Matarael

Matarael
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Number	9th
Appearance(s)	{{{appearances}}}
Defeated by	Evangelion Unit-01, with assistance from Evangelion Unit-00 and Evangelion Unit-02

Matarael is the Ninth Angel, a gigantic opilinoid-like beast, which secretes corrosive acid from its many eyes.

Battle

Tokyo-3's electrical power had been sabotaged by an unknown human party, leaving NERV unable to launch the Evas to fight Matarael outisde of the base. Matarael proceeded to Tokyo-3 uninhibited, where it began to pour corrosive acid from its "eyes" to burn its way straight down to NERV HQ.

As a result, all three Eva Units were manually launched, and had to physically climb through access shafts to reach the Angel's position. However, this resulted in all three Evas being in an access shaft directly under Matarael and the corrosive acid it was pouring downwards. Worse, in the initial confusion upon encountering it, the Evas dropped their guns.

Asuka quickly took charge and devised a battle plan: she would be on "defense", using Eva 02 to block the shaft with its body, taking the brunt of the acid-attack. Meanwhile, Eva Unit 00 would be "support", jumping to the bottom of the shaft to retrieve their weapons, and finally Eva Unit 01 would be on "offense", getting in position to fire the guns after Eva Unit 00 retrieved them. Asuka's plan worked perfectly, and despite some mild to moderate damage to Eva Unit 02 from the Angel's acid-attack, Eva 01 was able to quicly destroy it with a burst of rifle fire.

Matarael is one of the weakest Angels to appear in the entire series, certainly possessing the weakest AT field: Matarael is the only Angel that was killed with an Evangelion's standard-issue palette rifle, and after just a single volley. Beyond it's massive size, it appears to possess no weapon other than the acid it secretes, which just pours straight down. Arguably, had NERV's power not been sabotaged and the Evas were deployed to fight it normally, it would have been defeated relatively easily.

Notes

• Matarael resembles an opilionid, also known as a harvestman or daddy longlegs, a type of arachnid related to but destinct from spiders.
• The JSSDF generals debating what to do about Matarael without NERV refer to it amongst themselves as the eighth Angel, even though NERV refers to it as the ninth Angel; it is possible that they do not count Lilith, because NERV keeps Lilith's existence a secret.

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