Rei Ayanami

Rei Ayanami
Neon Genesis Evangelion character
Rei with her Evangelion Unit-00 (in the background) as a child (left), as a pilot (center), and as a student (right)
First appearance	Neon Genesis Evangelion chapter 2: "Reunion" (1995)
Created by	Gainax
Voiced by	Japanese Megumi Hayashibara English Amanda Winn-Lee (ADV dub and Rebuild series; Prime Video dub) Brina Palencia (Rebuild series; Funimation dub) Ryan Bartley (Netflix dub)
In-universe information
Species	Human clone
Gender	Female
Title	First Child
Notable relatives	Gendo Ikari (legal guardian) Yui Ikari (biological source) Lilith (biological source) Shinji Ikari (son of Yui)

Rei Ayanami is a fictional character from the Neon Genesis Evangelion anime series and its eponymous franchise created by the anime studio Gainax. In the anime series, Rei is an introverted girl chosen as the enigmatic pilot of Evangelion Unit-00, one of a series of giant mechas called Evangelions. She is called the First Child among the Evangelion pilots. At the beginning of the series, Rei is a mysterious figure whose unusual behavior astonishes her peers. As the series progresses, she becomes more involved with the people around her, particularly her classmate and fellow Evangelion pilot, Shinji Ikari. She is revealed to be a clone of his mother, Yui Ikari, and Lilith, an entity known as an Angel. Rei appears in the franchise's animated feature films and related media, video games, the original net animation Petit Eva: Evangelion@School, the Rebuild of Evangelion films, and the manga adaptation by Yoshiyuki Sadamoto.

Hideaki Anno, director of the animated series, conceived Rei as a representation of his unconscious mind. He was also influenced by his readings on psychology, particularly Freudian psychoanalysis, taking inspiration from Freud's theories on the Oedipus complex. Other influences for the character's creation include earlier works by Gainax staff members, such as the unproduced animated film Aoki Uru, and Paul Gallico's The Snow Goose. Rei is voiced by Megumi Hayashibara in Japanese and by Amanda Winn-Lee, Brina Palencia, and Ryan Bartley in English.

Rei has received generally positive reactions from viewers and critics. The character attracted the attention of the otaku community and appeared in homages of the Neon Genesis Evangelion fandom. Reviewers have praised Rei's mysterious aura, her role in the story, and her character development; however, some critics said she lacked personality and was trite. Merchandise based on her has been released, including figures and accessories. She appeared in collaborations between Evangelion and other organizations, such as the Aonami Line and the Japan National Tourism Organization.

Critics linked her success to a series of moe, or affectionate, traits that anime fans recognized, influencing the creation of subsequent female anime characters. She was used to illustrate Japanese scholar Hiroki Azuma's database hypothesis, where a structure with two layers contains messages that are sent between each other and leave the database. The database hypothesis explained why parts of characters similar to Rei were reused in later anime, manga, and visual novels, even when creators who did not think about Evangelion were creating characters similar to Rei. Zoltan Kacsuk of Stuttgart Media University found that visual novels were more likely to have characters similar to Rei, peaking in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Moreover, she influenced the music and fashion industries.

Concept and design

Hideaki Anno, the director of the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion, instructed Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, the character designer of the same work, on Rei's character design, asking him to design her as a depressed and reticent girl speaking in a subdued voice. The band Kinniku Shōjo Tai's theme song "Doko e demo ikeru kitte" (何処へでも行ける切手) and its line "hotai de masshiro na shojo" (包帯で真っ白な少女; lit. '"the girl white with bandages"') inspired Sadamoto to draw Rei. The same band produced a song named "Fumimi no kodomo" (福耳の子供), in which a female monologue is audible, and Sadamoto tried to portray a girl with a similar voice. Ukina, a character from Sadamoto's previous work Koto, served as Rei's model, and the artist gave her a messy and layered bob haircut. Another source of inspiration for Rei was The Snow Goose, a novella written by Paul Gallico, describing a painting that portrays the protagonist as a thin and pale girl in an empty room.

Rei was originally conceived with dark hair and eyes; blue hair and bandages were later considered by Sadamoto.

Anno wanted a melancholic character with short hair, so Sadamoto originally designed Rei as a brunette with dark eyes. It was necessary to distinguish her from the other female protagonist, Asuka Langley Soryu, so he depicted her with eye and hair colors opposite to Asuka's. He also published a drawing of a dark-haired character named Yui Ichijō among Rei's designs in one of his artbooks, without specifying whether it is an early conception of Yui Ikari. Although Asuka was designed to behave similar to an idol in Neon Genesis Evangelion and to symbolize heterosexual attraction, Sadamoto designed Rei as a motherhood symbol, thinking of her as the opposite of Asuka. Anno also suggested Rei's eye color be red, a feature he believed gave her more personality and distinguished her design from those of the other characters. Her hair color changed to blue, similar to the main character from Aoki Uru, the unmade film sequel to Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise (1987). Sadamoto also gave her black stockings, inspired by a women's handball team he saw playing in middle school. Black allowed him to differentiate her from the characters of the series released in the same period and go against their trend.

Similarly to other Evangelion characters, Ayanami's surname comes from a Japanese naval vessel, the destroyer Ayanami. Her first name comes from the character Rei Hino of the anime and manga series Sailor Moon. This was done to get one of Sailor Moon's directors, Kunihiko Ikuhara, to work on Evangelion. In Japanese, Rei means "zero", written in kanji as Rei (零). According to writer Patrick Drazen, her name can be a pun on her Evangelion 00. As for critic Hiroki Azuma, it may have been influenced by a character named Zero, the protagonist of the 1987 novel Ai to Gensō no Fascism, written by Ryū Murakami. Anno also took inspiration from Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic concept of the Oedipus complex for her role. He conceived the Evangelion and Rei as palliative mother figures for Shinji; Rei was also developed as emotionally close to Shinji's father, Gendo, creating a multi-layered Oedipus complex. In a discarded draft of the character's background, she was thus a more sensual character than her final version; character designer Sadamoto, unlike the more frank and explicit Hideaki Anno, decided to give her a much more mysterious and bland eros. For Kazuya Tsurumaki, Shinji feels a sexual and incestuous desire for her, and Kentaro Takekuma described her as an "eternal virgin".

