DBM wrote:

<snip>

>If Rei#1 WAS only 5 years old at her death, then either the Clones age
>at a different rate to Humans, or else the Clones are of different
>ages to each other, as Rei2 looked about 14 or 15 years old in the TV
>series.
>
This has been bugging me for a while... Rei was allegedly created in 
2004.  Presumably Gendo had something to do with it, as he had said that 
had the baby which turned out to be Shinji had been a girl, he would 
have named her Rei.  However, it's tough to say exactly how old she 
looks when she meets Naoko and Ritsuko for the first time.  I could sort 
of see how she might look almost 9-10 years old there.  She looks the 
same age as Shinji and Asuka in 2015, and no comments are made about her 
looking very young or anything by Toji and Kensuke, who have known her 
for two years by this point.

Basically my point is that I don't really believe that she undergoes 
accelerated growth or anything, nor do I believe that she was actually 
created at the same time as Shinji was born.  I think she ages just like 
Shinji and Asuka EXCEPT for when she was first grown in a laboratory, at 
which time she must've developed quickly.  All this hinges, though, on 
exactly the level of physical and psychological maturity of Rei in 2010, 
when Ritsuko and Naoko meet her.  I personally could see her being 9-10 
years old at that point.  We see Shinji at age 3 and Asuka at age 4, and 
Rei doesn't speak like she's that young.  What are people's thoughts 
about this?

Richard