I talked about this, briefly, via an ask on my old account and then immediately deleted it. At the time, I just wasn’t in the mood to bring up and fan what was rapidly becoming a big sore spot for many in the fandom. I disagree with the idea that she’s become a “”reduced”” character for many reasons, but I think one of the major contributing factors to what upset people might just be because in 300+ chapters, some little bits and pieces of Touka’s character might’ve been missed or forgotten.
That being said, I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge that media doesn’t exist in a vacuum and I’m not striving to argue whether or not Touka’s character was treated well as much as I want to talk about her. She’s my favorite character, after all, and the primary reason I got into TG all those years ago.
So call this a Character Study, if you will.
TL;DR: Touka got exactly the ending she was striving for
With :re ending and Kaneki likely falling asleep inside Dragon for a long period of time before his inevitable reawakening, there’s a few set of characters I’d like to discuss who could potentially have the most pivotal roles in the upcoming epic.
Another important detail, is that Ishida likes to use Poker Suits for symbolic purposes in his manga quite a bit. As a lot of people have noticed, thus far we have King (:re), Jack (Arima Spinoff), and Joker (Suzuya Side Story), but the suits of “Ace and Queen” in specific aren’t present yet and will more than likely be used as titles for the sequel.. probably in some random language.
The first character I’ll be discussing is Rize Kamishiro, who’s name can also mean “Age of the Gods” depending on the kanji used. I admittedly don’t think she’s dead, nor will die in general, at least until her role is fulfilled in Part 3. She has a link with the Queen suite in specific, and alongside that correlates to a few royal figures symbolically.
Hel is a giantess/goddess who rules over the identically-named Hel, the underworld where many of the dead dwell. Her name’s meaning of “Hidden” surely has to do with the underworld and the dead being “hidden” or buried beneath the ground.
Satan is described in the New Testament as the “ruler of the demons” and “the god of this age”. In the Book of Revelation, Satan appears as a Great Red Dragon, who is defeated by Michael the Archangel and cast down from Heaven. He is later bound for one thousand years, but is briefly set free before being ultimately defeated and cast into the Lake of Fire.
Both figures fit her well considering she found underground as the source of the oviduct toxin that converted human into ghoul, they of which originate from Arabian mythology as demons from the underworld.
Secondly she was referred to by Furuta as Dragon who was later beaten by Kaneki who parallels Archangel Michael in this instance and sealed her underground. The symbol on her forehead is also a clear reference to the Leviathan/Satanic Cross that represents fire and brimstone, which is commonly associated with Hell.
Something else I’d like to note are the Anteiku Raid parallels present in this scenario. Back in Part 1, Kaneki was killed by Arima under the sewers of V14 who put his violent, ghoul nature represented by Shironeki who was formed after a tulpa conversation with Rize, to rest. In reality though he spared him, and this led to his human and ghoul personas blending to form Haise, a more balanced persona who Kaneki referred to as “a peaceful dream”.
Now in :re we see Kaneki who is a direct parallel to Arima in this instance, killing Dragon Rize underground and putting her rampant oviduct to rest to reveal a more peaceful, human looking Rize.
As @sentrakk mentioned in this meta recently, there’s a lot of Christianic symbolism at play that correlates with the current story.
The Beast and the False Prophet are cast into the lake of fire while the Dragon is imprisoned in the bottomless pit for 1000 years. The Dragon is freed after 1000 years, tries to deceive all nations in four corners of the Earth and gathers people to fight the God, but is eventually defeated and cast into the lake of fire as well. The wicked dead and all of those who died during the thousand-year reign of Jesus are resurrected and judged. A new Heaven and new Earth replace the old ones and there is no more death or suffering as the old order of things has passed away.
We’re now at the phase where Dragon is symbolically imprisoned underground for 1000 years. After a brief timeskip to represent the Dragon being freed after 1000 years, we’ll see Rize who parallels the Dragon reemerge from her slumber to spark a new set of events, meaning our queen is more than likely going to survive this ordeal and be a central character in Part 3. Perhaps to parallel Haise, she’ll return with a personality reset after awakening. When all of these events are said and done, she may be able to overcome her tragedy and live the normal life that Furuta couldn’t.
