Lynxara
Nice post!!
I don't think so, but it is debatable. Her backstory is as messed up as anyone else's and the show clearly details that she has problems holding together relationships.
But here's the thing with Misato: she's over 25 and she's not just one of the show's protagonists, she's depicted as sexy and desirable. She's warm and emotional and funny.
Most anime to this day are hesitant to depict female characters substantially over 16, let alone a woman going through her quarter-life crisis!
Out of all the cast members, she also seems to have the most actual interest in saving the world and valuing human life. She wants to take care of the pilots even if she doesn't really know how.
In the Jet Alone episode alone, she is established as a tremendous stone badass. She continues to be a raging badass in the original Evangelion movies and the current remakes.
Misato was one of the first times since the mecha boom of the 80s that anime was willing to glorify a grown woman as one of its heroines (perhaps its only real heroine, from a certain point of view). That Evangelion did so with a woman who was not ideal in any way and undesirably old by cultural standards was an amazing feat of courage.
