is the twenty-third episode of the Japanese anime television series Neon Genesis Evangelion, created by animation studio Gainax. The episode was written by Hideaki Anno and Hiroshi Yamaguchi and directed by the animator Shōichi Masuo. In the episode, Rei Ayanami, the pilot of the giant mecha Evangelion Unit-00, is attacked by the sixteenth in a series of enemies of mankind called Angels, Armisael, and decides to commit suicide to defeat the enemy. Following her death, her fellow pilot Shinji Ikari and Misato Katsuragi, head of the strategy department of the military agency Nerv, discover that Rei is a series of replaceable clones thanks to Dr. Ritsuko Akagi.
The episode is characterized by dramatic tones but also by a speed and dryness in the exposition of the series's mysteries. Critics also interpreted some imagery from the episode, including a nude scene involving Ritsuko and Rei's battle against Armisal, as sexual imagery of rape. "Rei III" contains cultural references to Christian iconography, quantum physics, the concept of death drive postulated by Sigmund Freud, and Sailor Moon, among others.
"Rei III" was first broadcast on 6 March 1996 and drew a 6.9% audience share on Japanese television. The episode received a mixed reception from critics. Some of them praised the revelations of Rei's true identity and the action scenes; other reviewers criticized Ritsuko's revelations, plus the animation quality and the voice acting.
Plot Asuka Langley Soryu, a pilot assigned to the giant mecha Evangelion Unit-02, sinks into clinical depression in the grip of an existential crisis. She leaves the home of Misato Katsuragi, her legal guardian, to go to the home of her friend Hikari Horaki, where she spends her days playing video games. Gendo Ikari, supreme commander of the special agency Nerv, is questioned by the secret sect Seele about the previous battle, in which he used a weapon called the Spear of Longinus against Seele's plans.
During Gendo's interview, the sixteenth in a series of enemies of mankind known as Angels, Armisael, is sighted. Rei Ayanami, pilot of the Evangelion Unit-00, confronts it in combat, but is violated by Armisael, who penetrates Eva-00's body and sneaks into Rei's mind in the form of another self. Shinji Ikari, Gendo's son and pilot of the Evangelion-01, goes out to rescue Rei, but is also attacked by Armisael. To kill Armisael, Rei decides to let herself explode while inside the Eva-00 with the Angel. After the fight, Misato tries to console despondent Shinji, who refuses her comfort.
Nerv warns Shinji that Rei has survived. Rei, however, proves unable to remember the fight, treating Shinji coldly and saying she is the third one. Ritsuko Akagi, head of Nerv's science department, is sent by Gendo to a Seele interrogation in place of Rei. Ritsuko, feeling betrayed, calls Shinji and Misato to explain several dark truths about the Evangelions and Rei. They descend into the depths of the Nerv headquarters, discovering that Rei is a collection of clones with a soul that is activated from time to time and can be replaced. Out of anger and resentment at Gendo, Ritsuko destroys Rei's clones before breaking down in tears.
Production Genesis and staff In 1994, Gainax released an initial presentation for Neon Genesis Evangelion containing an initial synopsis of the twenty-third episode. In the original draft, the episode, initially titled , would have centred on a series of revelations of secrets about the Evangelions, the true intentions of Gendo Ikari and Ritsuko Akagi, and the Human Instrumentality, a project pursued by Gendo and other characters in the series to evolve humanity towards a new stage of evolution. In the following episode, , Rei was supposed to "break down". Her secrets would be revealed, and twelve powerful enemies called Apostolo, later called Angels, would descend from the Moon. The proposal document also specified how the Human Instrumentality was to free man from the curses and original sin that plague him, recreating a mentally and physically perfect being. According to Evangelion Chronicle, an official encyclopaedia on the series, it is unclear whether or not such a perfect being in itself corresponds to Rei; Rei is, however, created during the preparation process for Human Instrumentality in the initial scenario, although this is not explicitly stated in the final version that was later aired.
From the earliest planning stages of the series, several mysteries about the figure of Rei were planned, but their nature changed in the course of the series. In the final version, no clear explanation is given as to the nature of the Instrumentality, but the nature of Rei and the Dummy Plug is revealed nevertheless. It was originally planned to make Rei a completely alien entity, but the Evangelion staff later decided to make her at least genetically human. From the early stages, Neon Genesis Evangelion director Hideaki Anno also had the idea of presenting the death of a clone of Rei and replacing her with a new Rei. The director himself compared the idea of a reset of Rei's character to a character from the Ultraman franchise, Hideki Gō, in the series The Return of Ultraman. Hideki is portrayed as a character who seems to change at the end of each episode and become more connected to the members of his group, the Monster Attack Team, but with each new episode, his character returns to where he started. The series' assistant director, Kazuya Tsurumaki, initially opposed the idea of killing off the second Rei so late in the series. The staff of Evangelion, including Tsurumaki himself, later expressed regrets about the choice, thinking that Rei III's character was not explored as well as the other clones.
