forming a very small remnant of something that was once much larger or more noticeable and Obstinacy, the quality of stubbornness. The caption on the colored title page could be a reference to the fact that Kaneki survived dragon, which might be an unexpected outcome to Furuta.
Here’s a short not well articulated kinda drunk sounding theory. It’s more like a collection of ideas really… I read a few theories and was also personally thinking about how Kaneki’s body is being purposefully used and then discarded only as kind of breeding vessel for a new phase and life cycle of dragon. And story wise that makes sense but I think that’s possibly only really because the natural process was kinda hijacked by using an artificial ghoul not because it’s natural for the life cycle of the dragon to truly kill the host.
Because I mean… Kaneki is an artificial dragon. In the case of the original OEK dragon (Well… it was called “Serpent" or Naga but same kind of being) the kakuhou and it’s DNA actually belonged to the natural born OEK, meaning the dragon was probably just trying to make a new clone of itself. (Probably Uta)
Like some weird fungus that feed off itself and tries to remake it’s host (which is also itself in the case of a ghoul) as well as creating more of itself. (What if it was turning humans into ghoul’s with it’s genetics so it could continue feeding on it’s own genetics like what triggered it’s creation in the first place)
Maybe the reason Kaneki probably doesn’t seem to have healed is probably because the dragon is supposed to recreate itself at the end of it’s life cycle since it’s original form is left worn out by the process. (Maybe in some weird biological attempt for the half ghoul body to rid itself of it’s human-ness it just kinda explodes in a mass of confused genetic data when confronted with an excess of it’s own RC cells and kakuhou and then recreates it’s self as a “pure” ghoul and all Kaneki’s human data was thrown out after numerous failed recreations though I have zero proof of that, I said this sounded drunk, I know only very little about biology also it doesn’t explain the “spores” turning humans into ghouls)
So even though it seems like it might have made some attempt to recreate him (see all the lifeless clones in the eye/eggs) probably because he was dragon’s originator and his kakuhou does (or did) seemingly store his genetic data perfectly enough to literally regrow parts of his brain with their memories intact (maybe it didn’t work recreating him for the same reason his arms didn’t grow back right his body was wearing down and the genetic copies were corrupted. Though if Nishiki’s theory about the telomeres being lengthened by a large influx of RC cells this concept it bull shit)
Unfortunately for Kaneki his kakuhou isn’t truly his and the kakuhou’s in the Furuta coffin children squad and “nucleus” definitely weren’t.
Or maybe Rize literally regrew from the nucleus in primordial soup of her own DNA and her RC cells that was dragon despite Kaneki being the dominate copy it tried to make initially. Maybe that’s why it remade her perfectly. IDK Because there had to be some precedence for the creation of the egg for Furuta to know about but I doubt the “nucleus” (whatever the fuck that is) of the original OEK was separate from him and then consumed and yet the egg was probably still somehow created if Furuta knew about it as a possibility.
Finishing writing this I can think of numerous reasons why saying all of this makes no sense and I’m just sort of spitting what comes in my head without researching because it’s 3 am and I can’t sleep. But maybe this will at least trigger a thought in someone else.
@littlemissymonster actually, this makes a lot of sense to me and this saves me the trouble of making a post because this is basically what I think too. 🙂
I agree with you, there should be yet another parallel between what Kaneki became in the current arc vs what happened with the Nagaraj 100 years ago, especially since Furuta admitted to being inspired by a legend/fairy tale…
except that as you said, where Furuta was expecting Rize to be “reborn” (because it was Rize’s kakuhou in the first place), the same OEG probably was recreated from the Nagaraj 100 years ago.
Here’s the thing for me: I find it’s really interesting that the kakuja tried to pull Kaneki back in…
…because it means that Kaneki being saved from his kakuja is just really the result of a big luck (starting from Tsukiyama being able to gather so many metal detecting devices in record time to the Qs helping Touka). Whereas 100 years ago…
…the original One Eyed Washuu very probably couldn’t be extracted from his kakuja which led to it turning into stone after its eyeballs were destroyed.
In other words, this is how I’d sum up this possibility based on a parallel between the Nagaraj and huge kakuja!Kaneki…
In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if Uta was “reborn” more than just once over the last 100 years, considering the flashback with Yomo (assuming he told the truth to Kaneki of course) + stuff like gasmask86 and it works also regarding those clones both he and Kaneki are able to make…
The biology details for how/why Rize could be reborn from Kaneki + the Oggai are a bit lost on me right now (even if I think that Kaneki not looking so well is possibly because all that he ate was used to fuel the kakuja and maybe recreate Rize), but if ghoulism is akin to parasitism, in the end it’s not so surprising that Sensei would introduce a life cycle (based on monoxenous development).
