Yes, he does! I addressed that in my answer. It’s another parallel between Kaneki and Amon and Akira–they all think of themselves as better than. I’m going to quote this meta I wrote on Kaneki and apply it to Amon and Akira with some adaptations:
Kaneki absolutely loathes himself. He sets up seemingly hypocritical
boundaries like “killing ghouls fine, killing humans no, but I’m the
ghoul king” because it’s literally the only way he can live with
himself. It’s a maladaptive coping mechanism. He does not believe he’s
worth love if he isn’t good enough, if he isn’t kind enough…
Amon sets up this “I’m a ghoul investigator and so are you Takizawa!” boundary in order to save Takizawa, even though they are both ghouls and they are both murderers at this point so there is no logic in that argument. But it’s how he lives with himself. Being a ghoul investigator was probably his way of paying back what happened with Donato as a child, of him atoning for it really–but he can’t.
Amon cannot forgive himself. And furthermore he cannot face himself. He’s fighting with the other humans and didn’t tell them he was a ghoul even though that might have actually helped convince the CCG to work with ghouls. He doesn’t want to accept his ghoul nature for the same reason Kaneki has a hard time accepting it: because to admit that he has been turned into the creature responsible for his trauma as a child, known only for killing (though that’s inaccurate) is terrifying for him. He does not want to be Donato 2.0, and by running from becoming Donato 2.0 by becoming a ghoul investigator, he teamed up with Mado (aka Donato 2.0) and became Donato 3.0. It’s tragically ironic.
As for Akira, love has always been caught up in her father since her mother died when she was so young. And Mado always viewed himself as justified killing ghouls because of what happened to Akira’s mother. So therefore love for Akira has always been tied up in having a purpose to live, and that purpose has always been tied to killing ghouls. Without that hatred, as she herself says, she’s empty. Additionally, Akira is struggling with the same black and white worldview Kaneki sets up: if ghouls are the same as humans, then she and her father are murderers, and if they are murderers and their purpose for living was wrong, do they deserve to live at all? If her father was a sadistic child murderer, how can he also be a kind father to her? (Which he was, btw.) The answer is because it’s gray, it’s all gray, but Akira is struggling to accept this.
Amon and Akira are hurting children internally as well, just like Kaneki. But that doesn’t excuse what they are doing by pretending to be better, because pretending is never a path to self-actualization. Enter Donato. And Takizawa.
I mean, the whole thing is that Takizawa also has many issues of his own that he needs to solve, because he doesn’t see himself as deserving of much for example, despite being the only one of their little trio who actually moved on from the past and accepted his new condition (even if that meant making it his punishment at the same time by letting go of Akira and Amon).
It’s as you said @hamliet: Amon and Akira are struggling to let go of the past because they’re scared of what consequences and changes their awareness about the world’s situation will bring to them.
So I really think Takizawa is supposed to be the one (the hero) making them realize that moving on and acceptance are okay (and that it doesn’t make Amon anything remotely close to Donato or Akira the worst person ever), while they’ll reassure him that he still has a place to belong.
Arata and Hikari’s ring caught on Kaneki’s severed arm serves as a sharp reminder to Touka of her parents’ fates. :re is about breaking free from your tragic heritage, but for a brief moment Touka thought that it was impossible to break the birdcage and that the tragedy of her parents had been repeated all over again. Thank goodness she kept on trying anyway! That determination in the face of seeming certain tragedy is how the series suggests we carve the path to brighter futures.
Similarly, the scene is reminiscent of:
Touka always finds herself haunted by rings. Just as Mado’s ring linked to her parents’ ring in her mind and made her realise that she was inflicting the same tragedies that made her life so miserable, seeing the ring on Kaneki’s arm made her believe she was stuck in the tragedy – and that it was her fault, in being unable to save him. Especially since Kaneki said he’d be thinking of her every time he saw it. Yowch.
No wonder this speech-bubble cracking scream. The only other time I recall this technique being used is when Kaneki found out what he did as Dragon. Both of them are suffering so much right now, in this final gauntlet before the peaceful avenue presents itself.
Touka wanted Arata to change so that they could stay together. That whole scene is Touka basically saying to Akira that they are the same, but whereas Akira is proud that her father had killed people, Touka recognizes that it was a wrong thing for Arata to do. Were he not a revenge-fueled investigator-killing machine, they could’ve stayed together longer.
That’s why she asks Akira in the beginning of their conversation, “Have you ever thought what would happen were your dad not a revenge-fueled, ghoul-killing machine?” (the answer she then gives is that Mado would have stayed with Akira longer).
Touka also doesn’t think Arata was an idiot for killing, or for getting himself caught, she says he was an idiot for choosing to stay in the past and focus on revenge instead of his children.
Basically, Akira’s entire character arc has been her emotional repression. We see this summarized pretty effectively at the end of Tokyo Ghoul.
In Tokyo Ghoul though, the idea is merely brought up not concluded upon because the manga is a tragedy and therefore ends with a significant amount of characters failing to change in time and therefore losing. Re: further deconstructs Akira’s issues though. If you’ll notice, every time that Akira represses her emotions she’s talking about her father.
