I just finished re-watching Neon Genesis Evangelion, and that inspired me to find this wonderfully strange and memorable artifact from early-2000s anime culture: a magazine pin-up of Rei Ayanami dressed as a catgirl. If you know Evangelion, you know how wild this is already. Rei is the last character you would expect to see in a fluffy pink neko outfit, complete with ears, gloves, tail, and a giant bell bow, and that contrast is exactly why this illustration became so iconic.
This artwork first appeared in Animedia magazine around 2001, during the publication’s 20th-anniversary celebration. Anime magazines at the time were a huge part of fan culture, and it was common for them to publish alternate costumes and playful redesigns of popular characters.
This was before gacha games, mobile wallpapers, or social media fan campaigns, so if you wanted rare alternate art, you got it from posters, calendars, magazine extras, and even telephone cards. That is right, Evangelion catgirl Rei existed in the era when prepaid phone cards were a major collectible item. That is why this illustration quickly escaped the printed page and began appearing on exactly those kinds of merch.
Early-2000s Evangelion merch had a particular reputation: If fans wanted it, or even might want it, someone made it. Rei, as a catgirl, was not canon. She was not tied to a storyline. It was not even promotional for a new release. It was pure early-otaku culture energy in an era when companies realized fans loved seeing characters in unexpected outfits, especially when it clashed adorably with their personalities. And Rei, with her calm, distant, void-staring silence? Perfect neko-bait.
This image represents a uniquely chaotic and charming moment in anime history. It is a mix of commercial creativity, fan-service experimentation, 90s character popularity polls, Evangelion’s unstoppable merch machine, and the rising cultural power of the catgirl archetype. Catgirl Rei is not a joke; she is a historical artifact. She is a reminder that anime culture is not just built from the stories on screen, but the strange, playful, experimental things created around them.
Whether you see her as cute, cursed, iconic, or all three, Catgirl Rei embodies the spirit of Cat[girl]urday perfectly: a little weird, a little nostalgic, and 100% delightful. So today, we honor this pink-tail, bell-collar, magazine-bonus legend. May your inner stoic pilot embrace just a little chaos.
So what do you think?