Touka was the one who introduced us to the idea of ghoul evolution and studying ghoul biology
so if these pregnancy theories turn out to be true, it would be interesting seeing her researching, trying to find a way to save the child doomed to die in the womb.
Itori, the character that introduced the idea that half ghoul foetuses are incompatible in a ghoul mother’s womb, has come back into the story just in time to be consulted on the issue too
I’m just thirsty for more ghoul biology
(You know, I don’t think that’s a coincidence and I’m even wondering, since Itori seemed really sad talking about hybrid babies, if a pregnancy wouldn’t be what could make her be more rooting for a victory from Kaneki’s side. Amongst the Clowns, Uta doesn’t want a boring development and doesn’t think tragedies are popular, Nico already tried to help Kaneki’s side once, so maybe a hybrid pregnancy could make Itori less neutral and more in favor of Kaneki’s side halting the world’s destruction. Meanwhile I don’t know what to think about Roma and I’m pretty sure Donato only cares about Amon…)
I mean, I do remember a few crack theories about them maybe being sisters when the TG trump cards deck came out because they roughly had the same hair color, but that was the only hint and I’m not even sure people were serious. xD
At the same time, it’s not like we know a lot about the Clowns in general, Donato aside. We don’t even know if they might not have a link with V or the Garden, so starting from there, while it did come out as a surprise, it’s not like it doesn’t make sense, since everything is a mystery with the Clowns. I even checked the raw text on Netabare and Itori does call Roma “imoto” in Japanese, so it’s literally correct as far as I can understand.
Now that we know though, I’m even more curious about that fact because being Itori’s sister kind of explains why Roma’s a part of the Clowns’ gang in the first place, when she’s younger than the rest of them.
Also the fact that two Clowns are related kind of makes me want to scream and ask “who are the parents”, especially since I still don’t exclude the possibility of a few (all?) Clowns having a link with V/the Sunlit Garden. …So yes, what I am saying basically is that if somehow Itori and Roma were to be Washuu Tsuneyoshi’s daughters, I just wouldn’t be surprised. xD
Actually we always were made to believe that Rize was a special case because she managed to escape, but in truth that is rather because of her kakuhou’s special abilities. Furuta even said that he’s the one who helped Rize escape and he was just a kid…
…so maybe she’s not the only kid who escaped from the Sunlit Garden.
If not from the Sunlit Garden though, I wouldn’t be surprised if Roma and Itori had a link to the old ghoulification experiments that Kanou once mentioned (:Re ch93) and who knows, maybe by sister, Itori could mean “clones” -> please check this great post by @one-eyed-king-kaneki46. More on clones later probably.
Finally, the fact that Itori and Roma are “sisters” is also interesting because…
Roma is ranked SS and she is strong in her own way, so this really makes me wonder…
…what her “big sister” can do. 🙂
So yep, definitely an unexpected info but I like it all the same. 😀
Uta looks like he’s ready to flip on this plan the second the alternative seems at all interesting. It wouldn’t at all surprise me if Uta is the type to prefer a lingering, ongoing struggle, full of all the potential for more drama and more growth, over a neat conclusion.
Nec possum tecum vivere, nec sine te.
I feel the same way. Honestly, I had thought the Clowns would be wanting to keep the struggle between humans and ghouls as it is- making sure the game keeps running. V maintaining the balance with order and organisation, the Clowns with chaos and destruction. But now that it seems Itori and the others are hyped for the grand finale, I wonder if this will change dynamics within their group?
Same here.
Uta is like Juuzou, coexistence would probably suit him more than the annihilation of one side (his neck tattoo indeed…) while it always seemed to be the opposite with Itori -> whatever she went through (??), she appears to find the destruction of this caged world an enjoyable possibility.
It’s a bit hard to speak for Roma, but I’d say Donato is likely in favor of destruction of this unfair world
as well because he wants his peace back…
And then there is Nico, who might be more supportive of Kaneki’s side than Furuta’s seeing as they did a favor to Kaneki’s side by showing them a way to treat Akira and to meet with the Great Wheel act.
Will any of them take action against the others though? Indirectly maybe (like Nico might have done in ch101/102), but directly I’m not sure yet…
I’m so ashamed, I know this chapter by heart and yet I didn’t notice it till now. Also I’m now convinced that Itori will be back, especially if we actually have a hybrid baby on the way.
