Rei Ayanami

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

Rei Ayanami is the First Children, designated pilot of Evangelion Unit-00. Rei is a clone of Yui Ikari who possess the soul of Lilith.

Past

Officially Rei's past has been erased, and next to nothing is revealed in the show. Gendo was accompanying the child Rei on a tour of Nerv facilities, and may have been her guardian when she was young. A disheveled room in a place called the "Third Annex", located in the bowels of Central Dogma, is said to have been the place where Rei was "born", and has an overall resemblance to the apartment Rei later lives in.

Shortly before the story begins, Rei participated in Eva-00's first activation experiment. When synchronization reached the ego borderline, Eva-00 went berserk, and the entry plug was ejected. Rei was injured as a result of the plug hitting the floor from a great height without anything cushioning its fall.

Tokyo 3

Rei's inability to pilot an Evangelion when Sachiel appears prompts Gendo Ikari to summon his long-abandoned son, Shinji Ikari, to Tokyo-3 to pilot Evangelion Unit-01. Rei is quiet and seems nearly unemotional; 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. Rei is also a central part of the Dummy System.

Profile

While other characters in the series have issues with their identities, Rei Ayanami’s might be the most difficult, perhaps insurmountable. At least, that is the problem with her second and third incarnations, which will be discussed mostly as a collective pair. Though the first Rei was not internally explored while she existed, in Episode 25 she is portrayed as being more aware of her nature, and cynical about any 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, and can easily be replaced by a clone if she dies. Though Rei is unaware of some aspects of her construction, she still perceives her identity as more fragile than others', with a vague idea that there is something that she doesn’t know about herself.

Outwardly Rei usually appears cool and aloof, but she is easily confused by emotions and detached from her own. When her mind was entered by the Angel Armisael Rei was made to truly feel the loneliness that had always existed in her. Returning from this vision, Rei shed tears at one of the few times in her life. Episode 25 further shows that Rei has a deep despair and a wish to return to nothingness. She also has little concern for her own life, and for her own comfort and personal space.

Rei 2 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. Rei 2 begin this with was Gendo Ikari, and Rei 2 kept his warped glasses from the day when Gendo went to check on her after Eva-00 forcibly ejected her Entry Plug in an accident that took place before the series' present.

But eventually Rei 2 began to turn towards Shinji Ikari and her third incarnation continued this choice, passing the ability to decide Instrumentality from father to son as well. In this, Rei 3 also destroyed the glasses that her predecessor treasured. For speculation on Rei's relationship with Gendo, please 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 survived in Lilith, and whether it was Rei or Lilith interacting with Shinji.

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 occurs in Episode 14 with a monologue that has Rei exploring her character, but also speaking of nature and the earth. She also describes her reason for piloting as "a bond" not just to Gendo, but with "all people".

Incarnations

Rei 1

"Rei 1" is the first Rei Ayanami clone, who appears for the first and only time in Episode 21 as a child of four to five years, in flashbacks to the year 2010. She is brought to Gehirn HQ under Tokyo-3 by Gendo Ikari where she is introduced as the "daughter of a friend" who he is taking care of. Naoko Akagi notes the physical similarity between Rei and Yui Ikari, which is especially evident in her younger form.

The night before the base would become officially operational, Rei 1 became lost and encountered Naoko on the bridge of the Command Center. Rei called Naoko 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 really just using her for her technical skill. In a fit of frustration and rage, Naoko strangled Rei 1 to death, and then committed suicide by throwing herself onto the Magi supercomputers below.

She also appears in Episode 25 for the conversation Rei 3 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 1, which may be providing a "retroactive hint" as to the identity of Eva-00's resident soul. See: The Soul in Evangelion Unit-00.

Rei 1 is seen for the last time when all three Rei stand together at the site of Gendo's death, Episode 26'.

Rei 2

"Rei 2" is the second Rei Ayanami clone, actually the first encountered during the series, in Episode 01. Rei 2 is the personification of "Rei Ayanami" seen during almost all of the series, from Episode 01 through the middle of Episode 23 when she sacrifices herself and her Evangelion Unit-00 in order to destroy the Angel Armisael.

While Rei 1 may have been a potential Eva pilot had she lived, and Rei 3 was still considered a backup pilot after Eva Unit 00 was destroyed, Rei 2 was the only "Rei" clone to actually pilot an Eva. Also, Rei 2 seems aware that she is a clone (as various Episodes such as 19 and 23 imply), although she doesn't seem to know she's cloned from Yui and Lilith.

Rei 3

"Rei 3" is the third Rei Ayanami clone, which appears from the middle of Episode 23 through The End of Evangelion, where she merges with Adam and Lilith. This is the Rei that discovers she possess the soul of Lilith as evidenced by her actions in Episodes 24 and 25'.

Notes

• "Rei" in Japanese is (sometimes) a synonym for "zero", fitting as Rei is the pilot of Eva Unit 00. However, in the original Japanese dub of the series, characters refer to Unit 00 using the half-English "Zerogouki" ("-gouki" = "Unit"). "Reigouki" wouldn't be an entirely inaccurate alternate rendering of its name, though.
• "Rei" spelt with different Kanji is the word for "spirit". Rei's name becomes a double pun- she is the pilot of Unit 00, and the vessel for the soul of Lilith.
• Rei's surname Ayanami translates approximately as "twill wave". She was named for 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 first name comes from 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. While this effort failed, some of the staff and voice actors of Sailor Moon did work on Eva as well, including another one of Sailor Moon's series directors' Jun'ichi Satoh (Under the pen-name Kiichi Jinme as a Storyboardist) and the voice actress' for Usagi Tsukino/Sailor Moon Kotono Mitsuishi and Haruka Tenoh/Sailor Uranus Megumi Ogata, respectively. (http://evacommentary.org/appendix/character-names.htm) "Rei is just a pun of rei 零 [zero], but actually named after Rei Hino of Sailor Moon [by Naoko Takeuchi]. At the time, this was a bait to invite Iku-chan (Kunihiko Ikuhara) to the staff, but he ran away. Too bad."
• 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.
• The Rei that's shown at the start of Episode 01 (as the Girl on the Street) and in the Final Scene of Episode 26' (Floating above the L.C.L Sea) appears to be Rei 3. See: Rei's Ghostly Appearances and Quantum Mechanics.
• When Ritsuko Akagi destroys the Dummy Plug "parts" factory which is really a cloning center for creating new Rei clones, her controller's display lists the inanimate future Rei-clones starting with "Rei 4". However, all of these prospective future clones were destroyed by Ritsuko, before Rei's (Lilith's) soul was ever transfered into them, and they were simply soul-less husks.
• 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.

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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