Rei Ayanami Character Analysis - Evangelion

[Applause] when I made my Shinji Ikari character analysis three years back there was a new understanding of the character I was trying to bring to the table ray Ayanami on the other hand she's the most popular character in the franchise in Japan and only second Tosca here in the states having a fresh perspective on her as a huge undertaking harder than I ever anticipated thusly the two or so years I put off making this video what more can be said about Rey the oedipal characteristics the objectification the achievement of personhood and how Evangelion defines that every angle seems tired and obvious in 2018 but why not give my take on these themes if I do my job right hopefully you'll learn something new 2004 agenda and fuyutsuki attempted to bring shinji's mother Yui back using her remains from AV unit ones core and Lilith this attempt failed but Rea was born as a consequence her body is maintained and monitored by Crisco ACOG II who is able to manipulate her age to match that of Shinji and the rest of the would-be pilots she lives alone unlike Shinji and osku and spends her time reading books and staring aimlessly out the window Rey grows closer to Shinji in particular given Shinji encourages her to expand beyond her limited perspective she eventually developed some shades of individuality but dies before discovering true personhood given kendo and nerve were able to create multiple copies she comes back and new with her memories wiped unbeknownst to them however she experiences a continuity of emotions and is able to complete her Arkin and Evangelion by rejecting gen dos version of instrumentality instead granting it to Shinji the only one who showed her true compassion it was her decision in the end Raye acts as a counterpoint and in parallel to the yamato nadeshiko and ideal for japanese women to ascribe to in the 19th century quiet and shy but wild at heart wise and good at domestic work these are what characterizes the yamato nadeshiko rea acts as a parody of these ideas she's unhygenic emotionally detached but extremely submissive she's more inline with the american china doll stereotype an archetype that was ascribed to asian women in old hollywood submissive docile obedient and disposable this perfectly describes the first scene we see her in reyes clearly injured beyond reason but in order to get in the AVA unit and almost does so until shinji takes the reins these qualities are what Rey transcends over time acting as a kind of china doll herself it makes sense why rey is frequently compared to that of a doll especially by Oscar Rey and Oscar have a strange relationship they're meant to be writing foils to one another in verse but complementary there's an impression of Rey's unit being simplified and understated while Oscars is exaggerated and over-the-top even by the number of eyes the color of the units are also contrasted with red and blue similarly with their hair and eyes according to the character designer Yoshiyuki Sadamoto this was all completely intentional when they first meet Rey has shown reading old germanic texts linking the two intrinsically as a kind of non sequitur i had my friend honest phil whose german translate the writing and interestingly one part pertains to Louie de frst prince of on how to curtain the founder of the fruit-bearing society he wanted to preserve the traditions of the Germanic language and ironically his name was even modernized in history books the other half is a poem about a father who gives his son everything he needs to create happiness for himself perhaps lending insight into gain knows relationship to Shinji giving him the AVA unit it's an easter egg to be sure considering we couldn't even read this until the blu-ray release but it's fascinating nonetheless I've linked Phil's full translations below along with his channel returning to the topic at hand the interaction between ray and oz cos the cleverest in the entire show episode 11 for example when Oscar orders ready to take up being the support unit instead of a human shield ray up until now has been the one to get beat down for the sake of supporting someone else such as in episode 6 osku is pushing ray out of that comfort zone out of compassion but out of pride wanting to usurper in a way however it's good for Rey she can now stop seeing herself as just a masochistic entity it expands her limits as part of the team and it comes back to play when Rey takes it upon herself to find endows wishes in order to assist osku in episode 19 it's wonderful writing and of course their dynamic is most famous in episode 22s infamous elevator scene what's most intriguing about this scene is that Rey chooses to engage oskar first Rey has never engaged osku in such a manner before and it's always been the reverse where Oscar engages Rey but I think it's clear that Rey has developed concern for Oscar given her depressive state in episode 22 Raylan's her sound advice saying that Oscar needs to humanize the AVA unit because they have souls kokoro 1000 no that's it ah so even you Oscar then refers to both ray and the AVA unit as a ninja Nuno can act as a catch-all term for doll literally meaning human shape however ninyo typically have a historical Shinto implication Ning yo are often traditional handcrafted dolls given to children as early as the 14th century they were thought to develop a soul from being part of a family with all the interactions at hand they'd start to become human in a way Ming yo weren't just disposed of either and after a doll would become old Japanese families would hold funerals for them to prevent their spirits from haunting them it's obvious to me that this was an intentional parallel otherwise the katakana word or two might be just as appropriate for Miss Western German over here using the word Nino to describe ray tells me that like the ninja Rey has developed a soul just as the AVA units have souls so too does ray and I think by its use of the word on O is defining personhood through experience we develop into our own as people once we've