During Evangelion's production and first broadcast, Anno struggled to write the character because of a lack of personal interest, understanding, or relatabililty. Still, he thought of her as representing his unconscious mind, conceiving Rei as "the unconscious Shinji". In the fifth episode, "Rei I", explicitly dedicated to her character, Rei speaks seven lines and fifty-two words. In the sixth, "Rei II", she has twenty-five lines. Not feeling particularly close to her, the director, for a long time, forgot to explore Rei's personality, ignoring it or giving it marginal space. In the eighth episode, "Asuka Strikes!", for example, she does not appear in any scene, but in the seventh installment, "A Human Work", he remembered her and added a scene with Rei. As with other Evangelion characters, he transposed aspects of his life into the character, including the choice to not eat meat and maintain a vegetarian diet. At the beginning of the production, he also stated that he did not know what would happen to Rei or the other characters because of uncertainty about his company.

The character's backstory changed during development. According to Sadamoto and assistant director Kazuya Tsurumaki, she was originally conceived as an alien entity, but staff later made her at least genetically human. During an interview, they described Rei as a girl with the human genes of Yui Ikari and the genes of the first Angel Adam [sic]; Tsurumaki also associated her condition with a Devilman, a hybrid presented in the manga Devilman by Go Nagai. In the original script for the twenty-first episode, the first Rei clone, killed by Naoko Akagi in the final version of the script, eventually survives after being strangled and having lost consciousness momentarily, awakening in an empty command room without Dr. Akagi. In contrast, Anno had planned the death of her second clone since the beginning. In "Rei III", one of the last episodes of the series, Rei dies, and another clone, who acts like a stranger to Shinji, replaces her. Anno compared the story after her smile scene, in which there is a step back in interpersonal communication, to Hideki Gō, a character from the Return of Ultraman series; Gō seems to get closer to other people and his colleagues from the Monster Attack Team, but shortly thereafter, he is estranged. Anno added: "At that point, something emerges of my mistrust or fear of communication with others."

During the production of the fourteenth episode, "Weaving a Story", the director decided to focus on her and her emotions, adding a monologue of Rei. As he was working on the monologue, he wanted to develop her in a schizophrenic direction and wondered how to portray a kind of madness. He was loaned a magazine-like book titled Bessatsu Takarajima (別冊宝島) on mental illness that contained a poem by someone who had a mental disorder, and that triggered his imagination so he could write her monologue. During the production, Ikuhara, annoyed by the idealized image and the fetishism that some fans built around the character, proposed to Anno to subvert fans' expectations and show her as a real girl who gets married and impregnated at the end of the series, but Anno rejected the suggestion. In the original finale wanted by Anno, the giant Rei added in The End of Evangelion (1997) was not foreseen since it was conceived later. Anno declared he considered her character complete in her smile scene from the sixth episode, since "she and Shinji completely 'communicated' there".

Voice actresses

Megumi Hayashibara voiced Rei in all her appearances in the original series, as well as the later films, spin-offs, video games, and the Rebuild of Evangelion film series. In 1995, Hayashibara said she was intrigued by her role and laconic character, saying: "I have to challenge something new." Hayashibara also attended auditions for Asuka and Misato Katsuragi. After hearing her performance in an original video animation named Ichigatsu ni wa Christmas (一月にはChristmas), Anno felt her voice was more suited to Rei. She noticed that before Neon Genesis Evangelion, there were few taciturn and cold characters to deal with. Without examples to imitate, she tried to characterize her to the best of her ability. During the dub sessions, Hideaki Anno instructed and guided her, advising her to read her lines in the flattest tone possible. She said, "the director told me, 'It's not that she doesn't have emotion, but that she doesn't know what it is.'" According to Hayashibara, because of Rei not knowing what emotion is, her statements and feelings have "no difference". At first glance, her splendor comes from her lack of opportunistic pretense. Hayashibara added, "Rei's beauty comes from the truth that she has feelings", and when she could find hidden warmth, she could relate to Rei.

Amanda Winn-Lee (left) voiced Rei Ayanami in the ADV dub of the original series, the Manga dub of The End of Evangelion, and the Amazon dub of Rebuild. In contrast, Brina Palencia (right) voiced her in the Funimation dub of Rebuild of Evangelion.

Voicing the mahjong game Shinseiki Evangelion: Eva to Yukai na Nakamatachi (新世紀エヴァンゲリオンエヴァと愉快な仲間たち; lit. 'Neon Genesis Evangelion: Eva and Good Friends'), she stated that she understood the difference between "lack of intonation" and "absence of emotion" in words. She linked the lack of intonation as a sign of "self-confidence"; an insecure or bad-faith person, in her opinion, tended to emphasize words, as Rei is honest and tells the truth. The voice actress also reprised the role for the Rebuild series. During filming for the third film in the series, Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo (2012), she worked on parts that were not fully animated, so she had to ask the director what was happening in the scenes. She stated she had to try saying Rei's short lines many times and find the right nuance the staff wanted. She had to voice her as she was indifferent and be careful in conveying her character's feelings of happiness just right.

Regarding the final installment, Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time (2021), a complicated part for her was showing another Rei clone who is slowly growing up; when she tried to be pure, she was criticized, and when she tried to be less emotional, she was criticized anyway. Anno attempted to make the characters younger and with fuller emotions, so it was difficult for the voice actress to get the nuances the director wanted. With Rei's role, Hayashibara's popularity as a voice actor grew, and she became an icon of anime fandom. Shunsuke Nozawa, assistant professor at Hokkaido University, noted how, in the 1990s, there was an explosion of interest in Japanese voice actors, believing the figure of Hayashibara to be at the center of this change, thanks to the "enormous, societal-level fascination" exerted by Ayanami. Hayashibara thus began to be interviewed about the series and to be regularly invited on television as a celebrity.

