AGE: 14 
The
First Child
Designated pilot of Evangelion Unit 00
Rei Ayanami is a person who doesn't really talk much and has considerable difficulty in expressing emotion. She appears to have a strong bond with Gendou Ikari, but this changes later on. She does only what she is told to do and doesn't have any friends. Rei lives in an run down apartment and bandages are all over the floor which indicates that she doesn't care about her environment or her life. Rei has been with NERV from very early stages. We do not know where Rei came from at the beginning, as all her past records have been erased.
But later on we get to see Rei as a child (after Yui's death) which Gendou brings her to work and to the surprise of Naoko Akagi (Ristuko mother) she saw the resemblance of Yui in Rei (because Rei was the clone of Yui)
During that day Rei wandered off and ran into Naoko
Akagi, telling her
she was lost. Naoko asked if she
This resulted in Naoko becoming very
angry and seeing Yui (instead of Rei) calling her an old hag caused her to
strangle Rei to death. After she realised what she had done she killed herself
by jumping off the
command level and falling to her death and hence Rei II was created (this is the
Rei we see throughout most of the series.)
Rei like Shinji she does what ever she is told to do without question like Asuka said "she is like (Gendou) Ikari's pet". Rei have been undergoing special training since the Evangelion Development Project began. In effect, she took seven months to fully synchronize with unit 00 but a problem occurred during a re-activation testing of Evangelion unit 00 which forced her to eject from her Evangelion and caused serious injuries to Rei.
Gendou Ikari saved her life in a heroic
rescue in which he burned his hands to open the super-heated
hatch. Ever since that moment, Rei has been deeply grateful to
Gendou, and cherished the glasses that fell off during the rescue as
a reminder of his compassion for her.
The first sign of emotion from Rei was when fighting the 5th angel
Ramiel where after the battle Shinji saves Rei just like his father did opening the super heated hatch to see how Rei was and when Shinji saw she was ok he started to cry and when he did Rei said she didn't know what to feel or say in a situation like this and then Shinji said "try smiling" and she did. And as the series continues we see other emotions and feelings come out like when Shinji and unit 01 was absorbed by Leliel and they were ordered to retreat we see Rei's reaction and her voice saying "but Ikari still in there" and after when they retrieve unit 01 she stays next to Shinji in the hospital until he awakes.All this shows that she cares for Shinji like Asuka but Rei shows her feelings unlike Asuka who hides them. So it becomes apparent as the series continues that both Rei and Shinji have a special relationship between themselves and ultimately it is Shinji that makes Rei start to question her faith in Gendou and she asked herself one question which was what was Gendou going to do with her after the angels were gone.
Later on in the series she is forced to come to terms with the fact that
she is not human, and that she was created for the purpose of someone else and she realizes that her life
has no meaning, because if she dies, she can always be replaced by another
clone.
She has to accept the fact that the one person for
whom she truly cared for, Gendou, did not really love her at all, because Gendou
never did actually care for Rei herself, but he only saw her as a
representation of his wife and that all
her suffering and pain went towards someone else's personal agenda. She finally
realizes that the one person who she loves and the person who likes her for
being herself instead of being a representation of someone else was not really Gendou, but Shinji.
Rei II dies when she selfdestructs Evangelion unit 00 killing both the angel and herself. Even after all her experiences with Shinji and others she still couldn't respect her own life because the truth was that she could be replaced so she sacrificed herself to defeat the angel. But before the EVA exploded Rei started to cry she didn't know why but she saw an image of Gendou Ikari then it was over. Gendou replaced her with Rei III but later on Rei III rejects Gendou and goes to Shinji.
Rei Ayanami a person who life is surrounded by mystery but because she was created to be a representation of another she feels that she was not loved for been her but find she finds someone who cares for her as a human and not as someone else. Rei raises questions about consciousness and individuality as she goes through her life and the internal struggles that she goes through and the way her relationship changes with the characters all mould her into a fascinating character that is wonderfully drawn and animated.