I’m sure Furuta or someone else will explain soon anyway but it’s fun to consider ideas. :))
I would like to talk about this “nucleus” and how Kaneki became “complete” after eating it 🤔
I am reluctant to write about the scientific aspects
surrounding this chapter (even though there are plenty of scientific insights
relevant to the plot) because I am not sure if the English translation is
accurate. The translation is using some key biological terms that are otherwise
inaccessible for the translators unless they are in the field or have some
general biological background.
The term nucleus refers to the compartment of the cell that
contains the genome aka the entire set of Chromosomes. Whenever the term is
used like it was used in this chapter, aka nucleus being transferred or donated
or implemented in a host, it means that this is a nucleus from a blastocyst,
the first stage of fetal development. Since we know the nucleus is not coming
from a fetus, it must be resembling the nucleus of the blastocyst.
So what are the qualities of the blastocyst? It is the stage
of development where cells are undifferentiated. The blastocyst is the location
where the most stem cells occur. The stem cells can differentiate to virtually
all kinds of other cells, and this is why we call them totipotent stem cells: they can
regenerate the entire body if you transfer them to a cytoplasm, another cell.
Dolly, the first cloned sheep was produced from adult
somatic cells, aka cells not coming from a blastocyst. Of course the rate of this
working is almost close to zero… whereas if the same experiment was done using
cells (DNA) from a blastocyst, Dolly would have lived longer, and scientists
would have produced tons and tons of clones other than Dolly. This, however, is
subject to many ethical and religious regulations… a topic that is not of our
concern at the moment.
Back to what Kanou meant… if he indeed was talking about a
similar nucleus, then this re-enforces the theory that the rc cells are some
sort of stem cells that have a wide range of potency (multipotent, pluripotent,
oligopotent, and unipotent) and some of them… the Washuu’s .. or in this case,
Rize’s, may even have totipotency, which is the highest level of potency aka
can regenerate the entire body from scratch (while the other potency types
above differ in their ability to regenerate some types of cells versus others
and can’t regenerate an entire human/ghoul from scratch).
By accepting many nuclei, each nucleus coming from one oggai
child, Kaneki is now a multi-nucleated entity whereby each nucleus is
generating an entire functional body at an extremely fast rate. Since the nuclei
are all fused within this body, then the Kakuja form is adopted and expanded
into the dragon state we got. Linking this to cancer (which is a topic
Ishida-sensei has been hinting at throughout the manga, but I did not have the
time to explain it yet due to my hectic schedule, as well as the complexity of
the subject), the process that Kaneki is currently experiencing is rapid cell
division and proliferation that is uncontrolled aka Cancer/tumor genesis …
which can also explain the behavior of uncontrolled stem cell differentiation
seen in regeneration, kagune formation, and kakuja formation in ghouls.
This also reinforces the theory that the kakuhou is the
source of stem cells that continuously replenishes stem cells in the body of a
ghoul.
Hi! Actually a few people asked me the same thing privately, so here’s what I told them. I’m definitely not certain…
but I think that nucleus is something more advanced in
the kakuhou surgery than what Kanou did to Kaneki or Furuta with Rize’s kakuhou, especially since Kanou mentions it as something coming after he “mass produced” the Oggai.
Now, I don’t know for sure what that nucleus could be, maybe it’s something he found thanks to
experimenting for a long time or maybe when studying Chigyou’s method about the Qs
surgery? However, it’s something that Kaneki apparently ended up receiving from the moment
he stabbed Furuta when becoming Dragon and so, I was thinking, maybe it’s going to be relevant to the “advanced aging” problem?
I mean, look…
There is something strange about Furuta’s left side that we can see when Kanou talks about the nucleus, but remember about Furuta’s own comment regarding his “perfect” physical appearance after he was badly injured by Marude and co, as he arrived to the 24th ward?
So yep, I think it’s possible that there is a link between Furuta looking just fine after being heavily injured (when we know that regenerating for artificial OEGs is making them age faster and that the more they age the harder they can fully heal, like Kaneki), and that nucleus that Kanou “gave him”.
Besides, here’s another thing that Kanou said:
and maybe I’m reading too much into this, but medicine applications are going to be useless if
we don’t solve the issue that ghoul cells have the working enzyme that allows telomeres to lengthen when in human cells it’s inactivated (except for stem cells or tumorous cells), since that fundamental difference is the reason Kaneki, as an
artificial OEG, is aging so fast.
So I think that maybe that special nucleus that Kanou gave to Furuta could contain that telomerase
enzyme and that, by taking it from Furuta when he attacked him, Kaneki might now have a way to solve his aging problem.
Finally, I also like this theory because the nucleus as Kanou’s & Furuta’s “last gift” to Kaneki would be such an ironic plot twist, don’t you think? After fucking up so many lives, starting by Kaneki’s, Kanou (apparently) killed himself and is now never going to be punished. In spite of this though, he might also be the reason (with Furuta as the intermediary) that Kaneki is eventually going to solve the aging problem that’s threatening his future.
