Ryuko Matoi mouse pads for the desk

Padrift's Ryuko Matoi mouse pads and desk mats are original designs inspired by the scissor-wielding transfer student of Kill la Kill, printed edge to edge on 3 mm neoprene with a fabric top, a non-slip base and stitched edges. At one end of the range is an 11.8″ × 15.7″ (30 × 40 cm) pad for the mouse alone, at the other a 23.6″ × 47.2″ (60 × 120 cm) mat that spans most of a desk, and every one of the eight sizes is made for a specific order.

The shop has no Kill la Kill page, so Ryuko's page carries the series with her: Senketsu, Satsuki Kiryūin, Mako Mankanshoku, Honnōji Academy and the Elite Four. Every other anime is on the Anime Mouse Pads page above this one.

Kill la Kill in brief

Kill la Kill was the first television series from Studio Trigger, airing across 2013 and 2014, directed by Hiroyuki Imaishi and written by Kazuki Nakashima, the pair who had earlier made Gurren Lagann. Ryuko arrives at Honnōji Academy, a school that rules its town from the top of a hill, carrying half of a giant pair of scissors and looking for whoever killed her father. The student council president, Satsuki Kiryūin, may know the answer, and she isn't telling.

Black hair, one red streak

Ryuko's design is a lesson in restraint. Her hair is black, cut short and ragged, with a single bright red streak in her bangs, and her eyes are blue. Almost everything else about her is black, red or white, and the series keeps to that small set of colors with real discipline.

That gives you the simplest possible plan for a desk: black, with one red accent. A black keyboard with a single red keycap on Escape or Enter echoes the streak, and a red braided cable or a red mouse does the same job on a larger scale. Resist the urge to add more red; the design works because there is only one point of it.

The Scissor Blade

Ryuko's weapon is one half of a giant pair of scissors, a long red blade with a looped handle, made by her father. The other half belongs to the person she's hunting, which gives the weapon its odd, lopsided shape and the story its central question.

As a shape, the blade is long and diagonal, and it suits the stretched sizes. On the L, 11.8″ × 31.5″ (30 × 80 cm), it can run corner to corner behind the keyboard, handle at the end away from your mouse. On a deep mat, held upright over Ryuko's shoulder, it draws a strong vertical line that frames the side of the keyboard.

Senketsu

Ryuko's sailor uniform is alive. Senketsu, whose name means fresh blood, is a black uniform with red trim and a single eye near the collar, and he talks, worries and argues with her. He is her partner, and their relationship, a girl and her clothes learning to trust each other, is the strangest and warmest part of the series.

Senketsu's shape is a ready-made graphic: the wide sailor collar, the red trim and the eye. A design built on the collar and eye alone, without a figure at all, makes a striking small-pad or office choice, black and red with a single eye looking back at you, and it reads as Kill la Kill at once to anyone who has seen it.

Type the size of a wall

Kill la Kill introduces characters and big moments with enormous captions: thick white or red lettering in Japanese and English, slammed across the screen in heavy, blocky type. The typography is as much a part of the look as the characters themselves.

Type behaves differently on a desk mat than on a screen, because part of it will always be covered. Big words work along the top edge, above the keyboard, where they stay readable; a caption across the middle will be cut in half by your keys. If a design pairs Ryuko with a block of text, keep the text at the far end of the mat from your mouse.

Honnōji Academy and its stars

Honnōji is a school organized like a pyramid. At the bottom are No-Star students in plain uniforms, above them One-, Two- and Three-Star students in Goku Uniforms that grant special abilities, and at the very top Satsuki and her Elite Four. The higher a student's rank, the better their family lives in the town spread down the slopes below.

That stacked structure suits a deep mat. On the XXL, 23.6″ × 35.4″ (60 × 90 cm), the academy can rise at the top with the town spread out underneath, and the keyboard sits among the lowest streets, which is exactly where Ryuko starts.

Satsuki in white

Satsuki Kiryūin is Ryuko's rival: tall, commanding, armed with the sword Bakuzan and dressed in Junketsu, a white living uniform as powerful as Senketsu. Where Ryuko is black and red and all impulse, Satsuki is white, calm and always several moves ahead.

Spoilers: the two turn out to be sisters. A split design with Ryuko in black at one end and Satsuki in white at the other suits a desk with mixed peripherals, a black keyboard and a white mouse, or two pads for siblings who fight constantly and still stand together when it counts.

The Elite Four

Satsuki's inner circle are the Elite Four, each in a Three-Star Goku Uniform: Ira Gamagōri, the towering head of the disciplinary committee; Uzu Sanageyama, who leads the athletic clubs and fights with a bamboo sword; Nonon Jakuzure, who runs the non-athletic clubs and fights with music; and Hōka Inumuta, who handles information and strategy. Each has a silhouette that reads at a glance, from Gamagōri's sheer bulk to Nonon's small frame and oversized hat.

