Out of all the pilots, she is the only one who admits that she genuinely enjoys piloting. Her repeated comments suggest that she enjoys the smell of LCL. She's uninhibited, identifying Shinji as a pilot in their first encounter by crawling up to him on all fours and sniffing for the smell of LCL. It is implied that Mari works for an unknown third party. A pilot designation has not been provided, assuming Mari officially has one (in-universe). Despite her apparent inexperience, she is shown to be an expert pilot on the level of Asuka, if not higher.