Understanding the Development and Tragedy of Rei Ayanami in Evangelion

Voiceover plays even as the camera shifts to show no tape in the player.

Let’s review Rei Ayanami, shall we?

Since her first impossible appearance in Episode 1, she’s been an utter enigma, not just to the audience, but to Shinji Ikari. Her capture of Gendo’s affection, disregard for her own safety, and bizarre testing throughout the series all work to alienate her from the viewer. And yet, her willingness to embrace compassion, cooperate with her peers, oppose injustice and pursue understanding contrarily build an emotional bridge we can’t help but cross. What happens, then, when these opposing forces rush to an inevitable clash as we near our conclusion?

Who is Rei Ayanami? Who is Rei Ayanami? Who is Rei Ayanami? Who is Rei Ayanami—?

Tape skips, film shifting to a new screen.

Let’s start at the end and work our back.

The finale of Episode 23 reveals Rei’s true nature, her genesis with Lilith, and multi-bodied conundrum. Episode 21 displayed her first death at the hands of Naoko Akagi, where her soul was salvaged and split in two, one half inside a new body, dubbed Rei II, the other in Evangelion Unit-00—that is who Rei bonds with when piloting: herself. It’s why she had no problem communing with Unit-01 during Episode 14’s interoperability test, as her body is a clone of Yui Ikari, whose soul is in the Eva. They recognize each other. It’s also why no one else, even Shinji, can pilot Unit-00, as the fractured half of Rei within it rejects anyone but herself. It’s also why Unit-00 takes that and other opportunities to go berserk and target the viewing box. She’s not after Gendo, as Episode 5 would convince you, or Rei II, like Episode 14 might try; in both instances, she’s after Ritsuko. Not only does Akagi realize this, but in the point of view shot from Unit-00 during that final outrage, look closely, and where Ritsuko should be standing, we see Naoko. The Evangelion conflates the two Akagis in its mad drive for vengeance.

Even Rei’s wounded introduction in Episode 1 is a result of her pre-series failure to sync with the other half of herself, her physical scars a representation of her spiritual sundering.

And yet, her development throughout the series, despite these traumas, is admirable. Against Ramiel she keeps Shinji, her spiritual brother, safe from harm. In Episode 11 she offers to play the defender against Matarael. In Episode 16, she tries to break from her orders, going to help Shinji as he’s absorbed into Leliel. In Episode 19, she turns her apathy into a sacrificial play, attempting to eradicate Zeruel with an N2 mine, and in Episode 22 we saw her final thin tether of unquestioning obedience disparaged by Asuka, her blind faith resulting in a slap to the face. Behind the greater narrative of Shinji assuming responsibility and Asuka failing in her self-preservation, the soldier girl has slowly edged closer to independence and maturity, to humanity and love.

And yet, she considers herself as nothing.

The screen blinks out, leaving Jir0 suddenly there in the dark to finish the intro.

Tragic, don’t you think?

Intro

How do you discuss something you were never meant to think about?

Before we move any further, I need to clarify what this video isn’t. This is not a comprehensive analysis of Rei Ayanami as a character, nor is it a critique or commentary on the overall show, or a deep dive into the many, many theories surrounding both. This video is designed only to analyze the creative choices of Episode 23. Also, I have no idea what I’m talking about, and I promise you that despite my best efforts, some of what I’ll be stating as fact throughout this introspection is, in fact, an outright lie. The subject of Rei Ayanami is ridiculously complicated, and even many of the theories I’ll be assuming for the sake of argument throughout this video have not been confirmed by the creators or supplemental material. Reality is a lie, and existence is a hallucination, please forgive me, now let’s get to it.

Episode 23 of Evangelion is, like many final episodes, totally bizarre, not just in its narrative, but its composition. If Episode 24 is the beginning of the end, then 23 is a climactic prelude, resolving the lesser worldbuilding as set up for our greater conclusion. It’s the first episode whose preview is entirely animatic, albeit a single storyboard frame, as the medium itself begins its infamous breaking down. The Angel battle, unlike every other chapter, is completely resolved before the midpoint, leaving the second half of the episode to pick up the shrapnel (in this case, very literally). Director Hideaki Anno admitted to feeling he’d resolved Rei’s arc far too early in the series, her smile in Episode 6 a mistake, as it marked her transition from alien to human, her openness with Shinji destroying all relational and romantic tension. Consequently, she fell to the backburner, playing second cello to Asuka as love interest, forced to remain in the narrative only as a plot device, marketable plushie, and generic third point in the love triangle.

I disagree, however, with the notion that Rei’s inclusion was strictly contractual and totally unprogressive. Quite the opposite, actually, as what we see instead is a subtle realization and transformation taking place in the background of the main narrative, a girl slowly redefining herself through action. Whereas Asuka collapsed after rejecting her established role, Rei strives to transcend hers.