@maschera412 said:
How fun would it be if it was indeed Itori having sex with Kaneki lol. I know it’s a crack theory but!!! The fact that “Touka” suddenly dyed her hair black, isn’t it a little bit suspicious? Just think about that. It’s all because Itori hasn’t seen Touka in a while so she used her old hair color. Similar to how Uta put on Haise’s face instead of Kaneki’s.
Haha, I’ll consider that you are trying to make a sound argument so I’ll answer you the same way with “honestly no I don’t think it’s possible”. 🙂 The Itori theory that some readers are currently using to diminish the new chapter’s emotional impact was initially discussed by Touken shippers when the first spoilers came out, because we couldn’t believe that Ishida had actually dedicated an entire chapter to Touka and Kaneki finding each other through intimacy.
Add to it that there has been a lot of jokes about Uta impersonating the entire cast ever since we learnt of his abilities to use cloning and you have your reason as to why Touken fans imagined that it was Itori when Touka’s mole was mentioned in the spoilers, simply because it appeared too good to be true.
This theory immediately died down once we learn that the mole was on Touka’s right breast while Itori’s mole is on her left one though, as @ishida-why explained here, and anyway I doubt that Itori has seen Touka naked. 😉
they honestly talked and listened to each other afterwards
they ran away together instead of leaving each other behind
they made love
and as my post above was trying to convey, they might even have conceived (or will conceive) a baby
So nope, seeing how emotional, beautiful and sound this chapter was, I’m pretty sure that it was our Touka and not anyone else. Besides, you know, some of the Clowns
(Nico, Uta and Itori) kinda appear to be Touken shippers at heart, so they probably wouldn’t do that, especially when there is no fight going on. xD
@profitprofit said: If it were Itori she’d have to have been able to imitate Touka’s kagune too – I guess not impossible but seems unlikely? ALSO I didn’t notice that the colon in the chapter title had two different colour dots!!
Ah, I really think it’s impossible though, because aside from what I said above, here’s what I said in some of the tags of my previous answer:
And I mean every word. She’s a pretty and alluring woman and she’s a Clown, yes, but I doubt she would even want to act that way, even for a crazy joke. She sure didn’t appreciate it in the past, at least.
Anyway, about the two dots in the title, I noticed too 🙂
I’m so ashamed, I know this chapter by heart and yet I didn’t notice it till now. Also I’m now convinced that Itori will be back, especially if we actually have a hybrid baby on the way.
Okay so, I actually got a few questions on the subject and I didn’t see anyone making a post about it (please tell me if someone actually did), so I might as well write one quickly. Apologies in advance for those I might slightly spoil about Berserk.
Death flag. I think that’s one of the words I saw the most everywhere that I looked today and frankly, even though I’m generally not bothering so much with death flags, I kind of have to admit that I got worried after reading this chapter because, well, it’s TG. And Ishida-sensei. So we’re used to crazy and violent things happening, especially right after something sweet occured.
But what’s the link with Berserk?
Well, first of all, Sensei made several references to Berserk before, mainly through Amon’s character (please see the following posts: [x] [x]), that were explicit enough to think that he might be a fan of the series.
Second thing, for those who are not familiar with it, Berserk is the story of Guts, a mercenary, who was once sacrificed by his close “friend” so that the latter could be reborn as a very powerful demon entity. Obviously that kind of broke their friendship, especially since the other dude didn’t just try to sacrifice Guts, but also cursed and heavily abused Casca, Guts’ lover, leaving her with a big trauma towards men as well as a regression into insanity.
So anyway (please read Berserk), when it comes to the link between that and :Re ch125, it turns out that a little before Guts and Casca went through absolute hell, they had the opportunity to share a very sweet and intimate moment, exactly like it happened between Touka and Kaneki for this week’s chapter…
…A moment that resulted of Guts and Casca honestly talking for the first time in a while and finally admitting to their feelings for each other, so again, a little like it happened between Kaneki and Touka ever since ch122. EDIT: @lilylunac also saw the similarities between the two scenes! 🙂
Now obviously TG =/= Berserk, Kaneki =/= Guts, Ishida =/= Miura, but the two sensei still have this shared enjoyment that is to constantly inflict pain to their main character as they make them go through many hardships and, as I was saying above, the fact that so many TG readers are now bracing themselves for something terrible to happen, because ch125 was really sweet and positive in comparison to a lot of shit that Kaneki (and Touka) went through, makes me think that we learnt our lesson long ago.
