My last post revealed my certain affinity to one of the most genre defining characters of tha last century.One can think about Neon Genesis Evangelion what he wants but it sure gave life to two of the most lucrative characters ever.One can even argue that there are two kind of persons,Asuka or Rei Type, but that would go beyond my horizon especially since they introduced that third girl in the recent movie.I prefer to stick to my roots and present you just another Rei figure post after the Jump!
I simply assume that you do know who Rei Ayanami is,since you cant avoid the iconic character even if you are only remotely interested in Anime.I once read an interview with Hideaki Anno where he was displeased by the fans reception of Rei as an object of desire rather than the creepy emotionless doll she was supposed to be.The unexpected Rei Mania that followed brought a certain shift to the industry`s thinking what might be considered as cute by the audience.This was the birth of the mysterious,broken girl moe that still exists pretty much unchanged nowadays and caters to the preferable male viewers instincts to protect the object of desire from harm.
Even nowadays many mangakas draw inspiration from Rei and one of the most obvious Rei Clones got to be Ikki Tousens Ryomou Shimei who must have escaped the Human Instrumentality Project Test Tubes somewhere in the nineties and had a boobjob afterwards.
Personally ive always been attracted to Rei`s broken body,broken mind concept.Theres a certain fascination that comes from a shattered entity thats way more fascinating than its regular working counterparts.Shes a mere replaceable tool with little to no personality simply made to work in the very basic sense to achieve the makers goal.Im pretty certain that there was a certain word for this phenomenon but I cant remember what it was called.
Anno Hideaki said the following about Rei`s Character Design back in the day:
Whatever else, she needs to be painted in as a bitterly unhappy young girl with little sense of presence
So why do we like Rei? My guess is that everyone is reminded of his very own inner conflict and the realization that in fact most human beeings are born broken and are actually striving to become complete throughout their life.You might ask what a complete,working human actually is but this depends on your very own definition and cant be answered by anyone else but you.
Lets stop with this excourse and get back to the figure…
Evangelion and Ikki Tousen do not only have the same character type in common but also the fact that both flood the market with an neverending onslaught of merchandise.The normal procedure for Evangelion merchandise seems to be to put the EVA Girls into some fetishy outfit and sell it to the already raving masses.This particulary Rei did something astounding with delivering an in-character Rei thats probably the best rendition of her on the market.
Dont get me wrong,I do like a boobielicious Rei like any pervert,but I actually care about the figures representing a character accurately and most Rei figures fail in that department.Most of them have long departured from the original creepy girl and simply deliver another Moe Character good to cash in.
Thats why I especially like this figure for representing her as the broken entity she was before the Otaku Collective slowly turned herself into something she isnt supposed to be.
The curled up pose and the sorrowful look in her eyes perfectly represents what I like in Rei`s Character.Shes an abused and bruised personality looking for that last warmth thats left for her in that last small bit of private space thats left for her.
Ill stop now before you guys think I am totally nuts but yes I do like the darker thoughts about her ^^;
Quality wise shes a great figure with typical Alter Quality with very little to rant about on my side.Its really minor but upon closer inspection I noticed that on her butt/legs something like paintbrush strokes is visible.I doubt that Alter works with paintbrushes but thats what they remind me of.Its only visible on the white parts of her plugsuit and normally wouldnt be noticed when shes lying on her base.Her base is a rather unspectacular shiny black base with the Evangelion Movie logo on it.Rei also comes with an additional hairpiece with the interface headset.
Other potentionally better Reviews can be found here:
OMGWebsite You can also see the great box she comes in there
Tried to get the illusion of someone entering the room and casting a shadow on her here
I tried to go for a darker, more grittier feel this time and used the dreaded BRS Chain with her and tried to play with the shadows casted by the sunlight to highlight certain parts.I do know that some of the pictures look very alike but every picture has some very minor differences.They may not mean alot to you but to me they already change alot of the atmosphere of the pictures.I also worked with many close up shots to further incorporate the feeling and used one of my bamboo mats to create some empty desolated space shes lying in.
As usual I admire the work of other figure bloggers that work out these effect so much better than me ^^;;;
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