So we saw everybody band together in an epic feat of teamwork, the question is why exactly did it not work in bringing owl 2.0 down?
It’s probably something as simple as the characters really haven’t grown enough to earn this vicotry. Which is what necessitates the clown shake down in the first place.
Here, let me demonstrate with a breakdown of Kaika vs Yusa, the only real character vs character interaction rather than character vs giant monster that we get in the fight.
First, he calls the two remaining members of Zero Squad Arima’s lapdogs. Not only that but Sheep that he herded himself. That’s a rather thinly veiled and obvious Jesus metaphor.
Remember, Arima Kishou died for our sins. Ishida likes to remind us of it approximately every five chapters that Arima Kishou is indeed dead.
Arima is so universally mourned by everyone it’s almost enough to make you forget that he was a morally ambiguous character to begin with. It’s almost like his death has wiped the slate clean on him.
As I’ve said before though, Tg: Re would never glorify suicide like that. Lately, we’ve been witnessing a slow deconstruction on Arima’s sacrifice. Including the facts that Take clearly does not know entirely what the big picture is, that he relies on Arima’s words too much, and the fact that Zero Squad has been whittled down to its last two remaining members.
Arima’s sacrifice of his own life to make Kaneki the strongest of all ghouls was destroyed when the CCG simply replaced him with Juuzou. Arima’s choice to leave behind the zero squad with Kaneki to protect him, results in two of them dying in an almost direct result of his choice not to tell Ui to avoid confrontation.
Take holds information to himself, and isn’t really super clear anymore on what Arima’s goals were to begin with. So, to summarize the story itself is still framing Arima’s choice to sacrifice himself ambiguously. As in there were some good things, and some bad things about that choice. However, the characters themselves still view Arima in exactly that light.
Yomo even brings up this exact same notion to Take. That Arima did a lot of bad things and hurt a lot of people, even if he was doing it for good ends ultimately those wounds go away, and Take basically says it doesn’t matter because Arima is dead now. He brushes off the opportunity to think critically about Arima, because no matter what he concludes it won’t change the fact that Arima is still dead. However, it does matter for the sake of the living.
Take, while still acknowledging that Arima is dead is still working tirelessly to earn his praise and following the orders of a dead man.
So much so, he fails to grasp entirely what Arima’s purpose in leaving Take the zero squad should have been. Even after losing two members in a pointless sacrifice, Take does not realize he should stop bringing Yusa onto battlefields with him and forcing the child soldier raised from birth to fight, to fight more.
Kaiko takes both Takeomi and Kuramoto out of the fight easily, but from a character perspective it’s clear why. Neither Kuramoto nor Takeomi have grown. Takeomi simply walks straight back into being a CCG officer, not even acknowledging what happened to his father and mourning him, and Kuramoto does not even try to resolve his conflict with Take, simply choosing to make a bunch of passive aggressive comments.
Remember, Kuramoto truly made himself vulernable for a moment when Take left. However, as usual he’s back to just making sly comments behind his fox face.
Kuramoto wanted to believe in him, that he had reasons to do what he was doing. His sense of betrayal came not from Take’s actions, but the fact that Take chose not to talk to him about it beforehand, and Take really hasn’t changed anything in that regard, so Kuramoto simply slinky behind his mask once more.
Then, to the meat of the fight. Kaiko’s not just mocking Yusa here, he’s mocking the pedestal that Arima is put upon by the zero squad. Which is why Kaiko chooses these specific reminders. Arima was a child soldier, just like Yusa, presumably just like Kaiko as well.
Then the juiciest moment of the chapter, while dangling a blade at Yusa’s neck he mutters, “Am I like Arima, yet?”
He’s not making the comparison between Yusa and Arima anymore, but rather Yusa and himself. Kaiko raised child soldiers obediently as a part of V, but so did Arima as well. Not only that, he did the exact same thing to Sasaki. Literally, every flashback we see of Arima presents him as being a cruel and ruthless teacher, even if he was one with good intentions.
So, what Kaiko is taunting Yusa about is that by drawing out the fight to test his strength, by holding a blade at his throat, really he’s acting exactly like Arima as well. “Am I like Arima, yet?” He’s challenging Yusa’s perfect image of Arima.
