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8.1
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Rei Ayanami begins the second activation experiment with Unit-00 after a disastrous activation 22 days previously. Much like Gendō, she displays little emotion, even after being seen naked by a flustered Shinji. Study begins on the fallen Fourth Angel revealing its DNA to be identical to humans.moreless
  • Rei is a wonderful character who needs to understand more of Shinji and why he and his father cant put together their differences. ***MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS MAN***

    9.9
    "Superb"
    Introducing more character development with Rei. Rei is a almost completely unknown character who was ocassionally seen in Evangelion episodes, until this episode. Rei I shows us more about Rei and her life and injuries, and what robot she pilots.

    This episode is basically about Rei and her life. She was injured in an experiment with Evangelion Unit-00 and Shinji's fathers saved her by opening a super heated door with his bare hands. Ever since that day, Rei seems to enjoy having Shinji's father around her.

    I thought this episode was just wonderful and quite amusing. I had to skip through the part where Shinji fell on Rei and made a fool of himself. Rei was naked, by the way. Boy is she hot!moreless
  • More mystery just shrivels up.

    8.7
    "Great"
    This episode centers around Rei and her relationship with Gendou. In a flasback sequence, Rei was piloting EVA unit 00, though the expiriment failed, and the EVA went haywire, ejecting the storage plug that Rei was in. Gendou rushes to the scene, opening the heated doors with his bare hands, burning them in the process, but rescuing Rei from the capsule. His glasses were also cracked, which became useless to Gendou, but Rei keeps them as a souvenir within her room. This episode opened up a lot of questions to be asked.

    Earlier in the series I had the impression Gendou cared little for anything else besides his work, but to see him rush towards Rei in such a dramatic way made it suspicious. What is Gendou's true intentions? Later on in the episode, the fifth angel, who takes the form of a pyramid shape, appears directly on the top of headquarters, penetrating its various plate armours with a drill of its own. When they try to make an assault using Shinji, it immediately fires a plasma beam that burns through much of the Evangelions armour. What's instored for Shinji now?moreless
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Trivia, Notes, Quotes and Allusions

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  • TRIVIA (1)

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    • There's a slight goof here, that many may not have noticed. This is because this can only be noticed when watching the cliffhanger in different languages. When Shinji first got into Evangelion Unit-01, in Episode One, he is told that L.C.L. is to be oxygenated into his lungs. When Shinji is launched, all of his L.C.L. is oxygenated, and when he is attacked with Ramiel's beam, the L.C.L. starts to flood back out, as he screams. Spike Spencer, the English voice actor of Shinji Ikari, does the job well, as he holds his screams, without breathing. Megumi Ogata, the Japanese voice actress of Shinji Ikari, does her job exceptionally well, as she makes Shinji breathe, but not breathe. As in, she makes him sound like he's TRYING to breathe, but he can't. However, Victor Ugarte, the Spanish voice actor of Shinji Ikari, actually does very emotionless screams, but also breathes properly in between his screams. But if the L.C.L. was already oxygenated, Shinji wouldn't be able to breathe it again.

  • QUOTES (1)

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  • NOTES (2)

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    • Japanese Title: 「レイ、心のむこうに」- ("Rei, Kokoro no Mukou ni") - "Rei, Beyond Her Heart"

    • The Fifth Angel Ramiel The Fifth Angel bears the name of "Ramiel," the angel of thunder. It entered New Tokyo-3 from the direction of Lake Ashino. It has a regular octahederal shape, like two pyramids stuck together on top and bottom, and is composed of planes that are reflective enough to even reflect the clouds in the sky. It has no animate characteristics and appears very inanimate. However, seeing how it commenced an accurate attack from directly above NERV Headquarters and how it took preemptive action against Unit-01 when Unit-01 was first deployed and then right before Unit-01 was about to fire upon it, it is clear that it possesses highly precise sensory organs. The mega-particle cannon that it fires against anyone entering within a certain distance is also capable of sniping long-range targets. It is powerful enough to pierce armament buildins and even melt the third layer of armor plating on Unit-01's chest. In addition, it extends a giant shield with a diameter of 17.5 meters, drilling and attacking everything directly underneath it. Though it ultimately gives NERV a chance to counter it due to its slowness, its piercing ability ismost incredible. It came very close to reaching NERV headquarters located deep within the Geo Front. It also has an AT field powerful enough to be seen by the naked eye, and furthermore, its core is housed within its body. It also shows no sign of any openings in terms of its defense. The chief of operations at the special duty organization NERV, Misato Katsuragi. called it an "aerial fortress," but this is a most accurate description. More information.

  • ALLUSIONS (2)

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    • 601: 601 is used as an error code in this episode for a failure by scanning equipment to return any data on the Angel it is examining. It "cannot be analyzed." 601 was also used as a computer error code in the movie adaptation of The Andromeda Strain. There, it equates closely to an out-of-memory message when data was entering the system faster than it could process it. Buffer overflow might also be an applicable term. Similarly, the green patterns flashing before 601 appeared in this episode seem to be a take off on the same sequence in The Andromeda Strain.

    • Just as the English episode titles "Rei I" and "Rei II" suggest, the spotlight is on Rei Ayanami, the pilot of Unit-01, in Epsidoes Five and Six. Episode Five skillfully depcits Shinji, who becomes interested in Rei and tries to get cloers to her and her subtly wavering emotions. Rei Ayanami is a girl who does not try to dispay her emotions for the most part. She does not even bat an eye when someone her own age of the opposite sex sees her naked, but with matters concerning Gehdou alone, she shows some stirring of emotions. The succesful activation experiement of Unit-00 is likely due to the fact that she brought the pair of glasses, which symbolizes the bond between him and her, into the etnry plug with her. The failure of Unit-00's activation experiment 22 days ago was caused by her psychological instability. RItsuko has some idea of what might have been the reason for that, but she denies it, saying, "No, that can't be it." Was the reason she thought of something to do with the connection between Unit-00 and Rei or possibly something to do with Gendou? The housing development that Rei lives in is in the oldewr parts of town of New Tokyo-3. The area is subdued to be redeveloped and the building on the other side of the road has already been demolished. There is a lot of attention to detail converning the depiction of her living space. There are numerous advertisements left stuck in her door, and the entrance has countless tracks where she has gone inside without taking her shoes off. According to the premise, on the chest in the room are medical books on such topics as psychology and genetics. Rei apparently reads these intently, and they are marked with tags. In the first half of Part A. Shinji and Misato visit a simple faility built on top of the Fourth Angel that was defeated in Episode Three. When seen from directly above, it is roughly the same shape as the Angel's silhouette, and under the four prefab buildings in the senter is the body, and there are flagella under the two to the left and three to the right. Next to this prefab facility is the while outline of the pisition Unit-01 fell in from the fight with the Fourth Angel, just as if it were some site of a car accident. This realistic depiction is very much like Evangelion. They Storyboards were done by Kiichi Jinme, a.k.a. Junichi Sato, the same as for Episode Four. Rei's girlishly delighted look when Gendou appears and the comedy during the dinner scene where Misato pours curry into her ramen are disctinctively Jinme's storyboard style. The ecentric way the cutsw were split up when Shinji visits Rei's apartment was also memorable. Shunji Suzuki's animation work is also clear, and the quality of the visuals is also high The trio of Satsukawa, Jinme, and Suzuki later also worked on Episodes Fifteen and Twenty-One, which both focus on the drama.

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