Rei Ayanami

Rei Ayanami
綾波レイ
Age	14 (biologically)
Birthday	Unknown
Seiyū	Megumi Hayashibara

Rei Ayanami is the First Children of the Marduk Report and designated pilot of Evangelion Unit-00. Rei has a sustained but somewhat sporadic appearance in the TV series.

Profile

Rei lives alone in an apartment block, her apartment being #402. Rei has few possessions, a number of books stand on her dresser that are all heavily indexed by her. Rei can read German and has an interest in genetics (as seen in Episode 09).

Rei possesses a school uniform which she wears when not in her plugsuit, along with a hospital gown which she sleeps in (see EoE). Rei has a pair of white plimsoll shoes that she wears to school and a pair of brown slippers that she wears in her apartment. Rei owns predominantly white underwear but also possesses mauve coloured underwear in the television series.

Rei, in comparison to Asuka, is much better informed as to layout of Nerv and the GeoFront judging from Episode 11. Rei's school satchel is organised neatly as opposed to Asuka's.

Rei is often absent from class 2-A later in the series as she spends more and more time in the Dummy Plug Plant.

Rei II's and III's height is 145cm (4'9").

Incarnations

There are three incarnations of Rei in total.

Rei I

Rei I is the first vessel of Rei Ayanami. Rei I appears for the first time in Episode 21 and later in Episode 25, lastly appearing in Episode 26'

Rei II

Rei II is the second vessel of Rei Ayanami yet the first encountered during the series during Episode 01. Rei II is "Rei" seen during the majority of the series, from Episode 01 through to the first half of Episode 23.

While Rei I may have been a potential Eva pilot had she lived, and Rei III was still considered a backup pilot after Eva-00 was destroyed, Rei II was the only "Rei" to actually pilot an Eva. Rei II is aware that her body is replaceable as episodes such as 19 and 23 contest.

Rei III

Rei III is the third vessel of Rei Ayanami. Rei III appears from the second half of Episode 23 through to The End of Evangelion. During this incarnation Rei discovers she possess the soul of Lilith as evidenced by her actions in Episodes 24 and 25'.

Summary of Rei's story in the TV series

Rei is the result Yui Ikari's DNA being within the body of Lilith, Rei possess the soul of Lilith and is composed of the same particle wave matter that Lilith herself is composed of (as seen in Episode 05). Rei is a central part of the Dummy System and was developmental accident of Project E that Gendo attempted to turn to his advantage.

Episode 21

A dishevelled room in a place called the "Third Annex" of the Artificial Evolution Laboratory is said during Episode 23 to have been the place where Rei I was "born". This room has a resemblance to the apartment Rei II later lives in, as Shinji comments upon during Episode 23. The Artificial Evolution Laboratory is located deep within in the bowels of Central Dogma in which Project E began.

Rei's past and personal data have been erased, and next to nothing is revealed about her past in the show. Gendo accompanied Rei I on a tour of Gehirn's facilities and the GeoFront. Gendo may act as her guardian during the show.

Rei I appears as a child of five years in the year 2010 during this episode. Rei I is introduced to Naoko and Ritsuko Akagi within the superstructure under Tokyo-3 by Gendo Ikari, who introduces her to them as the "daughter of a friend." Naoko Akagi notes the physical similarity between Rei and Yui Ikari, which is especially evident in her younger form.

The night before Nerv headquarters would become officially operational, Rei I became lost and encountered Naoko on the bridge of the Command Center. Rei I, after rejecting Naoko's help called her an "old hag", and told her that Gendo himself called her that in private; that Gendo's relationship with Naoko was a fraud and he was simply just using her. In a fit of frustration and rage, Naoko strangled and killed Rei I, then committed suicide by throwing herself onto Balthasar (which she described as "herself as a mother" earlier in the same episode), one of the three Magi supercomputers below the top tier of the Command Center.

Episode 5: First Half

Shortly before the story begins, Rei participated in Eva-00's first activation experiment in Lab 2. When the process of synchronization reached the ego borderline Eva-00 suddenly went berserk, and the entry plug was ejected. Rei was badly injured as a result of the ejection of the entry plug, her left arm and eye being severly damaged. This damage is mirrored in Eva-01 during the fight with Sachiel.

Episode 1

Rei being injured by the first activation test with Eva-00 prompts Gendo Ikari to summon his long-abandoned son, Shinji Ikari, to Tokyo-3 to pilot Evangelion Unit-01 to fight against Sachiel. Rei is withdrawn and of flat affect; in fact she seems happy only when she is with Gendo, who saved her life during the training incident. She keeps and treasures a pair of his glasses that were damaged during the rescue.