Hideaki Anno and Hiroshi Yamaguchi wrote the screenplay for the episode; Anno and Tsurumaki handled the storyboards. Shōichi Masuo took on the role of director, assisted by Masahiko Otsuka and Ken Anso. Shunji Suzuki worked as chief animator and alongside Tsurumaki as character design assistant.
Development
"Rei III" and the last episodes of the series have considerably darker tones compared to the previous episodes. According to Japanese cultural critic Hiroki Azuma, the plot's rhythm is also much faster, condensing the narrative to the point of concentrating events that would otherwise have required multiple episodes into just a few sequences; Rei's battle, for example, lasts only a few minutes, so as to overwhelm the viewer with its speed. Yūichirō Oguro, editor of the extra material from the various home video editions of the series, similarly pointed out that despite the various tragedies that happen to the characters, the narration of the episode is dry and without excessive drama, with a cold, detached attitude. Moreover, during Ritsuko's scene in the Terminal Dogma, Ritsuko gives the viewer several pieces of information during the climax of the episode, but the information quickly follows one after the other, confusing the viewer. According to writer Emily Wati Muir, Rei's battle also has elements of several genres, fusing them. For Muir, Rei's "robotic and military appearance and its connection to religion come from the mecha genre"; however, "the romance and her sacrifice come from the sekai-kei genre", a narrative genre in which a character's emotion and action have strong consequences on the whole fictional universe.
As the setting for the battle against Armisael, Gainax chose a real place, the Ōwakudani Valley, already presented in the episode "Hedgehog's Dilemma". The authors' original plans called for the appearance of a ribbon-shaped enemy inspired by the Möbius strip, which later became the Angel Sahaquiel. According to Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, character designer of the series, the idea behind the Angel's design was to demonstrate how Evangelion's enemies could also have non-anthropomorphic forms. Due to the lack of resources, the proposal was later shelved; Sahaquiel's design was then modified and presented in the twelfth episode. The idea of the Möbius strip later partly flowed into the Angels Zeruel in "Introjection" and Armisael. The episode was originally supposed to be entitled ; the original title would have been a reference to the Japanese title of the sixteenth episode, "The sickness unto death, and then...", which in turn is a reference to the essay of the same name by the existentialist philosopher Søren Kierkegaard.
The idea for the Guf chamber came to animator and writer Mitsuo Iso, who took inspiration from Carl Schultz's movie The Seventh Sign (1988). In the original project, under the Nerv's headquarters there were ancient ruins of a place named . Arqa was described as Rei's mother and father; Rei, in Iso's proposals, would have been born from Arqa, and she would have physically eaten it. Arqa would have been the Moon, or something that entered the Earth with the Giant Impact; from this event, life would have arisen, a contradiction that "defies heat and the second law of thermodynamics". Furthermore, in the twenty-third episode, Gendo would have led Eva-03, the Japan Self-Defense Forces would have invaded Nerv's headquarters; Gendo would then have been shot, falling into Lake Ashino, Misato would have attempted to rebuild Nerv, and Asuka would have escaped. Rei's room would also have displayed the symbol of the Essenes in the original scenario, a secret society led by Keel who worships Adam, responsible for the Second Impact and linked to the girl and the characters of Gendo and Yui. The Essenes would have served as antagonists, intelligent but unscrupulous Third Reich-style dictators associated with pollution and similar to the Abelt Desler family from Space Battleship Yamato. The episode's original script also called for Eva-02 to remain on the battlefield during the battle against Armisael, despite failing to activate.
"Rei III" and the other episodes of the second half of the series suffered considerable production problems. Due to continuous delays and a schedule that was getting closer and closer to its conclusion, "Rei III" and the following episodes were produced in a short time, resulting in a drop in animation quality. After the conclusion of the first broadcast, therefore, Gainax remade the episodes involved from scratch, including "Rei III". Several sequences were redrawn, and completely unedited sequences were added to better connect with the ending and to clarify some unexplained plot points. The extended version of the episodes, called the video format version or home video version, differs from the on-air version in several respects; Gainax first released the new footage in the movie Neon Genesis Evangelion: Death & Rebirth (1997) and later in the 1998 Evangelion Laserdisc edition. In the video format version of "Rei III", Gainax added the scene in which Gendo and Fuyutsuki discuss the death of Rei II in front of a capsule-shaped tank. The Armisael battle scene was expanded, adding a sequence in which a pile of flesh with the shapes of the Angels from previous episodes is formed from the body of Eva-00. In the video format version of the battle from Armisael, a giant white Rei is also formed, similar to the one later visible in the movie The End of Evangelion (1997) during Human Instrumentality, while on Shinji's hand, many small Reis are formed, which also represent a visual anticipation of the series finale. In the scene where Ritsuko shows Rei's clones in the Terminal Dogma, several images of photographs and sketches are also shown in the video format version, showing the Second Impact and the events that took place during the creation of the Evangelion units. The images were removed in later home video editions, including the Renewal of Evangelion edition (2003).