Amanda Winn-Lee voices Rei in English in the original series and the Amazon dubs of the Rebuild of Evangelion films. According to Winn-Lee, despite the cold and detached appearance, Rei has some humanity, despite having low self-esteem and realizing she can be expended. She also acknowledged Rei's humanity despite her expendability. In the Funimation dub of the Rebuild of Evangelion films, her role is entrusted to Brina Palencia, and in the Netflix dub, she is voiced by Ryan Bartley.

Appearances

Neon Genesis Evangelion

The series is set in Tokyo-3, an inland city after water covers the original Tokyo, and depicts Rei Ayanami as an enigmatic girl cloned from Shinji Ikari's mother. She is called the First Child. In 2014, she moved to the first municipal middle school in the new city of Tokyo-3, and Gendo became her legal guardian. In 2015, Angels, entities having ambiguous forms, attack the city; and Gendo summons his son, Shinji, to pilot an "All-purpose Humanoid Fighting Machine, Evangelion" on behalf of Nerv. When Shinji refuses to pilot an Evangelion unit, Rei first appears as an injured, thin, and weak person. Once he feels sympathy for Rei, he decides to pilot the Evangelion unit. Through the course of the series, Rei, who is assigned by Gendo to her Evangelion unit, becomes friends with fellow Evangelion pilot Shinji Ikari, changing her attitude.

In the episode "Don't Be", an Angel in space causes Asuka to have agonizing memories about her mother and struggle to reconcile these memories. To defeat the Angel, Gendo tells Rei to get the Lance of Longinus from underground. She gets the lance and throws it at the Angel. In the next episode, Rei decides to sacrifice herself alongside Evangelion Unit-00 in the battle with the Angel Armisael to save Shinji and destroy the enemy. After her apparent death, Dr. Ritsuko Akagi reveals she was born in the Laboratory for Artificial Evolution's third branch, located under Lake Ashino and Hakone City. Her body with blue hair was created as a clone of Yui Ikari, a brilliant researcher who lost her life in a testing experiment by Evangelion Unit-01. Ritsuko also reveals that in the deepest level of Nerv's headquarters, many Rei clones are kept so Rei can be replaced when one of them dies. Additionally, Rei is a partial clone of Lilith, the second Angel. Her memory is eventually saved in an object similar to a spinal column placed in the Central Dogma of the Nerv, the Dummy Plug Plant. In 2010, Gendo brought her first clone (Rei I) to the Gehirn base, the predecessor of Nerv and responsible for developing and constructing the first Evangelion units, introducing her as the daughter an acquaintance had entrusted to him. Dr. Naoko Akagi, a romantic rival to Yui and a colleague of Gendo, killed this first Rei. During her visit to Gehirn, Rei I got lost in the laboratory control room and met Naoko, calling her an "old hag" as if to provoke her. She then revealed that it was Gendo who called Naoko that. Naoko suddenly recognized Yui's facial features in the little girl's face, and, in an outburst of violence, she strangled and killed her, after which she committed suicide.

After her sacrifice, a third and final clone replaces Rei II. Ritsuko later destroys all of Rei's other bodies. Although this Rei clone is more emotionally distant, because of her close relationship with Shinji, the last Rei decides to rebel against Gendo's will. Rei III catalyzes an apocalyptic event named Third Impact. She merges with Lilith, letting Shinji freely decide the course of a process called Human Instrumentality, during which all humanity unites into one collective consciousness. As Instrumentality happens, Rei grows into a giant, collects the souls of humans, and grows a third eye. A cross stabs that eye. When Shinji rejects Instrumentality, this figure decomposes. After Shinji rematerializes, he briefly sees a version of Rei watching over him from a distance before vanishing.

Rebuild of Evangelion

Rei returns as a primary character in Rebuild of Evangelion and appears in the series's first installment, Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone (2007). She acts as a pilot of Evangelion Unit-00 and helps Shinji defeat Angel Ramiel. The Rebuild series makes the relationship between Shinji and Rei a central element of the story, increasing and improving the scenes depicting them compared to what the original series did. In the second film, Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance (2009), her character develops, and her relationship with Shinji is shown much more openly than in the original series. Departing from her original traits, she attempts to host a dinner party for her fellow pilots. Anno first thought of using this idea for the fourth episode of the original anime, but the proposal was shelved during the production of the series. During the climax, the Angel Zeruel devours Rei and Unit-00. When Unit-01 goes out of control, Shinji forces his way into the Angel, pulling her out, and the two embrace each other; at the end of the fight, they are both trapped within Unit-01 as the action triggers the Third Impact. Fuyutsuki says Shinji's behavior should improve, and Gendo says that based on his plan, Shinji and Rei need to come together. After the film was released, assistant director Tsurumaki was asked about this plan. He said that the impression of a strategy to bring Shinji and Rei together resulted from complex script writing, and he believed Anno did not thoroughly think about that strategy.

In the third installment, Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo (2012), set fourteen years later, the same Rei does not appear; a different clone is introduced instead, who acts differently than the other Rei, maintaining a cold and silent demeanor. In Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time (2021), the last film of the series, Rei's new clone, named Ayanami (Tentative Name), heads together with Shinji and Asuka Shikinami to a small town called Village 3, inhabited by survivors of the various Impacts that occurred and isolated from the outside world, almost uninhabitable. Here, Rei interacts with the adult Toji Suzuhara and Hikari Horaki, old schoolmates of the previous clone, and with the children and women of Village 3, helping them to work in the fields. With time, this Rei begins to develop her individuality, gradually discovering the world around her and learning to socialize with the inhabitants. After some time, Rei (Tentative Name), whose real name is Ayanami-Type No.006, cannot maintain her form without continuous contact with the Evangelion's LCL liquid and dies in front of Shinji. During the Instrumentality, Shinji meets again the Rei of fourteen years before, who remained inside the Evangelion Unit-01. The old Rei, with visibly long hair, argues with her companion, who decides to live in a world without Evangelions and give the world a new birth, Neon Genesis. Rei and Shinji then say goodbye to each other for the last time, shaking hands and smiling.

