Ayanami is the First Child and the pilot of Evangelion Unit 00. She is shown to be socially withdrawn and hardly interacts with anyone. Rei's cool, silent and emotionally-stunted personality has garnered the scorn of her schoolmates; Asuka calls her a "doll" or "puppet". Although she once only associated with Gendo, she and Shinji break the ice after the battle against Ramiel and grow progressively closer for a while. In the manga version, Rei grows a lot closer to Shinji than in the anime.