The next character is Hideyoshi Nagachika, who doesn’t exactly have a character arc yet and could be explored in depth a lot more in Part 3. Alongside Shuu, Touka, Haise, Rio, and Kaneki himself, he’s a member of the Ace Card suite’s.
In particular, there’s a lot of mystery surrounding Hide’s origins and where exactly he came from. We still have no insight on his backstory, possible relatives, where he came from before befriending Kaneki in school, or what exactly his motivations are in the story right now outside of aiding Kaneki and the CCG.
This also connects with the fact that there’s seemingly a connection between him and the 24th ward, what with the three dot pattern apparent on the cloaks of the children present in an illustration of him. The kanji in his name “Hideyoshi Nagachika” is also a minefield of hints that could mean a multitude of things depending on the usage.
If he does have a connection to the 24th ward or underground in general, it could also explain why the Washuu were after him, because he never gave Amon or Akira a clear explanation as to how he was in their way. It’s possible that he could be a half human who managed to escape from the Sunlit Garden with important information on the Washuu that could have led to their downfall.
And lastly, there’s still a lot of mystery surrounding the events of the sewer incident during the Anteiku Raid and how exactly Hide escaped with his injuries. So all in all another confrontation between the two to clear up that event and their relationship in general is important.
And finally Amon Koutarou, who was rather hidden throughout the course of :re until his recent reappearance. In Part 1 he was essentially the deuteragonist of the story and we often shifted back to his perspective as an investigator while focusing on Kaneki’s journey as a half ghoul. Then when :re came, Haise took on the investigator role while Amon lurked through the shadows as a half ghoul, but we hardly had any shift back to his character or what he was up to.
If patterns hold true, in Part 3 we may see the focus shift back to Amon as the protagonist while Kaneki spends some time underground. You’re probably wondering, “what would Amon even do in the story?”, but there’s quite a lot of points revolving around his character that has yet to come full circle. Big thanks to @amon15 for pointing out some interesting lore involving Amon’s arc.
The first point of development for Amon should be breaking away from the CCG system, because we all know “investigators fighting for peace” is bullshit, especially since there’s a lot of shady things circulating around the organization.
It’s also possible that Amon knew the Washuu were up to no good but chose not to act on it, considering Hide freed him from Aogiri and they remained in contact afterwards, and he’s also connected to Marude who was doing research of his own on Rueshima at the same time Amon stormed the island to save Akira and Seidou.
As Kaiko also enlightened us on a few chapters back, the Washuu were consuming the bodies of dead investigators. If this happens to include Mado’s body as well, it should act as a big catalyst for him to abandon the CCG and make his own path.
This intertwines with the fact that the Quinx as well need to break away from the CCG, because as Saiko mentioned in Chapter 132, the CCG is a slaughterhouse that no one should be a part of, and Shirazu’s body as well is still missing.
Considering she especially out of the 3 first gen Quinx has yet to receive a proper character arc, joining up with Amon and becoming a “terrorist” should be a positive change of growth for her. This is also ironic considering Saiko and Urie on a few occasions have confronted Amon, and foil him in many regards. Urie’s father Mikoto could have also possibly had his body consumed as well, which further adds to the fact that he needs to abandon his work ethic there.
Another important issue Amon has yet to reconcile within himself, is his ghoulhood. He still sees himself as more of an investigator fighting for justice rather than a ghoul, evident by the fact that he continues to use his quinque while fighting around his loves ones instead of his Kagune. To come to a proper acceptance of himself and his abilities, he needs to rely on both Takizawa and Akira to unify his human and ghoul halves properly.
Akira to understand and accept him regardless to show that he’s still capable of being loved as a ghoul, and Takizawa to show him how to properly make use his ghoul abilities and get adjusted to his body. In return this will lead to Takizawa being accepted by Akira and realizing the more human side of his nature that he’s been rejecting since he consumed his parents.
