緒方恵美
Max Covill of "Film School Rejects" described "Rei II" as "one of the more exciting episodes in the series' run", praising a shot depicting the dark silhouettes of Misato, Shinji, and Rei for the usage of negative space and hard lines. "The Animé Café" Akio Nagatomi praised the parallels between "Rei I" and "Rei II" as "interesting", the acting of voice actresses Megumi Ogata (Shinji Ikari) and Mitsuishi Kotono (Misato Katsuragi) and Rei's reaction towards Shinji: "Even though the outcome is entirely predictable, it's fairly well written". Comic Book Resources and Screen Rant listed the battle against Ramiel among the best "Neon Genesis Evangelion" fights. "SyFy Wire" Daniel Dockery listed Operation Yashima as one of the "most awesome non-depressing" moments in the show. Animator Yūichirō Oguro praised the sense of sci-fi romance as Japan's lights go out and the archipelago goes completely dark. John Bernardy of "25 Years Later" praised the scene in which all the lights of Japan go out to power the Eva-01 rifle and its "simple melancholy in the piano arpeggio". Dennis Redmond similarly praised the shots of the sequence of Tokyo-3 going dark as "magnificent" and the "brilliant sequence of frames" shown during Shinji and Rei's conversation. For "Kotaku"'s editor Peter Tieryas the episode "epitomized what makes the series so mesmerising"; he praised the tactical element to the battle and its realism.