Girlfriend of Steel

Girlfriend of Steel is a video game based on Neon Genesis Evangelion, released in 1998. The game is essentially a visual novel which the player acts out. Set in the middle of the series (roughly before the attack of the Angel Ireul), the story revolves a new alternate robot design developed by a rival defense contractor (similar to Jet Alone), called TRIDENT units (alternatively, "Country Crawler"). One of the three TRIDENT pilots is "Mana Kirishima", who enrolls in school with the Eva pilots. Mana develops a relationship with Shinji and they eventually go on a date and kiss. Asuka is intensely jealous of Mana, while Rei is largely in the background of the story. Eventually the TRIDENT unit goes berserk and the Evas have to stop it.

Mana Kirishima's characterization is more or less a combination of Asuka and Rei; she is not as extroverted as Asuka, but is not introverted like Rei is. Mana's character design is even a bit of a cross between Rei and Asuka, having Asuka's reddish-brown hair, cut short in a pageboy haircut like Rei's is.

"Gameplay" consists of essentially walking around until the next scripted event in the visual novel is triggered. The only real choice involved is at the end, where the player can choose between an ending focusing on Mana, Asuka, or Kaji. In the Mana ending, Mana does not die in battle but has to say a tearful goodbye to Shinji. In the Asuka ending, Mana does die in battle but she helps Shinji get over his loss, and the two of them grow closer as a result (in a scene with heavy romantic overtones). The Kaji ending doesn't focus on one character in particular, compared to the other endings, and Mana also survives but has to say goodbye to Shinji.

Notes

• Girlfriend of Steel was only released in Japanese, although Fan translations exist on the internet.
• Mana Kirishima has the same seiyū as Rei Ayanami: Megumi Hayashibara (This is also the case for Second Impression, with the another video game only love interest for Shinji, Mayumi Yamagishi.)
• The End Song for the video game is Yokan ("Premonition"), sung by Yoko Takahashi.