Now on to the next point, the murder mystery revolving around Kurona’s father Nanao Yasuhisa who was the president of the Sphinx corporation, had a secret lab below his mansion, and provided the CCG with ghouls blended in bottles for some unknown purpose. However, he tried to leak information about the cruelty taking place on ghouls in the research and was likely silenced in the process.
After being informed of Sphinx and the shady dealings of the CCG by Eto in Chapter 115 like ghouls being blended in bottles to form an RC cell liquid, Amon pondered on what to do about the case but never got to the bottom of solving it since he had no one to report the situation to since it directly involved the CCG as a whole.
Since the Washuu and V are relatively taken care of at this point and there’s nothing getting in the way of Amon investigating the murder surrounding Kurona’s parents, he should reunite with her and bring closure to this case once and for good, for the sake of her, and her parents. He does kind of need to repay her for saving him from the lab, and she needs her character arc completed, so this would be a great way to do so.
It’s also possible that the Sunlit Garden is tied into this as well since half humans from V like Kaiko who were born there needed a way to halt their aging, and an influx of RC cell liquid to reverse telomere could have been a temporary solution. We don’t know much about the Garden as a whole either, so this could lead to exposition on the facility and the events taking place there.
And now on to probably the most important aspect of his character arc that didn’t exactly go anywhere yet despite there being various foreshadowing and reference, the kingly symbolism surrounding his character.
There’s many royal figures correlating to Amon that you can read about here, but the figure Ishida likes to parallel Amon to the most, is Odin, the One Eyed Ruler of the Norse Gods. Some quick similarities between them would be..
~ In Old Norse texts, Odin is depicted as one-eyed and long-bearded, frequently wielding a spear named Gungnir, and wearing a cloak (Amon hiding his ghoul eye, and the quinque he often uses, Doujima)
~ Odin is often the favorite god and ally of outlaws, those who had been banished from society for especially vicious crimes, as well. (Amon working alongside Hakitori and Takizawa, CCG outlaws who are outcasts of society)
~ He maintains close connections with the berserkers and other Aesir warriors whose fighting techniques and associated spiritual practices center around achieving a state of unification with certain ferocious totem animals (Amon in his berserk Owl Kakuja)
~ He’s the ruler of the Aesir tribe of deities, yet he often wanders far from their dominion, Asgard, on long, solitary journeys through the galaxy on personal quests (Amon wandering through Tokyo alone as Floppy earlier in the series)
WithKaneki taking a rest and the ghouls more than likely needing a new ruler, it’s possible that Amon will take up the mantle of king in the meantime to establish order. After all, like Kaneki defeating Arima and becoming the OEK, Amon killed Donato, the Crown Clown and should inherit some role of leadership soon.
And to continue the Norse mythology surrounding Amon and his connection to Odin, his father Donato also happens to be based on the God of Knowledge, Mimir. While imprisoned in Cochlea, doves like Haise often came to him as a source of knowledge to aid them on their investigations.
Mímir or Mim is a figure in Norse mythology renowned for his knowledge and wisdom who is beheaded during the Æsir-Vanir War. Afterward, the god Odin carries around Mímir’s head and it recites secret knowledge and counsel to him.
During the Dragon arc which is a lot like the Aesir Vanir War wherein two groups of deities raged war against each other that led to the creation of a unified pantheon similar to the Alliance, Donato like Mimir is beheaded and gives us knowledge of his motives.
If Ishida continues to follow the lore, like Odin we’ll probably see Amon carrying around Donato’s head as a source of council, or rather a symbol of sorts. From the context of Nico’s words, it feels like Donato may have wanted this to happen, alongside the fact that he intentionally let Amon take his life.
Alongside the kingly symbolism, there’s also quite a bit of “Dragon symbolism” surrounding his character throughout the story. Why is the Dragon symbolism so important? Because it could be foretelling to an inevitable confrontation between himself and Kaneki, who represents the Phoenix in the duo.
In Chinese mythology the Phoenix who represents Yin energy, and Dragon who represents Yang energy, are considered mortal enemies. Yet when the two are in unison they represent a perfect balance of Yin/Yang harmony.
