Rei Is Best Waifu

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Re: Rei Is Best Waifu

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Postby Zusuchan » Wed Jun 02, 2021 9:50 am

A relationship between Rei and Shinji still wouldn't work because, well, you can't avoid the Oedipal undertones present.

Slightly unrelated, but judging Rei's worth on her romantic compatibility to Shinji is pointless, because she is her own person and has far more to her-this, for that matter, goes to all fictional characters (female or elsewise) who are primarily discussed in terms of their romantic compatibility to another character, unless that really is the extent of them as characters or romance is, in some way, an extremely intrinsic and important part of the artwork which they're in. And even then, I'd hope for them to be more.

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Re: Rei Is Best Waifu

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Postby Blockio » Wed Jun 02, 2021 10:52 am

I quite agree. Reducing a character to a ship is just that: Reductive. It doesn't do either character justice, and only serves to detract from conversation if that's what it cycles back to every time.
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Re: Rei Is Best Waifu

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Postby dzzthink » Thu Jun 03, 2021 7:50 pm

View Original PostKendrix wrote:Yui:
-taller
-slightly longer hair
-bangs do not fall into face
-charismatic, dude magnet
-the reason Shinji was made a pilot to begin with, though she meant well
- did her own cleaning despite being rich so maybe enjoys/is good at housework
- seems wise benevolent & benign but secretly ambitious mastermind
- big mover & shaker behind the conspiracy
- ordinary human that becomes god

Rei:
- shorter
- slightly shorter, poofier hair
- bangs fall into face
- no social skills, loner
- one of the few ppl who don't give Shinji crap for hating his job
- no good at tidying up, house is messy
- seems cool, brutally honest & unapproachable but secretly nice & caring
- exploited victim of the conspiracy
- human created from godly bits



I often wonder if there are any physical differences between Rei II and Rei III. I tried counting the number of hair spikes that go across the side of her face but that turned out to be variable and a poor indicator.
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Re: Rei Is Best Waifu

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Postby Kendrix » Fri Jun 04, 2021 4:35 am

View Original Postdzzthink wrote:
I often wonder if there are any physical differences between Rei II and Rei III. I tried counting the number of hair spikes that go across the side of her face but that turned out to be variable and a poor indicator.



In the DC at least she's often drawn with her eyes half-lidded, but that's probably just an art style thing.

Though of course it's possible that some minor quirk depending on environment, randomness and/or epigenetics could be different like having a mole in a different place.

Though it figures that the various Reis wouldn't be nearly as different/separate from each other because of the soul transfer & memory backups.
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Re: Rei Is Best Waifu

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Postby Sefirot Tree Of Life » Wed Jun 09, 2021 1:01 pm

Rei to me has always been an inspirational character, and I get really saddened when she as a character is reduced to a doll - not by the otaku or whatever, but by shippers who tear her down, and pretentious Curse of Eva fans who ironically turn Rei into nothing more then an object to have moral superiority with.

Rei gets called a "Waifu" and a "Doll" a lot, but I don't really see it. For one, Hikari, Kaworu, and even Shinji all exemplify the "Waifu" characteristics far more as characters, being either submissive, people pleasing, or willing to aid you with their problems. Rei meanwhile, I don't see her that way at all. Sure, she follows Gendo's orders. But thats cause shes been neglected, if not outright abused and dehumanized, her whole life. Shes supposedly a waifu, yet she shalps Shinji, actively rejects going to his first party, initially rejects going along with Asuka, Shinji, and Misato in Episode 10(?) constnalty avoids interacting ith people, does not go out of her way to be a cute, helpful, submissive waifu (Again, these traits far better fit Shinji) in fac, Rei spends most of the series being by herself, pondering her thoughts as she contemplates on herself. Rei in my opinion, is quiet and stoic, but just cause shes not as loud as Asuka and Misato does not mean she lacks strength. She just has a quieter type. She dutifully serves her mission and fights the Angels without complete every single time. She is also far more proactive then given credit for - I'd say shes one of the most proactive and independent characters of the show: She didn't have to give her life to save Shinji's, she didn't have to try and reach out to Asuka, and she especially did not have to betray Gendo, reach out to Shinji, and help him through Instrumentality and his self hatred. Thats all her. If she was a motivation-less doll she would have done nothing except what Gendo asks.

I find Rei inspirational. I went through some terrible episodes of depression, dissociation, and neglect. I see a lot of my worst in Rei. Rei was dealt a bad hand at life - she is constnatly abused, neglected, and dehumanized just for exisitng. Yet she manges to overcoje it, she chooses to reach out to others, to at least try, and these connections and bonds make Rei gro and develop as a person, they allow her to claim her indepedence and autonomy as she helps Shinji save himself, and by extension, the world. She goes from depressed and passively suicdal to actively rejecting her orignal purpose and giving others a way to choose life. To me, she's one of the most badass and inspirational characters I've evr seen.

