Hello! I’m really keen to know are your thoughts on Kaneki’s character development so far? Tbh, I felt that transitions between the different sides of his character to be rather abrupt. (Probably due to his identity crisis) Well, I really liked his persona as Sasaki Haise but shit just got real after he got his memories back. What puzzled me the most during the time when his hair turned black completely. (Was he trying to imitate Arima?) Thank you!

kingkishou:

Hmm Kaneki’s transitions took the appropriate amount of time to run their courses, I think. They were all either gradual, like Haise to Reaper, or defense mechanisms against trauma, like Kaneki to #240.

So, for Haise-to-Reaper, he started regaining his memories over time. He ran into Shuu, got his mask back, and saw correct spelling of his name. He read Amon’s reports in the archives, and he saved Hinami at the Auction. He seemed to be holding up pretty well, but there were glimpses all along that he was slowly starting to spiral.

That declension from #240 to Haise to Kaneki was represented by his black hair growing out. It was Kuroneki’s inherent sadness seeping back into his being. 

“Somewhere along the way [I began to desire death]” 

It was hard to notice, but he barely had any white left when he fought on the roof. The last bit was darkened by blood during the fight, and then it was grown out completely when he appeared as the Black Reaper. Being smacked around by Karren and Eto was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and a lot of his deepest memories came rushing back at once. 

Kaneki had a few fairly sudden changes, though, like when Arima nearly killed him within an inch of his life. But even then there were hints that he was coming back to himself, like when the white hairs started springing up as he became more and more desperate in the face of death.

Inevitably, Kaneki realized that his influences were only extensions of himself. He “became” Rize, Yamori, Arima (Reaper), and Hide, because they all encompassed things he didn’t know he had within himself. 

What he means is, “Hide will stop me from dying, because I can’t stop myself”. Realizing that Hide rescuing him was a just figment of his own imagination was a total revelation. Having the strength, the courage, and the will to live all on his own was a huge step in his self-discovery, because he previously thought that he was nobody without them.

That whole scene of being told that his friends were dead was proof of that. Without others, he felt like a blank slate.

So he became a blank slate.

But he’s back now, and feeling more complete than ever. 

He’s not done yet, though, since he still believes that he killed Hide and Amon. Deep down, he’s still panicked about them both (as we heard from Little Shiro and Reaper), so I think finding the truths about them will be the final pieces to making him complete in his own mind. Knowing that the fates of other people don’t rest entirely on his shoulders (and mostly on their own autonomy) will be the push he needs to no longer feel like he’s playing a part in someone else’s story.