This corresponds with the fact that Kaneki massacred all 101 Oggai and no one ever spoke a word of them again, which is odd considering the abuse and manipulation of children is painted in a very negative light by narrative terms, but their whereabouts and whether they survived or not was brushed to the side by the CCG and just about everyone.
One Oggai in specific, Hajime Hazuki sparked a flame of motivation in Amon. So needless to say, there may be a confrontation between the two about that event which may lead to a clash. In the aftermath, the two will likely come to terms and unify to tear down the throne of OEK since it’s built upon death instead of revolution, and create a proper memorial for the Oggai so they can be remembered.
Another minor detail worth mentioning is the fact that Eto wanted Amon dead for some reason. It’s possible that she could have wanted to get rid of him so there weren’t any loose ends that could backfire on Aogiri, but for some reason Ayato sounded somewhat sympathetic of “Floppy”. It’s possible that Amon and Ayato were in close connection considering..
Ayato had to get a card key to raid Cochlea from somebody with high authority right? With Eto alive and her being connected to the trio of Akira, Amon, and Takizawa, it’s possible that we’ll get clarification on why she wanted to kill him alongside some reconciliation since her father’s Kakuhou turned them into ghouls, and Akira’s mother was killed by her in the past.
In this chapter we saw Donato literally dying laughing, so in a sense he had the last laugh which is nothing more than the clowns’ motto. However, maybe his death is meant to start a deconstruction of this ideology, since even if Donato could laugh until the end there is no doubt that his last laugh was bitter because it came after the realization that after all Amon did see him as a father. Ironically this was what Donato himself kept affirming every time he met Amon and what the latest one kept refusing, but by the end Amon is the one openly admitting that he loves Donato while Donato is trying to keep on his clown mask insisting that he is a villain and a ghoul and basically reinforcing a role he himself chose.
This is interesting because if it’s true that characters like Kaneki and Amon are often too absorbed by the role of “hero” they themselves chose, it’s possible their antagonists are too caught up in their roles of villains as well. Donato used to challenge Amon’s vision about ghouls by calling him his son and challenged Urie’s vision of the CCG. Still, in this chapter we discovered Donato’s own vision was severely distorted and that he accepted his role as ghoul and gave up the chance to be something else.
Now, it’s possible we will have a similar situation with Furuta as well. Furuta is a very meta character and more than anyone else has shown to be genre savy and has challenged the black and white vision of the characters and played with their flaws. The characters kept losing to him because they failed to overcome their flaws and to change. However, Furuta himself sees the world in narrative terms and this chapter emphasized it once again. He sees himself as a villain and sees every situation he is in as a scene on a stage. However, if Kaneki is not the hero, then Furuta has no reason to be the villain. In short, it’s probable that the one who will win btw Kaneki and Furuta won’t necessarily be the one who is more genre savy, but the one who will leave this narrative way to interact with the world behind.
Kaneki won’t probably be able to win in a battle of strength with Furuta, after all Furuta himself commented so in this chapter when he called Kaneki out because he was trying to face him by fighting and later on he said that he was pretty strong after all.
So, in order to win Kaneki will probably have to overcome Furuta’s logic and to force him outside his mask and the role he himself chose. Only in this way we will see Furuta’s true face and only in this way the dichotomy between “hero” and “villain” Furuta has been satirizing will be truly broken. What’s ironic is that it is possible that Furuta himself ended up a slave of that same vision he wanted to criticize exactly like the fact he ended up becoming like his hated father and transforming Rize into a slave. Furuta needs to realize this and at least in the end to let go of his clown mask which is nothing more than a coping mechanism. If he won’t do it then I can see him dying laughing like Donato, but his laugh will be incredibly sad and bitter.
Who knows, maybe the word “grin” written close to his mole (which is a symbol of a tragic life) is a foreshadowing of this last sad laugh. Hopefully not, though.
Sooo very predictable coming from me but…. who’s “the second crown”?
There are still two unidentified OEGs in the timeline before Eto after all, so could it be in relation to that, and in that case since Donato was the first crown, could it mean that he was the first OEG/the One Eyed Washuu?
Or could he be talking about Uta who gave him the Crown mask in ch84 (which would mean that Uta “ruled" the Clowns before he did and was the second crown)?
