Angel towers as a bipedal figure assembled from many geometrically similar pieces, each sharply pronged in four directions. A long neck lifts a head bearing two faces set back to back, both recalling Sachiel; one is red and longer than its twin, and each rotates leftward so the pair sweep in opposite directions like the hands of a clock. Ring structures suggesting halos sit at its hips.

Directly beneath the head hangs a mock core. Shattering it takes the head with it and briefly scatters the whole body, but the deception ends there: the genuine core rides in a swinging pendulum at the tail's tip, a big red mass bearing four eyes, and that appendage arcs forward to serve as a new head while the body swiftly knits itself back together.

Its head can briefly warp into a dark cross, from which it releases two kinds of attack: cross-shaped detonations and dart-like projectiles that trail black streaks through the air. To travel it simply walks on the sea, its A.T. Field flash-freezing the water under every footfall, and its gait is accompanied by the ticking of a clock.

Crossing the ocean toward Japan, the Angel absorbs sustained shelling from at least ten frigates without harm, then answers by spinning its heads and hurling cross blasts that fling the warships skyward and snap them in half. Because of the creature's sheer scale, Unit-02 launches with the flight-capable S-Type aerial equipment, and Asuka finishes the fight by firing the Super-Electromagnetic Crossbow MM-144, punching a spike through every layered A.T. Field and into the true core.

The battle exists because the corresponding television fight could not be reused; according to Kazuya Tsurumaki the original art for Episode 08 had been lost, so the fish-like Gaghiel was replaced with an entirely new design and engagement. Assistant director Daizen Komatsuda pitched the idea of a drinking-bird toy, Shigeto Koyama refined the silhouette and head and devised the water-freezing footsteps, and Hideaki Anno contributed the truss construction and rotating clock head, drawing on the Toshiba IHI Pavilion from the 1970 Osaka Expo.