And sure, otaku and weebs or whatever will jerk off to her, but its not as if we can stop them. Why should we let them define our perception of Rei? Why tear Rei down, as if we are Asuka, Gendo, and Ritsuko, when Rei proved many times throughout the series she was not in fact a doll - but a person, a human, Rei Ayanami, one who made her own decisions and choices with the love of others. I get really sad when I see so many - and even Anno to apparently - who for whatever reason just don't like or understand Rei. I'm not even a hardcore ReiShin shipper or Reifag, but Rei is still one of my most favorite characters of all time.

Rei Best Waifu.

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Re: Rei Is Best Waifu

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Postby Kendrix » Thu Jun 10, 2021 4:52 am

you have done it! you have found the scroll of truth!
I wanted to try harvesting the rice

I wanted to hold Tsubame more

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Postby child of Lilith » Thu Jun 10, 2021 5:41 am

^^Excellent post.
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Re: Rei Is Best Waifu

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Postby YTPrenewed » Tue Jan 11, 2022 6:07 pm

View Original PostSefirot Tree Of Life wrote:Rei gets called a "Waifu" and a "Doll" a lot, but I don't really see it. For one, Hikari, Kaworu, and even Shinji all exemplify the "Waifu" characteristics far more as characters, being either submissive, people pleasing, or willing to aid you with their problems.

Missed this earlier. I presume the thread's fine to bump; my apologies if it wasn't.

I do think there might be some confirmation bias in the Rei case; a lot of us hear of Rei as being supposedly meant as a deconstruction of housewives (turned out she wasn't, confirmed by the creators themselves), or that other Rei expy characters were written primarily to be pitiable, and end up noticing Rei's submissive-sounding moments more than her assertive-sounding ones.

That said, I feel compelled to critique the use of those labels for other characters anyway.

Hikari was a damn near saint compared to most characters in the show, but not necessarily in a submissive way. She does what she thinks is right, not necessarily what pleases others. There was nothing people-pleaserish about her so bluntly rebuking her classmates for letting themselves be distracted by Shinji while class was still in session. Shinji must've wanted their validation pretty badly, and they seemed to want to give it to him. Yet like or hate that decision, it at least shows her to care more about doing what she thinks is right than about what they think of her. (And yet by ep 26, Hikari featured prominently in the "congratulations" scene while Shinji's fangirls did not!) Where she is submissive seems to be in overlap with what she thinks is right. She was remarkably accommodating to Asuka during the latter's self-loathing phase, but seeing as how she established herself as capable of doing what she believes in against the grain of everyone else earlier, perhaps she thought being accommodating was the right thing to do? Either that or she's more desperate to please Asuka than she is to please most of her other classmates.

Kaworu leaves... some room for interpretation as to whether he was acting like the male counterpart to a waifu genuinely, or just to manipulate Shinji for his own ends. Mind you I'm not sure I was following where episode 24 was going as well as I should've so I might be casting too wide a net as far as valid interpretations go.

Shinji can be passive compared to other characters on the show, but he's very selectively so depending on who he's dealing with, and whether or not he feels like being more assertive. When he's dealing with ordinary NERV officers in ep 19, making his Eva attack the other one, even to save his own life, let alone everyone else's, makes his anger no longer contained. Someone who's as sweet and cheerful at home as Misato would make him more desperate to meet her expectations at work, while someone like Asuka, whose personality isn't exactly as cute as her face, could strengthen either his people-pleaser ways or his anger depending on what mood he's already in. He's obviously more desperate to please some people than he is to please others, and even the effect of that depends on whether or not he already otherwise feels like it.

Also, this sort of thing isn't necessarily gender neutral. What guys like in a girl isn't necessarily going to be the same thing as what girls like in a guy. There's a lot of dispute about both; and there absolutely should be; but that doesn't mean we should pretend reversing the sexes can't change how people feel about "waifu" traits.

. . .

None of these characters are one-dimensional doormats, and I think that's a good thing; the term "doormat" conceals as much as it reveals, and for similar reasons, "people-pleaser" is only slightly better. Why do people put up with the things they do? One person could be assertive about thing A and passive about thing B, and another could be assertive about thing B and passive about thing A. They have assertiveness and passiveness in common, but not necessarily much else. I think people need more focus on the other factors when talking about these sorts of things, whether in fiction or in real life.
Last edited by YTPrenewed on Tue Jan 11, 2022 6:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Rei Is Best Waifu

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Postby nerv bae » Tue Jan 11, 2022 6:18 pm

Interesting topic but I'm afraid Asuka is best waifu (I can fix her).

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Postby C.T.1290 » Sun Jan 23, 2022 5:40 pm

Okay, I really hate to be that guy, but don’t you think that some you seem to forget that these waifus in Evangelion also happens to be underage minors?

