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The way Ishida portrays Kaneki’s change throughout the series is fascinating, and it is something that goes with the whole emphasis of metamorphosis that is being shown in the story both through the use of the centipede who crawls forward no matter how dire the situation, as well as with the butterfly that is born from a caterpillar and can only learn to fly after a transformation has been achieved.

Regarding his hair colour change: First of, it is a great artistic choice to show that a change has occured in the first place. A Manga is, first of all, still a story shown through pictures and the best way to stylistically make it known that something is different from before is to go with the biggest contrast possible – so here, from black to white hair.

The black haired Kanekis always tend to be the ones who are intrinsically tied to human emotions, as well as black emotions – by that I mean that the dark haired versions of Kaneki always happen to be very emotionally driven, such as Kuroneki at the start of the series who is still very much human in his mind and totally tries to repel his ghoul side. Contrast this with Reaper, who dons black hair and basically has a black future in his sight – dying in style. Kaneki is hereby very emotionally driven, to the point that he self reflects constantly and basically talks down to himself.

The white haired versions of Kaneki on the other hand always tend to seek strength. We had the torture of Yamori which led to Kaneki’s hair turning white from stress, but narrative-wise it’s also to show us that Kaneki has just made a 180° turn. Gone is the friendly Kaneki that we knew, replaced by one who seeks strength instead. The One Eyed King meanwhile suffers from aging very quickly, which is one of the in-universe reasons for the hair of someone turning white. It is the same for Arima, whose rapid aging caused his hair to turn white like an old man. Narratively, though, it refers to Kaneki’s urge to seek strength in body and Arima’s constant battle with beeing nothing but a murdering machine for the CCG.

A neat middle ground of the two is Haise, who is portrayed by having salt-pepper hair, respectively. Which makes sense, considering that Haise is very much the most mature version of Kaneki, the one who can actually hold a parental role without burning out because of it. I believe Haise is what Kaneki COULD have been, but sadly Haise has always been a happy dream that Kaneki indulged in, knowing that he was playing house all along and had to wake up eventually.

Regarding why Kaneki’s personality makes a 180° turn: Kaneki is a character whose goal throughout the entirety of the series is a selfish wish to be loved by everyone. Because he got abused by his mother and lacked a father figure his parental figures in life have left him a socially inept person. Kaneki tries to erase what he perceives as flaws due to this childhood trauma, those flaws being that not everyone loves him. And that goal is insane, he won’t ever get to have everyone love him unconditionally.

Kaneki, however, does not realise that such a goal is unrealistic. Worse, the next father figure that he gets is Yoshimura, who abandoned his very own daughter. Said daughter then became a parental figure together with Arima in raising Kaneki as King, which could only fail because Arima and Eto have always lacked a sense of self throughout the entirety of the series. Eto does whatever she wants without taking responsibility for her actions, Arima lacks any sort of individuality due to being raised as a tool to be used. Those people could not, in any way, show Kaneki how to be a proper person, they were shells of people in their own right at best.

But Kaneki’s goal is to be loved by everyone!

So when calm, shy Kuroneki isn’t strong enough? Then he becomes ruthless Shironeki, because that might work! But it doesn’t, so he dreams up this reality of being a parental figure himself. And he’s good at it, because Kaneki wants everyone to love him, so of course he can be a great father role…as long as he finds use in it, at least. The moment he is tired of being Haise because Shirazu died and he failed at being a parent? He abandons the Quinx, becomes Reaper and wishes to die in style because surely THEN everyone will love him! But damn, there’s that voice of his dead (?) best friend in his head who reminds him that that is stupid, that living doesn’t have to be stylish! So Kaneki finds resolve once more, finds a reason to live in Touka and becomes King – which fails, as I’ve explained earlier. It fails so spectacularly that he destroys half of Tokyo, ends up with a body of genetic mystery and now thinks that since everyone is suddenly working together he can finally be strong enough to shoulder it all!

…which is where we are at, right now. We currently have a Kaneki who wrecked half a city and now decides that since most of the people who he cares about are bundled up in one place that he can shoulder it all and take responsibility for his actions. But he said that countless times before and his mindset hasn’t really changed. We are currently going into the last arc, but before Kaneki reaches enlightenment he will have to face Judgement and come to terms with all the things he has done.

Which means that he will, hopefully, have to face what he did to others directly – looking at Hide’s scars doesn’t equal understanding Hide’s trauma, just like how taking Tsukiyama as his shield for granted doesn’t equal understanding the loss that Shuu had to live through because of Kaneki. He will have to come to terms with the fact that he is one of the reasons why Mutsuki became so obsessed, that he abandoned people left and right.

And hopefully he will do so during Judgement! =)