had enough experiences with others it begins to make sense why ray after dying experiences continuity her soul was rejected from goth there is no funeral no proper death ray soul lives on haunting the world so to speak and took over another ninja in order to keep living the most haunting image in episode 1 is of race staring at Shinji from afar before disappearing into thin air just as she vanishes doves are shown flying overhead not only does this call forward to the design of the MPAA units but doves are also symbolic of messengers in the post-apocalyptic landscape at least within the story of noah and the flood and considering that cow ders story acts as a kind of Jesus Judas parallel I think this could be one of those rare cases where religious symbolism is intentional here this ray is undoubtedly quantum ray from end of evangelion becoming an angelic deity after merging with Lilith Rhea is shown throughout the film being capable of manipulating time and space to appear in multiple places at once it also explains why she was able to descend into terminal dogma without an Ava unit in episode 24 this was never really Rea but quantum ray she acts as a kind of messenger to shinji and to the audience warning us about what's to come foreshadowing future events there's more nods to the events of End of Evangelion in episode 21 we're freed ski gets a card from kendo with an illustration of a blue haired angel holding a heart the word heart in Japanese is kokoro which means soul it's interesting how this image is an exact parallel to luther a holding the souls of all of humanity rey is also often associated with the moon which to be sure is reflected in the lore with angels originating from the white moon it could also be a reference to Lilith's black mask inscribed with lunar craters the moon is symbolic of motherhood and the menstrual cycle in many cultures running in tandem to raise relationship with shinji and endo as a fer mentioned ray is often seen as an oedipal entity by the community and to quote series creator Hideo Keano there was this replacement by a robot so the original mother is the robot but then there is a mother of the same age ray Ayanami by shinji side she's also by the side of the real father there is also another father there Adam who governs the overall course of events an Oedipus complex within these multiple structures that is what I wanted to do the Oedipus complex refers to an ancient Greek tragedy about a man who murdered his father to sleep with his mother but he was unaware of who they were until it was too late the story would be used by Freud in his book interpretation of dreams to describe the condition of a young male hating Father and desiring their mother the mother is seen as protection and acceptance while the father is conflict and violence Evangelion is no stranger to psychoanalytic theory even going so far as to name whole episodes after the developmental stages proposed by Freud kendos relationship to raise rather questionable in this context riscos position in episode 15 is replaced with rayon 24 Ritz cone as a substitute for Ray and vice versa and the final episodes of the series considering Ritz codes to be a sexual partner for Gendo the implications of this new dynamic are chilling gendou cares about ray in regards to his use of her as a pawn in his plan to bring you his wife back from the AVA unit he has conditioned her to accept herself as replaceable the fact he would go so far as to even copy her for the dummy plug system demonstrates his willingness to commodify her and remove her individuality Ray's an emotional substitute for Gendo at most acting as a surrogate for youî she doesn't recognize this initially but begins to in episode 23 after actually having been replaced shinji on the other hand objectify her the least out of the males in her life considering how much of a horny bugger shinji is that's pretty impressive okay let me explain in episode 5 toh gene Kent's gate auga the girls and confront shinji about staring at ray in particular they talk about Ray's thighs and breasts reducing her to body parts shinji on the other hand expresses genuine concern about her isolating herself from the group and indeed the camera does not fetishize her eyes Shinji is staring later Shinji's told to deliver a card to her and though he is teased about it for staring at her picture he again clarifies that it's out of concern and interest for her well-being when he checks to see if she's okay in episode 6 after battling Romeo it subverts the scene where Jen Doe is shown doing the same in episode 5 gendou asks if she's alright and she nods and he curtly responds with song it comes across as cold in the long run Kurt Ray clearly sees this moment as compassionate however holding onto gantu's glasses as a memento of this occasion it's only because of her limited understanding of compassion at this stage of her existence that she does so to begin with the glasses are eventually destroyed by her and end of evangelion for this reason they were never genuine shinji on the other hand breaks down in tears relieved she wasn't killed and suggests for her to smile to express herself this is true compassion and these two moments comparatively inform Ray's decision in end of evangelion why she picked Shinji over again doh I think Shinji sees Ray's individuality as valuable that's not to say that he isn't also attracted to her sexually but this oedipal construct is one that Shinji and Ray metaphorically tear down through the reduction of instrumentality and its comforts it's not something virtuous Shinji and Ray separates showing this to be the case Shinji does not kill Gendo as the edifice prophecy foretold in the Greek drama and in fact doesn't even confront him in the finale this is perfect for both Shinji and Ray's arcs and in the end Gando is surrounded by the same wall patterns of ray's room suggesting his fate is truly decided by her not the other way around as had been initially intended in episode 5 shinji goes to Ray's apartment it's in a complex represented by multiple