A ghoul being infected with ROS might be close to a kakuja…. I wonder if Ayato will get infected and wind up looking like his papa
So I was rereading the whole arc today and actually, you know what Kaneki’s new body reminds me of?
And it’s somehow so very fitting, in my opinion, when Touka still has unresolved issues about her father and even spoke of her fear of abandonment with Kaneki before, without mentioning the fact that Arata still is probably experimented on in the CCG’s labs.
Plus, we know there is an indirect parallel of situation between Kaneki and Arata (and Touka and her mom), without mentioning a few similarities of characters, as Ayato pointed out before, so I’d love if Sensei were to draw a more defined link between Kaneki’s current situation and Arata’s own horrible fate.
Considering the new Garden info (be still, my poor heart), Rize is obliviously not just a figment of Kaneki’s imagination anymore so can I say that I am glad she was still self-aware and able to remember that meeting with Kaneki? Perhaps there is hope she can return to normal?
Fried chicken is in store for her. (I’m sorry, I’m sorry, every time I see that autocorrect I have to make a terrible joke.)
But Touka’s arc is definitely not over. To have an arc, one has to have flaws and struggle with them, which Touka does have them and does struggle with. It’s been remarkably consistent throughout :re, and I think it’s a very well written arc. I’ll fight anyone who says she’s useless or doesn’t have an arc.
I think you sum up where I expect her arc to take her quite well: she’ll have to come to terms with her father, reunite with Yoriko, and deal with Kaneki, and yes, I expect her to come to a situation soon wherein she needs to fight. All of these situations notably contain high emotional stakes for Touka. And the struggle we’ve seen from Touka in :re concerns her pain over losing loved ones. Touka loves deeply and unconditionally when she loves someone. It’s her greatest strength. But as a ghoul, she’s always had to live while losing, and she hasn’t yet asked why they need to lose at all in :re.
Touka expresses after chapter 120′s confrontation in the original TG that her hitting Kaneki is something she deeply regrets, and indicates that she likely blames herself for what would then happen in the Anteiku Raid:
But. We know that she suffered during this time too. She believes that it’s better for Kaneki to be without her, but love also speaks its needs, and Touka is not good at directly communicating her needs. Again, this is not a criticism–I’m not saying she should be better, and that this in any way makes her less of a good person. But instead of telling Kaneki he hurt her by staying away for so long, she slams his head into a counter. It’s HUMOR and is not portraying abuse and anyone who says that it is needs to take reading comprehension, but it actually does fit her character’s tendencies to avoid the larger issue.
An exception is when Touka does a great job in chapter 122 of articulating to Kaneki that she likes him. It’s a bit fumbling, but she wasn’t shy, and that’s a positive step for her character for sure.
And she chose her child over her friends. That’s good. That’s what no one else in the story has done so far, and that’s why even though I think it’s possible we might get a fakeout scare with the baby pretty soon (like Touka getting wounded in the abdomen), the baby is probably going to be fine. (I hope we don’t get that scare but if we do I’m not going to worry.) But at the same time, she knew Kaneki was following the same path he followed before the Anteiku Raid when he was torn about how to lead, and she didn’t confront him like last time–likely because she does not know her confrontation, for all its flaws of violence, actually worked. Like, Kaneki did decide to return, but it was too late because TG was a tragedy whereas :re is not. Imagine how a loving confrontation from Touka would go. Seriously, that’d be some good shit right there.
And since then, we’ve gotten a pattern with Touka. Basically, every time she might have to confront someone or something, someone steps in for her. I’m not criticizing her again, because I think her leaving others to fight is the right choice considering that she’s pregnant, and it is clearly not easy for her. But the fact that it’s repeated so frequently within such a short span of chapters is almost certainly deliberate, and Ishida is probably setting up this pattern to warn us of something coming.
Firstly, Yomo (family, he almost died), then the 0 Squad (children, 2 did die), Hinami (basically family, almost died), the Quinxes (Kaneki’s kids). It’s repeated four times in 20 chapters. The common thread in all these is that they’re related to children or family. Thus I’m predicting Touka is going to be forced to fight at some point for her child (family, a child)–for her child’s life, but also for a world in which her half-ghoul child will not be looked down upon for their nature. (I’m really starting to wonder if V is going to show up when she goes to dig him out.)
Keeping in mind the story’s themes, this is also significant because it’s basically telling Touka she cannot run away from the conflict (again why it might make narrative sense for V to show). Not even that she’s tried to necessarily, but let’s look at Yoshimura. He did much good in his life and Touka parallels him in :re, but he also utterly failed as a father and in the end believed people should pay for their sins and basically at Anteiku wanted to commit suicide to atone. He more or less maintained the status quo, but Touka–his parallel in :re–cannot do that. :re was burned down. And she can’t run from what her husband’s become (and she isn’t trying to because she loves him, and that’s good). But she’s probably going to have to face the dark outside forces that create the birdcage they all live in, which people have, thus far, largely ignored.
Hi! Okay so, I’m not sure of what exactly you’re asking, since you’re wondering about relevance but at the same time all your examples about Touka are relevant to explain her character, but anyway I’ll try to expand.
First of all, maybe it’s a question of word choice, but as an “individual” your only role is to exist and live your life to me, so I’ll personally speak about Touka’s characterization instead:
You were wondering about why Touka fights even though all she wants is a peaceful life? Well, what good is your “peaceful life” if there is no one by your side?
So the reason Touka fights is not because she believes in coexistence and thinks that her peaceful life will come along with it. On the contrary, she sees her own species in a more negative light than humans, going as far as to not even see herself as someone who would ever be “beautiful” because “she’s a ghoul”.