Episode 5: Second Half

Rei lives alone in apartment 402. Her apartment is part of a large block of apartment buildings on the western edge of Tokyo-3 that is in the process of being demolished.

During Episode 05 it becomes patent how little Rei values her own personal space and comfort, when Shinji walks into her apartment and falls on top of her as she is naked. Shinji, later in the same episode, tries to apologise to Rei. Rei is only roused when Shinji speaks disparagingly about his own father, and she slaps him. Rei from here on is often seen during Shinji's psychedelic sequences as questioning him about his father, often defensively. Rei describes her reason for piloting as "a bond," not just to Gendo, but "with all people".

Rei possesses a cracked pair of Gendo's glasses which she keeps on her person in a blue glasses' case. Rei takes Gendo's glasses with her into the Entry Plug during the second activation test which helps to calm her and thus the second activation test is successful. After the activation test is complete Rei tilts her head back in the plug and a number of air bubbles escape her mouth, this indicates that Rei had held her breath throughout the entire activation test, showing how nervous she was. The only other time we see bubbles issuing from a pilot's mouth in the entry plug is in Episode 01, where Shinji tries to hold his breath when the plug is first filled with LCL. Rei also takes Gendo's glasses with her into the entry plug prior to the fight with Ramiel.

Episode 9

In this episode Rei is seen to be reading a German text that contains an illustration of a plasmid.

Episode 14

Rei has a tendency to speak in universal, rather than personal, terms, possibly reflecting the true origin of her soul. One of the biggest examples of this occurs during the second half of Episode 14 with a monologue that has Rei exploring her character, cosmology, and the nature of Creation.

The pilot cross-compatibility experiments between Eva-01 and Eva-00 allow Project E to begin work on the Dummy Plugs.

Episode 15

Shinji openly voices his thoughts about Rei potentially being a good mother.

Rei in this episode displays an acute sense that she shares with Kaworu (as seen in Episode 24 D.C.) of being able to tell when she is being watched: "You've been looking at me all afternoon because you wanted to ask me that?"

In this episode Gendo mentions to Kozo that Project E has begun work on the Dummy Plugs.

Episode 23

When her mind and body are penetrated via bio-fusion by the Angel Armisael during Episode 23, Rei was made to truly feel and examine the loneliness and sorrow that are said to be "the form of her heart". Immediately after this Rei shed tears for the first time in her life.

In this episode it is revealed that the soulless Rei vessels in the Dummy Plug Plant are "the core of the Dummy System."

Episode 25/26

While other characters in the series have issues with their identity, Rei Ayanami’s might be the most difficult, perhaps insurmountable. At least, that is the problem with her second and third incarnations. Though the first Rei was not internally explored while she existed, in Episode 25 she is portrayed as being more aware of her true nature as Lilith, and cynical about Rei II's and III's attempts to deny the fragility of her identity.

With a soul from Lilith and a body cloned from Yui Ikari, Rei has no original elements to claim as hers yet she recognises her identity as "the thing that other's call Rei" as formed by her interactions with others. Though Rei II is unaware of some aspects of her origins, she still perceives her identity as more fragile than others', with a vague idea that there is something, as Rei I says: "beneath the veil of your conscious mind".

Rei I also appears in Episode 25 for the conversation Rei III has with her previous two incarnations, as acts as a harbinger of the unpleasant truth, in a similar manner as she did with Naoko. Here, the "floating head" version of the distorted Rei Shinji saw within Eva-00 Episode 14 is treated as a representation of Rei I, which may be providing a "retroactive hint" as to the identity of Eva-00's resident soul. See The Soul in Evangelion Unit-00 for more information.

During Episode 25 Rei outwardly says she wishes for despair and death, and wishes openly she could return to nothingness. Rei II perhaps seeks to stave off this despair by investing herself completely in one person, living entirely for their needs so that she can find a reason for her existence and believe that she is being valued first as "Rei Ayanami" and no one else. It may also be interpreted that Rei is simply waiting to fulfil Gendo's plan (and so not be forcibly brought back into another vessel) before she can return to the nothingness that she seeks through death.

End of Evangelion

Rei III turned away from Gendo and towards Shinji Ikari at the last moment in End of Evangelion, passing the ability to decide the fate of all souls involved in Instrumentality. Rei's definite betrayal of Gendo is first marked when Rei III destroyed the glasses that Rei II cherished. For speculation on Rei's relationship with Gendo see Rei's relationship with Gendo.

