midnight-in-town:

linkspooky:

midnight-in-town:

BTW, I forgot to mention that earlier during the week, but @linkspooky and I discussed the idea that the Clowns might still have a little agent inside the CCG who is leaking info and thus responsible for their perfect timing in the latest chapter!

And since Furuta is not in the CCG anymore in the current arc, it means it’s most likely someone else (a character we know?) who’s been leaking these info. 

We’ve had another hint before about an unknown little spy during ch143 of TG actually, when Itori said…

because Furuta was there in the same scene, so the way she explained it to the rest of the gang makes me think that she possibly got this information from another person who had their way into the CCG.

Same for the Auction arc, since Uta didn’t bother hiding to Mutsuki that he knew the details of the operation:

even if this time the info could have also come from Furuta. 

So who could this agent be, if they’re real of course (and if we know them)?

• TBH, I still am not ready to let go of a possible link between Hide and the Clowns, especially since I still think that Hide possibly has an agenda besides just helping Kaneki (sorry to anyone who doesn’t like this idea, but I find this makes him even more interesting that way)

• I also considered Ito Kuramoto because… well, he’s pretty irrelevant so far amongst all the other recurring investigators so maybe Sensei has something planned with him + he kinda has a fox face and that generally means the character is cunning/sly xD

• Someone from Suzuya’s personal squad? Hanbee and Nakarai aside, the others two are like Kuramoto, pretty irrelevant despite being recurring characters…

That’s all I’ve got. Maybe the explanation to the impeccable timing is entirely different and there is no spy, but…

…I’m really trying not to underestimate Itori’s information network. xD

While talking with acchan we came up with the possibility that the spy among the CCG might actually be an unwitting one. 

Remember, there was somebody else present at the meeting besides Kimi, Touka, Nishiki and Hideyoshi. Kaneki was there as well, and the attack started the moment the he suggested he go to find the source of the poison. 

Kaneki himself might be the informant for the clowns, though entirely unaware of it. 

Remember we still don’t know the full explanation of what happened in V14, and when Hide and Kaneki were on the rooftop talking abot it and confirming that Kaneki was indeed the one who scarred Hide’s face, it would have been the perfect time to finally elaborate on that whole scene…

Unless… there was something we are still not meant to know about it. Both Nikki and Shar @kingkishou​ and @mawjaw​ respectively have put forward a theory for awhile that during V14, there’s something suspicious about the empty eye underneath Kaneki’s eyepatch. [1,2].

Basically the theory goes, before Kaneki has his eye gauged out by Arima, we’re shown an eyepatch covering one of his eyes and his mask missing. Then the eyepatch is removed and the eye is already gaged out and looks like an empty socket before Arima even struck there.

However, afterwards suspiciously Uta is shown holding an eye while musing about the fate of Kaneki. 

If that’s indeed Kaneki’s eye that he’s holding, removed by Uta himself that would put Uta present at the scene, as a third party besides both Kaneki and Hide. 

Before I go on, here’s what we do know about V14.

• Hide found Kaneki and either brought him too or found him inside of the sewers and told him to flee through V14. 
• Hide knew ahead of time somehow that Arima would be there waiting for him.
• Hide told Kaneki that he would have to “prove his worth” to Arima.
• Hide offered himself for Kaneki to eat up to replenish himself. Kaneki was indeed the person who ate Hide and scarred him. 

However there are still several missing pieces that we do not know, and really cannot solve with just inference and occam’s razor. 

We still do not know: 

• Who saved Hide when he was lying in the sewers half dead with half of his face eaten off. 
• Who gave Kaneki the eyepatch that covers half of his face. 
• Also, who took Kaneki’s mask after that point. As he was still wearing it after the fight with Amon, and is shown still wearing it when crawling around in pain before Hide found him.

Considering the fact that Hide lived, therefore it’s logical to infer that there was a third party. We also now have an explanation for who sent Kaneki the book, but not who sent him his mask back.

I mean, presumably it was Uta. 

We don’t know exactly though his reason for sending it. Unless it was bait for Kaneki to return to his shop. However, if Uta knew that Kaneki was missing his mask becase Uta was the one who removed it from him due to him being the third party in the sewer than the reasons behind the two presents would click together. 

Uta as a third party, removed Kaneki’s eyeball, either saved or facilitated the saving of Hide, and then placed a microphone behind Kaneki’s eyeball, or some similiar device to the one on Hajime Hazuki’s tongue in order to further track him as the main character in the clown’s play or for some other weird Uta related reason. 

We are given several hints that there’s something behind one of Sasaki’s eyes that is giving him chronic pain. Specifically a pain in the back of his eyes. 

In a recent color illustration, Kaneki is also shown as bleeding from that exact same eye which has caused people including myself to speculate he might need to rip out his human eye at some point rather than his ghoul one as a symbol of accepting his ghoul side.

Anyway, that’s all food for thought. Here’s my takeaway from what acchan put forward. There’s a microphone behind Kaneki’s eye still and Uta’s the one who put it there because he’s sneaky the clown. 

