Evangelion Unit-00 (Rebuild)

NERV catalogs this machine as Evangelion Proto Type-00, the trial unit of the Rebuild continuity and the earliest Eva ever brought to working condition. Golden yellow dominates its armor, broken up by patches of white and grey. Rei Ayanami serves as its pilot across the first two films.

Its boxy helmet carries no eyes at all; a lone red sensor does the seeing, joined by a translucent green dome and a screw-shaped yellow fixture on the crown. The torso plating pairs a V-shaped element with two rounded pieces that shift as the unit moves, details that later resurface on Unit-01 and across the Production Model line. Shoulder pylons are absent from the original configuration.

Heavy damage sustained fighting the Sixth Angel prompts a full rebuild. The revised machine, written as Proto Type-00' (Kai), adopts armor matching the Production Models, gaining pylons and a simplified V-shaped chest plate while keeping its yellow color. Beyond compatibility with ordinary Eva armament, a Progressive Knife, and a shield, the unit carries no unique systems, though the pylons of the upgraded form could in theory stow a pair of knives that are never actually drawn.

During the Sixth Angel operation, Unit-00 hoists the Enchanted Shield of Virtue and absorbs the enemy's fire so that Unit-01 can line up its experimental positron cannon, taking critical damage in the exchange. The first film also revisits the unit's troubled activation trial, in which it goes berserk and its forcibly ejected Entry Plug crashes down inside the test facility with Rei aboard.

Rebuilt as Unit-00', it joins the assault on the Eighth Angel beside the other two Evas. Because the target's core keeps drifting, Rei pins it in place by hand, letting Asuka's Unit-02 land the killing strike; the core's heat scorches its hands and arms for 38.6 percent damage, second worst of the three units, and it enters repair standby.

When the Tenth Angel strikes, Rei sorties without clearance in the half-repaired machine and drives an N2 missile at the enemy, breaching its A.T. Field with help from Unit-02 in Beast form after pushing her ally clear of the blast. The explosion leaves the Angel intact; it swallows the charred Eva up to the knees, spits out the helmet, and takes on a humanoid silhouette from what it absorbed. Shinji later mistakes Mark.09 for this unit during the attack on the AAA Wunder, and rubber-suit versions of both configurations stand in the background of the film-studio mindscape in Thrice Upon a Time before Gendo's Spear of Gaius erases every Evangelion.

Rei Ayanami is the only pilot the unit ever receives, and its story in the films is inseparable from hers, from the botched activation test to her attempted sacrifice against the Tenth Angel. The machine belongs to NERV and fights beside Shinji's Unit-01 and Asuka's Unit-02 in every sortie it undertakes. Compared with its television counterpart it wears more white and grey on the forearms and legs, and its rebuilt form stays yellow instead of shifting color, a scheme closer to the 1998 concept design collection than to the anime.