buildings all aligned and stretching far out into the distance mechanical sound effects are claiming in the background the motifs are self-explanatory demonstrating raised nature as a mechanical commodified product easily capable being reproduced and duplicated her role in the series is to develop out of this identity keep this in mind as I'm going to be talking about ray Ayanami today and what she means for the anime industry as a whole Evangelion was able to be successful in the long run thanks to its merchandising in Tokyo there's a store dedicated to nothing but a van galleon merch selling anything from Evangelion themed glasses to a V galleon themed umbrellas what started its success intentionally or not is a limited number of prints of Ava themed products as requested by Hideo Keano himself this eventually led to the explosive demand for such items companies like Nintendo have latched on to this method with their products like the NES classic and the Wii increasing demand by putting very few out there on the market in particular array Ayanami doll covered in bandages quote sold like wildfire and became the face of AV galleons marketing in aerial magazine hideo Keano expressed his surprise it's strange that Evangelion has become such a hit all the characters are so sick in spite of the characters being incredibly disturbed and mentally ill there was a federation for them for better or worse ray Ayanami and indeed much of the cast of AVA including Cairo and Shinji and osku have spawned a whole movement within the anime industry creating shell replicas of the AVA cast without any subversion or depth that originally defined them Rey herself is the most guilty of this creating a whole lineup of characters referred to in pop culture as the Rey Ayanami xb and being a contributing factor in the rise of MO a culture mo a being a whole subculture of fandom that worships and adores an ideal of cuteness the desire for the audience to protect cute characters particularly girls from harm is it a surprise than that the version of Rey that sold the best was the one where she was in bandages to quote Patrick Galbraith of Tokyo University otaku scholar Okada Oh states that Maui is most strongly felt amongst the third-generation of otaku or Japanese born in the 1980s who watched Neon Genesis Evangelion in middle school and grew up amid the wealth of anime manga games and character merchandise following the seminal anime series as Okada sees it there is a strong tendency amongst this generation of otaku to see otaku hobbies as a form of pure sanctity Rey and the cast of Evangelion have accomplished the opposite of what the series communicates Evangelion was meant to send out a message to escapist or talk of the 90s who drink away from responsibility and instead it was used as a form of escapism in a 2012 interview just before the release of Evangelion 3.0 Hideo Keano spoke about his feelings regarding the young genesis as for Neon Genesis Evangelion many people took what I made as entertainment and turned it into a target of dependence I wanted to take responsibility for those people becoming impudent however I've started to pull back from that subject of criticizing escapist of taku those kinds of people don't understand no matter what you say I finally realized there is nothing you can do [Music] [Applause] [Music] Otto and the AVA crew owe their success to escapism in spite of everything about Evangelion being fundamentally anti escapist the studio Carra short me-me-me-me pokes fun at this Evangelion unintentionally has contributed to a stagnation of anime post 1990s and the hey Kiku Mori otaku uprising and if you ask me in my deeply deeply deeply subjective opinion animes quality has dropped when I compare my personal top shows of the 2010s to shows of the 90s and 2000's there's no contest in terms of the amount of creativity and ambition there's a clear upswing of mowie and comedy post Haruhi Suzumiya to the point where even shows considered to be serious works in the 2010s are obsessed with presentations of cuteness Moe way and cliched archetypes with few exceptions ambition and creativity are at an all-time low with the most interesting anime being in adaptations of older IP such as ping pong the animation or JoJo's Bizarre Adventure as we seen with berserk 2016 FLCL - and darling in the Franks there can be an utter failure to reclaim the magic of older arrows call be blinded by nostalgia and filtering the good from the mediocre but I genuinely feel this era right now has felt the impact of mowie and otaku culture are harder than any and for me it's disappointing it's not what I liked about anime the times are changing for the worse and for what it's worth I think kaitiaki on o is making the best out of a depressing situation we wouldn't have stuff like dragon dentist or yuri on ice without studio cara's animator Expo and we wouldn't have the expo without the merchandising of Neon Genesis in the rebuild Evangelion has inspired and continues to inspire young filmmakers and animators not even just from Japan I wouldn't be going for my masters in film production without Ava Rey herself despite becoming everything she stood against has provided opportunities for people and for that I am thankful for what she is if you liked this video consider supporting me on patreon for early access to videos discarded scripts and lengthy notes for videos like this one a big thank you to honest Phil for doing those German translations as I said before the link is below also a shout-out to my patrons Angelica Rivera swai hander fiend Thanatos 3 8 8 Jaron are Lucia s angel Louie Ruiz Harrison fell thank you so much and go Jesus out

Channel: GoatJesus

Views: 270,959

Keywords: rei ayanami character analysis, rei analysis, rei explained, ray analysis, evangelion analyisis, eva rei, eva rei analysis, rei character, evangelion explained, rei ayanami is best girl, asuka is best girl, rei is best girl, rei ayanami, rei evangelion

Id: 004mKKbSnEI

Length: 17min 46sec (1066 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 28 2018