It’s even confirmed by other characters, that Akira talks about her father a whole lot.
It’s not until the confrontation with Seidou though that we see a clear line drawn between Akira’s emotional repression and her father. Akira gets angry when a fellow student credits her achievements to her parents. For a long time Akira has been famous in the bureau for being a pure bred investigator but this is the first time we see how she feels about it.
In this same scene it’s Takizawa who looks at AKira. Unlike everybody else though, Takizawa compets with Akira herself, rather than AKira the product of two investigators. Which is why Akira looks at Takizawa with fondness even though he’s obviously grumbly once more about their one sided rivalry. Even if Takizawa was competing, he was competing with her, not with her parents. It’s the only relationship where somebody looks at her and sees her, and not her parents.
Remember this is also the flashback in which Akira is justifying her sudden need to rush at and protect Takizawa. This is the reason which she can’t bear to watch him die. Akira protects Takizawa, to protect herself, or rather to protect the person who sees her for herself. The same way in which much earlier Takizawa killed Houji, but still spared Akira, because Akira was the person who he most wanted to look at him.
Then we reach the point at which Akira explains why she did what she did. She makes special mention of her father, once again in the context of repressing her own emotions.
Akira’s father is what made her repress her emotions, because Akira was raised with the expectation of becoming a ghoul investigator by her father. We never really find out if this is what Akira ever wanted to or not, but it’s an expectation she chafes under. She doesn’t like being regarded as the offspring of two investigators, a natural born investigator. She doesn’t like when people look at her parents rather than her. However, her father was a major source of love in her life, so Akira ends up often trying to repress her emotions and go along with it.
This is the end result though, she can’t. She can’t repress her emotions. The person who saw her ended up bringing out Akira’s true self, her absolute worst her coldness that told Takizawa to die, and her absolute best her selflessness that made her jump in front of the person she stayed attached to for all of those three years, but with the absolute worst timing so Akira comes out in a jumble.
The ultimate goal of Akira’s character arc should be escaping her father’s shadow. As she says it quite clearly to Takizawa, no matter how much she tries to pour herself into her work she can’t. However, Akira soon loses consciousness after this. She’s not able to properly come to terms with these newly discovered feelings, not only that but the person who brought them out of her disappears.
Not only that, but the only other person around left to her is Amon, who similiarly worships and refuses to let go of Mado in any way.
Akira wants to be seen as herself, but Amon from the start has always projected onto her as Mado’s daughter. It’s the way he’s introduced to her.
Even this moment where they’re bonding, Amon immediately compares her to her father.
The bonding moment they have while drinking, both this scene and the push ups scene are entirely about Amon’s grief for her father.
Even their first and last conversation in the manga, takes place in front of Mado’s grave.
Considering that Amon’s idealization of Mado has not diminished at all, even on a subconscious level.
I can’t imagine it’s likely that Amon would be the one to look at Akira and see Akira, rather than Mado’s daughter. Even the Akira he remembers when Touka asks him if he ever missed her, is making the exact same pose she made when she introduced herself as Mado’s daughter.
So we see Touka being the first person to budge Mado’s image in Akira’s mind, by making the suggestion that Akira herself might have been in denial all along. That her father, and also therefore herself did not have to be a ghoul investigator.
What Akira describes as feeling is emptiness, but I can’t believe it’s that. Considering that Akira’s entire arc has been about emotional repression, and the confusing situation she was thrown in, it’s much more likely that Akira not knowing how to feel any more has decided to repress her emotions entirely. She even says so herself in the same chapter she describes her emotions as welling up inside of her.
That her substitute for feeling her own emotions, for making her own decisions has always been to cling to others.
She describes her ideals from back then as not really things she believed in, but rather clinging to the frills of justice.
Then we have Amon and Akira’s solution to this emptiness.
Say what you will about whether or not you think this moment is growth, but immediately afterwards we have this. Their next canon scene in the manga, Akira who got so close to finally escaping the lens of comparing herself to her father once again, immediately drops her father’s name in conversation.
In an arc about escaping from her father’s shadow and learning to see things through her own eyes, Akira who literally had to take a near fatal blow for Seidou and almost die before she could realize that it was impossible for her to pour her emotions away and live to her father’s standards, is once again… doing exactly that.
That is what her statement in regards to her father meant. Akira’s been pouring herself into a mould for so long she’s completely forgotten how to be herself, and when she tries too, she’s so repressed she feels empty inside. In that case it’s easier for her to cling to others then actually to try living and thinking as herself again. So even though her father is the source of all of this emptiness, she ends up back with him again because that’s easier than trying to find out who she is.
From a freudian angle the only thing that would truly free Akira was killing her father, but he’s already dead so we’ll see how that works out. It’s also important to mention that Seidou Takizawa, who has the most emotional clarity of the trio has already killed his father twice over, both with his literal father and Houji.
Hello! Well, I wouldn’t compare one couple with another, especially since I couldn’t be less sure that it’s all romance and rainbows between Amon and Akira.
