First Child Rei Ayanami

NERV_USA2001-03-30

Age:14
Sex:Female
Birthday:March 30, 2001?
Relations:Other cloned vessels of Rei - the "spare parts"
Brother:Kaworu?
Japanese seiyū:Megumi Hayashibara
English voice actor:Amanda Winn Lee
  • Main article: Rei Ayanami

Rei Ayanami (綾波レイ Ayanami Rei) is the First Child, and the pilot of Unit 00. She is socially withdrawn and hardly interacts with anyone. Rei's cool and emotionally-stunted personality has garnered the scorn of her schoolmates; Asuka calls her a "doll" or "puppet." Clones of her, which lack souls, are kept hidden under the NERV building to be the supposed "cores" of the Dummy Plugs. Although she once only associated with Gendo, she and Shinji break the ice after the battle against Ramiel, and grow progressively closer for a while.

Physically and genetically, her appearance has some importance in the series. It is readily apparent that Rei is the diametric opposite of Asuka, not only in terms of personality, but also physically. Asuka is outspoken, emotionally extreme, and violent; Rei is the opposite of Asuka on all these major accounts. Asuka has red hair and blue eyes, while Rei has red eyes and blue hair. This color switch between the characters may also relate to the difference between how they are seen by others and what their true feelings are. However, the lead character designer has said that Rei's coloration was intended to make her look "more distinct," so this color inversion may simply be a coincidence.

Rei's mysterious background has led fans to develop multiple theories of just what exactly went into creating her. Gendo Ikari first introduced her to the NERV staff as an "acquaintance's child" whom he is temporarily taking care of. The Red Cross Book states that Rei was created from the "salvaged remains" of Yui after her death in 2004, in spite of the popularized 2001 birthdate (derived from the character's seiyū). There is evidence shown to support the Red Cross Book: Shinji Ikari tells her that he thinks she'd "make a good mother," and later compares Gendo's manipulation of her to his manipulation of Yui; they are also shown to have a physical resemblance. In episode 24, Kaworu mentions that he and Rei are "the same." This statement was expanded in the "director's cut" of the episode, in which Kaworu goes on to say that he and Rei are human vessels for the souls of Adam and Lillith, respectively; however, since at least part of the information SEELE gave him is known to have been inaccurate (the location of Adam's body, for instance), there's no way to know how much credence to give to this statement. There's certainly some connection between them: both have red eyes, pale skin, and light hair, and while the NERV Dummy Plugs contain Rei clones, SEELE's Evas use Kaworu-powered Dummy Plugs. Kaworu is the seventeenth Angel, and Rei demonstrates Angelic powers later in the series (though only after her fusion with the sixteenth Angel, Armisael, allowing the possibility that the powers came from Armisael).

It is generally believed that Rei died twice; in the series, this stems from the fact that Rei herself says "I think I'm the third one," shortly after her suspected death when Unit 00 self-destructed, an event that she could not remember. The first Rei is thought to have died as a small girl at the hands of Dr. Naoko Akagi for revealing carelessly (or perhaps in an intentional set-up by Gendo Ikari) to Naoko that Gendo called her a "useless old hag." Naoko's tone of voice after supposedly killing her would seem to confirm this. The theory is that her soul and most of her memories are transferred to one of the clones every time she dies, which then takes the preceding Rei's place as if she had not died at all. This was reported by the Red Cross Book, although it is considered by a minority of fans to be a questionable source of information since Gainax has had to correct it for a number of errors.


新世紀エヴァンゲリオン 綾波 レイ 水着 ホワイトタイプ (1/8スケール コールドキャスト製塗装済み完成品)
NEON GENESIS EVANGELION Rei Ayanami a swimsuit(新世紀エヴァンゲリオン 綾波 レイ 水着 ホワイトタイプ (1/8スケール コールドキャスト製塗装済み完成品))
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