Other appearances

The official Neon Genesis Evangelion manga by Yoshiyuki Sadamoto was started in December 1994, roughly one year before the anime premiered, and began serialization in the February 1995 issue of Monthly Shōnen Ace. Rei first appears in the second chapter of the first volume of the manga, titled "Reunion" (再会, Saikai), released in book form in September 1995. She initially considers herself empty, useless, and created solely for piloting the Evangelion under Gendo's orders, but Shinji's touch changes her attitude. In a scene from the fifth volume of the manga where they are both at Rei's house, Rei gets burned as she is preparing tea with Shinji, and their hands touch for a moment. Taking advantage of the opportunity, Rei invites Shinji to speak to his father and open up to him. In another chapter, thinking back to that moment, she wonders if her hands will one day be able to touch Shinji again. During the clash with the Angel Armisael, Rei becomes increasingly aware of her feelings of sadness and affection towards Shinji, towards whom she demonstrates she wants to become one with him.

In a scene from the last episode of the animated series, an alternate reality is presented with a different story than the previous episodes. Rei is presented as a girl who has just moved into the class of Asuka and Shinji, with a cheerful, distracted, and irascible personality. An outgoing Rei is featured in some Neon Genesis Evangelion spin-offs, such as Neon Genesis Evangelion: Angelic Days, set in the alternate reality of the last episode. In the original web anime series Petit Eva: Evangelion@School, a parody of the original animated series, three Ayanami sisters are presented. One is diligent and introverted, another is sport-oriented and extroverted, and another is a four-year-old girl with a passion for soft toys. In Neon Genesis Evangelion: Anima, set three years after the End of Evangelion in an alternate scenario, several versions of Rei appear: Rei Troi, pilot of an Evangelion named Evangelion Unit-02 Type II Allegorica; Rei Quatre; Rei Cinq; and the seven-year-old Rei Six. They are all pilots of Evangelion-0.0 units. In Neon Genesis Evangelion: Campus Apocalypse, Rei's connection with Kaworu catches Shinji's attention. She also appears in Neon Genesis Evangelion: Legend of the Piko Piko Middle School Students. In a simulation game titled Neon Genesis Evangelion: Ayanami Raising Project, the player takes on the task of looking after Rei. She is also available as a romantic option in Neon Genesis Evangelion: Girlfriend of Steel 2nd, Neon Genesis Evangelion 2, and Neon Genesis Evangelion: Shinji Ikari Raising Project. In the manga adaptation of Neon Genesis Evangelion: Shinji Ikari Raising Project, she is a distant cousin of Shinji and a transfer student who influences his relationship with Asuka. She appears as a playable character in Neon Genesis Evangelion RPG, a tabletop role-playing game adaptation of Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Rei also appears in media not related to the Evangelion franchise. She is a game character in Super Robot Wars, MapleStory, and Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds. She is a downloadable character option in Tales of Zestiria and The First Descendant. She appears in an official Shinkansen Henkei Robo Shinkalion crossover episode.

Characterization and themes

Basic characteristics

Rei Ayanami is a taciturn girl who lacks friends, but will obey commands. She is introverted, uncomplaining, socially detached, and aloof. Hideaki Anno believed that Japanese society wanted girls who behaved quietly and avoided complaining. Sociologist Satomi Ishikawa noticed that in a scene from the sixth episode of the series, "Rei II", her companion Shinji asks her the reason that motivates her to pilot Evangelion 00. Rei replies by saying she finds her only connection with other people in this and demonstrates that she is committed solely to fighting the Angels, potentially costing her everything. Throughout the series, she intimidates and attracts Shinji. Although she is fragile, she has an "icy decisive mind". Hoon J. Lee of Purdue University Northwest wrote that Rei has needed to rescue Asuka when Asuka cannot carry out her will and must submit herself because of her torment. Critic Susan J. Napier said that Rei confesses wanting to die and disappear from existence. Japanese critic Tamaki Saitō affirmed that the emptiness the character feels is characteristic of a "phallic girl", unlike characters described as "phallic mothers" such as Noriko Takaya from Gunbuster and Queen Kushana from Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, where the term phallic refers to authoritative behavior. He hypothesized, "If the phallic mother is a woman with a penis, the hysterical phallic girl is a girl who is identified with the penis. The penis here, however, is a hollow, empty one that will never function again." Conversely, he found that Rei's emptiness and sense of belonging in fiction lets her propel the narrative based on acquired phallic behavior.

For the critic Gerald Alva Miller, despite her cold attitude, Rei experiences feelings of alienation and existential angst. Gualtiero Cannarsi, who curated the Italian adaptation for the series, similarly described Rei as a girl inexperienced with life skills, as she has had no one to teach them to her, resulting in her disinterest in them. Her attitude is reflected in her apartment, where hygiene is neglected. In one episode, Ritsuko Akagi says, similarly to Commander Ikari, that she is not skilled in life skills. Scattered on the floor of her apartment are scientific texts on biological interactions and genetics written in the Latin alphabet in the original series and The Happy Prince and Other Tales in the Rebuild of Evangelion series. Evangelion character designer Yoshiyuki Sadamoto compared her disposition to a shadow or air. He described her as a girl people want, but cannot get. He also interpreted Asuka and Rei as characters with different strengths. Hayashibara thought of Rei as celestial and noted that because her emotions vacillate, she had to be meticulous about performing her character or else she would have to repeat her takes.

