FGC:Episode 15 Cut 170

Screenshots	Cut #	Description/Dialogue	Commentary
	170	KAJI:“Katsuragi's sure taking a long time. Maybe she's fixing her make-up?” RITSUKO:“What were you doing in Kyoto?” KAJI:“Huh? That's from Matsushiro.” RITSUKO:“It's no use playing dumb. Your fingers will get burned if you get involved in this too deeply. That's the advice of a friend.” KAJI:“I'll take it seriously, but if I have to get burned, I'd rather be burned while playing with fire along with you.” MISATO (OFF):“Shall I go buy you some fireworks?” KAJI:“Welcome back!” MISATO:“You haven't changed, have you, you player?” KAJI:“Of course I've changed. To live is to change.”	thewayneiac: ...and accuses him of doing something dangerous. It's plain from the way this scene is presented that she took another look at this trinket and realized both where Kaji had been and what he had been doing. This only makes sense if she had seen the souvenir before and knew who gave it to him. This is what leads people, including me, to believe that Kaji's cat lady contact is Ritsuko's grandmother, who is also associated with at least one cat. This would mean that she knows that her own grandmother is a government agent working against Nerv. I wonder if Ritsuko ever gave grandma a similar friendly warning. UrsusArctos: Since Ritsuko never knew her father, her grandmother would be Naoko's mother. I'm sure that old lady Akagi would be pretty damn suspicious of Nerv after her daughter's mysterious suicide. She may have been the one to raise Ritsuko in Naoko's absence when Ritsuko was a child (Naoko does say "I feel like I'm being a mother only when it is convenient to me") and Naoko's death and the events afterwards might conceivably have driven a wedge between grandmother and Ritsuko. thewayneiac: I nearly forgot that there's an extension to this theory. Some people believe that when Ritsuko's grandmother calls her in Ep. 23 about her cat passing away they were speaking in code and were actually talking about Kaji. I'm not sure how likely this is since she mentions the cat dying when Gendo interrogates her in Ep. 24. UrsusArctos: The cat conversation in Episode 23 is weird and gives the definite impression of meaning a lot more than it does on the surface. Ritsuko and Kaji are fairly close in their own way, and Ritsuko really does seem to care about him. I can't imagine Ritsuko remaining completely immune to Kaji's death, and she seems like the kind of person to refer to Kaji as a cat in front of Gendo (to hide how much she knew about him). Then again, there's no hard evidence pointing this way and that cat might just be...well, a cat.