Sachiel

''This article is about the character from Neon Genesis Evangelion. For the character from the Rebuild of Evangelion movie series, see Fourth Angel.''

Sachiel (サキエル) (Hebrew זכיאל), is the 3rd Angel in TV series, and the first one to appear fifteen years after Second Impact. First emerging out of ocean east of Tokyo-3, the Angel makes it way towards the fortified city and engages in combat with Evangelion Unit-01 during its first operational mission.

Profile
Sachiel's body is tall, thin, and humanoid, slightly larger than an Evangelion, and functions both on land and in water. Its proportions do not match those of a human; its arms are long enough to reach below its knees and its legs and feet are elongated and disproportionate. It lacks a proper humanoid head and neck, but like other Angels, contains a core in the center of its solar plexus. Its head, barely mobile, appeared to primarily be made of bone and is structured much like a bird's, even having a long beak. After the Angel regenerates from the mine, a second head emerges from its body, with a shorter beak than the first, pushing the first one slightly upwards. Sachiel has red irises, which are able to be seen deep within its head in the eye sockets. Sachiel possesses blood of a bluish-purple color, making it unique among Angels for whom blood has been observed.

Unusual among Angels, Sachiel possesses a respiration system based in the thighs and crotch, breathing in through gills in the thighs and exhaling through a set of nostril in the crotch area. Said gills also serve as an underwater propulsion system. The Angel's natural weaponry consist of two lance-like bone structures that extend from its forearms and are shown to be able to be energized to increase their destructive capability. These are physical structures that serve as the Angel's ulna or outer arm bone. After the Angel regenerates from the Mine attack, it develops the ability to fire a long-range energy blast from the eyes of its second face, which results in crucifix-shaped spikes of energy. While not a flight-capable Angel itself, Sachiel demonstrates the ability to use its own A.T. Field to enhance its jumping ability to great lengths. Sachiel is also capable of altering its body shape and muscle mass, increasing it when under strain. As a last resort, it can wrap itself into a ball around its opponent and self-destruct.

History
Sachiel is first seen swimming through the flooded ruins of a city just east of Tokyo-3 before emerging from the ocean and engaging the JSSDF forces that attempted to stop it. In spite of Sachiel's apparent lack of interest in the combat, the military's efforts failed to cause any damage, and were unable to slow its advance toward the city.

While on its way to Tokyo-3, Sachiel was knocked back by a missile barrage from the JSSDF VTOL crafts that happened to surprise it. However, the Angel soon adjusted to the attacks and pressed forward. Instead of counterattacking, Sachiel simply shot down a VTOL with the attitude of swatting a fly with curiosity, before using its A.T. Field to do a leap away from its aggressors.

After all of their efforts prove ineffective against the Angel, the JSSDF lure Sachiel to the region of Mt. Takanosu and detonate an N² Mine underneath its feet, creating a huge explosion that succeed in damaging Sachiel, melting approximately 18% of its mass. However, the Angel immediately starts to regenerate the damage, spawning a new facial plate that pushed the old one upwards slightly. While the N2 mine fails to stop Sachiel, it does slow down the Angel long enough for NERV to prepare Evangelion Unit-01 to be sent into combat against Sachiel.

Upon arrival to Tokyo-3, Sachiel takes on a much more aggressive behavior, revealing a new ability by casting a cross-shaped pillar of light in the middle of the city that penetrates into the GeoFront below. As he proceeds to wander through the city, he stumbles upon the recently-activated Evangelion Unit-01, piloted by Shinji Ikari; however, the Unit soon fell flat on its face, giving Sachiel the opportunity to get ahold of the Evangelion's head, and proceeds to break its left arm. Shortly after, the Angel proceeds to smack Unit-01 head with the lance-like structures hosted inside its forearms, impaling the Unit's head, and flinging it against a building.

Following a period of silence, Unit-01 reactivated, going berserk before jumping on top of Sachiel, ripping a piece of the Angel's face plate apart, revealing a lower, more organic-looking layer. As Unit-01 charges against the Angel once more, it is stopped by Sachiel's A.T. Field, but the Evangelion promptly regenerates its previously broken left arm, and easily tears through the Angel's barrier. Before Unit-01 could continue its assault, Sachiel retaliated by casting a cross-shaped explosion at point-blank range at it, but it proved unable to stop the berserk Evangelion, who grabbed both of Sachiel's arms and broke them with a sharp snap before kicking it into a building. Unit-01 then charged at it.

