I’m sorry Anon, I’m not quite sure what you mean! Are you saying Eren might “sisterzone” Mikasa or that the writing is? I’ll answer both, if that’s okay.
The writing definitely is not “sisterzoning” Mikasa. Mikasa’s feelings I think are abundantly clear after chapter 50, in which it’s entirely possible she was moving to kiss him during the Clash of the Titans Arc. For the record, I didn’t ship it until chapter 50, though I did always think she had feelings for him.
I don’t think it’s a realistic reading to deny that Mikasa canonically has romantic feelings for Eren–it’s kind of blatant. Furthermore, Falco’s feelings for Gabi also clearly have a romantic component; pretending to be siblings doesn’t really change that and I just don’t think that situation is the best comparison as I doubt it’ll have further relevance.
As for how Eren sees Mikasa, that’s a different story all together, and Isayama pointing out Eren sees her as a motherly presence is not the same thing as saying Mikasa sees herself in a maternal sense (but there is some Oedipal-ness there). And it’s true–Mikasa is always trying to protect him as Carla asked her to do, but she would have done that anyways because she pretty clearly sees him as a major part of her identity, even to an unhealthy extent which I’ve talked about before, and that protectiveness is actually pushing Eren away in some sense. I do think the end goal of Mikasa’s arc has to be growing away from Eren; that being said, it’s not unrealistic to imagine that Eren would realize they could have had a happy future if, if, if.
If the circumstances of their world weren’t so cruel.
If they didn’t have to constantly fight to survive.
If Eren didn’t have a time limit on his lifespan.
If he’d decided not to go to Marlay.
Eren’s arc is tragic as hell. Even looking at the symbolism in the scene from chapter 50. Mikasa is essentially telling him she loves him, maybe wants to kiss him, and he focuses on I want to fight to save you. In doing that, he saves her, but he also loses that moment.
Eren will probably help save humanity even if Armin is the actual hero, but the cost is pretty clearly going to be his relationship with his loved ones–though I do absolutely think Mikasa and Armin will love Eren no matter how they disapprove of his actions, and I think he will love them regardless. But the closeness and the future, however short, they might have had, is probably gone.
And Mikasa knows this as she says here:
There isn’t a happy ending for them together like she’d have wanted, but she’s still clinging as we see in recent chapters wherein her clinging almost leads to her and Armin getting blown up.
To save the rest of her loved ones, Mikasa won’t be able to save Eren. I think that’s definitely where the story is going, but I do think it’s also realistic that Eren and Mikasa will have a moment wherein Eren acknowledges what could have been, and that he loves her, regardless of whether there is a romantic component.
I personally think there is likely to be (the set up is obvious, like with Touka and Kaneki in TG or Ochaco and Izuku in BNHA–it’s def a darker story with no hope for a happy ending for them, but main female character + main male character in this kind of story with a scene like chapter 50 that is clearly designed to put romance in the reader’s mind, is almost certainly intended to be romantic, plus we know Mikasa feels romantically). That being said, I also think it doesn’t actually matter whether or not Eren acknowledges romantic feelings for Mikasa. I just want him to acknowledge, and tell her, that he loves her and is grateful to her–because he does and is, regardless of whether that is familial or platonic or romantic, and the exact definition of that love doesn’t matter to the overall tragedy and beauty of their story. But acknowledging Mikasa’s personal romantic feelings would be a beautiful ending, imo, but that’s just my preference.
I don’t actually think Undertaker is actually past redemption. He’s done horrible, horrible things. That’s without question. I mean, some of these things seem rather unforgivable. He’s hurt innocent people and even those he claims that he cares for the most. He has a long list of crimes, so it might seem strange that I think there’s some hope for him.
To me, Undertaker is a good example how someone can become so twisted in their own desires and goals that they blind themselves to the reality. I’ve said this multiple times, but I do think his intentions were good. He was trying to save this family. He wanted to save them…but it’s gone so far the other direction. In his attempt to do this, he has caused a lot of pain and suffering, and I don’t think he can even see that.
That’s why I want Undertaker to have some sort of ‘wake up call’ and be able to see what he’s done. I have a previous post that Lizzie might even be the one to deliver this call because she might remind him of Claudia, but I want Undertaker to have that epiphany that he has become this dark, twisted being causing pain. Instead of being their savior, I want him to see he’s become the villain.
I want him to feel guilt.
I think he can still feel guilty if he’s ever able to see what he’s really done. I want him to see it, and to feel even more pain than he’s caused. That would be the beginning of his redemption. Of course, feeling guilty isn’t enough, but it would be a first step. I’m not sure what the next step is at this point, but I do know where it has to start.
For me, I don’t think Undertaker’s facade was to make us feel more empathy towards him. He hid this more serious side that we’re now seeing under all the laughter and silliness. Which is the true Undertaker or are both sides equally a part of him? We know that part of his act was to stay in this position where he could remain close to our!Ciel, and to remain nonthreatening until the moment he revealed his true identity. That wasn’t to elicit sympathy, although her certainly had ulterior motives.