The result, of course, is a complete reduction to tears.

Episode 23: Rei III/Tears

Our opening is a triple vignette, showing where three of our four female leads stand emotionally following the events of Act V. In particular, we’re focused on Misato, Asuka, and Ritsuko, all three framed facing away from the camera and towards their respective distractions. Each vignette follows an identical format: an establishing shot, a frame-within-frame to isolate them from their surroundings, a close-up of the character’s cope, and finally a brief varied interaction between them and a reality they’re unwilling to confront.

Beginning with Misato, the sound of Kaji’s final message replays, reminding us again of his passing, as the camera focuses on empty curry ramen and coffee cans—Katsuragi’s choice comfort foods. Why is she drinking coffee instead of her typical beer? We’ll get to that in a second. She’s back to wearing the same outfit as the night of Kaji’s death, another visual tying us back to that moment as she sulks in her room. Sidenote, the hand drawn car above the desk was originally a photographed Alpine A110—her custom modified car—now, less distracting, it works alongside our perspective lines and the desk to form an in-frame to highlight her loneliness. Misato’s words following the message, “a phone that never rings,” are a callback to the title of Episode 3, when Shinji first struggled to connect with his peers, and Suzuhara tentatively reached out over the phone. As with then, a character is so close to the network of support they desperately need but are unwilling to take that small step in opening up.

Speaking of Shinji, he and Pen-Pen give Misato space, the two moving from her loving door message to Asuka’s considerably less moving warning. This tie back to Episode 4, Rain, After Running Away, shows Ikari on the receiving end of an absent friend, Misato and Asuka now errant, as he wonders if the latter will come back soon, which catapults us into our next vignette at, of all places, Hikari’s house.

{If the close-up of game cartridges and Hikari’s blatant monologue to the audience don’t highlight Asuka’s disconnect enough, the TV forms an in-frame around Asuka’s head, the monitor, stand, and poster working to cut her off from Hikari, emphasizing her isolation. The down shot of the bedroom continues Evangelion’s streak of wonderfully insightful sleeping scenes, the camera hanging askance to show the world off kilter as Hikari, facing the audience, ignores Asuka, facing away and shoved so far into the headspace of frame left, it’s like she’s attempting to escape both the audience and responsibilities she’s incapable of assuming. The close-ups reflect this, both girls frozen in uncertainty so that even when Asuka opens up to Hikari to apologize for existing, Hikari can only answer in generic, nonpersonal assurances, unwilling to even look at the girl she’s sadly comforting. Also worth mentioning, not once does Asuka show her face, her features completely hidden since Arael’s attack, rendering her as a nonperson to the viewer.

Keep an eye on other peoples’ faces too—their framing is more than telling throughout the episode, as we soon see with Ritsuko. Shut in her office at NERV, a full ashtray and Ritsuko’s line acknowledging a death brings us into her conversation with her grandmother, wherein the news of a passing cat leaves Akagi in something akin to shock. —}

Many have theorized this whole discussion is code to relay news of Kaji’s death. The full ashtray and cups of coffee are coping mechanisms both Ritsuko and Misato use, and Misato’s turn to caffeine instead of alcohol weaves a subconscious connection between the two. Cats, as Misato said last episode, are Ritsuko’s only real family, and they’ve been another point of connection between Ritsuko and Kaji, both in Episode 15’s opening and party scene. Also, when Ritsuko verbally acknowledges the cat’s death, she looks to the feline figurines upon her desk, which we’ve seen used metaphorically before in Episodes like 17. Others have argued, though, that Ritsuko’s use of the feminine pronoun and the absence of Kaji’s gifted cat token prove the conversation really is about beloved pets. She does, after all, say “ano ko” in the original Japanese, meaning “that child,” when referencing the cat, although that also works to foreshadow this episode’s battle.

Either way, the scene illustrates Ritsuko’s isolated lifestyle, her pets, grandmother, and mother’s relationships all strained as she finds herself, in the wide shot—that’s right—literally trapped in a box. Pair that with the shot of her crossing her legs, inserted for the Director’s Cut, and it’s obvious Anno intended to overcommunicate how shut off she and the others are from the audience and their support network. Even though Ritsuko and Misato are right next to phones, an obvious show that they could both reconnect if only either one was strong enough to pull out of their self-destruction.

We have our first title, simply Tears, which seems a fitting end to our vignettes, but unfortunately will prove only foreshadowing of the suffering and revelations to come.