@linkspooky THANK YOU! I had forgotten to mention this precisely but this is indeed another possibility (and I just love the sewer theory, because it also gives an agenda to Hide, as I explained in one link I added above)!

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Hi Anon and thanks for reading! 🙂 Well, it’s because Kuramoto is rather recurring as an investigator and yet he has 0 arc or development (unlike Ui, Takeomi or even Kiyoko) that I’m suspecting him.
I mean it’s Ishida-sensei we’re talking about here and he even gave him several birthday arts, so I simply think there could be more to his character. xD

As for Hide, well, you said it, there is indeed something about his outfit in that childhood’s play to be remembered since Ganbo (a Clown) had a very similar makeup. I proposed other ideas in the link I added above, so please check them out because there is more than one I’m suspecting a link between Hide and the Clowns!

Just to precise though, Hide possibly having a few interests in common with the Clowns doesn’t mean that they’re 100% agreeing on everything or that he’s a villain (since not all the Clowns are villains in the first place, in my opinion).
I mean, this is just a theoretical example, but since Hide motivated Kaneki to go find a cure in the latest chapter, if he’s actually the person who informed the Clowns, you could see this as him making sure that the Clowns would act up precisely so that Kaneki would get moving.

Anyway, it’s all theoretical and I also really like the idea that Spooky-chan proposed just above 😀 so this should give us plenty to think about until we can see which explanation it is. 🙂

Thanks again for sharing your thoughts! Have a nice weekend Anon :3

…OKAY, you sound like you want the whole thing Anon, so I and @linkspooky will deliver. 😉 

For the record though, let me just say I really enjoy Hide’s character (and I think his friendship with Kaneki is 200% genuine) but I can’t stand fans who make it sound like he’s only about Kaneki. 
Taking away a character’s agency when he was given so many warning signs of playing a bigger game is just the worst you can do as a fan, because Hide is way more compelling as someone who has other goals besides just Kaneki (and besides Kaneki himself really doesn’t need people revolving just around him, be it Touka, Hide, Tsukiyama or anyone else). 

Anyway, “am I suspecting Hide”? Why, yes I am. I even gave a link above to a recap post about why I think there might be a link between him and the Clowns + Spooky-chan just wrote above too why there might be a strong link with Uta.
If you need more to consider that Hide possibly has an agenda though, then how about the latest crack theory thought up by @linkspooky?

It’s about ch31.5 and Kaneki’s two gifts for Christmas. We know that Hide definitely is the one behind the book (:Re ch164) and Uta the one behind the mask (:Re ch36). The remaining question is who, out of them both, sent the two items since they arrived at the same time? 

One could think it’s Uta, but…

…he denied it. Obviously Uta is not above lying (he’s a troll for a reason), but @linkspooky​ pointed out to me that Uta literally said that he “intended [the mask] as a present for a regular customer” precisely as we get a panel focusing on the headphones he was listening to and…

guess who is often associated with headphones?

Besides, didn’t people point out that Hide’s wound totally has a similarity to Kaneki’s very first mask? Which means that Kaneki’s first mask would be ideal to cover Hide’s wound:

So @linkspooky’s latest idea is that Uta actually sent Kaneki’s old mask to Hide as a present and he’s the one who then sent both the mask and the book to Kaneki for Christmas, which would mean that 1) Uta didn’t lie in ch36 and 2) Hide and Uta totally have a link in that case (and as I also proposed a while ago, maybe Hide even was the one Uta was playing chess with in ch38).

You can add this to the sewer theory that Spooky-chan explained just above, as well as my own recap post that’s proposing a few other ideas of the same ilk. 

Finally, if you or anyone else still don’t think that a link between Hide and the Clowns is likely at all, then how about some early foreshadowing instead?

Because this is definitely about the current arc + it says “controlled by magicians” right above and Hide…

…was strongly associated with being a magician from a long time ago already.

Anyway, you have to understand that I’m not calling Hide a villain.
However, he’s an extremely cunning character about whom we know almost nothing and, most importantly, he was being a thorn in the Washuus’ back according to his own words, which means that strong allies (like the Clowns) could have been useful and thus I’m totally calling him out on having an agenda that isn’t revolving just around Kaneki. 

TL;DR I totally suspect Hide of having a link with the Clowns (Uta and Itori specifically), just like I suspect him from possibly being the one who made sure that the Clowns would start shit up the moment they did so in the latest chapter (possibly because he’s a part of Itori’s info network), so that Kaneki would hurry up and leave to find a cure. 

And if not him, then it’s Kaneki who doesn’t know that he has a microphone behind his right eye ever since V14. Or it’s Kuramoto. 

As always though maybe I’m wrong, but frankly there isn’t a lot of things we know almost nothing about besides V, the Clowns and Hide in the plot, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they were all linked one way or another.

I hope it answers your question! Have a nice weekend Anon :))