Evangelion has been around for, what, 25 years? I’m sure most of us are in our 30’s.
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Postby Axx°N N. » Mon Jan 24, 2022 11:36 am

View Original PostC.T.1290 wrote:Okay, I really hate to be that guy, but don’t you think that some you seem to forget that these waifus in Evangelion also happens to be underage minors?

Probably literally no one, no. If a person still carries a flame for some classmate they had a crush on in elementary school, is it wrong once they age?

None of the youths in Eva are clearly identifiable as young by the end, anyway, even before NTE aged up their minds a half-decade. Shinji's angst is an expression not of a teenager's, but an adult man's siphoned through a character putatively teenage. I don't really perceive Asuka as young by the end because her situations are so adult and she's constantly trying to adulterate herself. Misato's hangups by the time of Instrumentality are juvenile, really every adult is playacting as an adult. Age stops mattering the more the human boundaries are crumbled. Rei II is actually, like, what, 10?

Anyway, Shinji is best waifu.
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Postby Blockio » Wed Jan 26, 2022 11:06 pm

I avoid shipping/waifu wars on principle, but I find there to be a quite stark difference between "I like seeing these two characters together" or even "I really like this character in particular" and any unpleasantness suggested here, so the whole conversation is a complete nonstarter to me that, quite frankly, makes me worry about the mental state of some people since the only thing I'm getting from that is that all they can see others as is a black and white distinction between "I want to fuck this one" or "I don't want to fuck this one"
I can see why Gendo hired Misato to do the actual commanding. He tried it once and did an appalling job. ~ AWinters
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What about titty-ten? ~ Reichu
The movies function on their own terms. If people can't accept them on those terms, and keep expecting them to be NGE, then they probably should have realized a while ago that they weren't going to have a good time. ~ Words of wisdom courtesy of Reichu

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Re: Rei Is Best Waifu

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Postby YTPrenewed » Wed Jan 26, 2022 11:59 pm

I think people are taking the term "waifu" a bit too literally. People know these characters are fictional, let alone underage in their respective shows.

The question is "if you were the same age, or at least comparable, would someone like Asuka make up for her not-so-endearing personality with her cute face, let alone bravery and smarts? (Putting aside her blind spot on suffocating Shinji during their kiss and taking his reaction as rejection, as plenty of otherwise smart people have blind spots.) If you were the same age, would someone on the other extreme like Rei make the guilt of never being sure if she's too emotionally repressed to for you to know if you're meeting her wants and needs hang over your head?" Like with any fantasy show and interpretations thereof, it's a thought experiment.

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Postby EvaChero » Thu Jan 27, 2022 9:55 am

It's kind of funny really, but sometimes fictional characters can seem more real than the people around us. Maybe it's something
to do with being able to pop them into the DVD player or stream them or whatever. Immediate satisfaction, we know how
they are going to act and they are there when we need them. (Like pets, maybe some level of control there)
Real people are messy and unpredictable, not saying this is a healthy POV...just a postulation.

P.S. I'll stick with Misato - She's the Duchess of New York...she's A #1. :huh:
who doesn't want to kick back with Misato and have a few beers?

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Postby YTPrenewed » Thu Jan 27, 2022 12:03 pm

Oh, don't get me wrong, someone like Misato sounds far more fun than either someone like Rei or someone like Asuka anyway, if only for being so much more lively than Rei yet so much more sweet and cheerful (at least at home) than Asuka.

When I called it a "thought experiment" I meant in terms of, if you were in Shinji's position, and had to choose between someone as abrasive as Asuka or as repressed as Rei. Theoretically he could've gone for someone as magnificent as Misato, but ep 23 showed he eventually saw her as off limits. (Perhaps he'd already come to imprint motherhood on her by then?)

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Postby EvaChero » Thu Jan 27, 2022 4:58 pm

Hmmm from Shinj's perspective....Misato would be terrifying....(I don't understand people who are adults, run away)
Asuka is a mass of contradictions.....(does she like me or not?)
Rei is ....the great mystery (does she like me or my dad?)
Kaworu is probably the least scary. (He actually said he likes me)
who doesn't want to kick back with Misato and have a few beers?

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Postby BernardoCairo » Fri Jan 28, 2022 5:42 pm

View Original PostC.T.1290 wrote:Okay, I really hate to be that guy...

Haven't you literally raised this same question before in this exact same thread?
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Re: Rei Is Best Waifu

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Postby C.T.1290 » Fri Jan 28, 2022 9:20 pm

View Original PostBernardoCairo wrote:
View Original PostC.T.1290#933838 wrote:Okay, I really hate to be that guy...

Haven't you literally raised this same question before in this exact same thread?

I…believe I might have. I dunno, I guess I’m trying to make sense of that notion.
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Postby Gussoni » Thu Feb 03, 2022 9:05 pm

My Ayanami Rei poster =)

Image

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Re: Rei Is Best Waifu

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Postby TehDonutKing » Wed Sep 07, 2022 12:09 pm

Best waifu is Kaworu. I'm sure this needs no further elaboration.
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