As SEELE discusses the Spear of Longinus with Gendo—this the first conversation between he and the monoliths—Ikari stands by his decision to use it in Arael’s elimination. Well, actually he’s sitting, continuing to exercise his faux humility to keep them off his back, albeit to little effect. SEELE agitatedly insists they don’t have the mass-produced Evas ready for combat, but given how quickly they’re deployed in the End of Evangelion film, this is probably an outright lie to force Gendo into a politically disadvantaged position. Ikari takes Fuyutuski’s call and promptly vanishes on the council, another power move with the excuse of an Angel attack behind it. Lorenz’s complete obsession with the larger picture, to the point of downplaying the current danger, shows he and SEELE’s utter paranoia at the prospect of Gendo’s nigh guaranteed betrayal. First things first, though, we have another approaching Angel.

From a formatting perspective, introducing an Angel only three and a half minutes into an episode is pretty wild. As an audience, we’re accustomed at this point to how an episode should play out: the cast develops a personal problem in the first half of an episode, an Angel representing that problem appears just before the splash card, the second half deals with the elimination of that Angel, and the denouement concludes the associated personal problem. Of the fourteen episodes featuring combative Angels, ten of them adhere to this formula, with only four (1,9,13,16,) appearing by the four-minute mark. Yet again, we have an escalation of action priming us for whatever drastic fallout we’re about to witness.

{Misato brings us to the front line with the words “visual contact with the Angel,” a phrase from Episode 11 when Matarael attacked, then defeated by all three Evangelions working together seamlessly, which looks hilariously unlikely now. Also gotta love the grounded, up-through-the-trees, introductory shot of our sixteenth Angel, Armisael; not only our third Introspective Angel, but the second of the Iconic Angels, representing the halo.}

{Unit-00 launches, and Gendo orders Unit-02 staged as a decoy. Not only a blatant disregard for Asuka’s safety on Gendo’s part but it pits her in the same position as last episode: backup for Rei against the floating hostile, useful as a distraction if nothing else. The gentle zoom on Asuka—finally facing us—unveils her shattered confidence, a candid opening up to the audience really for the first time in the series. The extreme close up as she admits to not caring anymore is an outright rejection of all the ambition she once expounded in Episodes 12 and 16, leaving us to wonder how or if she’ll perform against this new threat, whose power is intimidatingly displayed from below in a proper introductory pan.}

Speaking of Episode 16, Misato’s entrance here is a shot-for-shot reuse of Leliel’s assessment, reasserting the similarities between the two Angels and foreshadowing Armisael’s invasive attack. Rei is told to fall back, but due to her attentiveness, or nonhuman nature, she senses the Angel’s approach just before it moves to advance. Armisael easily breaches Unit-00’s AT Field, forcing Rei on her backfoot as depicted by the swap from right to left, Rei forced to fight from an angle she didn’t expect, similar to Asuka’s all-encompassing barrage from Arael. The similarities only become more apparent as the attack continues, Unit-00 thrown back to the other side of the screen in uncontrolled fashion as Armisael’s tendril burrows into Unit-00’s stomach, causing the same physical reaction to Rei as a series of bulging vein-like intrusions spread across her body. Her flushed face, high toned grunt, and immediate cut to a graphic prominently featuring the word “Penetrating” all invoke sexual imagery, drawing further parallels between the previous introspections. While Shinji was the only pilot who endured a “feminine” violation with Leliel, an forced envelopment of his body into the Angel, all three have now experienced a forced intrusion. Asuka’s mental violation in the previous episode often gets the spotlight due to its bombastic cinematography and unexpected inclusion, but Rei’s extraordinarily carnal complication here always struck me as far more horrific, despite the grace she handles it with.

Of course, Asuka’s assault by Arael is what leaves her utterly useless here against Armisael. The buildup is fantastic and typical of what we’d expect, Unit-02 catapulting, reaching groundside, and Misato ordering the exact steps we’d usually see taken. The gameplan reflects Shamshel and Sahaquiel’s skirmishes in their respective episodes, advance, neutralize, destroy, each order punctuated with a deliberate set-up shot, which makes Asuka’s frozen worthlessness even more shocking. Her pre-battle self-condescension was to set up all the false expectations and predilections she must now shake loose, right? This unnecessary outlining by Misato is simply overwritten direction Asuka’s character will now play off, surely? Instead, the show goes uncharacteristically beyond explanation of what should happen, all so that we can witness Asuka and the subversion that actually occurs.

Asuka’s retreat is framed once-more as a bowing out, a ceding of victory to the Angel as Rei is left helpless, her hands not even on the controls as she struggles against the foreign sensation, recognizing a foreign entity along with it.

All right…what happens next is extraordinarily Evangelion, which is to say a convoluted exchange requiring an absurd level of technical understanding to follow along. Am I qualified to explain? No. Ready? Great. Here we go.