So yes, as it happens, daily happiness never really lasts for long in TG, especially not when Kaneki still has a lot of personal issues to sort out and a lot of self-reflection to do (and especially not when the current main villain is aiming to fly the TG plane into an ocean of blood), but guess what, it’s exactly the same for Berserk, happiness never lasts long for Guts either.
So, it is very probable thatshit will go down soon in TG, if just because we could have an arc paralleling the Anteiku raid arc next, as many fans already explained and as Juuzou also implied…
…which would make the new relationship between Kaneki & Touka (and the sweet chapter of this weekend) the last positive moment to behold (both for us fans and for Kaneki) before Kaneki, Touka and the rest of Kaneki’s side might be separated and hurt/injured by Furuta’s side.
To be honest, I have no idea where TG will start again next week, but here’s what I understand from the recent developments:
Furuta has a good part of the CCG still ready to obey his command
Furuta is loved by most of the public opinion in TG (those fanclubs :/)
The Clowns might fight for Furuta’s side again (unsure)
A parallel to the Anteiku raid arc would mean a lot of blood and possible deaths
Furuta wants to watch the world burn and for Kaneki to die
Meanwhile Kaneki…
has issues to solve and for now doesn’t make for a good leading figure as the OEK
has less manpower than Furuta and way less deadly weapons (as far as we know)
is supposedly dead for a good part of the world, which means he can’t really gain new allies amongst ghouls
might be joined by the Clowns at some point (unsure)
might have CCG deserters (Juuzou, Urie and co) joining him (unsure again)
also Mutsuki is a bit insane and has a real grudge against Touka, which means they’ll face off again, definitely
TL;DR Kaneki doesn’t have the odds in his favor, for now at least, especially since he doesn’t really appear to have a good plan, which is why an arc similar to the Anteiku raid one definitely sounds like bad news and a lot of pain.
To be honest, I don’t know if Sensei really decided to include explicit lovemaking between Kaneki and Touka before shit might really go down as a parallel to Berserk and Guts/Casca, or if he found that the idea of a young love being tried by all sorts of madness was simply interesting, but… there is one more possible parallel that made me think of Gutsca, as I read the new :Re chapter.
See, it’s a spoiler (sorry :/) but Guts and Casca actually conceived a child during that one moment of bliss that they shared, a child that unfortunately got cursed to have a really sad fate, and it just so happens that the cover of :Re ch122…
… triggered many theories about Touka possibly becoming pregnant, with the pregnancy unfortunately not going and ending very well (please read these posts [x] [x]).
Personally, I don’t really have much of an opinion about a possible pregnancy, if just because I don’t know if Kaneki can even reproduce in the first place (that is a very debated question within the fandom), but I have to admit that the pregnancy idea crossed my mind during ch125 more than it did with ch122 because…
the full chapter did remind me of a bittersweet parallel to what happened with Guts/Casca and their baby
So in conclusion, I can’t be certain that Sensei was influenced by Berserk when he decided to write ch125, but I suppose that it could be a possibility considering that he added references to Berserk before. I guess it might depend on what happened next in :Re and on if Touka actually becomes pregnant or not. Also please note that this is a possible parallel of situation, not a parallel of dynamics or of characters.
I hope this post was informative for the few people who were interested by the subject. Feel free to ask if anything is unclear!
Reblogging because I thought a little more about Touka possibly being pregnant and I realized that Touka and Kaneki having a child (even if that sounds too sweet for TG + we don’t even know if Kaneki can reproduce) would make for a real schism with every situation about hybrid children that we got to see throughout TG, so maybe it’s a path that Sensei could decide to follow.
I mean, as the OEK, Kaneki is supposed to fight for coexistence between ghouls and humans, and if there are characters who were a real proof of how unfair and twisted the current world is, it’s the “hybrids”, and by that I don’t just mean Kanou’s One Eyed Ghouls.
I’ll give examples below, but basically it’s a concept that was introduced by Itori at the beginning of TG…
and that Arima expanded on when he told Kaneki about V and the Sunlit Garden:
So we do know that hybrids are rare but possible. However, so far, how were those “hybrids” treated by the world?