Or was it maybe about Furuta, who put him in charge of the Clowns after ch98?
It seems hard to think that he could be talking about Roma since according to her in ch135 no one knew she was the founder, and besides, I think there is a difference between “founder” and “crown(s)”.
However, I have always wondered about that double page from ch98 (just above): Furuta who just became the Washuu King, was surrounded by V, Donato and Uta.
We know V is still in the game and now we found out that Donato was “being given the reigns of the Clowns from the second crown”, so… since Uta was also present alongside Furuta in ch98, could it mean that he was the second crown in charge until this moment precisely??? After all, Itori said:
At the same time, Nico is wayyy too much in the background (kinda like Itori) and their reaction just now…
…was rather interesting, unless it’s just supposed to be a throwback to TG ch163 (when they tried to stop Yamori because “a mother/parent should never be killed in front of their child”, it could apply here since Donato was dying in front of Amon…)?
Any thought? ‘Cause I’m lost. ;_;
okay so I wasn’t going to post about it, but then Spooky-chan said that she noticed too SO IMMA SHARE WITH Y’ALL
What if Nico is actually the first OEK/the One Eyed Washuu/the Nagaraj? Yeah basically, after Uta, Itori, Donato, it’s finally their turn to become a suspect!
l o o k, their kagune is similar to Dragon’s kakuja?
Besidesssss…
and
BTW, I’m aware Nico actually showed two kakugan during the Aogiri arc, buuuut so did Urie, Saiko and Hajime who are supposed to be similar to OEGs (without mentioning Kaneki whose kakugan didn’t even seem to activate at the end of the new chapter despite him getting ready to fight) so…. I’m not sure it’s to be taken as a hint that they can’t be a OEG, you know what I mean?
I love all the Clowns so I don’t care either way who’s the Chosen One, but CAN SENSEI JUST TELL US ALREADY
@super-peace-fufu-boy I totally want to facepalm myself right now xD because you’re absolutely right! Since I initially was thinking about whether “second crown” could be an allusion to the timeline and the two OEGs before Eto or not, I blanked on this and didn’t consider there might be more than just two “crowns”.
But you’re spot on! From the way Donato put it, it does seem like he’s in fact the third Clowns’ leader. The question now is, who are the previous two? Roma and Furuta? Because Roma is the founder and she died at 51 years old, the gang can’t be older than 40 years max…
At the same time, Roma said no one knew she was the founder so… idk about her being the first leader?
One “crown” before Donato could be the one who was in charge during the Clowns’ annihilation against Arima, Houji and Hirako (approximately ten/twelve years ago, around the time Uta and Yomo became friends)…
And if they’re not the same person, then the second "crown” probably was the one who led the Clowns during TG and :Re up until Donato was freed. This one could either
be
Uta (from ch143 & he gave the Crown mask to Donato) or Furuta (Uta mentioning a boss in :Re ch31.5 & the last pages of ch98), I think?
Ah gosh, I can’t wait to find out. xD Thanks for pointing my mistake out, it’s my bad! ^3^
Oh fuck it makes a lot more sense now, why Akira shielding Takizawa had such an impact on him, and why Takizawa was so frenzied with fighting Amon.
He was already doubting that no one cared about him anymore and his guilt was multiplied tenfold by the fact he could tell Houji let him win… Houji letting him kill him said, “I can’t let that you go even after trying to prove yourself to me became you’re a monster but I care about you too much to kill you so you’ll have to kill me.” That was a great sacrifice… but. Takizawa being forced to kill someone that loved him kinda reiterated his fear that he was a monster by forcing him to kill a loved one an act that is in itself monsterous and escalated his self-hate by about a thousand.
So when someone literally set aside not just their possible life but also their honor and actually said what they felt that second time it completely shattered the shaky idea he had that his existence was worthless.
It might also explain the fact of why he couldn’t immediately accept Amon’s offer at redemption, for one thing, he didn’t feel worthy of it, for another Amon was a little like Houji in that… he still wasn’t really accepting what Takizawa had become even when he was wanting to save him… (He could only see that as a reason to live later and it’s still unclear if he’s really accepted it.)