Rei blacks out, the camera refocusing on her left eye, which we know by now is a gateway, representative of Rei’s connection with the soul of her Eva, which is how we know the following scene plays within the soul-space of the Evangelion as she searches for the Angel intruder. Her thoughts play over a reused shot from Episode 14, when Rei searched for another entity within an Eva, that time being Shinji and Yui’s souls inside Unit-01. This is important and deliberate, as what we learned from that scene will help us decode what we see here.

When she asks if the entity with her inside Unit-00 is, in fact, herself, the show bombards us with an audiovisual interruption, confirming that conclusion is false, just like with Shinji and Asuka’s own introspections. Rei then identifies the entity as the Angel, the soul of Armisael itself, taking Rei’s form and conversing with her above a pool of LCL fluid, and in a room of pain. I find the framing here bizarre, the Angel kept low in the fluid, possibly to signify its connection to Lilith and the other Angels, but to the left of the Rei we know, as if to show Rei as the obstacle the Angel faces, not the other way around. Given their discussion on pain and isolation, however, perhaps that’s exactly what’s going on here, Armisael looking to remove Rei as the one in control and usurp Unit-00. The Angel asks about Rei’s pain, which Rei redefines, correcting Armisael to say she’s not in pain, simply alone. As the show repeatedly illustrates, however, this redefinition is false, as isolation is synonymous with pain, and the red chamber we’re in now only further proves that. The framing of the two Reis is notably different from past Introspective Angel encounters as well, a purposeful wide shot framing both on the outer edges of the frame, as far away as possible while still pictured together, unlike Shinji and Asuka who encountered their younger selves in close proximity within a defined space.

{[Rei identifies Armisael as a person (“the person we call an Angel”), equating the value of its existence to that of any other human, a perspective Shinji grappled with in Episodes 11 and 20, and one Asuka outright rejected. Armisael, likewise, identifies Rei as more than simply Lilim—this sort of dual acknowledgement of each other’s nature, before the Angel attempts conveying its hurt to Rei, asking if she would like to become one with it. Similar to Shinji’s triple invitation and Asuka’s crowd contention, this offer to surrender individuality seems to foreshadow Instrumentality, but here it’s also a threat, the Angel hoping Rei will surrender herself and the EVA. Armisael has this look of glee as it lifts its head and shows Rei its heart, filled with pain, which Rei identifies as loneliness, something she handles gracefully as she’s struggled with it her whole life (in part to no relationship with others, and in part to her missing soul’s fragment—she can’t even have consistent relationship with herself). Rei rejects the Angel, insisting they are distinct from each other, but Armisael laughs while arguing they are the same, regardless of intent, because they are both completely alone. Rei is definitionally prohibited from forming real human connections, because she is not a real human, and this eclipsing of hope gives Armiseal its desired edge as it captures Unit-00.

Before we continue, firstly, thank goodness for subtitles and shot guides because having the same voice debate back and forth is a nightmare to dissect, but also: a detail I find strange, the visage of Armisael as Rei appears to be bleeding from the waist, a redder hue to the LCL and a deliberately animated flow line of liquid as she stands there. Rei hinted in Episode 14 that her construct body doesn’t bleed, has no menstrual cycle, so is Armisael’s seemingly more human version of Rei what our first children is really contending against? Is she fighting a supernatural threat, or the hopelessness of her own situation?}

She awakes from this communion to her own tears, shocked that she can even produce them, her connection with the Angel producing human effects she hasn’t before experienced. The problem, of course, is that any more humanness or the misconstrued perspective of it, could kill her. Inches away from that death, Rei becomes more human and alive than at any other time in the series. And with a twist of the flesh, the real threat is made clear, as it’s possible Armisael is aiming to use Unit-00 as a breeding ground to rebirth the previous Angels—that’s why it’s seeking communion with it, and why Rei’s defense is so critical. It is a horrifying twist on the image of maternity, forceful reproduction for the sake of survival.

That final terrifying card on the table is what finally brings Gendo to release Shinji in Unit-01—a choice on his part that only helps further annihilate any of Asuka’s remaining self-respect.

Shinji activates his AT Field and draws the Angel’s attention, dodging the first strike and grabbing the Angel. Armisael engages in psychological warfare, using the contact to form mini-Reis to sway Shinji from harming it. Here the contrast between Arael and Armisael is most stark, the former overcoming Asuka with strength, the latter opting to infest via seduction, the debate with Rei and appeal to Shinji taking a more feminine approach.

