RITSUKO (MONO):“The person Unit 00 wanted to hit was me.
I'm sure of it.”
Dr. Nick: During the classic era of theorycrafting on western fan forums, when the details of the applied metaphysics and soul manipulation hadn't yet been hashed out, the soul of Unit-00 was one of the biggest topics of discussion. In hindsight and with the benefit of a lot more translated materials it might seem obvious that it's Rei I in there, but the Naoko camp latched onto this particular line as evidence supporting their position, and completely pointless amounts of digital ink got spilled as a result.