Do I think he has a tragic past? I do, although that doesn’t excuse all that he’s done. I think this past has just what has brought him to this point we now see. It’s what made him who he is and led him to do these things. It’s no excuse, but it was most likely a catalyst. His past might be truly heartbreaking, but I still think the whole concept of his redemption lies in whether or not he can recognize what he’s done and what he does from that point on.
There’s also an excellent post by @midnight-in-town that you can find here that covers some of the same idea.
Okay so for all the people going “Kaneki won” and etc. who aren’t like… understanding paneling.
Furuta goes into Kakuja mode and it dredges up something he wasn’t expecting when he’s literally trying to make the worst image of himself possible. He’s screaming the same thing that Yamori screamed. Yamori who is as close to a one dimensional sadist as Tokyo Ghoul can get.
What it dredges up is his humanity. The human desire that he has been suppressing all of this time, in order to do the things he did and accomplish the things he needed to get done in life before his time came.
Bearing witness to that desire is what causes his undoing. He hesitates and leaves an opening because he’s completely overwhelmed by the sheer force of that human desire he has been long suppressing.
The chapter makes it clear with the flashback Furuta tried to destroy those parts of himself because he had a limited time frame to break the cage and couldn’t hesitate for a moment.
However that’s exactly the tipping point of the clown, Furuta is paralleling Uta here. You can’t deny your own humanity and act upon the stage even if you think you can, even if it works out for awhile. Your humanity will always reassert yourself because that’s how it works. You can’t throw away parts of yourself or break away from the parts you don’t like.
Furuta’s making a villain speech and finally playing the ultimate role of final boss he’s been working himself up for for so long even going for the cliche move of “we’re not so different you and I” and shouting “I’d never lose” but what reasserts itself in his instance is his own humanity, forcing him to confront that he too in a way wanted to play house inside of the cage. He’s something other than a reckoning born into the world to destroy the Washuu and then die a half life, that he too desired for more.
Kaneki even says as much at his greatest moment of despair, that it was a mistake for him to desire things, that it was a mistake for him to want for more, anything more than a death to bring an end to his long suffering.
It hurts, doesn’t it? Kaneki really, really hates himself. He’s basically paralleling 240 Kaneki right now, hysterical because it’s
all his fault in his mind–but it isn’t. And he’s despairing. He really
believes he isn’t worth anything beyond what he can do for people. That’s probably behind his hypocrisy, too: his lines however hypocritical are ways of convincing himself he’s okay. And it’s heartbreaking. Ken. Let me hug you.
It kind of embodies the whole manga, and kind of how the fandom perceives Kaneki as well. TG is literally a manga about tearing down the divides between black and
white, good and evil, monster and human, and yet you tend to see either
‘Kaneki is Femto 2.0’ or ‘Kaneki did nothing wrong in his life ever’
but everything about TG suggests neither of these. Kaneki
can be both victim and perpetrator, ghoul and human, capable of love
and extreme kindness and capable of murder.
And they will save him. The bad things he’s done do not make his life not worth living, and it does not make it so that the world would be better off if he was never born. I personally think the message of “you messed up, but you are worthy of love” is an incredible message of hope. It’s the message we saw with Mutsuki really, and that we’re probably going to see with Kaneki when Touka & co save him.
This post uses math to work out what the date is so I don’t have to. [x]
They put it at approximately 4/17.
There are clear parallels being drawn between Touka and Yoriko. In the chapter alone, Touka’s stomach bothers her while Yoriko is starving.
There’s a few more parallels too. Touka and Yoriko are basically both being taken out as peripherals to Mutsuki’s grudge against Sasaki. Touka and Yoriko both get married in April to boys they had known for years before that point, but their relationship jumped suddenly into marriage.
If it is April now then Kaneki and Touka’s talk happened sometime around either late February or March considering the clown raids concluded early February. Which means that Kaneki and Touka have been in a relationship for about two months before being married. Bujin suddenly asking Yoriko to marry him out of nowhere was also made explicit, it was even a sight gag that was recounted three times with Ui getting coffee spit in his face three different times.
Edit: As @coromoor pointed out also, Touka and Yoriko both have a reappearance in :re that heavily parallels each other, panel wise and situation wise. They both reappear working at cafes, and the two of them are both noticed and drawn emphasis by the eye of the man they would eventually marry. [x].
Touka and Yoriko have a lot of parallels to their situation right now. They’re both even trapped in a cage to an extent, Yoriko in a literal one, and Touka unable to leave the underground due to Goat’s hiding from the CCG.
If anything the parallels show that despite being human and ghoul Yoriko and Touka are still connected. I doubt even with Touka’s decision to ignore Yoriko’s execution the two of them are really going to stay separated. That’s not really how the manga rolls. The difficult questions which Yoriko represents to Touka, those are things she has to face eventually. Which points to a reunion between the two characters, rather than one of them dying quietly. It’s almost like fate. The things you wish to ignore the most suddenly always rears it’s head up in front of you.
midnight-in-town 