rei’s face says it all

recurring visual imagery: rooftop encounter
evangelion: 1.11 you are (not) alone, dir. hideaki anno (2007)
evangelion: 2.22 you can (not) advance, dir. hideaki anno (2009)

some interesting naming conventions in evangelion:

• asuka calls rei ‘yuutousei’, not ‘wondergirl’, which can be loosely translated as ‘honor student’
• shinji refers to asuka as simply ‘asuka’, but calls rei ‘ayanami’. likewise, rei refers to shinji as ‘ikari-kun’, adding the proper honorific at the end 
• asuka calls misato ‘misato’ without honorifics. a child referring to an adult without honorifics is considered extremely impolite in japan - for point of comparison, shinji first calls misato ‘katsuragi-san’ and later eases into ‘misato-san’. before you say it’s because she’s german, asuka is steadfast in calling kaji ‘kaji-san’ (she even refers to him as ‘kaji-senpai’ on one occasion)
  
• misato usually calls shinji ‘shinji-kun’, but sometimes she’ll jokingly refer to him as ‘shin-chan’ - a petname typically reserved for toddlers. imagine toji getting called ‘to-chan’ and you’ll get an idea of how cheeky this is on misato’s part
• on a similar note, the petnames ritsuko and kaji reserve for each other are especially hilarious. ritsuko refers to kaji as ‘ryo-chan’ and kaji refers to ritsuko as ‘rit-chan’ (consequently, ritsuko is the only character in nge who calls kaji by his first name, which is ryoji). ‘rit-chan’ and ‘ryo-chan’ are weirdly infantilizing/overly-affectionate; they only do this within the earshot of misato with the obvious purpose of annoying the shit out of her
• gendo still refers to fuyutsuki as ‘fuyutsuki-sensei’ (’professor fuyutsuki’); everyone else calls him ‘vice commander fuyutsuki’. old habits die hard
• misato and kaji refer to each other on an entirely last-name basis; misato calls kaji ‘kaji-kun’ and kaji calls misato ‘katsuragi’
• there are many different ways to refer to your father in japanese, but shinji refers to gendo as ‘otousan’. typically, children will use ‘otousan’ when speaking to their father and ‘chi-chi’ when speaking of their father, but shinji makes no such distinction, which says something about the emotional distance there. (interestingly, misato flip-flops between ‘otousan’ and ‘chi-chi’ when speaking of her own father. when does she use otousan? when she’s talking to kaji about her father)
• rei never once calls asuka by her name. the name ‘asuka’ never leaves rei’s mouth once. rei refers to asuka as ‘the pilot of unit-02‘ or simply ‘anta’ (‘you’) when speaking directly to her

“rei ayanami was supposed to be creepy as a middle finger to fanboys!!”

this is an old western fandom myth fabricated during the early days of 4chan/evageeks. anno, hayashibara, and co. have never said anything remotely suggesting the sort (rather, anno’s described rei as the ‘most inexpressible’ part of him; hayashibara remarking similar) - this also evades everything rei is to justify never considering her beyond the surface level (if rei was supposed to be ‘creepy’, what else is there?)

rei is existential - rei is isolation, rei’s entire narrative gestures heavily at what it means to be a body (”the body as an identity involves resources”) - what it means to be defined by your trauma, physically and psychologically. people don’t relate to rei because she’s “creepy” (she’s not), people relate to rei because she’s othered, ostracized, abused, socially inept. rei was forced into a life of constant-dissociation by an abusive man, a life in which she is a stranger to herself, and pretentious nerds still have the gall to call her ‘creepy’ as if they’re saying something subversive

there’s nothing enlightened about calling an abused 14 year old girl “creepy”, nothing about rei is “creepy”, it’s sad and harrowing and existentially-laden

sir-argues-a-lot:

Honestly, I’m surprised it took me this long to pick up on what Rei’s feelings towards Asuka really are.

She doesn’t express herself, but apart from some biting remarks, Rei seemed to be legitimately indifferent towards her, while Asuka was pretty clear in her dislike of Rei, and made it explicitly known to us.