According to Sadamoto, Rei can feel emotions and feelings, but has difficulty in expressing herself and communicating. From the series's first episodes, Shinji tries to connect with her, but Rei cannot adequately parse the meaning of his words and actions. Although the two pilots occasionally converse with each other, they cannot communicate on an emotional level and do not understand each other's feelings. As Shinji cries and rejoices about her continuing to live after a major fight in the sixth episode, she smiles, marking this as a major moment of character development. Their words and actions move to a place of mutual understanding. For critic Manabu Tsuribe, with her smile in the sixth episode, Neon Genesis Evangelion reaches its climax, and the story portion of Evangelion ends at that climax in terms of "growth and independence of a boy", or a character arc in the style of a Bildungsroman. As Rei is also Shinji's classmate, she begins to become more aware of her own identity and desires. Andrew Lapworth of the University of Bristol noted that her connection with Shinji could result from Shinji wanting his dead mother. Odesa I. I. Mechnikov National University's Konstantin Rayhert stated that a connection between a child and a mother is stronger than one between spouses. Rei's surname, Ayanami, is also the original surname of Shinji's mother, and this could be a reason she turns to Shinji during the Third Impact. According to scholars Artur Lozano-Mández and Antonio Loriguillo-López, Rei's receipt of paternal love in contrast to Shinji and her similarity to his mother add weight to their relationship. In the manga, further differences are evident in Rei's characterization. She is generally more empathetic and open to human contact in the manga than her animated counterpart. In the manga, the character has more space than Asuka, who, in the anime, has a predominant role. Compared to the classic series, Sadamoto tried his hand at her relationship with Shinji, particularly insisting on the symbology of the touch of the hands and the theme of motherhood, inspired by Kazuo Umezu's The Drifting Classroom. Sadamoto described Shinji and Rei's feelings for each other as mutual love.

Rei's appearance characterizes her behavior. Kathryn Hemmann, a professor in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages at George Mason University, described Rei as a bishōjo, a fantastical girl in media typically for men. The term bishōjo (美少女) can alternatively convey beauty or cuteness. Hemmann said that a bishōjo can stand on her own as an artwork independent of the work she is in, and her naiveté is juxtaposed with her competence. Hemmann also wrote that many bishōjo involve themes of the apocalypse and transhumanism. Hiroki Azuma said that the blue hair and reticence signify a "mysterious past" that appeal to male fans of manga and anime. He posited that fans want to know the meanings of characteristics and how said characteristics work in conjunction. Professor Jinying Li of Brown University stated that Rei's appearance exemplifies cuteness because of her injuries and futility. The injuries she suffers drive the events of Neon Genesis Evangelion and sales of her merchandise. According to Li, Rei's appearance "ultimately corrupts the distinction between passivity and domination, between object and subject, which, to a certain degree, characterizes the affective economy of techno-intimacy."

Psychoanalysis

During a show, a boy asked Anno what Rei likes, but he replied that he did not think about it. According to him, she does not appreciate her own life, hurts herself, and feels she does not need friends, being aware of her replaceability: "Her presence, her existence—ostensible existence—is ephemeral. She's a very sad girl. She only has the barest minimum of what she needs to have." Anno also compared the Japanese attraction to characters such as Rei as the result of "a stunted imaginative landscape born of Japan's defeat in the Second World War" and remarked about the lack of preparation for adulthood in Japanese education after the Second World War. Critics concurred on her unhappiness and ambivalence and linked her silent and inexpressive personality to alexithymia or a schizoid personality disorder. An official Death and Rebirth booklet compared her to a blank noh mask, and the book Schizo / Neon Genesis Evangelion characterized her as "a dreamless mind, completely separated from Jung's collective unconscious".

In the fourteenth episode of the anime, "Weaving a Story", Rei delivers a monologue describing the world she observes. Critic Dennis Redmond described this monologue as complex because of the effect that piloting Evangelion Unit-01 has on Rei, causing what he called an "astonishingly beautiful dream sequence". He linked the poem to the line "Who is No. 1?" in The Prisoner and "Who am I?" to Germania Death in Berlin, a 1973 play written by Heiner Müller. He also stated that science fiction in the 1970s influenced the depiction of the images of Rei in this sequence and the sequence includes various images from East Asian mythology and nature; and noted that Shinji cannot interface with Evangelion Unit-00, but Rei can marginally interact with Evangelion Unit-01. Another critic, Yuya Sato, compared this monologue to shōjo manga, or manga intended for girls, and said that Rei's question about who she is does not need a clear answer. Scholar Gabriel Tsang wrote that her monologue includes questions that Immanuel Kant described as "transcendental", and it appears nihilistic because of Tsang's statement that "there is no God who has granted human a purpose to survive". Conversely, he noted that existentialism builds on nihilism, and self-recognition requires prior self-denial. Regarding the question, "Who am I?", analyst Stevie Suan described this as a result of Evangelion allowing self-reflexivity and juxtaposing this question against neoliberalist individualism. According to Napier, Rei's questions about herself are characteristic of metaphysics, rather than only psychoanalysis.

Academic Frenchy Lunning described Rei as Shinji's anima. According to screenwriter Yōji Enokido, she produces in young men a feeling of distance as though they still depend on their mothers. In the first episode, "Angel Attack", Shinji sees a ghost of Rei Ayanami in a deserted city near Tokyo-3. The Rei visible in the sequence is not the real Rei; the appearance has been connected to the scenario of the film The End of Evangelion, released in 1997 as a conclusion to the classic series. During the film, humans come together in one being during Instrumentality as many Reis are seen "swimming like schools of sperm". Daniel Villa Gracia of Complutense University of Madrid likened Rei Ayanami's group of clones to an army and said this was a threat when Seele's failed to carry its plan out. Yūichirō Oguro, an editor of some of the contents of the Japanese home video editions of Evangelion, wrote that the ghost of Rei that Shinji sees on the avenue is "the existence that gazes upon man" and the scene symbolizes that throughout the series, his mother protected him.

Posthumanist themes appear in Rebuild of Evangelion. As Rei is a clone of Yui Ikari and has many fellow clones, she exemplifies "technological replication" and can survive in inhuman, polluted areas. Daichi Nakagawa said that Rei is an example of a situation where artificial life can typify development better than human life. The fact that she has many clones allows Gendo and Seele to exploit these clones to achieve their objectives. According to Quanyu Liao of Nanjing University of the Arts, Gendo and Seele's exploitation of these clones epitomize transhumanism and capitalism. Conversely, Rei can also connect with plants and animals with "traits such as 'embeddedness,' 'transversal selfhood,' and 'ontological relationality'". Her posthumanist characteristics, with the intent to help people and improve society, contrast with the destructive characteristics of an Evangelion unit. A clone of Rei is initially cut off from the outside world, but when she arrives in the Third Village, where survivors of the Third Impact live, she helps farm and connects with the environment. She wants to stay there and loves Shinji. These indicate she is becoming more aware of herself. Antonin Bechler and Kenjirō Muramatsu described Rei as portrayed in Evangelion 3.0+1.0 as the "quintessential simulacrum" who attempts to connect with other humans. Moreover, they wrote that Rei's actions are indicative of Anno's idea of hyper-mediation and the real world being governed by a Lacanian sense of symbolic order. Analyzing the same film, Erick Agung Yohanes, Nita Novianti, and Nia Nafisah of Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia said the presence of clones at Gendo's disposal signifies that Gendo wants to be with Yui Ikari, but cannot fulfill this desire and devises a plan that involves hurting others; and that lack of emotion on the clones' faces signifies artifice.