No, the reason Touka fights is because she can’t just live while losing things and people. Not anymore. Initially, this philosophy was one she probably tried to live by between TG and :Re after Yomo told her to run away from the 20th ward:
But after Kaneki/Haise came back, this philosophy began to shatter. She went to help Tsukiyama’s escape during the Roze arc, she went with Ayato to save Hina in Cochlea and now…
She’s most likely going to save her husband.
Again, this has nothing to do with coexistence. She doesn’t want to save “the one eyed king, so that he’ll stop rampaging through Tokyo and kill humans”, rather she wants to save her husband because she loves him and because
…she’s building a family with him.
And I spoke about this before, even if it’s not really the subject here, but Kaneki is exactly the same. The OEK role was initially given to him by Eto and Arima, and the only reason he accepted was because at the time he had nothing else to focus on in order to keep on living. It’s different now, because of his love for Touka and yearning for a future with her, which is the main reason he ended up going berserk recently:
So you could call that “selfishness” if you want, but looking at the whole story, Touka and Kaneki are characters who could be summed up (in my opinion) by “I was selfless for a long time and I really tried to help everyone else, but now fuck it I come first”.
That’s why deep down neither actually give a single care about the current conflict. Or well, they do, because ending it means their friends not dying anymore and that Kaneki will stop being a leading figure, but ultimately it’s about themselves, not about making the world a better place (they might eventually come to that though, for their child’s sake, but it’s not the case right now).
Back to Touka, one of her biggest issues to solve in my opinion before she get to live a peaceful life would be finally accepting that ghouls aren’t inferior to humans, which is something she doesn’t see right now but which might change…
through finding out what happened to Arata, since his fate is one more proof that the CCG, a human organization, did terrible things too
through meeting again with Yoriko, who now knows about Touka being a ghoul and who still sees her as a precious friend anyway
through giving birth to her baby, which would help her with seeing herself in a different light.
Finally, if we were to speak more generally of Touka’s relevance in the story (since it seemed to be your original question), then I think the one mistake not to make on the subject (and that unfortunately more than a few readers do) would be to define her character based on the romance between her and Kaneki.
In fact, both Touka and Kaneki, even if they were described to be a set, are not solely defined by the mutual love they share. They exist as two different individuals and falling in love with each other is but one part of their respective characterization.
Anyway, so if I were to give an image to explain Touka’s relevance from my point of view, I’d describe her as everyone’s pillar of strength. Example: to be quite honest, even as a huge fan of hers, I was almost convinced that Tsukiyama would be the one leading ghouls during that common front with the CCG, but guess what…
I was wrong. And it’s extremely interesting because, as I was saying above, Touka isn’t and doesn’t want to be a leader.
She isn’t even vouching for this common front because it’s important for the ghouls’ rebellion and for coexistence, nope, and yet she’s the current leader figure after Kaneki went Dragon, which speaks a lot about how many characters look up to and respect her because of what she represents and did for them.
Even Yomo, who used to be like a mentor figure and who was the one who told her that “they could only live while losing things”, apparently left that philosophy aside too, probably because seeing Touka and Kaneki falling in love and wanting to build a future for themselves changed his mind.
So Touka’s relevance as a character has always been like a huge light shoved in the readers’ face throughout the whole story in my opinion, which is why I’m baffled whenever I read people saying “she isn’t doing anything” or “she’s just Kaneki’s love interest”.
In fact, that’s the contrast with Hide’s own relevance as a character to the story (since people who shit on Touka generally love his character). He’s as relevant as she is, but it’s for different reasons and it’s also not expressed similarly in the story because of his strong shady game, which is why both their dynamic with Kaneki are interesting.
In other words, Touka and Hide are both relevant, but for Touka it’s written in an almost blinding way while Hide shines too, but it’s as if it comes from behind the stage TG’s story takes place on.
There, it was long, sorry for rambling. Anyway, I don’t know if this helps? You seemed to be wondering about Touka’s relevance as a character, so I hope I could at least answer this, if that’s what you meant.
That’s precisely it, I think. Freudian stories=overcoming your parents. Kaneki, Touka, and Ayato will overcome the Arata/Hikari/Renji tragedy. They will live, I do think so (Kaneki’s the most likely to die of the three but I still don’t think that’s terribly likely). Kaneki should overcome the tragedy of the first OEK, and Touken should overcome V to not repeat the Kuzen & Ukina tragedy with Eto–aka live to raise their kid. The kid shouldn’t die either.
It’s another reason why I think Mutsuki, Urie, and Saiko should also be saved from this tragedy. Just passing on tragedy means the cycle will repeat itself–or, at least, it always has in TG. The tragic cycles always have repeated themselves after they claimed more victims. Why would we believe that the cycle would be satiated with Mutsuki, Urie, and Saiko? Someone needs to say No More. But to do that they need to face themselves as they truly are and work for it.
The world of tragedy needs to be destroyed and a new one raised up.
if I may, Furuta even said that parallels were bullshit, so to speak…
…because they only meant to prove that the characters didn’t grow up enough to overcome a similar situation that had already happened in the past.
That’s why I totally agree with you. 🙂 First of all, TG was described to be a tragedy from the very first chapter while :Re never was described as a tragedy. On top of this though, we got so many parallels between TG and :Re (which Ishida
recently
debunked the meaning of, using Furuta in ch143) that it’s precisely the reason :Re will probably end on a more joyful note than TG and that most of the characters will succeed where they (or their predecessors) failed in the past.