some things to keep in mind about nge’s very own the man, the myth, the legend, spending time on volume 7, stage 43 of the manga ‘verse. super rough, but i’m enjoying thinking about him more, even if just in sketches. i mean, come on, just look at him, that sweet baby k:

Part 1: “Let Me Appeal To Your Intellect” 

• this post is meant to suggest that manga vol. 7, no. 43 tells us all we need to know about what ryoji thinks about himself and his relationships, and therefore his own motivations; he explains this quite literally to shinji in the chapter, and it’s an incredibly useful backstory (courtesy of sadamoto) for this reason, but let’s backtrack to figure out why all the things he doesn’t say matter even more
• buckle in

• tl;dr: across the ‘verses, ryoji is neither empty nor full; neither passive nor, in truth, active; he’s a barometer of visual perspective on the state of the world and the possibility of a future thereafter
• sadamoto’s manga expands on this crucially, and this is evident from the very first panel (above)
• as we first meet him, baby k is presented right off the bat as already obscured  (long hair, baggy clothes, full hands [note: hands that are occupied by objects, tasks, etc. are hands that hide inner states; what would it mean to strip these crutches from these hands? what would the empty hand tell us?]) 
• in so presented, baby k (above) is not just half-lost as a survivor of the second impact (who was anyone before this?; it’s significant that none of the nge ‘verses care to recuperate the whole that was before); he sees the world in half (i am not suggesting visual disabilities, but that the symbolic covering of his sightline is not on accident; he doesn’t require this design, so the design has a purpose; more importantly, he isn’t always drawn this way, even in this chapter, so this moment, being the first encounter, has a purpose of its own, too)
• the double-meaning of this perspective is deeply layered; the loss of his brother and friends, and his direct role in their deaths, exists squarely in the aftermath of the second impact, which, as we know, was pure hell (surely a strong contender for understatement of the year): not only is his family immediately halved (and then, further, he is reduced by half once more after his only sibling’s death), but earth’s population is also halved; the world is half-gone, in more than one way, for ryoji, and it only keeps dividing
• this halfness is the operative logic of his world now; the reasonable division of experience from what happened to what happens next is, for ryoji, a necessary condition for continuing to survive; let me appeal to your intellect is no throwaway line
  

• where else is ryoji hidden, visually, in this chapter? glad you asked. 
• that time he walks onto the chapter as kaji:

• that time he explains the state of (family) survival after the second impact:

• that time he puts his fear into words:

• that time he sees what he’s done:

• there are also a handful of other panels with ryoji in profile, cut so neat in two that nothing else about this visual presentation and its comment on ryoji’s inner state matters; the most important of these profile shots is here (above), when he explains why he’s still alive and smiles at the truth of it
• none of these panels needed to be designed this way, which means these are deliberate story choices; further, we might think that the panels do the obscuring here in two senses: to add emotional gravity to a two-dimensional medium, and to underline the symbolism at work
• we only see halves to ryoji in the most crucial moments to his story, scenes that are designed to reveal more about him to the extent that he chooses (keeping in mind that hiding his face keeps himself in division, unable to be fully raised up for our benefit; he keeps these parts to himself), and to put to test the idea that separating oneself from one’s situation in order to discern reaction requires a kind of division or halving that devastates the self
• he knows this, he’s lived this, he’s still living like this
• ryoji uses this story for a specific purpose: to explain to shinji why appeals to intellect, reason, and order are not in themselves emotionless, but entirely driven by emotion; but this is still a weaponizing of loss that should make us pause; in the end, his story is little else than motivation for shinji to pilot eva again – but, given what we see and what we hear throughout, we must question how much we should really trust that this is even a full story; there’s that word again: fullness, wholeness, completeness, e.g., anti-ryoji
• ryoji sees the world as he sees himself; and he’s not wrong
  

• in short, it’s no stunning leap of logic to realize ryoji exists (and thinks of himself as existing) for the pursuit of his own goals – not his own happiness: that is, to answer the riddle that is the “dark side” of nerv, seele, and the evas; or, from the half-gone perspective he believes he has, to understand, and to prove, the scam that is life itself; these are his motivations 
• ryoji’s investment in this quest goes up to and includes the search for a full version of himself, a full way of seeing the whole world in total; but note, again, the manner he uses for this: he creates selves that help him achieve his goals (read: the goal is not to be happy, but to discover [fill in the blank]); he divides himself further and further
• his state of mind, in making sense of the death of his brother at his own choice (he had no other choice, he says while smiling) is divided even against himself; this is what survival requires of you: to be cut in two; the self, or the whole, is in perpetual devastation
• he himself is infuriatingly obscure for this reason, which is entirely the point: he’s a spy in the trope-iest of ways, e.g. he is not the hero, not the friend, not the key to the mystery, not the “love interest”; ryoji is always in hiding, and hidden
• this all makes ryoji  sincerely insincere (pardon the pun), so that when he slips into another facet of who people want him to be, they think they see him as who is in that moment of revelation
• it’s not quite an act, but it’s also not completely “true” “real” or “ryoji kaji”; but then, remember, why he’s living to tell this story; i would not suggest redemption exactly, because ryoji does not appear interested in this exactly; atonement is the name of the following chapter, and that feels somewhat closer to the truth: the guilt is still there, and still centered squarely on his own shoulders, but then he started to think about it this way – e.g., intellect will save you from dissolution, even in the division of your self ad infinitum

i’ll stop there, and save some more for Part 2: Something To Go On For, out next week!

bonus theory: did i just solve the mystery of where the 02 kids went in .tri? (e.g., daisuke is that you with the googles on the left? blink once for yes, twice for what the fuck you guys)