How Rei Ayanami Radically Changed Anime Merchandise

Neon Genesis Evangelion’s insanely successful marketing, merchandise, and external media is well known for feeling extremely disconnected from its thought provoking source material, but why? Here’s the story of how Rei Ayanami transformed the show’s merchandise, as well as anime merchandising as a whole. I shine the spotlight on products like the Ayanami Raising Project, a questionable official Gainax calendar, and other oddities.

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Sources:
   • Life-Size EVA In Kyoto: Neon Genesis ...  
   • The Evangelion Store in Shinjuku, Tokyo  
   • Evangelion Cafe in Japan  
   • Evangelion EXPO in Tokyo! Over 4,000 ...  
   • [PS2] Evangelion: Ayanami Ikusei Keik...  
   • Evangelion Bandage Rei Ayanami Plug S...  

Fujie, Kazuhisa; Foster, Martin (2004). Neon Genesis Evangelion: The Unofficial Guide. United States: DH Publishing, Inc.

Galbraith, Patrick W. (2010). "Akihabara: Conditioning a Public "Otaku" Image". Mechademia. University of Minnesota Press.

Nikkei Net (2007). "Shunju.”
https://web.archive.org/web/200709031...
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Lamarre, Thomas (2009). The Anime Machine: A Media Theory of Animation. University of Minnesota Press.

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