Themes of trauma

In an interview with Anno, Japanese writer and academic Mitsunari Ohizumi likened the figure of Rei to the young women committed to the Japanese sect Aum Shinrikyō, which carried out the Tokyo subway sarin attack in 1995, noting that they depended entirely on their leader Shōkō Asahara. A book he edited, Schizo / Neon Genesis Evangelion, describes her as an unsolvable puzzle; "a spirit that tears up the heart and body in eternity"; and "the most beautiful actress in the world"; and in a series of dichotomies, such as opium and euphoria, Satan and God, Eros and Thanatos, a cruel woman and a strong girl in junior high school, sarin for Gendo Ikari to destroy humanity and a keyhole to Pandora's box, the Great Bad Mother trying to take in her son, and hopelessness and eternal life. Azuma said that Rei Ayanami's austere and secluded lifestyle, the comparison of her impression to postwar problems such as what happened in Bosnia, and the combination of a room with a laboratory allowed Anno to combine "images of refugees/trauma with the 'scientific'", and her seclusion is realistic. According to Azuma, Rei's discommunication is characteristic of neither kogyal, or "child girl", nor otaku, despite Neon Genesis Evangelion being "extremely otaku-like" because of heavy details it uses from media before it. He also likened her room to Satyan, the scientific laboratory of Aum Shinrikyō.

A theme of Neon Genesis Evangelion is the use of child soldiers. Scholar Emily Muir said that this series critiques children's consent and the consequences they face once they join. Rei, like her colleagues Shinji and Asuka, is a child soldier recruited by Nerv. Muir described her relationship with Shinji in the early episodes as protective. Later in the series, Rei doubts her morality as she was previously loyal to Gendo, but decides to rebel against him and rescue Shinji by detonating her own Evangelion unit. Muir described this phenomenon as developing "human will". She exhibits amnesiac behavior when she becomes Rei III and weighs her ability to honor Gendo and Shinji. According to Muir, despite the amnesia when changing clone bodies, her emotional development continues. Therefore, Rei can remember human emotion better than memory. In another paper Muir wrote, she said that because Evangelion combines mecha and sekai-kei genres, Rei's religiously-connected robotic behavior is consistent with the mecha genre, but her love is characteristic of sekai-kei. The term sekai-kei (セカイ系) refers to "world-type", and Rei's portrayal in the series prompts viewers to believe they can overcome perceived defeat when she is used as a symbol well. Scholar Philip Brophy described the robotic behavior and lack of socialization as acting according to higher authority, despite Shinji's concern for her. Muir then states that Nerv specialized in mecha and clones, but because of its science, it was criticized by the Japanese military. In the seventh episode, "Fourth Children", the Japanese military had its own remote-controlled robots that did not require children to operate. Muir concluded that Evangelion romanticized child soldiers in its narrative and that the concept of jus ad bellum is ambiguous.

In the twenty-third episode of the anime, Armisael invades Rei's body, and the episode cuts to a scene where she sees a copy of herself. Any detached thoughts are accompanied with pictures of a maze with cacophony. According to the scholar Philip Brophy, Rei's situation with Armisael is similar to Asuka's situation with an earlier Angel, Arael, where Asuka experienced the dissonance of a positive, visual, external world and a negative, auditory, internal world. In Rei's situation, she decides to rescue Shinji and let her lack of emotion reduce dramatic tension. As she rescues Shinji from Armisael, the cacophony stops and switches to brilliant images of Gendo and Rei expressing opposing emotions. Brophy compared this situation to removing a needle from a record being played and an ECG jolt that suddenly changes the viewer's perspective of music. Mio Bryce, Paul Cheung and Anna Katrina Gutierrez of Macquarie University interpreted this scene as a union of Rei and her clone donor, Yui, to show that Rei is human and can rescue Shinji. They noted that her humanity was fleeting because of her death and replacement with another clone, and the fleeting humanity is consistent with the Japanese meaning of Rei, zero.

Comparisons and symbolism

Rei Ayanami was compared to the Shinto goddess Amaterasu (left) and the Christian figure of Mary, mother of Jesus Christ (right).

Japanese architect Kaichiro Morikawa compared the face of the first Rei, usually presented in a distorted and deformed way, to the installations of Tony Oursler, also comparing her bedroom to Gottfried Helnwein's photographs. Kentaro Takekuma linked the image of Rei in bandages to the photos of Romain Slocombe, but Sadamoto compared her to the works of manga artist Sensha Yoshida. Her image is often flanked in the series by that of the Moon, a celestial body associated with motherhood, pallor, passivity, and femininity. Japanese engineer Yumiko Yano thus noticed a hieratic and unattainable aura in Rei Ayanami, comparing her to the Virgin Mary. Yano also associated her figure with the fragile and chaste women portrayed in fin de siècle art, particularly popular among the works of Symbolist painters.

Critic Krystian Woznicki compared Rei's role to Pinocchio in the film 964 Pinocchio (1991), but "Rei's character is quite realistic, whereas Pinocchio is completely removed from reality". Saitō described her as "the culmination of the Pygmalionism that began with Nanako SOS" and said that Ami Mizuno from Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon has been interpreted as a forerunner of Rei. At the same time, Kenneth Lee noted a similarity in her path of self-awareness with Pinocchio and Key from Key the Metal Idol. Patrick Drazen noticed that, like other Neon Genesis Evangelion characters, who have traits of some deities of Shinto mythology, Rei has affinities with the goddess of the Sun, Amaterasu, who is reborn at every dawn. He also compared the show's two other protagonists, Shinji and Asuka, with Susanoo and Ama-no-Uzume, respectively. Shinji, like Susanoo, has clumsy social manners and unsociable behavior, but Asuka is ebullient and flaunts her body as Uzume. According to Italian scholar Fabio Bartoli, her three incarnations could be linked to the three evolutionary stages of the soul postulated by the Jewish Qabbalah—Nephesh, the mere animal vitality; Ruach, the normal human soul; and Neshamah, the elevated spirit and result of the connection between man and God.