Rei recognizes this seduction as an outward expression of her inner desires and inverts her AT Field in response. It’s a literal withdrawal, an attempt to take back a confession, to contain the Angel and minimize damage to others. The ploy succeeds, drawing the Angel away from Ikari and into herself, at the cost of compromising her core, which does, of course, house herself. It’s a self-violation, a voluntary self-molestation against her father’s orders which results in a bloated heart. Armisael’s capture within this bloat further parallels an obvious symbol of pregnancy, before Rei goes to initiate a self-destruct. As the core collapses, Rei turns from her self-destruction to see a visage of Gendo, smiling without his glasses. She envisions the man who loves her unclouded in his perception, his missing glasses a sign of his vulnerability and compassion. And in her moment of desperation, that man is nowhere to be seen. As she wins her pyrrhic victory, her body and Evangelion merging into a purified form of herself, the two halves of her soul finally united, her last and only act as a human being it to reach for the man who’s abandoned her.

And then she’s gone.

{Misato’s call for a rescue team buts into Ritsuko’s cynicism, and I can’t help but see their altercation as the final form of Ritsuko’s failed disputation. Like the previous contentions surrounding Shinji’s salvaging, we have a jaded delivery from Ritsuko, a whip-around from Katsuragi, and a reaction from Akagi; only whereas Episodes 16 displayed a violent refutation and 20 a sordid ignorance, Ritsuko is now unable to even face the camera, a begrudging adoption of responsibility at the third loss of a pilot.}

The only thing that will remain is our second title, Rei III.

…That is the first half of the episode. Armisael is the only Angel defeated before the splash screen of its introductory episode, and it only gets more complicated from here, so get ready.

The subtitle Rei III is, of course, referencing Episodes 5 and 6, Rei I and Rei II. Episode 23 is a seventeen episode-later surprise sequel which, following that opening bang, explains the relevancy of what we’ve just seen.

In the immediate aftermath of Rei’s sacrifice, Gainax uses their typical toolset of distinct visual details to immerse the audience in the new post-Tokyo-3 destination we find ourselves in. Oh right—yeah, most of the city is gone with Unit-00, so the classic Ultraman-esque cityscape we’ve staged most of our battles in is vaporized, the literal landscape forever altered as we head into our finale. The pouring water from the nearby pond reminds us of the two lakes created by the destruction of Angels Israfel and Sahaquiel. Not only does the pouring water show an inversion of a symbol of victory and remind us of consequences, but with the new understanding that water and reflection correlate to souls, can we presume this outpouring duly represents Rei’s souls escaping the mortal confines they found themselves in?

{Now, Rei’s souls—or soul—still clings to her corpse, hence the importance of recovery to plant it in her next body. Said mortal remains are quickly located by the rescue team, and I really want to home in on this sequence. The whole scene is only seven shots, really more like five, all with limited animation. What I find most fascinating in each composition is the use of distance, with our four main shots pushing the rescue team out to the midground or background, fostering emotional distance along with the physical. The only foreground element we see is within the plug: Rei’s charred fingers, her hand still reaching out for connection. Contrarily, the following shot of Ritsuko doesn’t merely keep its distance, but outright obscures her face with the visor’s reflection, a barrier between us and Akagi’s emotions as she confirms and classifies the girl’s death. Proximity not only facilitates pity for the victim but cultivates weariness to the survivor peering in at her—peering in from the left, I might add, a reversal of Shinji’s heroic rescue from Episode 6.

Solidifying Rei’s death is a bold move, especially when we remember Anno’s deal with King Records, which prohibited minors from expiring. As we’ll see, Anno found not one but two loopholes in that agreement, and I can’t deny I admire the drive to kill fictional children.}

Those thoughts are put on hold as SEELE discusses the conclusion of the Dead Sea Scrolls prophesy over a slideshow of the show’s past Angels. This slideshow is a nod to Episode 14’s recap, right before Rei began her interoperability test—and it notably now contains Iruel, correctly classified as the eleventh Angel, meaning SEELE found out about Gendo’s cover-up following the Episode 13 intrusion. Coupled with Unit-00’s complete annihilation, Ikari is far beyond the point of redemption in their eyes, and SEELE decides to mobilize another pawn against him. Said pawn must know the full truth of the organization, before a cut to Ritsuko’s cats not-so-subtly confirms that yes, she’s their top choice.

She glances at her desktop wallpaper showing her younger self, her mother, and Gendo. The gap between mother, lover, and daughter illustrates Ritsuko’s inescapable status as runner up—Naoko had Gendo all to herself, then so did Rei. With both now gone, perhaps she finally has a chance to capture his attention: the white cat is pining for the black, after all. Still, though, this picture is really awkward—am I wrong? Especially as a desktop background, you want to see your dead mother in the clutches of the man she got to first—why would you look at this? She was snogging the dude you are now also snogging—I’m over this, moving on.

