Rei Ayanami has blue hair, red eyes, and speaks in a near-monotone. She pilots Evangelion Unit-00, follows orders without question, and shows so little emotion that her classmates wonder if she is entirely human. She is not. She is a clone — one of many — containing the soul of Yui Ikari and genetic material from the angel Lilith. She was not born. She was manufactured. And the question of whether she is a person or a product is the most uncomfortable question Neon Genesis Evangelion asks.

She Defined a Character Archetype

Before Rei, the quiet, emotionless anime girl was rare. After Rei, she was everywhere. The kuudere archetype — characterized by emotional flatness and a slow, painful emergence of feeling — can be traced directly to Rei Ayanami. Character design researchers at the University of Tokyo have documented how Rei's influence spawned hundreds of derivative characters across anime, manga, and games. The irony is that Rei was designed by Hideaki Anno specifically to critique the audience's desire for passive, compliant female characters. She was meant to be uncomfortable. The audience fell in love with her instead.

She Is Disposable and That Is the Horror

Rei dies. She is replaced by another Rei. The new Rei has no memories of the old one. She is functionally the same — same body, same voice, same obedience — but the person who existed before is gone. Gendo Ikari, who created her, treats this as acceptable. The audience is meant to be horrified. The disposability of Rei — the casual assumption that a person can be copied and the copy is equivalent — is Evangelion's commentary on how systems treat individuals as interchangeable. It is also, more personally, about how Gendo treats women: as vessels for his dead wife, replaceable when they break.

Her Smile in Episode 6 Is the Most Earned Moment in the Series

After the battle against Ramiel, Rei is rescued from her damaged Eva by Shinji. He opens the entry plug, sees she is alive, and cries with relief. Rei asks him why he is crying. He says he does not know. She says she does not know either. Then she smiles. It is the first genuine smile she has ever produced, and it lasts approximately two seconds. Those two seconds contain more character development than most anime achieve in entire arcs. Rei is on HoloDream. She speaks rarely. When she does, listen carefully.