Cultural impact

Reception

Reception to Rei's character has been positive. Since 1995, she has become the subject of homages from the Neon Genesis Evangelion fandom, including fan fiction, fan art, and dōjinshi. Writers Patrick W. Galbraith and Kathryn Hemmann noted that otaku highly favor the character. Additionally, Hemmann said Rei's character represents Evangelion. A column in the September 2007 issue of The Nikkei said, on the occasion of Evangelion 1.0's theatrical release, that the number of dedicated Rei fans in Japan exceeded one million. The Nikkei likened her to a modern goddess personifying Japanese anime. The newspaper also stated that people's care for Rei came from a time where the Japanese economy was in a low state and people had low self-esteem, but despite economic recovery, people still feel a sense of emptiness. The appearance of Rei in episodes of Neon Genesis Evangelion pivoted the practice of fans' simultaneous watching and communicating with other fans online in the 1990s, leading to 2-Channel launching in 1999 and globalizing with social networks such as X and YouTube.

Anime critics described Rei as a realistic and influential character. Science Fiction Weekly's Tasha Robinson expressed appreciation for the character's conclusion. Chris Mackenzie of IGN found Rei different from similar characters created after Evangelion because he believed Rei had more to offer on the inside than did characters modeled after her. Conversely, other critics stated that she lacked personality, was trite, and had wasted potential. THEM Anime Reviews's Raphael See wrote that he did not understand the reason for her immense popularity.

Critics also appreciated Rei's portrayal in the Rebuild of Evangelion films, such as her character development in the first two films in the series, her increased humanity in the film series compared to the anime, and her progressive independence from Gendo. Regarding her portrayal in the second film, Anime News Network's Mark Sombillo wrote: "Her personality and plight form much more of the core motivation of the story and despite her still tryingly hesitant attempts at communication, there's genuine warmth beneath her actions and it's hard not to be won over by her." Her role in the last installment of the Rebuild film series, Evangelion 3.0+1.0, received a particularly positive reception from critics and reviewers for its optimistic view, including the depiction of Rei and the other pilots outside the militarized and violent context of the battles. Critics considered her journey in the film's first part immersive and refreshing, and remarked that Rei's farming life is antithetical to a pilot's life. James Whitbrook from Gizmodo remarked on the thoroughness of her character arc among those presented in 3.0+1.0. Otaquest's Chris Cimi similarly praised her character development, saying that her actions "make for something different and warm but still Evangelion".

Merchandise

A cosplayer recreates Rei Ayanami wearing her plugsuit.

Rei's popularity resulted in high demand for merchandise. Merchandise featuring Rei includes figures, accessories, and a 2001 album titled Evangelion: The Birthday of Rei Ayanami. Sadamoto's design for the character became popular, selling high volumes of figures and spurring expensive speculation about her character in the press and the world of anime criticism. In the Japanese market, the high sales of Rei's merchandise were pivotal, helping to expand the figures and fanzines sector and leading to dedicated conventions forming. According to one estimate, plastic models before Evangelion sold about three thousand units, but Rei's figures reached ten times that amount. The release of Evangelion around the time of the Internet's early expansion and surging sales of anime figures gave more attention to the otaku community; and Akihabara attracted groups of otaku looking for Rei, transforming from a town with electrical appliance manufacturers to one that caters to otaku. She also appeared in collaborations between Evangelion and other organizations, including Turner Colour to advertise a shade of blue paint based on her, Ayanami Blue; Honda to promote the Honda Civic; with Nagoya and its train line, the Aonami Line, to commemorate the release of Evangelion 3.0+1.0; and with the Japan National Tourism Organization to promote "Cool Japan: Fusion with Tradition".

In 2005, to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the first airing of Evangelion, manga artist Mine Yoshizaki designed several action figures of the Angels with anthropomorphic appearances; among the various models, he devised a figure of the Angel Lilith inspired by Rei's character design. Although models and toys in the series initially performed poorly, Rei's action figures immediately became prevalent and exceeded Evangelion's unit sales, thus creating the first and perhaps the only case of a robotic anime "where reproductions of the human characters outsold those of the robots." Books and magazines portraying her on their covers, such as that of an issue of Rolling Stone's Japanese edition, were successful. An art book about her named Evangelion Photograph – Rei (ＲＥＩ－レイ－ 新世紀エヴァンゲリオン文庫写真集, Rei – Rei – Shinseiki Evangerion Bunko Shashin Shū) was published in 1997. Interest in Rei increased the demand for sculpting her figures, and she exemplified a virtual idol.

Legacy

Rei Ayanami influenced Japanese animation. Following the fame gained by Evangelion, other characters with its aesthetic and character traits were created. Critics regarded Rei and her success as the beginning of the moe phenomenon. Moe signifies affectionate traits, and fans valued these traits in her personality. Her characteristics were responsible for the impact Evangelion had, rather than the mechas and lore. The term moe (萌え) means "sprouting" or "budding", and Rei's injuries were crucial to actions that happen later in the series and to sales of her merchandise. Dolores Martinez of the University of London and University of Oxford said that Rei redefined the term. Moe led to the creation of characters according to definite stereotyped features easily recognizable and consumable by the Japanese otaku audience. In the late 1990s, characters bearing a close resemblance to Rei were produced and consumed on a massive scale in comics, anime, and novelizations, both in the commercial market and the fanzine market. According to Japanese scholar Hiroki Azuma in his book Otaku: Japan's Database Animals, this output is not linked to a direct Evangelion influence since "the emergence of Ayanami Rei did not influence many authors so much as change the rules of the moe elements sustaining otaku culture". Scholars noted that a character who is centered on moe has elements derived from it and used elsewhere. Azuma called this phenomenon the "database model", where he posited that within a structure with two layers, messages are sent between each other and leave the database. Because the elements of said database can be used in many different ways, a copy of a work has no difference from the work it is based on. Authors who did not think about Evangelion began to produce characters similar to Rei using moe elements, such as a silent personality, blue hair, and an absence of emotions. Stuttgart Media University's Zoltan Kacsuk found that visual novels were more likely to have characters that shared moe characteristics with characters such as Rei than were anime and manga, and these characters were especially common in the late 2000s and early 2010s.