Shinji, in this scene… wow, out of the sexual frying pan and into the—

{This scene is… infamous. Misato goes to comfort Shinji, gently touching his hand before he rejects her, and she leaves him before admitting to the audience she’s seeking connection more for her sake than his. Now, the big question is: was Misato offering sexual intimacy in this scene, or was it purely platonic? Unfortunately, I think it swings more to the former, and let’s go over why.

Firstly, Shinji’s SDAT plays track 25—the same track as the Episode where Instrumentality commences, and the case for Misato and her sexuality is deeply explored. Also the same track he listened to in Episode 4, before he and Misato made up at the station—but he’s noticeably not listening to it, disconnected from his thoughts on the subject. Secondly, as Misato enters, the framing of this shot positions the head of Shinji’s chair where his… joystick, might be, before Misato sits on it. The Director’s Cut even reanimated this, reshaping the chair to look arguably more phallic, as Misato takes action. And thirdly, during the initiation, Katsuragi’s face is largely hidden, as if she’s ashamed of the action while enacting it, only explaining to the audience in private quarters how she assumes Shinji is reacting in the face of sexual insecurity. Couple this entire encounter with the numerous Freudian slips and building sexual tension throughout the series, and it’s difficult not to interpret this scene without carnal undertones, to say nothing of supporting evidence from film books and interviews.}

Losing a member of the core cast has left everyone reeling, processing in their own ways; and if Shinji and Misato are in such a mess, how fares the man who loved only Rei? Gendo is speechless, emotionless—not in itself unusual, but Fuyutsuki articulates for us how Rei, bearing the visage of Yui, was a hopeful expression of the possible for Gendo. The unlikeliness of forgetting Yui or Rei highlights the unrelenting presence of grief, but also colors the abominable actions they’re about to take.

The ringing phone finds Misato at her desk. Where in the opening we saw her grief unattended to by Kaji’s false call, now a true reaching out offers the possibility of combating this new hopelessness. Misato calls Shinji, kind of hilariously just face down in bed, before we go back to the hospital.

Here we find Rei, hand to the window, in the same position Shinji was back in Episode 2. Then, Shinji struggled to find his place in this new NERV dynamic as Rei wheeled by him unaffectionately. Rei, now facing the same struggle, has Shinji call out to her from out of frame, but all we get is her emotionless if not wrathful stare. She’s clearly our focus, her very existence an impossibility which suddenly opens up a host of new questions.

Their following conversation, now positioned like Rei and Asuka during Shinji’s recovery in Episode 19, immediately reveals that there is an unbreachable gap between them, and something is awry. Not only are Rei’s memories of the previous battle scrambled, but the camera keeps cutting to and away from her without giving the viewer any real time to process the close up. Especially given the medium, this kind of quick insert is usually utilized for horror, a brief warning of something powerful or important the camera itself is too frightened to stay near.

In their conversation, Shinji highlights Gendo’s absence and Rei’s sacrifice, thanking her for saving him in the way she didn’t thank him in the second episode. Keen-eyed viewers will notice Rei’s phony injuries here match those she received after Unit-00’s berserk moment in Episode 05—leading some to question whether this ploy is really meant to fool Shinji or convince Ayanami that she’s still her second clone by blurring her memories. If that’s the case, however, it falls short, as she denies Shinji’s allegation and supposes she is the third iteration. Not only has she been revived, undermining the sacrifice she just committed to, but the man responsible for keeping her pawn on the board doesn’t even care enough to visit her in the hospital—not this time—where his son is instead comforting her.

This disillusionment with Gendo’s ideals is further highlighted in the very next scene, back at the featureless apartments where her bandages fall away to reveal no scar tissue or wounds underneath; her ailment was feigned, either for Shinji’s sake, or her own, another role in a game of theatrics she’s no longer game to play. The glance at Gendo’s glasses and her dispassionate face are enough to convince us of that. When she grabs them, squeezing the lenses in both hands, we see her first true act of outright defiance, an attempt to shatter the worldview of the father and her connection to him. But she can’t bring herself to do it.

Instead, she cries.

She doesn’t understand, but as memories that shouldn’t exist flood her mind courtesy of the soul now inhabiting her, she realizes a transformation has taken place. It took countless weeks over twenty-three episodes for Rei II to shed tears; it took Rei III a matter of hours. I’m reminded of Episode 17, when Rei first doubted her attachment to Gendo while thanking Shinji—now spiritually restored, that arc is escalating towards a full reversal of loyalty.

In Gendo’s office, we see the man himself also struggling. He refers to her by name during an official order, correcting himself to “First Children” while speaking with Fuyutsuki. The latter vocalizes the obvious problems bringing Rei back to life could cause, especially with the members of SEELE and their projection with the Dead Sea Scrolls. In order to save his only love, however, Gendo has offered SEELE a sacrificial lamb as distraction.