However, Yusa really does fail to respond to that in the fight way. Take just sinks once again into calling that name an honor. He adopts his perfect image of Arima that he’s using to fight for once more. Literally what Take should be saying to counteract that is “You’re not Arima, you’re you Yusa…” but Take can’t really grasp that, because Take himself keeps dragging Yusa into combat because that’s what Arima told him to do.
Which is why Ui fails to think critically as well. As touching as his rememberance of Hairu and Arima is, and also even though he’s leagues above Shuu who refuses to remember even Matsumae and Karren’s name, we should remember that Ui was given the oppurtunity to tell the CCG the truth about Furuta, Arima and Arima’s legacy and he chose to lie instead.
Even though, Ui himself much earlier was the one who grasped the nuance of the situation, that people were allowing Furuta to take power, not just Furuta being the only bad egg in the CCG. Blaming it all on Furuta, is probably something that Ui did to protect both Take and Arima’s name, but utlimately it’s the wrong choice, and one that brings him farther away from the truth.
Which is likely the reason why Ui is still smoking as well. His smoking is a sign of his own personal emotional repression. After Take tells him at least part of the truth of why he left, Ui says he’s going to be smoking a lot more now. He really hasn’t come to terms with it, and probably won’t until he’s set up confront Hairu, which may come soon.
However, at the end of the day the characters have failed to grow which is why instead of banding together to heroically defeat Owl, they’re exposed to round two. The heroic blow that Yusa dealt Kaiko essentially meaning nothing as it stitches itself up right away, the owl exploding and killing more just like when it looks it might be detained.
As per the usual in Tokyo Ghoul these problems can’t be overcome with fighting and strength alone.
As for what will happen next, considering this is an owl kagune I wonder if it’s bait to lure Amon out. After this explosion there probably won’t be many ground investigators left that can match it.
Amon showing up to help his comrades (and “for peace!”) against Owl 2.0 would make a lot of sense, especially considering that the current situation is rather strongly reminiscing of what the CCG tried to do with him in ch114/115 (with another parallel once Seidou hopefully shows up).
it would be interesting to see Amon trying to face the one who’s possibly Eto and thus half the responsible party behind him becoming a OEG, something he still can’t fully accept to this day.
I was discussing this with @amonmahboi yesterday but actually, Donato having “fun” with someone who’s possibly Eto (other strong possibilities being Hairu and Karren) as payback for what happened to Amon between TG and :Re would be a very ironic development, especially if Amon indeed shows up to fight that Owl 2.0.
It would be like “I’m stuck in the past because of my horrible father figure and despite becoming a OEG, but here I am fighting for peace against a monster who’s threatening my comrades, not knowing that this monster is actually the result of my horrible father figure seeking revenge for what happened to me”.
It makes a good setting for Kaiko’s round two when round one seemed rather hopeless. At least to me. Oh well, just some thoughts. :3
for anyone who didn’t make the link (though I’m not sure we’ll still find Rize down there)!
Hmm, the cross on the decapitated body, and Donato`s appearance in the last chapter makes me think he is connected to this somehow. It`s a little bit hard to tell from the scans, but it almost looks like that the cross is fused into the body. Maybe it`s not an metallic object, maybe it`s something more organic like a kagune? I wonder if that piece could be from Donato´s kagune, and he is controlling the body trough it? It`s implied that he cloned himself and controlled the body from far away, so inserting a piece of his kagune into another body and assuming control is probably not that far fetched. Maybe it`s even easier to do when the head and the brains of the original body are missing?
Or maybe it means that this is a clone?
Or maybe this is just some cruel mocking and showcasing irony from the Clowns part about Eto´s fate. I am going to assume that this is Eto, but as was discussed last week other possibilities still exist. If that is Eto then her fate is rather ironic. In the past she was the person who manipulated and used others as her puppets. Tools to accomplish her wanted goals. Karren was nothing but a tool to Eto. A puppet which she forced to dance.
Now if the Clowns are controlling her, then Eto herself has become a puppet. With her head cut off, the symbol of rationality in my mind, maybe it symbolizes how the Clowns (or the folks who did this to her) have transformed Eto from an intelligent, cunning manipulator and a marvelous writer, into a irrational, screaming beast who has no sense of self or will of her own.
Eto also sewed Karren´s mouth and eyes shut, and now a similar fate has fallen upon her, an mask has been sewed onto to the kakuja body.
That the face was stitched was detail that was already observed, and speculated correctly by @midnight-in-town last week.
