Leliel

Leliel
レリエル
Number	12th
Symbol	Night
Appearance(s)	Episode 16
Defeated by	Evangelion Unit-01

Leliel (Hebrew: ליליאל) is the Twelfth Angel.

Biology

Leliel is an extremely bizarre entity that exists in a pocket-dimension explained only by higher-order Physics theories. Initially, Leliel appears to be a floating sphere with a warped black and white color pattern that suddenly appears over Tokyo-3. However, Leliel's real body is actually what appears to be a shadow on the ground. The manifestation of Leliel's body in our dimension is 680 meters wide but only 3 nanometers thick; the floating sphere is just the "shadow" it casts in our dimension. Because it possess an inverted A.T. Field, it can absorb any material from our dimension inside of its body, within which is a "Dirac Sea". A Dirac Sea is a vacuum-like pocket dimension, from which there is no escape.

Battle

All three Evangelion Units are deployed against Leliel when it first appears over Tokyo-3. Eva 01 charged ahead and fired at the floating sphere, thinking it was the Angel's real body, onto be be sucked down into Leliel's real shadow-body and communication was lost. Eva 02 barely escaped being sucked into Leliel as well, but avoided it by climbing onto a building. Eva 00 fired several shots at it the floating sphere with its large sniper rifle, but this only succeeded in damaging nearby buildings.

Nerv pulled back its forces, and Ritsuko explained the bizarre nature of the Angel. Ritsuko proposed a plan whereby Eva 00 and Eva 02 would neutralize Leliel's AT Field with their own, and then the JSSDF would drop the remaining 992 N² bombs into its body. This would hopefully kill the Angel as well as recover Eva Unit 01, regardless of whether in the process the plan would end up killing Shinji or not.

Against Misato's protests, Ritsuko's plan was given the go-ahead. Just as Eva 01's maximum life-support power time limit was reached, 16 hours later, the plan was about to be put into effect. However, just then Eva 01 went into "berserker mode" and despite having its battery power totally drained, savagely tore its way out of Leliel's body, tearing its way out of Leliel's floating sphere in a shower of blood, also shattering its real shadow-body on the ground.

Notes

• While within the Angel, Shinji experiences a bizarre internal psycho-analysis. It was in fact Leliel trying to contact Shinji's mind, not the Evangelion. Misato is actually directly asked about the possibility of Leliel trying to contact Shinji's mind in the following episode by Seele, and she says it cannot really be determined what happened. Because most Eva fans have already seen evidence of Angels contacting Eva pilots (Episodes 22/23), it is probably safe to say that it was Leliel contacting Shinji's thoughts.
  • Tsuramaki's interview in the Evangelion Theatrical Program makes it explicit: Shinji's younger self is, or was meant to be, Leliel talking to him. He says the following-

However, amidst the flow of the mysteries surrounding the Angels gradually being resolved, we decided to insert an episode where an Angel appeared to take an interest in humans. The first draft of the scenario was actually a dialog between Shinji and the Angel. However, we felt it would be too anti-climactic to have an Angel start talking like some pulp fiction alien (speaks while tapping his Adam's apple with his hand) "Your analog mode of thought is incorrect." So we came up with the idea actually used in this episode, which was to have Shinji converse with himself.

Angels

Angels (general)

First and Second Angels (Seeds of Life): Adam | Lilith

Third to Seventeenth Angels (Adam's Children):

Sachiel | Shamshel | Ramiel | Gaghiel | Israfel | Sandalphon | Matarael | Sahaquiel

Ireul | Leliel | Bardiel | Zeruel | Arael | Armisael | Tabris

Eighteenth Angel: Lilin

Rebuild of Evangelion: ?Adams? | Lilith | 3rd Angel | 4th Angel | 5th Angel | 6th Angel | 7th Angel | 8th Angel | 9th Angel | 10th Angel | 11th Angel | 12th Angel | 1st/13th Angel

Other: Extracanonical Angels