In either case Rei Ayanami's fate was the same: to bring Lilith's soul "home". Though the image of Rei appeared in various forms during Third Impact, it is unclear how much of Rei's identity as formed by interactions with the Lilim survived in Lilith, and whether it was Rei or Lilith interacting with Shinji during Instrumentality.

Rei I is seen for the last time when all three Rei stand together at the site of Gendo's death in Episode 26'.

Rei shares her blue hair with Eva-01, the only offspring of Lilith as we see towards the end of End of Evangelion.

Summary of Rei's story in the official manga

In the manga adaptation by Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, Rei's character comes off as being a much warmer and more open, at least with regards to Shinji. Her initial reaction to Shinji is largely the same as in the anime, but she soon becomes Shinji's romantic interest. It is very clearly implied that Rei is romantically interested in Shinji, asking him to hold her hand more than once.

Unique to the manga, she pilots Eva-01 against Sachiel and loses, her injuries being a direct result of the defeat.

Shinji shows revulsion towards Rei after her death and sudden resurrection, as well as after seeing the soulless copies of her in the Dummy Plug Plant.

Shinji, at this point, still has romantic feelings towards Rei. Since the manga is not complete as of this writing, it remains unknown how her relationship with Shinji will play out.

Notes

• Rei in Japanese (レイ) is sometimes a synonym for "zero". Fitting, as Rei is the pilot of Eva-00. "Rei" spelt with different Kanji is the word for "spirit" (霊). Rei's name thus becomes a double pun, she is the pilot of Eva-00, and the vessel for the spirit of Lilith. In the original Japanese dub of the series the characters refer to Eva-00 using the half-English "zerogouki" ("-gouki" = "unit"). "Reigouki", however, wouldn't be an entirely inaccurate alternate rendering of it's name.
  • Rei Ayanami's first name comes from the character Rei Hino (Sailor Mars) of the Anime and Manga series Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon. This was done in an effort to get one of the series directors, Kunihiko Ikuhara, to work on Evangelion [1]. While this effort failed, some of the staff and voice actors of Sailor Moon did work on Eva as well, including one of Sailor Moon's series directors' Jun'ichi Satoh (under the pen-name Kiichi Jinme) and the voice actresses Kotono Mitsuishi (Usagi Tsukino/Sailor Moon) and Megumi Ogata (Haruka Tenoh/Sailor Uranus).

• Ayanami in Japanese (綾波) translates approximately to "twill wave". Ayanami comes from the Fubuki class destroyer Ayanami. Non-canonical character Mana Kirishima (also voiced by Megumi Hayashibara) was named for the battleship Kirishima. Both vessels were crippled by the radar-directed gunfire of the battleship USS Washington, and subsequently sunk.

• Rei’s blue hair and red eyes are the inverse of Asuka Langley Soryu’s blue eyes and red hair, perhaps a reference to their opposite personalities.

• In Episode 01, Rei mysteriously appears before Shinji in a brief instant before dissappearing once more. This same scene is repeated during the final scene of Episode 26'. This effectively creates two "bookends" at either end of the series. See Rei's Ghostly Appearances and Quantum Mechanics for more information.

• In Episode 12, Rei reveals that she "doesn't like eating meat", thus making her a vegetarian. Director and Creator Hideaki Anno as well as the main character from Gainax's previous work Nadia are also known for being vegetarians.

• In Episode 23, when Ritsuko Akagi destroys the "parts" for the Dummy Plug by releasing their destrado, her controller's display lists the soulless Rei-vessels starting with "REI 004". This is often cited as evidence for their being no Rei biomass in the Dummy Plug.

Characters

Main characters: Shinji Ikari | Rei Ayanami | Asuka Langley Soryu

Nerv staff: Misato Katsuragi | Gendo Ikari | Ritsuko Akagi | Kozo Fuyutsuki | Ryoji Kaji | Maya Ibuki | Makoto Hyuga | Shigeru Aoba

Classmates: Toji Suzuhara | Kensuke Aida | Hikari Horaki

Other characters: Kaworu Nagisa | Yui Ikari | Naoko Akagi | Kyoko Zeppelin Soryu | Dr. Katsuragi | Keel Lorenz | Pen Pen

Rebuild of Evangelion: Asuka Shikinami Langley | Mari Makinami Illustrious | Sakura Suzuhara | Ryoji Kaji (Jr)

Miscellaneous: Minor Characters | Minor Characters (Rebuild) | Extracanonical Characters

Theory and Analysis: Name Origins (Warships) | Designs | Relationships | Profiles

Resources: 2015: The Last Year of Ryohji Kaji