It took the dose of unconditional, “I’m really angry with you to the point I told you to die because I hate feeling what I do and I have unsorted issues with ghouls atm but ultimately I don’t care what you’ve become I’d still give up my honor and my life to save you without an expecation of recipication because I care about you.” that really got through to him… Even if part of it was guilt for not being able to save him before… Maybe even because it acknowledged part of what happened wasn’t his fault…
Interesting how the strings we can see are kinda similar in these two panels, especially when Donato was referred to as “Crown” before and since there is a lot of symbolism associated to him being a OEG (+ same topic, “love”, in both panels).
I know that there is a lot of discussion about Donato being the Nagaraj right now, but ch151 at least seems to contradict that idea (just my opinion, obviously we could be trolled by Sensei and he could make that panel about Donato instead of possibly Uta), even if this doesn’t really matter since it was said that there were 2OEGs before Eto in the timeline anyway.
EDIT: tho’ I guess that seeing Sasaki’s puffy hairstyle compared to Kaneki’s, the One Eyed Washuu could be considered to be a younger Donato with black straight hair, his current beard hiding the mole on his chin (in that case he would be half Russian/half Japanese then?).
I guess we’ll see. :3
the weird thing is that both Uta and Donato are associated with the Hindu myth about Vasuki/the Nagaraj/etc so I’m just not sure about who’s who, with all the possibilities. I mean, there is this exchange…
*sigh*
so I’m not buying the red herrings about either of them (tho’ that wouldn’t have to stop Sensei obviously): Sensei hinted a lot about both of them, Itori and Nico are also still mysterious and suspicious in their own ways so there IS something up about all of the Clowns.
SIGHHHHHHHHHHHHH
i’m just tired SENSEI STOP WITH ALL THE HINTS/RED HERRINGS OR WHATEVER, i’m about to go insane…
Long story short, it turns out that this far in :Re, there are still fans who get confused about the timeline that we were given (I’m aware that overlapping different hints is not always easy though, so no pressure).So, due to a certain post I saw yesterday and that I can’t get out of my head, I decided to make a recap post on the subject to hopefully clear up some confusion.
(Please note that all of this is based on the assumption that the timeline I mentioned is accurate/can be trusted.)
Firstly, there is supposedly no need to wonder about the identity of the Nagaraj who’s a kakuja ghoul who went on a rampage 100 years ago or so, because…
we already know he’s the One Eyed Washuu Matsuri mentioned in ch151 and we even saw what he looked like on the same occasion.
Of course, one could argue that Matsuri is lying/doesn’t know the real truth but… (personal opinion here) it’s not really the kind of plot twists Sensei seems to work with in general?
So, without mentioning theories about a link between Uta & the One Eyed Washuu (if just because of the resemblance in ch151), while I can understand the need to imagine more complicated plot twists, I find it hard to consider that, say Itori, could be the Nagaraj of 100 years ago when we already saw who he supposedly was in ch151.
However, again considering the timeline we were given throughout :Re, since there is another OEG/OEK that started a second rebellion after the Nagaraj’s but before Eto’s, I think it’s legit to wonder about their identity because it’s bound to be addressed eventually.
I personally have 3 suspects at the moment:
Noro
Itori
and Donato
(since this post is a little late, considering the next chapter is soon, more below)
Alright, an explanation for why Donato might be the one eyed king, or even a one eyed king. The biggest symbolic connection is through Amon. There are several pieces foreshadowing that Amon is set up to become a future king.
We’ve even witnessed this symbolism refreshed for us recently in Amon’s birthday art. [x] @lunaamatista
It’s an interesting bit of irony to me that this whole fight between Amon and Donato was built up as such a heroic moment for the alliance. After all, Amon was able to find Donato in the first place because historic enemies like Fueguchi and Akira were able to work together to pinpoint him.
Then we lead into Amon finally heroically charging in to settle his grudge against his foster father which has been building the entire manga. His entrance even parallels the heroic entrance that Amon made to save Akira from Seidou.
midnight-in-town 