Foes of the Superwomen of EVA #4: The Body Doubles
"Arisa Sono and Kyoko Ariyoshi formerly worked as bodyguards and valets to arms magnate Akiko Natsume before deciding to go into business for themselves as guns-for-hire; apparently, Akiko herself encouraged them to do so in spite of their loyalty, after she decided to step down from her position to spend more time with her family, though she would remain as a prime shareholder.
Arisa, a headstrong small arms and belt-fed weapons specialist and former fashion model, and Kyoko, a more level-headed artillery expert and daughter of the head of a low-level yakuza clan, soon dubbed themselves 'the Body Doubles', and received their first paid assignment from Kyoko's uncle (through an old associate of his who turned out to be NERV supreme commander Gendo Ikari), which brought them into conflict with the armored vigilante of Tokyo-3 known as Steel (secretly engineering wunderkind Mana Kirishima). Later, on, the two would become regulars for a global-reaching underworld agency for hired guns called Requiem, Inc.
One of their strangest assignments came from the beauty-obsessed Mystress, a warlord from the alien race known as the Rhormorids. After receiving a very generous amount of money as an advance payment, the Body Doubles would manage to capture some of the metahumans that had begun to appear throughout Tokyo-3, including Power Girl (secretly NERV Evangelion pilot Asuka Langley Sohryu, who would later redub herself 'Supergirl'), Wonder Girl (secretly another NERV Evangelion pilot, Rei Ayanami), and Zatanna (secretly NERV computer tech Maya Ibuki). Upon delivery of their targets, the two overheard Mystress's plans for them, learning that the alien warlord intended to rejuvenate her appearance by absorbing the energies of the trio of superheroes, until they were reduced to withered, dying husks. Not wanting to wish that on even their worst enemies, the Body Doubles reluctantly blasted away the heroes' bindings, allowing them to get the upper hand on Mystress, along with the attention of another Tokyo-3-based hero, Green Lantern (secretly NERV tactical operations director Misato Katsuragi); the emerald crusader would send Mystress to Oa, the planetoid headquarters of the Green Lantern Corps, to be incarcerated in the Sciencells. In the chaos of the battle's aftermath, the Body Doubles slipped away unnoticed, resolving to more carefully screen any potential jobs going forward.
A short while later, one such job came their way, sending them after a mysterious superpowered drifter named Mitch Shelley..."
*Author's Note(s)*
For today's entry, we have here a pair of mercs from the pages of the cult-favorite DC series Resurrection Man: the Body Doubles, a pair of high-tech weapon-wielding beauties who got their own 4-issue miniseries in 1999 from that title's same writing team (the fan-favorite Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning). As to which anime characters would serve as the basis for a SWOE take (especially on the Deviation side of things), the answer came thanks to a video review from YouTuber Kaiserbeamz's "Kyoto Video" series, of another dub from the same distributor/studio that brought Evangelion to the States, ADV. The anime subject to that review (which inspired me to seek it out on Crunchyroll)? All-Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku, where Arisa and Kyoko originate from.
From there, it was a simple matter of intermingling bits and pieces of the DC Body Doubles' comics history with Arisa and Kyoko's backstories (what little that is offered, that is). Kyoko being a crime boss's daughter (and her taste in eyewear and red clothing) comes from Bonny Hoffman, the blonde half of the Body Doubles; Arisa's fashion choices comes from the brunette half, Carmen Leno, and the fashion model aspect that I gave her is a semi-nod to Carmen's previous profession (as an adult film actress). Their hiring by Mystress and the job that ensues comes from the aforementioned 1999 miniseries.
Fun factoid: Kyoko shares her English dub voice actor, Tiffany Grant, with both Asuka Langley Sohryu in the original Neon Genesis Evangelion series and films and her 'rebuilt' counterpart Asuka Langley Shikinami in the Rebuild of Evangelion movies.