Mari Illustrious Makinami — Rebuild of Evangelion

When the Tenth Angel attacks in Evangelion: 2.0, Mari takes the sealed Unit-02 into battle. After conventional attacks fail, she activates its ferocious Beast Mode and presses the assault at close range. The Angel withstands her efforts, leaving Unit-02 badly damaged despite the extraordinary risks she takes.

Her battered Eva crashes near Shinji, who has rejected piloting after the incident involving Unit-03. With Mari and the devastated city before him, Shinji sees that the attack has not stopped. He ultimately returns to Unit-01 to save Rei; Mari does not replace his decision, but her encounter with him is part of the chain of events that draws him back.

By Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo, fourteen years have elapsed. Mari is serving with WILLE, the anti-NERV organization led by Misato Katsuragi, and pilots Evangelion Unit-08. Working closely with Asuka Shikinami Langley, she takes part in the operation to retrieve Unit-01 and in the later confrontation at NERV headquarters.

When Shinji and Kaworu’s attempt to change the world goes disastrously wrong, Mari intervenes in Unit-08 and ejects Shinji from Unit-13. Her intervention keeps him from remaining inside the Eva as the crisis unfolds. Throughout the film, she operates as Asuka’s battle partner rather than a mysterious pilot fighting entirely on her own.

In Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time, Mari defends WILLE’s operation to restore part of Paris, using an upgraded Unit-08 to hold off attacking NERV Evangelions. She later joins Asuka in the final assault on NERV. The mission tests their partnership under conditions far removed from Mari’s solitary debut at Bethany Base.

During that final operation, Mari and Asuka wear white plugsuits. Mari also enters Kozo Fuyutsuki’s ship and calls him “Professor Fuyutsuki”; he calls her “Maria Iscariot” (rendered “Mary Iscariot” in some English versions), a name she has not heard in a long time. Their exchange points to a much older acquaintance, but it does not by itself settle all questions about Mari’s age or history.

Mari uses Unit-08’s ability to merge with other Evangelions, incorporating the powers of the Adams’ Vessels as she pursues the remaining opposition. She later carries Shinji toward his confrontation with Gendo in the Anti-Universe and promises to return for him. These extraordinary operations belong to the final film, not to the abilities displayed in her debut.

After Shinji chooses a world without Evangelions, Mari finds him waiting beside the sea, arriving with the last remaining Eva before it disappears. The film then shows an adult-looking Shinji at a train station, where Mari approaches him, removes his DSS Choker, and leaves with him hand in hand. Their final movement away from the station leads into live-action imagery, closing the Rebuild story without a further chronicle of their lives.

The station scene plainly brings Mari and Shinji together, and its affectionate tone permits a romantic reading. It does not explicitly establish that they marry, have children, or share any specific later domestic life. Likewise, the film’s glimpses of Mari’s connections to the older generation do not authorize importing every detail of her separate manga appearance into the movie continuity.