The twenty-sixth episode, in which an alternate reality with Rei running with a slice of bread in her mouth is shown, constitutes a turning point within the otaku culture. To Azuma, the scene represents the point where the era of great stories ends and that of moe characters begins. From that point on, the emotional response to the protagonists became more important than the plot of the series. The twenty-sixth episode depicts Rei displaying attributes and behaviors that do not align with how she is depicted before this point. For example, running with a piece of bread in her mouth signifies slovenly and unpunctual behavior. When she meets her class, she behaves cheerfully, as opposed to her usual somber behavior. Another situation that is antithetical to her general portrayal is at the end of Shinji's imaginative sequence, where she gets angry at him. Scholar Stevie Suan stated that this is an uncharacteristic example of sudden mood changes commonly seen in anime, even within Evangelion. He noted that this example reaches "a limit of particularity" and demonstrates that characters' established portrayals are relied on. Writer Gerald Miller found this imaginative sequence to be "blissful", whereas Galbraith described this sequence as "a parody of fan works integrated into the original" and said this sequence could lampoon Anno's original idea of the anime as intending to please fans of anime. Writer Selen Çalık Bedir wrote about another scenario of Rei acting out of character in Ayanami with Asuka Raising Project, noting that players can cause Rei to behave similar to Asuka and stating that Rei can be "reduced to her most defining parts". She wrote that the game's visuals show that players can interact with a different character and personality than Rei.

Rei influenced Ruriko Tsukishima from Shizuku. They both influenced the creation of Ruri Hoshino from Martian Successor Nadesico, who in turn inspired a parody character, Tsubame Ōtorii from Cyber Team in Akihabara. Azuma concluded these characters share similar information and used these examples to illustrate his database hypothesis. Critics compared other characters to her, including Anthy Himemiya in Revolutionary Girl Utena, Diya in Butterfly Soup, Yashiro Kasumi in Muv-Luv, Yuri in Doki Doki Literature Club!, and the female cyborgs in Gunslinger Girl. Serial Experiments Lain's Lain Iwakura was also associated with the character; Lain's principal screenwriter, Chiaki J. Konaka, stated he was not influenced by Evangelion, and although he appreciated their characteristics, he said he did not see similarities between the two characters. Conversely, Tamaki Saitō argued that the character's choice of destruction in the end of Lain parallels Rei's choice in Evangelion. Eureka from Eureka Seven has similarly been compared to Rei Ayanami, causing dissatisfaction in series screenwriter Dai Satō. Critics Tomás Stiegwardt and Gabriel Los Santos compared Ahsoka Tano from Star Wars to Rei and found both characters as reticent. Stiegwardt and Los Santos called them "the inverse glitch", comparing their force in a "no-action conscience" to Zen and stating their force is part of natural cycles. A modern, female incarnation of Lu Meng as depicted in Dragon Destiny has her appearance based on Rei's.

Ryo Kastsumata of Musashino Art University regarded Rei as mukuchi (無口, lit. 'mouthless'), or reticent, and said that reticence, blue hair, and eyepatches were instrumental in developing new characters that appealed to otaku, including moe. Characters with her hairstyle frequently appeared in erotic comics shortly after Evangelion's success. Perry R. Hinton, an independent researcher, conjectured a negative correlation between connection to real women and erotic attachment to moe characteristics, and used Rei as an example of such a character. The character also exemplifies the kuudere (クーデレ) stereotype, a term for characters who hide their true feelings behind a melancholic and cold façade. According to Kaichiro Morikawa, a Japanese architect and academic, characters with physical defects before Evangelion and Rei Ayanami were rare, such as Char Aznable in Mobile Suit Gundam, who has a scar on his forehead, and Kushana in Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. Michael R. Bowman of the University of British Columbia stated that Rei's bandaged state demonstrates her status as a moe character independent of her story.

The Japanese band Rey derived its name from her. Singer and guitarist Motoo Fujiwara wrote the lyrics of the song "Arue", taking inspiration from Rei, with the English title "R.A." inspired by the initial letters of her name. Ging Nang Boyz's album Door features a song named "Ano ko wa Ayanami Rei ga suki" (あの娘は綾波レイが好き; lit. "That girl likes Rei Ayanami"). During Victoria's Secret Fashion Show 2012, English model Jourdan Dunn wore a dress similar to the character's plugsuit, a bodysuit worn by Evangelion pilots; Gainax only learned about the outfit from the Internet and was perplexed by the situation. According to Monica Kim of Vogue, her plugsuit also inspired a piece of clothing for the spring 2016 line by the fashion house Louis Vuitton. Scholar Ikuya Tokoro said that Rei is an example of a character in a link between cosplay and "metamorphosis" as a character, where cosplayers try to behave as the character they are portraying as much as possible during the time they wear the costume and defer their real behaviors, but some cosplayers customize their costumes. Moreover, he posited that clothing, including cosplay, are a form of "body modification". Luca Bruno of Leipzig University said that clothing is an element from a character that can be used in recurring frequency to make new characters according Azuma's "'database' of character design". Academics Deborah Shamoon and Michael M. Marra said that the uses of elements as seen with Rei in different media and merchandise are a result of the "database model", and Marra concluded these elements appeal to people who obsess over appearances perceived to be "cute".

See also

• Anime and manga portal
• Beautiful Fighting Girl – 2000 nonfiction book
• Database consumption – Method of media consumption
• List of Neon Genesis Evangelion characters
• Otaku: Japan's Database Animals – 2001 nonfiction book

References

Bibliography

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