otaku central
The Speculative Reasoning on who killed Kaji.
Sure, I know the prevailing opinion is that Misato didn't do it.
But all the speculative evidence points to her. In the scene prior to the ones leading up to Kaji being shot, NERV Security returned her gun to her. In the scene following, her apartment door nameplate was shown just after he was shot. And back in Episode 15, she put a gun to his head , which is a fine example foreshadowing to anyone's reckoning.
And sure Anno says now that some unknown guy in a black suit did it - a lone gunman, if you will - but I'm of the mind that the easy out in film or in literature should never be taken, that if you build a story, you should also build in the characters who will drive the plot and make the story sound. So saying that an unknown character, a character not introduced in the episodes preceding this pivotal moment killed a rather important character in the story just doesn't do it for me and it lessens the impact of that death and of the story in general.
Which takes me back to analyzing the episodes according to the visual story presented. Visually, Misato is set up as the killer - from her gun being returned, to Kaji greeting his killer with a smile, to the immediate cut to the nameplate on the door of her apartment once the shot is fired.
Shot sequences are deliberate choices in editing, which leads me to follow the story as created, not as spoken of later by Anno or anyone else. This is probably one reason why I hardly ever listen to the director's commentary on DVDs -- if you couldn't shoot the story as you envisioned it, then you should keep that misstep to yourself and let me experience what is actually there.
Which takes me back to the expository point of this: if Misato did it, then it was a very poor decision on her part.
What I mean to say is you just gotta hope for her sake that it was someone else.
Although she is the Director of Ops and not the Chief of Security, she has placed herself in the position of protector of the children and disillusioned NERV cheerleader. She knew that Commander Ikari knew what Kaji was doing and she had huge doubts about the modis operandi of the higher ups in NERV and SEELE.
She's been pissed off with Kaji for more years than she's been in love with him, so being implicated as Kaji's accomplice in his scheme to kidnap Fuyutsuki would not seem enough to force her to act with deadly intent - although, according to the movement
of the scenes, it was in this case. It seems to me that NERV Security leaked the information about Kaji when they released her. It seems to me that they held her for so long based upon her past and current relationship with Kaji and they wanted her righteous indignation to kick in. She has a track record of doing what's good for the cause. It would follow that she could be manipulated into doing the deed.
But executing the task was a tragic mistake. Not for Kaji - who knew his days were numbered - but for Misato.
If all she lived for was NERV, then she was very much let down in the end. NERV wasn't out to defeat the Angels for the preservation of humankind, but to instigate angry attacks to further their interpretation of the Dead Sea Scrolls Prophecy, in order to bring about the forced evolution of humanity. And they didn't even get that, because of Shinji's decision.
Shinji: "You know, it was Kaoru who should have survived. He was much better than I am. He was the one who should have survived."
Misato: "No, the one who survives is the one who has the will to survive. He wished for death. He neglected his will to live and chose a false hope. You weren't wrong, Shinji."Misato says this to Shinji as he sits at the seashore and watches the waves. She explains why he did the right thing, but she also justifies why she killed Kaji and why it is all right. Kaji and Kaoru serve the same purpose throughout the series, to offer love to someone who desperately needs it, to give their lives in the hope that someone understands the meaning of truth.
The sadness of this comparison is that even though Shinji only knew Kaoru for a short time, he deeply mourned his loss and what he was forced to do -- to the point of a mental collapse and an inability to do anything at all. Misato's depth of feeling for Kaji is somewhat lacking, although she does call his name before she dies.
So, Misato killed the man, who loved her unconditionally, in order to protect an organization that was willing to sacrifice Mankind's individuality unilaterally without regard for free will. She protected the liars and schemers, while killing the brave and the selfless.
It was Kaji gave her the information he had gathered on NERV and SEELE because he trusted her. She killed the one person she could trust, which is never a very good trade off.
What she gets in return is a mandate to continue her holy quest to safeguard NERV. She gets to see the UN and the world turn against her organization. She gets to pretend, for Asuka's sake, that Kaji's not exactly dead, only unavailable. She gets to drag Shinji around and then die for him - which she seems destined to do.
The upside of killing Kaji would be that she rids herself of that inconvenient Freudian Kaji-Father problem that's been nagging her
since she and Kaji first hooked up back in college.
Maybe that's a good enough reason. Let's see:
Dad's dead + boyfriend's dead = "I'm free of guilt and confusion." Er, right, because 2+2=5 (yay!).
Misato bears all the markings of a heroine from a Shakespearean tragedy.