And that lamb is Ritsuko.

{It’s not unusual, of course, to substitute an adult in a pilot’s stead—Misato did for Shinji back in Episode 17—but the nudity is a novelty. Not simply for shock value, the script’s subtext and original Japanese connotation insinuate Ritsuko was emotionally or sexually abused, likely by SEELE agents, just prior to this scene. There’s enough ambiguity to assume otherwise, but the word Ryoujoku in particular, meaning humiliation and degradation, is also often translated as rape, so take that as you will. Intended to emotionally prime Ritsuko for SEELE’s traitorous inception, she at first deflects the antagonism, until she’s told point-blank that she is Rei’s substitute. It’s clear now Gendo never intended to make her anything but runner-up, resulting in this shot of revelation as thoughts of subterfuge begin churning in her mind, just as the old men intended.}

Meanwhile, Misato has opened the fake pill Kaji handed her during their intimacy in Episode 20, all his undercover work contained therein to help her reveal NERV’s intentions. Misato states he gave her everything while glancing at her gun and badge, the items she handed over during the interrogation that led to his demise. Now I’m almost doubting that she didn’t kill him—I mean she’s looking at the gun—but then I remember that time she held him up at Lilith’s reveal, and I think it’s a nod to not only what they’ve found so far, but the violence that may become necessary as she continues to dig.

During sunset, Ritsuko calls Shinji and lets him know the secret service isn’t looking and he should come see her immediately. Deep in Terminal Dogma, Ritsuko’s card fails to read before Misato appears to hold her at gunpoint. Kaji got it to the back of the head, but Misato chooses here to stick Ritsuko in the back, emphasizing the multiple layers of literal back-stabbing going on.

The massive, porous, honeycomb walls they descend call insect cells to mind; fitting, as we’ll see this is the birthplace of the Evangelion prototypes. In the elevator, the three are framed similarly to their Episode 7 escalator shot when Akagi revealed the truth of the Second Impact. Now, new truths are just around the corner.

In the artificial evolution laboratory, marked with a handy SEELE symbol, Akagi reveals a deserted testing chamber, complete with a glass beaker that Shinjis recognizes as Rei’s room, before Ritsuko reveals this is in fact Rei’s birthplace as well. Marked on the walls are the infamous “top,” “bottom,” and “strange” terminologies painted across the walls, all terms used to describe me in bed as well as subatomic particles in various quantum states of super relativity, as if to say this place and Rei by extension exist beyond reality. Ritsuko also mentions Rei’s consciousness is comprised of water and light, which at first seems like an offhand comment, but lends credence to the theory that her soul is unique, as the undulating light beyond the waves is the visage we’ve seen souls take, and also explains why Rei likes the water so much—it reminds her of herself and what she’s born from.

The truth, as it turns out, is that Rei’s soul is indeed unique, because it belongs to Lilith. The soul of the second Angel is in Rei’s body, experiencing human life, which means it does in fact exist beyond reality.

Then the Eva graveyard, piles of corpses filling a series of interconnected trenches in the shape of an inverted cross. The circular pits are reminiscent of the scrawled iconography across Gendo’s office floor and ceiling. Ritsuko says the graveyard is also the place of Yui’s contact experiment, the place on the other side of the glass we saw back in Episode 21, making this chamber both a birthplace and a dumping ground where Unit-01 was likely still growing when Yui made first contact.

What’s interesting with this revelation is Ritsuko’s obvious antagonizing of Shinji when prodding him for memories of Yui’s human death—memories she probably doesn’t realize he does remember thanks to the introspective of Episode 20. I only point this out because I think it’s funny how both Akagis take turns dumping on Yui, even though Ritsuko does it out of rightful spite for Gendo and his ilk.

Ritsuko then reveals the Rei capsule and accompanying brain that formed the dummy plug, and with the switch of a “blink and you miss-it” remote, we see a list of Reis numbered four through fourteen, a confirmation that Rei is in her current third iteration given her absence here. This also confirms the dummy plugs do not have Rei clones inside of them, because those bodies are, well…here.

Reiquarium reveal

The Reiquarium, as its lovingly referred to, blots out Akagi’s features, a literal overshadowing as the orange from the central capsule now envelops the group, and unavoidable confrontation. Ritsuko goes on to explain the facts of Rei and her clones, and the real details of the Second Impact. She further specifies that despite numerous bodies, only one soul ever emerged: Rei’s soul, before the Chamber of Guf was empty. Terminology borrowed from Judaic lore, the Chamber of Guf is said to be where human souls reside before they’re placed into a human body—an eternal pre-life waiting room, if you will. Rei’s was the only soul NERV could seemingly pry from this nonmaterial plane, and it survived in Rei I before Naoko choked her out, at which point Gendo salvaged the soul from the corpse and split it into Rei II, the girl we’ve seen up to this point in the series, and Unit-00, the “Me within the Eva,” that Rei recognizes. When Rei sacrificed herself for Shinji, she fused her soul back together; in other words, by defying Gendo and proving she’s more than a spiritless pawn, in moving to save her spiritual brother, Rei doesn’t simply prove herself capable of love—she’s mechanically rewarded within the universe by emerging newly whole, baptized by fire and with a new identity. Even if that emergence was against her will.

