Rei Ayanami 

For a lot of people who have seen the show would probably say the same. She might not have a soul, but that doesn’t mean she has a heart. Watching the character grow over the show to eventually sacrifice herself to save Shinji is amazing, even though there is more clones of her. While others start to break down over the show(but who would blame them, the world is ending) Rei actually become more lively as she finds a reason to live.

I base this judgment on the original series. Characters are much better in the rebuild, especially Asuka, she is 10x better. Rei is still the best though. Cant wait to see these characters in 3.0