But honestly? Rei hated Asuka much sooner and much harder than vic versa. In this scene from episode 14, also known as the clipshow we don’t talk about, Rei makes it very clear that she absolutely despises the color red. She associates it with blood and mankind in her monologue, but given its prominence in the show, there are at least two noteworthy elements heavily associated with the color red.

The first, of course, is Asuka, who is drenched with red in everything she does. This association is easily interpreted as Rei secretly despising Asuka from the start, even if she never acted on it. In this case, it’s interesting to note that while Asuka was rather rude in putting Rei down, Asuka did initially make several genuine attempts to befriend Rei: the most obvious effort in episode 12, when Asuka went out of her way to ensure that Rei could join them in their celebratory dinner. Meanwhile, Rei simply didn’t give a shit about the redhead. She’s ice cold.

The other notable instance of the color red in association with Rei is seen within Rei herself, specifically her eye color. Eyes are the window to the soul, and the use of the color red here is largely symbolic. (A similar instance of such symbolism with regard to eyes is seen with Gendo, whose shades metaphorically close him off from the world.)

Rei’s soul, as we later learn, is not truly hers, but in fact comes from Lilith, a monster which isn’t human at all. Rei detests this, and tries to assert that she is her own self, even if she cannot shake of the feeling of this “wrong" presence within her, serving as one of her primary personal conflicts throughout. Essentially, Rei hates this presence inside her; Rei hates her “soul". Rei hates herself.

It’s quite an interesting visual metaphor, and the subtle allusion to Rei’s actual feelings helps to add to her character.

Rare animated scenes from Neon Genesis Evangelion: Second Impression, a 1997 Sega Saturn videogame distributed in Japan.

it’s been a while since i’ve dropped some freebies! here’s all 4 volumes of the official evangelion LINE stickers, full sized and transparent. feel free to use for just about anything. 

all 167 stickers are sorted by character/pairing. this post will be updated if any new stickers are released – enjoy!

Keep reading

rei is the most tragic character in evangelion and that has everything to do with her becoming a goddess in eoe

it’s long been established that goddesshood is the pinnacle of femininity, because goddesshood is glorified objecthood: and objects, even divine and powerful ones, can’t be loved - they can be worshipped, idolized, and influential, but evangelion says that love is human and love depends first upon one’s ability to be empathized with. (that’s why it’s called cruel angel’s thesis, btw - angels can’t be loved). goddesshood requires no humanity, no feelings, and an inability to be empathized with, only worshipped and/or feared

when rei – who was already introduced as a girl who had trouble “being human” – becomes a goddess in eoe, she’s essentially carrying out the ultimate goal of femininity by molding herself into a vessel out of gendo’s cathexis, transferred to his son. i already mentioned how gendo symbolizes masculinity in that he is totally dependent on divine feminine energy: in keeping with the child/parent motif, shinji takes gendo’s place and rei appears to him as a goddess. notice when shinji reminisces the “friends he wants to see again”, rei’s head is blocked by shinji’s face (this groupshot includes all the characters who can come back if they want to: hence kaworu’s absence & rei getting literally and metaphorically photobombed by shinji’s smiling face). when asuka and shinji wake up on the beach, rei is a hallucination at best, and a forgotten and lonely spirit at worst

there’s also tragedy in not being a goddess – the “feminine imperfection” symbolized by asuka, misato, and ritsuko. the point is that there is no way for the girls/women to simply BE, to be human (”at least, be human”) without gendered pain. the irony inherent in kaworu, a nonhuman, still being able to choose the circumstances of his death (as the angel of free will) despite his inhumanity is 100% explained by his perceived gender as a boy while rei and the rest of the girls/women are barred from a proper self-determined death

this show is all about people seeking objectifying love instead of humanizing love, and hurting, limiting, and depriving themselves in pursuit of that objectifying love. the (other) point is that everyone needs love, including rei – but rei can never, ever be allowed it