As the Evangelion landed on top of the Angel, it proceeded to punch its core before breaking off one of Sachiel's ribs and using it to repeatedly stab the Angel's core, slowly cracking it. Realizing its existence was nearing its end, Sachiel jumped on top of Unit-01, and wrapped around its head while its core glowed brightly, self-destructing shortly after and raising a cross-shaped explosion high into the sky. However, even this sacrifice did not destroy the Eva, as shortly after the explosion, Evangelion Unit-01 emerged from the destruction with only moderate damage.

Manga Adaptation
While Misato retrieves Shinji by car, Rei pilots Unit-01 and confronts Sachiel. During this encounter, Sachiel is depicted as being fairly nimble; however, the Angel loses the ability of enlarging his muscles. Its battle with Unit-01 changes as well: after the berserk Eva jumps in front of it, the Angel uses its right lance to strike the foe once more. The unit stops the lance between its jaws, however, and hits Sachiel's face with his feet. The Angel gets his arm free from the grip of the Eva and starts slashing it against the opponent, which evades the attack by jumping away from it. After dodging more lance slashes, the Eva charges at Sachiel, who reacts by using its A.T. field. After restoring its left arm, the unit destroys the barrier, only to be hit by the enemy cross beam. The Eva deflects the attack, sending the Angel against a building. With another leap, the unit hits the Angel's core with its knees. It then proceeds to smash the core with its right hand, but it is captured by Sachiel's self-destruct attack. Even after being engulfed in the explosion, the Eva does not sustain any significant damage.

Girlfriend of Steel 2
In the PC game, Sachiel is part of the mass Angel attack...

Battle Orchestra
Sachiel is one of the playable characters in the "brawling" game Neon Genesis Evangelion: Battle Orchestra. He's the first opponent in Unit-01 Story mode.

Petit Eva
Sachiel appears in one episode of Petit Eva: Evangelion@School. Here, it is portrayed as a giant monster terrorizing the city. While doing so, it is struck on the forehead by a bogey thrown by Unit-01, who is at NERV Academy at the time. Realizing what it was and where it came from, Sachiel rushes towards the school, demanding to know who threw the bogey at him. Unit-01 then decides to fight him; however, he is way smaller than Sachiel, who proceeds to repeatedly stomp on him. This continues until Shinji plugs Unit-01 into an outlet, which recharges him and increases his height until he is taller than Sachiel. Realizing that it cannot win, Sachiel tries to run away, but is grabbed by Unit-01, rolled up into a ball, and thrown far away. It is later found, now way smaller than it was, by Rei III, who washes it in a nearby stream and hangs it up to dry.

Angelic Days
Sachiel, much like the original anime, is the first Angel to be seen attacking Tokyo-03. It is double-teamed by Shinji and Rei in Units 01 and 00. After a brutal fight, Sachiel is brought down, but not before wounding Rei in the eye with one of its spears.

Development
The more refined version of Sachiel's design, labelled "Version A", depicts the ribs and scapular carapace structures as three separate units, although many cuts in the anime use a different version, labelled "Version B", where they form one combined structure. This "Design B" is also used by Sadamoto in the manga. One other discrepancy is that, in B, both right and left "ribs" possess an upper bone-spur, whereas in A this feature is only present on the left, and visibly absent from the start.

The Neon Genesis Evangelion Proposal presents an earlier concept for Sachiel's design, although it bears little resemblance to the final version beyond the basic tall and thin humanoid motif. It possessed a more crustacean shell, with longer claws and two antennae protruding from his shoulders. His legs and arms appeared to be covered with patches of gills. He sported a different face design with a mouth and a giant blue eye in the middle, surrounded by what appear to be six smaller orange ones.

Trivia

 * The "ch" in "Sachiel" is pronounced as a hard "K".
 * Sachiel is one of the few Angels to appear in more than one episode. It also makes a brief cameo reappearance as a holographic shooting target in Episode 03's training simulation.
 * Sachiel's energy explosions blatantly resemble a Latin cross. One cross-explosion penetrates the GeoFront, but how is not known: Sachiel's blasts are supposedly weaker than the similar explosions Zeruel sets off, at the very least incapable of damaging Unit-01. How the blasts are formed is unexplained.

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