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Rei Ayanami is a fictional character from the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion and The End of Evangelion movie.

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Rei Ayanami (綾波レイ Ayanami Rei) is the First Children and pilot of EVA-00. She is socially withdrawn and hardly interacts with anyone, except for Commander Ikari, who she displays some loyalty to but has a much more distant relationship with than commonly believed (she says in Episode 15 she "doesn't know what kind of person he is", and seems confused by Shinji's belief that the two are close). Throughout the series, Rei's cool and emotionally stunted personality added to her mysteriousness and later resulted in arrousing the scorn of Asuka who referred her as a "doll." Although she once only communed with Gendou, she and Shinji slowly break the ice after the battle against Ramiel. Gendou, before Shinji's birth, mentioned that had his child been a girl he would have named her "Rei" yet no where in the series was there an evidence that Rei was his biological daughter. Because of this, some fans regard her as Shinji's twin sister in essence, if not in literality.

Rei has blue-white hair, pale skin, and red eyes, and some fans suggested she has albinism. This was later denied by the show's character designer, who says that these features exist solely to moake her look more "distinguished" from the rest of the cast. She lives by herself in a nearly barren apartment in the industrial district of Tokyo-3. In the final few chapters of the series we learn that her apartment is very similar to the place where she was "created" according to Katsuragi. And some fans believe that the reason why she dislikes meat is also related to her origin.

Rei is probably an artificial creation, one among dozens of genetically identical Rei bodies, which are considered "spare parts"; if Rei is badly injured, such as the time when she lost an arm after Unit 00 self-destructed, these lost body parts can be replaced. Most fans believe that Rei herself can be replaced entirely, with her soul and memories being transferred to one of the clone bodies, the notion perpetuated by the Red Cross Book. According to this theory, Rei I, the very first, was murdered by Naoko Akagi in 2010. Though she would have been nine years old at the time if her birthdate of March 30th 2001 (popularized by Megumi Hayashibara's soundtrack Birthday of Ayanami released on the same date) was correct, the character model used in this scene is based on development materials in which her age is only 4; thus, many believe that she was created in 2005 or 2006 and been only four years old in 2010. Rei II may not have appeared until as late as 2014, when she is transferred to Tokyo-3's Class 2-A of Tokyo-3; she later sacrifices herself and EVA-00 to destroy Armisael, the 16th Angel. Rei III is the version seen from the second half of Episode 23 through to the End of Evangelion. This theory can be seen as contradictory to the series, to some. The entry plugs for Units 00 and 01 are known to contain Dummy systems, and one was ordered to be put into Unit 02 as well. The core of every dummy plug uses a clone of Rei, according to Ritsuko. For the above theory to be correct, no less than five Rei bodies are located outside of the clone tanks, most likely six. In Episode 23, the controller that Ritsuko uses to destroy the clones clearly indicates that "Rei 004" and above are still inside the tanks, meaning only three are displaced. The counter-arguments that confounds the issue, however, is that Rei bodies can be created at any time to appear a certain age (supported by the fact that the Dummy system is a "factory for manufacturing them", and all Rei clones appear to be of the same age) and so, Rei I and Rei II may not be created from the Dummy system, after all, especially if such a system did not exist at the time. Thus, the missing three bodies can be accounted for by the use of two in a dummy plug, and one as Rei III.

An important point about Rei is that she is not strictly human in the traditional sense. Debatable evidence implies that her soul is that of Lilith, the Second Angel. It is possible that she was created deliberately by Gendou after the attempts to recover Yui failed, and he had resorted to planning his own scenario for Instrumentality as the sole means to be with her again. Putting the soul of Lilith into a more easily controlled and influenced vessel - a human child - was possibly his planned means of controlling the Instrumentality process and so achieve his own ends. Other theories point to her being an accidental by-product of the contact experiment that was the cause of Ikari Yui's death, though this contradicts the fact that Rei is 14 years old. Rei is said to be a clone of Yui, although the pigmentation differences are another source of debate, leading some to suggest that these differences are caused by Lillith's soul and/or DNA. Regardless of whether or not Rei is some kind of hybrid creation, she does display uniquely Angelic abilities in latter episodes and the movie. These might be caused by her partial fusion with Armisael in Episode 23.

As a pilot, Rei's synchronization ratios are generally average, and not nearly as high as Asuka's or Shinji's. While both Shinji and Asuka synchronize with the souls of their mothers, Rei seems to have no mother, thus the best that can be done is to have her synchronize with herself. One fan postulated that a "copy" or "shadow" of Rei's soul is what's inside the core of EVA-00. Some who believe the multiple-Rei theory say that the soul of Rei I is there instead, though this would require each Rei to have a separate soul, which contradicts Ritsuko's statement that the clones are soulless vessels. During Rei's first synchronization test with the Eva, mental dissonance appeared to result from the contact between Rei and the Eva; the Eva went out of control, and Rei became "more mentally disturbed than expected", or so Ritsuko claimed. This problem, however, seemed to sort itself out. Some fans have speculated that the soul within Rei's Eva is actually that of Naoko Akagi, Rei's would-be "step-mother," as would have been the case had Naoko not died. Evidence comes from EVA-00's attempts to attack Gendou Ikari when placed in berserk mode (see Naoko Akagi for information on her relationship with Gendou) and from the Unit's apparent dislike of its pilot, the girl it once tried to kill.

Rei was named after Rei Hino from Sailor Moon in an unsuccessful attempt by Hideaki Anno to get Kunihiko Ikuhara, director of Sailor Moon, to join the project. It is also a pun, in that "rei" can mean "zero," and Rei is, of course, the pilot of EVA-00 (or Zerogouki). Before the name "Rei Ayanami" was decided upon, she was called Yui Ichijō, after Hikaru Ichijyo from Macross, which Anno worked on. In fanfiction, Rei is often paired with Shinji as a romantic couple, although not quite as often as with Asuka, who he twice tried to kill.

Notes

1. The idea that Rei and her clones were aged artificially is often used to support theories that would place Rei's age at several years younger than all of the other pilot candidates.
2. Officially, her bithdate is explicitly said to be unknown; the birthday listed here is actually the birthday suggested, and shared, by her Japanese voice actress.
3. One hint is that Shinji encounters a distorted image of Rei within the Eva during the mutual compatibility experiment, often believed to be Rei I. Another is during Armisael's attack, when Rei is contacted psychically and talks to what appears to be another version of herself; this is actually Armisael talking to her.

See Also Characters in Neon Genesis Evangelion

• Neon Genesis Evangelion
• Manga and anime characters