Hey guys, it's me, Sephiroth, I just kicked off godfather so I could reply to this topic, lol....
as far as favourite characters in the series go, I have two favourites, rei and misato, I find them intriguing, and I love misato's general outgoing personality....
asuka though, I have to admit, I am not too fond of, though there are times in the series where I do think she can be pretty cool, but I generally don't like her attitude, though I know that she has that attitude for a reason....
now, let me clear some things about shinji's sexuality....
first off, shinji is straight, throughout the series we see him looking at the girls, trying to kiss asuka (and kissing her too), and of course, the infamous hospital scene of end of evangelion....
at the point when kaworu came into the series, shinji was a total nerve wreck, he felt like he didn't have a friend in the world as all of his friends, kensuke, toji, etc. had evacuated, and to further complicate things, asuka was in hospital thanks to the angel's mind rape attack, which takes it's toll on poor asuka as she begins to reflect on her past, and also add the fact that rei is not the rei which he knows, and who he may have had feelings for, since the second rei which he knew self destructed against an angel....
take all this into account, and try to imagine how shinji must have felt psychologically, and then the fifth child, kaworu nagisa shows up, who becomes a friend to shinji and shows shinji acts of kindness in which shinji had never before in his life had (except for his mother), finally someone was being kind to shinji for himself, and not as him as an eva pilot....
the love shared between them was the love between friends, nothing more....
oh yeah, and the only reason misato lip locked shinji in EoE was so that he would move his butt and pilot the eva, misato had no sexual feelings for shinji :p
hope this cleared some stuff up, had a hell of a time writing it, lol....