I know, ghoul children in general don’t happen to have a very safe life (and look at Kaneki’s childhood, even though he was a human kid) but still, when it comes to Arima, Hairu, Furuta and the other kids from the Sunlit Garden -> in their case, they were all bred together to become ghoul killers without ever being left any choice…
And Furuta even refers to himself and the others as “unfit goods” while laughing, but his reaction when Eto mocked him for not even being acknowledged by his father was pretty telling of his real feelings on the matter…
As for Eto, she didn’t have a better fate since her mother was killed, her father gave her away to the 24th ward to Noro, because he wanted her to be safe from V. However we all know that the 24th ward isn’t a really utopic place to live at and anyway, Eto never had the chance to be with her two parents because of V, which triggered negative feelings towards both of them and herself…
(which is precisely why Yoshimura once asked Kaneki to save Eto by the way, because Eto refused to acknowledge that she ever was loved by anyone which fueled her desire to destroy this world, and that probably includes Tatara’s love as well [x] [x]).
So any child of this story who was born as a hybrid had it tough, no exception so far on the matter (and there might be one or two more hybrids related to the Clowns’ gang that we don’t know yet about, as Uta referred to himself as an outcast + Itori’s expression when she talked about hybrid babies was strange).
But then, or I should rather say now, we have Kaneki and Touka, whose future is obviously very uncertain but for whom pregnancy theories have been going strong ever since ch122 (please see above in the original post for links). Most of these theories conclude that the pregnancy would actually not go or end well, which is a fair point to have in mind since TG can go rough, but considering that…
Kaneki is the OEK, a leading figure that’s supposed to help change this world and make it about coexistence between the two species
He is also one of the strongest ghouls of all Japan now
He is aware of how unfair/twisted this world is and what terrible lives Eto, Arima and other kids from the Sunlit Garden had because of it
As a human kid, he also had an abusive childhood, leaving him desperately longing for love ever since then
One could also mention Touka’s abandonment issues because of what happened to her parents (amongst other things)
… if Touka’s theoretical pregancy were to somehow terminate (I know that it’s a pretty big if), their baby could be the first “hybrid” to have a happier life than any other hybrid children before, which could positively vouch for coexistence to the world’s eye (since the baby would likely be human by Kaneki and ghoul by Touka), on top of Kaneki finally getting the family he always wished for.
Obviously, we’re completely in the realm of possibilities with this post, especially since happiness never lasts very long in TG, so expecting such a sweet and positive development might be too much, but I still felt like pointing it out since, in my opinion, it can still fit whole-heartedly within TG’s story.
I’d like to conclude by pointing out that Kaneki and Touka have been associated before with Touka’s parents but also with Yoshimura and Ukina…
…which would make their theoretical child possibly paralleling Eto; Eto whom Yoshimura asked Kaneki to save (again through bringing coexistence).
So I’m honestly really on the fence here: I didn’t particularly think a pregnancy was likely before this week, but then again, I didn’t expect Ishida to include a full chapter dedicated to Kaneki and Touka finding each other through intimacy so… at this point, I suppose anything is possible and it’s not a development that I would dislike anyway. 🙂
Sorry for the long post, but feel free to leave your thoughts or to ask if anything is unclear!
Ishida in Re ch122: *has Touka confessing to Kaneki*
TG fandom: no but Tsukiyama interrupted them so we can’t be sure that Kaneki feels the same
Ishida in Re ch124: *has Touka straddling Kaneki and going for a kiss*
TG fandom: no but maybe he’s going to block Touka’s kiss because his pal Amon once did the same with Akira
Ishida in Re ch125: *draws an entire chapter about Kaneki and Touka having sex*
TG fandom: no but what if it’s Itori and not Touka?
Ishida: (≖_≖ )
listen, that’s not touka and kaneki but itori and uta having some kind of weird role play session with their shape shifting abilities, therefore the boob mole
I was just rereading chap 34 of the original TG and sth interesting hit me. Remember when Kaneki went to helter skelter for the first time? Itori splashed some blood on his face in order to see his kakugan. Now look at the title on the bottle in Itori’s hand, it’s “Chateau clone”! So could this mean sensei’s been foreshadowing about the clones since then? Probably! We know for quite some time that members of the clowns like Donato and Uta (most likely) can make clones of themselves!
midnight-in-town 