Why do some people dislike Asuka?

[Clayton_n]

it's depressing. The guy who made it went nuts.

[Allan53]

I thought she did a good job of embodying a lot of the themes and ideas of the show, that how people act is only the tip of the iceberg if you want to understand them: their motivations and issues are often under the surface and not easily apparent.

With Shinji, you see a lot of his psyche, and you see enough of Rei's to get an idea, and even if you don't she's not the sort of person that tends to bug people. But Auska tends to be irritating and you don't really get to understand where she's coming from until near the end, at which point your opinion of her tends to be already set. But she does form a good example of most of the characters in the show: having irritating personality traits, but usually well-motivated and understandable if you knew them better. Unfortunately, you don't get to know the majority to the same degree you get to know Shinji and Rei.

[Laursuka]

I loved Asuka as a character. I though that she was just a very headstrong character put into the series in order to keep things interesting considering Shinji and Rei tend to be depressed looking most of the time :P but as the series went on you (minor plot spoiler ahead) learn why she is so loud and "angry" most of the time and when I found out the reason why she is I looked at her in a very different way. Changes become apparent in her as well as the series comes to an end especially in "End of Evangelion".

First post :P