First Lieutenant Maya Ibuki is one of the 3 main computer technicians at NERV Headquarters, along with Makoto Hyuga and Shigeru Aoba, and she serves directly under Dr. Ritsuko Akagi. Maya frequently acts as Ritsuko's assistant, particularly works on the MAGI supercomputers that control the base, and the MAGI readouts from all of the Evangelion Units. During combat against the Angels, Maya is operating the primary control stations on the Command Center's bridge level along with Makoto and Shigeru, and they are monitoring the status all of the Evangelion Units and their pilots in battles. Maya, Makoto and Shigeru are also directing support for pilots.
Maya is an optimistic, cheerful, and caring young woman. Her sensitive nature is proved by her tendency to hide her eyes and retch during the more violent Evangelion Units versus Angels battles, and when the JSSDF soldiers stormed NERV Headquarters in The End of Evangelion, she refuses to fire on any of them, saying that she does not have the nerve to kill another human being.
She has also been shown to have a faithful, trusting nature. She is in awe of the technological advancements current society has achieved. In particular, this advancement followed Second Impact 15 years ago: unlike the 14 year old Evangelion Units’ pilots, she is enough old that she was a child at the time of Second Impact and thus unlike them probably remembers having to grow up through the ensuing global chaos in which human civilization painfully rebuilt itself, in a society struggling to feed its people. It is possible that she idealizes human science and technology because it is what ultimately saved the world she grew up in from the brink of collapse.
She believes in the technological utopia that TOKYO-3 represents, remarking with starry-eyed idealism ″That’s the worthy of the scientific city! It's the very era when the science is omnipotent, isn’t it? ", but Shigeru dismisses her beliefs by saying ″What out-of-dated lines you say!". Notably, she admires Commander-in-Chief Gendo Ikari and Sub Commander Kozo Fuyutsuki for their coolness in the stifling NERV Headquarters during a power outage, not realizing that they had their feet in buckets of water. (Episode:11, “The Day TOKYO-3 Stood Still”)
She has some girlish affectations, including having a rabbit-face sticker on the side of her laptop screen, and a pink cat pillow which she sits on at her station. She is notably shorter than the most of the other NERV personnel (only halfway between the 5'4''/165 cm Misato and the 14 years old Evangelion pilots, therefore, it appears she has to sit on a pillow so she'll be the proper height at her control terminal. Her cat pillow might be related to Ritsuko’s affinity for cats, because Maya has a strong bond with Ritsuko. Maya is reading what appears to be a romance novel during a slow day at NERV Headquarters. (EPISODE:10, “MAGMADIVER” )
She is friendly and supportive to the Evangelion Units’ pilots, and she expresses her misgivings to Ritsuko about particularly dangerous new technologies such as the Dummy Plug System. (EPISODE:14, “WEAVING A STORY”) It's not clear just how much Maya knows about NERV's hidden agenda, but it is implied that, while she doesn't have the malicious pragmatic edge of Ritsuko and Gendo, as Ritsuko's aide she ultimately knows more about NERV Headquarters' agenda than Misato or Makoto. Maya seems to think that the destruction of the final Angel will make vanish NERV Headquarters' mission and she has no idea why SEELE will want to kill so many people in order to obtain the Evangelion Units, so it appears that she honestly doesn't know that NERV Headquarters' true purpose is the Human Instrumentality Project.
At first, Maya's attraction to Ritsuko only appears to be a professional admiration, Maya enhanced it frequently by working aside Ritsuko, and Maya always referring to the other woman as "Ritsuko-sempai" or merely "Sempai", an honorific directed towards a person of higher rank. However, Maya’s transition guide in Episode: 26' , which is the second half of the movie The End of Evangelion, takes the form of Ritsuko, who types "I need you" (literally:" I NEED YOU.") on Maya’s laptop screen with Ritsuko’s hands over Maya’s hands, then Maya embraces Ritsuko. Before turning to LCL, Maya cried "Sempai! Sempai! Sempai!" with a look of ecstasy, tears flowing from her eyes. This suggests that she was secretly in love with Ritsuko, but whether Ritsuko knew about this attraction or reacted to it is uncertain. Some have taken Maya’s appearing uncomfortable when Ryoji Kaji flirted with her (Episode:17, “FOURTH CHILD") to be further proof of her sexuality.