In the Director’s Cut, a series of photographs overlayed this exposition, giving some visuals to Ritsuko’s words and further blurring the line between animation and live action. These shots were removed for the worldwide Renewal release due to looking like visual clutter, and while some of that lost media is fascinating, we will wait another day to cover those details.

When Akagi defies Gendo and destroys the dummy Reis, however, a few things take place. First, Rei is rendered mortal, her current third body the last she’ll ever have as her copies dissolve. It is, in its own way, a type of murder on Ritsuko’s part, much like Naoko’s murder of Rei I. It’s also a grand sabotage of NERV, any possibility of new dummy plugs eliminated by destroying the bodies and potentially any data that might’ve been housed in and around them.

And thirdly, the first body part we see when they dissolve, is a hand. As if to passively undermine Ritsuko’s own words, “they’re just human-shaped,” the hand reaches down into frame, the same way Rei is always reaching for those around her—for love, for hope, for rest. Now, her right hand is made powerless, the remaining corpse bits tumbling past camera, a special emphasis on a head sinking through the fluid.

Ritsuko is not rewarded. She confesses to selling herself, mind, body, and soul, for the affection of a man she could never win. She admits to succumbing to the expectations of others and reducing herself as a result. The very battle Shinji and Misato have waged for the entirety of the series is a war Ritsuko surrenders to, begging to be shot so as not to deal with the consequences of that choice. Shinji’s face of pity, and Misato’s lowered gun express their own understandings of exactly what’s playing out before them, Katsuragi inwardly reflecting as she realizes those too close to the Evas are inevitably destroyed by them, left to return to dust, in a vicious path of doom she herself has already committed to treading.

Then the episode ends.

Misato’s final words are difficult to ignore—the curse of the Evangelions applies to the audience as well, an almost prophetic statement given how the fanbase would cling to, dissect, and obsess over the show. It’s an obvert critique of the otaku culture, and those in Japanese society who participated in rampant escapism following the dawn of Japan’s lost decade.

And then there’s Rei.

Where Shinji is Hideaki Anno’s insecurity, Rei is his subconscious: intangible and impossible to express but indelibly linked to everything else. A girl whose personal arc is displayed to us before we understand the significance of it, a figure at first seemingly forgotten about turned into a character designed to be understood in retrospect. She survives against her will, her greatest sacrifice undermined by a return to existence, a final move by her father to stoke a long slumbering hatred into ideation, and from there into action. Even the episode’s name is a call for help, the title a statement, its placement a begging. Rei III, desperate to connect with her sister episodes, her sister souls, hopelessly and permanently separated, a necessary yet unbridgeable gap between them. A third installment, bizarrely out of place, and offered far too late.

And yet, inarguably necessary.

The secondhand love interest becomes the linchpin for the apocalypse, the soul of a slumbering goddess refined through life, death, and life again, made more human than anyone could possibly predict.

Tragic, don’t you think?

But that is a story for another day.

Outro

Wow, that was something. Thank you all so much for watching—seriously, your viewership and support is absolutely incredible. The previous video on Asuka is at nearly half a million views at the time of recording…uh, I cried, a month after that released, because I’ve never had a piece of my work received and appreciated like that before. Not to mention that’s the first time I’ve ever paid rent using a single YouTube check, which is just…unfathomable. I don’t expect that’ll happen again for a while, but I just needed to say thank you to all of you, because that is a milestone I hardly expected to reach by last year.

Also thank you for your patience with this series. Knowing so many of you are excited for these videos no matter how long they take is relieving and encouraging, and I’m super stoked to see how things end. This video’s script well and truly scared me for months, you would not believe the details I both uncovered and had to cut for the sake of time, and it still feels unfinished as I record this, but hey, great art is released, not completed.

For those of you asking, since I apparently haven’t clarified this, yes, I will be covering the End of Evangelion film after the mainline series. Expect that breakdown in a decade or so. As for the Rebuilds, I still haven’t seen them, and refuse to until I complete this retrospective, so I’ll get back to you guys then.

And until then, thank you again. I’ve been Jir0, y’all have been amazing, and I’ll see you all on the bright side.

God Bless.