A lineup of the four makes a strong top-edge design for a wide mat. On the 3XL, 19.7″ × 39.4″ (50 × 100 cm), they can stand shoulder to shoulder above the keyboard with Satsuki at the center, a stern row of guards watching over your desk while you work.

Mako and the croquettes

Mako Mankanshoku is Ryuko's best friend from the first day, a hyperactive girl who delivers long, nonsensical speeches under an imaginary spotlight. Her family lives in the slums at the bottom of town, her father runs an unlicensed clinic and her mother serves croquettes whose filling no one dares to ask about.

Mako designs are the most cheerful in the range: bright faces, food and wild gestures. They suit a casual desk, a gift for a best friend or a second, lighter pad beside a darker Ryuko mat.

Seams, thread and stitched edges

Kill la Kill is a story about clothes. Its villains are Life Fibers, alien threads that feed on the people who wear them, and its battles are fought in uniforms that are cut, unpicked and sewn back together. Threads and seams run through the art as motifs, usually as thin, glowing red lines.

There's a nice fit between that theme and the pad itself, which has stitched edges all the way around to stop it fraying. A design with fine red threads running out to the border makes the stitching part of the picture, and thin lines like that stay crisp in a high-resolution print even on a small pad.

Red under RGB

Red art has a quirk under colored lighting. Under pure red LEDs, the red parts of a design wash out and the whole mat turns one color; under white or slightly cool light, the red stays saturated and the black stays deep. If you want a red glow in the room, light the wall behind the desk red and keep the light falling on the mat itself white.

A Kill la Kill desk also suits fast, aggressive games. Fighting games, character-action games and shooters share the series' speed, and the fabric top lets the mouse travel quickly, while the non-slip base keeps a long mat from creeping across the desk mid-match.

Trigger's angles

Trigger's animation is known for sharp angles, heavy black shadows and poses that bend perspective. Ryuko is often drawn mid-leap, with the camera tilted and the blade cutting across the frame. On a desk, that energy works best at the edges: a dynamic figure at one end of a long mat, leaning in toward the keyboard, gives the whole setup a sense of motion without crowding the place where you work.

If you collect Trigger's other work, a Ryuko mat sits comfortably beside it. The studio's bold color and thick outlines carry from one series to the next, so a shelf of figures or posters from its later shows will look at home above the desk.

One shape on the small pad

The 11.8″ × 15.7″ (30 × 40 cm) pad needs one strong shape rather than a scene: the red streak against black, Senketsu's eye, the Scissor Blade on the diagonal or a single bold word. Set it near the top edge, beyond your fingertips, and fill the rest with flat black so the pad matches a dark keyboard.

Sizes for a Ryuko desk

A design's product page tells you which of the sizes it is printed in. These are the sizes that suit Ryuko and Kill la Kill art.

Setup	Size	Good for
Mouse only	S, 11.8″ × 15.7″ (30 × 40 cm)	Senketsu's eye on black
Laptop desk	TCG Mat, 14″ × 24″ (35.5 × 61 cm)	Mako in the middle of a speech
Compact keyboard	M, 11.8″ × 27.6″ (30 × 70 cm)	Bold type along the top edge
Keyboard and mouse	XL, 15.7″ × 35.4″ (40 × 90 cm)	Ryuko leaping with the Scissor Blade
Deep desk	XXL, 23.6″ × 35.4″ (60 × 90 cm)	Honnōji rising above the town
The whole desk	4XL, 23.6″ × 47.2″ (60 × 120 cm)	Ryuko and Satsuki, black against white

The L, 11.8″ × 31.5″ (30 × 80 cm), and the 3XL, 19.7″ × 39.4″ (50 × 100 cm), round out the range for desks with more width than depth.

Gifts for a Kill la Kill fan

A Ryuko pad suits someone who rewatches the series every few years, a cosplayer who has already made a Scissor Blade or a gamer whose whole setup is black and red. Choose Senketsu for a design lover, the split with Satsuki for siblings and Mako for a best friend. If the desk is a mystery, the TCG Mat, 14″ × 24″ (35.5 × 61 cm), is compact enough for any surface and still big enough for a full portrait.

Production takes 1–3 business days. Shipping from Turkey to the US then adds about 2–5 business days in most cases.

Keeping red and black sharp

Black hides stains but shows dust and lint, and red can dull where your wrist rests. Brush the surface with a lint roller or wipe it with a damp cloth every week. For a full wash, use lukewarm water, a little mild soap and your hands only; rinse, press a towel firmly onto the pad to pull out the water and leave it flat to dry. Never put it through a washing machine or a dryer, and keep the iron well away.

A note on names

Ryuko Matoi, Kill la Kill and the other names on this page are used only to describe the inspiration for our designs. Padrift is not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by Trigger, Aniplex or Kazuki Nakashima.