…but Touka isn’t useless? She was a main character in Tokyo Ghoul and remains an extremely important character in :re. Granted the structure of the plot meant that she was reduced to a background character for much of :re’s run, but that’s not her fault as a character!
Touka, being the Empress, is just as important to the Fool’s journey as Hide, the Magician is. It’s no wonder that Hide and Touka both held Kaneki’s place for ‘person to cling to‘ respectively. Without Hide or Touka, Kaneki couldn’t function and that’s something that becomes desperately clear when you look at these two pages alone:
When Hide ‘died’ as far as Kaneki knew, he lost his will to live. He found it again when he got together with Touka, and for someone as unstructured as Kaneki is, that is a HUGE accomplishment. Without Touka, chances are Kaneki would have gone on a suicidal spree instead of a ‘protect my wife’ spree. Granted that didn‘t end well for him at all, but the point still stands that Touka grounds him to a point that no other character DARES to do. Mutsuki had an unhealthy obsession, Hide prefers to hide the bad parts (including himself) from Kaneki, Hinami clings to a picture of a big brother that doesn’t exist, Tsukiyama prefers to pine instead of act on his own desires.
Touka on the other hand actually shows resolve in how she approaches Kaneki. While her selfless nature means that she throws herself away to protect Kaneki (which isn’t healthy) it also gives Kaneki something to hold on to. This is a person who wants to be loved, loved, loved no matter for what reason. Kaneki is someone who would sell his heart away the moment someone so much as looks at it. And what does Touka want in return? Nothing but love, because that’s what she’s been missing for a long time in her life.
There’s a reason why Kaneki resembles Arata so much, why Touka has been shown to influence Kaneki from the start of the original Tokyo Ghoul and there‘s a huge reason why SHE is the one to actually get him out of Dragon. Touka isn’t useless, she’s a strong female character in a Manga with a fandom that tries to talk her down because she doesn‘t fit the damsel in distress trope. Which is sad, because I love her very much and I wish that others would too.
Okay, I read ch138 and it was completely different from what I had expected, but it was interesting nevertheless. I never thought OC and Sebastian had negotiated the (conditions of the) contract in such detail lol.
Anyway here are my personal highlights of this chapter.
Warning: TEXT SPOILERS
Sebastian vs. OC – round 1 (real Ciel’s death)
Sebastian tells OC that he has 3 wishes and the first thing OC asks Sebastian is whether it’s possible to bring back dead people.
Sebastian’s like “Yeah sure, you want to live a happy, peaceful life with your brother? I’ll grant you that.”, but OC sees through Sebastian’s lie and says “You are lying. You said ‘what has been sacrificed can’t be returned anymore’. So all you can do is make me ‘believe’ that Ciel is alive, but in fact you can’t bring him back. Am I right?”.
Sebastian is impressed by OC like “Oh, you are smarter than I thought. But well, if I can make you ‘believe’ that your brother is still alive, it doesn’t really matter whether your brother really is alive or dead, no?” to which OC reacts like “f*ck you”
Sebastian vs. OC – round 2 (conditions of the contract)
Sebastian: “Oh by the way, wishes such as ‘granting more wishes’ or ‘canceling the the contract’ are invalid.”
OC: “Dammit.”
this was the funniest part imo xD
Sebastian vs. OC – round 3 (poor OC)
OC chooses his 3 wishes very carefully in order not to get deceived/betrayed by Sebastian. But only after OC said his third and last wish and the contract was officially formed, Sebastian reveals the most important condition of the contract, namely that he’ll get OC’s soul as a reward at the end of the contract. Hence, OC’s shocked face at the end of the chapter.
Most important part of this month’s chapter: Foreshadowing(?) related to OC’s health
There’s a scene where OC wonders why he hasn’t had any asthma attacks lately. So it seems it’s not plot convenience that a sickly & asthmatic child like OC survived that 1 month in that horrible state, but there definitely seems to be a good reason for that. Maybe there was something like
Anyway, I had secretly hoped this chapter would conclude the flashback, and therefore I’m a little bit sad we’re still stuck with it, but this month’s chapter was really good and I liked it!! 😀
EDIT:
Forgot to mention one thing. I think with this chapter we finally got the answer to the question “What was OC referring to when he asked Sebastian ‘You wouldn’t lie to me?” in ch128?”.
I assume OC wanted Sebastian to once again confirm the fact that it is impossible to bring back dead people. And Sebastian’s reply “No, Sir. Regrettably, I do not tell lies”
is basically him re-confirming that not even demons can bring dead people back to life.
Let’s talk tarot. Not precisely how TG relates to the Fool’s Journey or how the individual cards relate to certain characters, etc. (though kind of), but instead how the images on the cards in :re specifically often tend to relate to what happens during that particular point in the Fool’s Journey. They don’t always and some images are clearly referenced more than others but here let’s try. (Contributions are welcome btw because some I find more puzzling than others.) Let’s go. (Descriptions are taken from BiddyTarot).
Firstly, Temperance. The card that we started :re with.
On the Temperance card stands a winged angel. The angel is actually a hermaphrodite (the child of Hermes and Aphrodite), showing a balance between the genders. The angel has one foot on dry land, representative of the material world, and one foot in the water, representative of the subconscious. In this position, she also represents the need to ‘test the waters’ before jumping headfirst into unknown circumstances. Here she tempers the whimsical flight of the Fool who jumps without giving a second thought. The triangle inside the square on her robe represents the female being protected by natural law. In her hands she holds two cups which she uses to mix water. The cups represent the sub- and super-conscious minds. One cup can be thought of as holding hot water and the other cold water. The water flowing between them is actually going from the lower cup to the higher one, signifying rising from a lower plane to a higher one. The temperate individual mixes the opposites and finds a balance in life by avoiding extremes.
It’s no coincidence that :re begins by blurring the lines even further between supposed dichotomies. Firstly, the Quinxes, whose existence is both ghoul and human despite their refusal to acknowledge it.
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-> implying if the pie hadn’t turned out well Ciel’s disappearance would make absolute sense
“You inconsequential, pitiful excuse for a demon butler. You call THIS pie? FOR SHAME. I shall now execute a vanishing act of phantasmagoric proportions thus forcing you to spend an afternoon pondering as to where I am while your shameful excuse for a pie sits there, cold and neglected. How DARE you.” – Ciel Phantomhive before turning to magical vapor
I’m actually curious will Miura ever answer this. Ok, what I think Guts FEELS is: “She is my light, my last and best reason for living. The reason why I can remain a human. Why I don’t go into full rage, madness and despair. And why the blaze of infinite rage and hatred hasn’t consumed me yet.”
But we all know that Guts won’t say it. Not to Roderick, for sure. So what he SAID was probably: “she is my reason to swing my sword.”
Since Nemu’s puppet is displayed as an example, does that mean it is an outside demon (Galatea, as listed) possessing it and keeping him subdued? I know I’d theorized it was possibly a split personality of his own, but I’d never seen this before. Hmm. It could be depicted simply because it is a puppet and COULD be possessed, but that would be a red herring… which wouldn’t be surprising at all.
If it truly is a guardian demon, then I’d assume his (Nephilim) abilities are too strong to control on his own while awake, as evidenced when his eyes opened, blasting even Yamantaka back along with Shima and Izumo. That doesn’t bode very well for Shiemi, if that’s the case.
midnight-in-town 