(SPOILERS FOR "Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time")

Evangelion x Kate CM is a one of the latest pieces of animation surrounding the popular anime franchise, Evangelion. It's short length is a bit of a let-down however content around Evangelion is still content nonetheless and makes me want to bust-a-move due to sheer happiness.

To the untrained eye this is just an advertisement for lipstick in collaboration with a popular anime franchise, however, my eyes have been trained to the very limit and can see the hidden story within.

For starters, Rei is seen putting on RED LIPSTICK despite the fact that she is known to hate the colour red. This leads me to believe that the Rei in this video is not one of the Rei's we see in the show or movies and is instead an abnormal Rei that through some sort of error has turned out different from the rest. This is somewhat similar to the Rei seen throughout "Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time" who also ended up quite different although the circumstances surrounding her development were quite different. Of course, this one point is not the only thing supporting this theory as I believe the line "no more rules" that appears later in the ad is supposed to symbolise this Rei breaking away from what a Rei is supposed to be and wanting to become her own person. However. if this theory is correct then that means this Rei is likely to meet the same fate as the one in 3.0+1.0 as for a Rei to survive, they need to submerge themselves in LCL which she will likely not have access to if she wishes to escape Gendo.

Another theory I have surrounding this crossover advertisement is that this ad is actually an ad in the Evangelion universe, specifically the universe created at the end of "Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time" where EVA units don't exist and the world seems to be just like our own in which we see Rei at the train station talking to Kaworu. In this universe it is possible that Rei has become a fashion model and so dresses up in many different outfits which could be a call-back to the scene in episode 22 of Evangelion when Asuka calls Rei a doll and dolls like Barbie are known for wearing many different outfits. While this theory is less interesting I believe that it is the more likely scenario as I'm not entirely sure where the Rei from the previous theory would go after escaping form NERV headquarters.

In conclusion, this is probably just a lipstick ad featuring Rei but trying to find/create lore about it was pretty fun!