I mean, sure, they kissed, but that doesn’t mean that now they’re just enjoying living their peaceful romance, especially when it’s war everywhere else. Anyway, from where I stand, I find that Akira and Amon are lying to themselves way more than Kaneki and Touka, which is why I wouldn’t try to compare their “happiness”, even more Akira and Amon are as involved as Kaneki and Touka with the current war and won’t be able to escape it.
The omake is basically one more indication that Akira and Amon are just… trapped in the past, unable to move on from their days at the CCG and to fully accept their new situation, and I think that because the whole omake for them revolves around Mado Kureo.
I understand that he was and will always be important to the two of them, but we could have had this omake in TG and it would have 100% worked with their dynamic at that time. However, we’re not in TG but in :Re and their situation changed while their old dynamic basically stagnated and thus… this omake is one more hint for me that Akira and Amon are just… refusing to face their issues with their current situations.
Elaborating on that would make this reply ten times longer, so in case you want to read more about why I think like that, please read these posts [x] [x] by @linkspooky and this one [x] by @undergroundsky.
Sorry Anon, you were probably expecting something more light-hearted as an answer but… while it definitely was cute, it isn’t very satisfying when it comes to their dynamic or fulfilling their developments some more.
Thanks for passing by in the first place and have a nice day!
Lol Anon, are you @linkspooky by any chance? xD Nah, but in any case I totally agree!
I absolutely love the way Ishida wrote Mado (first as the worst villain ever in vol2/3 and then slowly we started discovering more about him and how he wasn’t *just* crazy) but I agree: be it for Akira or Amon, they need to start acknowledging that Mado’s way wasn’t the best and they should reflect on how to belong in this world without having to relay on anyone but themselves.
But you know, I can also understand why it’s hard for Amon. I mean, he was raised by Donato who forced him to be an accomplice and to help with killing other children, so it was definitely traumatizing and to this day, Amon still can’t forgive himself for being so weak and not being able to resist him, which is why Mado Kureo was such a great role model for him.
Mado seemed weak, but he didn’t care for promotion and he killed ghouls out of revenge, so that’s why Amon went head over heels for him and why he still can’t be entirely on the ghouls’ side, as he told Kaneki.
I’m awaiting the day where Amon and Akira will finally acknowledge that their situation changing doesn’t have to be a bad thing. It’s only this way that they will be able to go confront Seidou, something that my boy definitely needs as well.
Like, for real, this omake series hurt: Amon and Akira being as if nothing happened in :Re while Seidou was having PTSD dreams all alone. :/// It’s literally such an accurate depiction of their dynamism right now that I could cry.
That’s Sensei, obviously he knows his stuff with his characters, but it still hurt. ;_;
Thanks for passing by Anon and have a nice day! :3
EDIT: well, what do you know Anon, @linkspooky literally wrote a post on the subject!
Hahah xD enjoy their post then, because it’s totally something that they think!
Honestly, I’m glad other people seem to see beyond the omake because it wasn’t just about some cute Akiramon interaction. I legit got called out by a very rude Anon who accused me of only caring about Takizawa but the truth is, I’m all for the 3 of them being happy, together or on their own, romantically or by living in the past, as long as the trio gets closure through interacting.
Because Seidou needs it as much as they do and he is obviously still a part of their dynamism, which is why the way Ishida portrayed their dynamism with this omake is just a brilliant reminder, in my opinion, that the three of them still need to confront each other at least one more time.
As I like to say, it’s never been just Seiaki or Akiramon or even “Seidamon” for these characters, they’re all a part of the same dynamism.
Anyway, enjoy Link’s post Anon! And have a nice day :))
Hey Anon! Yes, I agree with that analysis. I’m not one to say that we should all forgive Kureo or hate on him, everyone in this manga did some morally reprehensible stuff so liking a character or not is really all subjective, and all I tried to explain was that I didn’t read that omake as a simple picture of a happy ending for Akira and Amon. It’s always nice to get some content about Kureo in the first place. xD
Anyway, I don’t think it’s possible for Akira and Amon to become “perfect” characters, which is to say, moving on from the past, acknowledging what they don’t want to acknowledge, becoming more in favor of the ghoul side than they currently are… but it would be nice to see them at least try because their current situation is asking for it (Amon is a OEG and Akira shielded a ghoul, they’re enemies of the CCG as much as Kaneki and the rest).
It’s the case for every character or so in TG actually, not just them. xD It’s just that the current omake was a bit too sweet considering that everyone else is suffering right now. xDD
Yes hello time to over-analyze the omakes again even though they’re mainly meant to be jokes.
The omakes give us a glimpse into what Amon and Akira, and Seidou are doing separately without one another. As expected they’re both stuck in the past in a way, with Akira continuing to pore over old stories of her father even though everything in her character arc has suggested the way to move forward is in fact to let go of her father, and Seidou much less willingly being haunted by nightmares of his past and blurred memories sifting into his dreams as well. Something he is clearly not able to sort out for himself on his own without support.
midnight-in-town 