Kōzō Fuyutsuki

Fuyutsuki cuts an imposing figure on the NERV command deck. At 189 centimeters he stands taller than Gendo himself, and his stern, unruffled bearing amplifies the effect. His unchanging outfit is a buttonless uniform in a dark reddish brown, worn in every appearance across the series.

Official records place his birth on September 4, 1956, making him 59 during the events of the show.

Where Gendo radiates cold indifference, Fuyutsuki supplies the humane counterweight, and the NERV staff respect him for it. His observations arrive deadpan, giving the bridge its driest humor, and his habit of prodding the Commander with pointed questions is often what coaxes Gendo into letting slip fragments of his plans. In combat he commands far more actively than Gendo ever does. After the disastrous first sortie against Israfel it was counted lucky for Misato that Fuyutsuki, not Gendo, held authority that day; despite his visible anger, she kept her job, something Ritsuko doubted would have happened under the Commander.

He was never especially social. Colleagues from his university days chided him for excelling at his work while treating socializing as an afterthought. His sympathies are clear all the same: during a South Pole debate with Gendo he says he would rather have a sinful world where people go on living, and he admits to sharing Yui's ideals more than SEELE's. His alliance with Gendo is business and convenience, not friendship; what quietly binds the two men is that each, in his own way, wants to see Yui again.

Before Second Impact, Fuyutsuki taught metaphysical biology at Kyoto University, where a gifted young bioengineering student named Yui Ikari came under his wing. He grew quietly infatuated with her and kept it entirely to himself. Through her he came to know Gendo Rokubungi, a man he first encountered after agreeing to take custody of him following a bar brawl, and whom he found distasteful from the start; learning during a hike that Yui was dating Gendo visibly rattled him, however hard he tried to hide it.

The catastrophe of Second Impact ended his academic career. By 2002 he was practicing medicine without a license in the ruins of Toyohashi, easing the doctor shortage, until an anonymous recommendation, quietly arranged by Gendo, placed him on the United Nations expedition investigating the South Pole. The trail led him back to Gendo, by then heading the Artificial Evolution Laboratory and married to Yui, with a child. When his inquiry was cut short, the incident and its cover-up became an obsession, and he kept digging on his own.

Fuyutsuki eventually confronted Gendo with his findings and threatened to make them public. Unmoved, Gendo escorted him down into the GeoFront, showed him the prototype Evangelion under construction, and invited him to help create a new genesis for mankind. He joined Gehirn with little real choice, later confiding to Yui that SEELE would have erased him for knowing too much and that working for the enemy was his only shelter. He remained at Gendo's side into the NERV era as Deputy Commander, absorbing the mundane duties Gendo offloaded onto him and taking full charge of the base in the Commander's absence. Apart from Ritsuko, he is the only staff member with real insight into the Human Instrumentality Project, though even he is not fully informed. When Instrumentality finally comes, Rei, merged with Lilith, appears before him in Yui's form; he embraces her, and his body dissolves into LCL.