It`s possible that all of the ideas mentioned above aren´t correct.
I often see people claiming Ciel is abusive to Lizzy, and while I would never condone abuse in relationships, I think Ciel and Lizzy is more a case of misunderstanding than actual abuse. By misunderstanding, I think they are misunderstood by the readers. Especially on Ciel’s part.
The first thing that is key to Ciel’s character is the mask he puts on, the one that will ‘dispose of anyone in his way and simply use people as pawns’. I think he adopts this from his father, brother, and the title that he holds. I also think it would be safe to say that Sebastian influences this thinking greatly. As I’ve said in other posts analysing Sebastian and Ciel’s relationship, I think Ciel is more likely to act as his ‘disguised/masked’ self in the presence of Sebastian compared to when Sebastian is gone. The point is, this key trait of selfishness is often associated with Ciel, and I think it is a staple part of his personality. It is now revealed that Ciel didn’t spend much time with Lizzy when he was a boy, and the two hadn’t really been around each other until he came back with his brother’s identity. I think Lizzy was one of Ciel’s rocks when he was recovering, and I think she may have been another reminder of his family. Perhaps a painful one, but Lizzy herself only ever wanted what was good for Ciel. She is selfless when it comes to him, and deep down, I think he loves that about Lizzy. She is the one pure thing in his life, something that hasn’t been touched by the darkness that literally follows him. If Ciel just wanted to use her, she would have already served her purpose and been tossed aside. Above all, if she got in the way, Ciel would have Sebastian to dismiss of her. This is one reason why I think Ciel genuinely cares, and even loves her.
Lizzy is selfless, and part of love is being selfless. I saw this more in Book Of Atlantic, or the Atlantic arc.
The first page has Ciel saving Lizzy. It would have been easier to just let the Zombie kill her, wouldn’t it? If Ciel really didn’t care for her, he would have just disposed of someone who (up until a later point in BOA) was more of a liability than an actual help to Ciel.
The second page has Ciel putting himself in more danger by ordering Snake to put Lizzy on the crate first. While you could argue this is just a gentlemanly thing to do, you have to understand that Ciel is in a high stress situation where his life is being threatened. He is also with people that are not Sebastian. They cannot pick him up and carry him around while fighting bad guys. Ciel’s first priority is to get Lizzy out of harm, at the expense of his own safety.
The third and fourth page has Ciel literally fighting the worker on the boat to dive under the door to help Lizzy get through this. After all, he had no idea Lizzy could survive on her own at this point. Once again, he risks his life to save her. He doesn’t know the layout of the ship, that room could have easily been a dead end. His drive to protect Lizzy in high stress situations shows how deeply his feelings go for her.
However, I can see why people could mistake them for abusive, especially Ciel. For example:
Ciel was being rough, yes, but he is panicking. He even says “It’s all over when you die!” As if to say “you are the only thing keeping me going!”. It isn’t very often the reader hears confessions like this from Ciel, considering he is rather cool in stressful situations. In context, Ciel was attempting to take off layers of Lizzy’s clothes so they could fit through an air duct to get to safety. She refuses to remove the top layers of her dress (for a reason we find later) so Ciel begins to take them off for her. Once he says his confession, he immediately apologizes and levels with her. He gets down to her level, he doesn’t dismiss her reaction. He even puts his coat around her to make sure she feels covered. He also promises to have her another dress made, making up for his mistake. This is not the sign of an abusive person. An abusive person would not have leveled with her or attempted to make her feel less frightened. They would have forced her to continue with anger and physical harm.
Even in the Zodiac Arc he keeps Sebastian from harming her, and Sebastian mentioned (when he knocked her out) that he couldn’t ‘do away with her’ due to the master’s feelings. Even Sebastian knows how important Lizzy is to him.
In the official manga release, Ciel says “How dare you!” Not “You bastard!”. Ciel challenges Sebastian’s methods, something he usually does not do.
While I think Ciel can mistreat her sometimes, he makes up for it. I think his mistreatment is from lack of teaching, his own trauma, and his own fears. However, while trauma never excuses abuse, he makes up for it – he doesn’t make her wrong or belittle her. He levels with her and tries to keep control of himself despite everything that has happened.
I believe Lizzy is the only shiny thing in Ciel’s life – something good and pure…and I think it kills him that she is missing.
midnight-in-town 