Again, I’m not sure at all, it’s just an idea and I haven’t seen this discussed yet, so take it with a huge grain of salt!
I’ve mentioned it before, but this all might mean that ghouls all age more rapidly than humans, but it’s not noticeable because the process is slowed down so vastly by their intake of regenerative RC cells.
If that’s so, it makes sense that the Garden kids are just ghouls who can’t (or are told they can’t) replenish RC cells. That’s why Furuta– who rarely fights and has a synthetic kakuhou– has black hair at the same age Arima’s was almost completely white.
Kaneki made a point when he said that his hair was going black again because he was eating regularly at the CCG and not expending any RC cells. The buildup allowed his hair to regenerate. It also explains why his hair went all black very rapidly after eating Eto’s kakuja (it was a massive influx) and completely white after Yamori and Arima (expending his stock too quickly).
And speaking of Eto, I wrote a meta a while ago about her ability as a sort-of “fountain of youth”. It seems like she has a gift of longevity (despite her comments about “getting old”), since her body is constantly replenishing herself on top of cannibalization.
Flowers grow on decomposed materials
She’s also able to “give” her “gift” to others, possibly by depositing parts of herself in others (like when she tore out Banjou’s ribs) and thereby giving them a huge boost in highly-concentrated RC cells.
She’s the opposite of what the Garden kids are.
Plus, the “medicine” being given to Okahira must be the same thing she was telling Amon about.
In essence, it takes tons of ghoul bodies ground down into a liquid to reach a concentration similar to Eto’s. It must be what’s keeping Okahira animated, as well as the black-cloaked V agents*
*Remember, Hirako said they’re like an “advanced” 0 Squad, but all clearly much older than Arima.
To create, you must first destroy.
The eggshell has to be broken for the life inside to be born, right? >:)c
So, according to Furuta, I wouldn’t be surprised if these little white-haired husks of the Oggai are able to come back if enough RC cells are pumped back into them. Like @mawjaw said, “death mirrored [the made-up kanji for Oggai] is life”. They do look a lot like yolks running from an eggshell imo.
And even if they don’t come back, this is the beginning of something new.
Hermeticism– the belief system that classical Tarot art is based on– states that the universe is ever being born and recreated on every plane of existence no matter how big or how small. There is no ultimate endings, only new beginnings and so on. Kaneki is Death on legs right now, but the fact that he’s ever-multiplying his stock of RC cells means he’s also the foundation for new life.
Way back in chapter 18 of tg, right after Ryouko’s murder and Touka first sought to avenge Hinami’s mother by herself, we were treated to a conversation between Kaneki and Touka.
The talk left a lasting impression, playing an important part in their lives, and is something they both recall years later.
For Kaneki, he remembers it as the first time that Touka called him by his actual name.
For Touka, it was probably the first time someone outside of her family who was aware of her entire circumstances of being a ghoul verbally conveyed directly to her that they would be saddened if anything should happen to her.
But in addition to this, it’s a talk in which Touka brings up Kaneki’s reluctance to kill investigators:
And that is something that Kaneki, at the time, also acknowledges himself:
Which makes it all the more interesting with the contrasting parallel within the recent chapter.
Said contrast is summed up pretty well in the following panel:
His awareness of Furuta’s order to exterminate the group of fleeing ghouls led by his pregnant wife calls back to the initial reason why he first decided to learn how to wield his kagune:
While it isn’t Touka herself asking for him to kill the investigators (some of whom, admittedly, aren’t completely human anymore), he ends up doing so with her and protecting their future together on his mind thus forming a contradiction in relation to her earlier words – “you can’t, can you?”.
If she were to ask the same question in his current state, with the way he is eradicating the oggai (and anything in his path) without mercy, Kaneki’s answer would probably be something more along the lines of “I can and I will”.
This arc has an extremely strong undercurrent of the necessity of protecting children who are oftentimes the first victims of war, and Touka’s main source of interaction has been entirely with children. I don’t think she’ll take the news that well.
I don’t even think Hinami will take the news particularly will. Especially since she blames herself when Kaneki shows up to protect her and inevitably ends up getting worse, and more shades darker of morally grey because of it. She’s been shown to blame herself for it, and Kaneki showing up was the exact opposite of her last wish towards him.
It’s all in line with Kaneki’s repeated pattern of wanting to protect people, but not really being able to respect their wishes at all, or even sometimes just them as people.
killing children to protect children; dying and the resulting deaths
So I’ve decided to do something terribly stupid and try to address a really difficult aspect of this week’s chapter: Kaneki’s decision to kill Hajime and the Oggai.
First and foremost, I want to bring us back to the middle ages, to Yamori, when two inherent flaws in Kaneki’s personality were revealed in full to us. His discussion with Imaginary Rize involved his token slogan “be the one who gets hurt, not the one who hurts others”– a gift from his mother, which he has struggled to loosen his grip on throughout his entire story.
Unknowingly, Yamori challenged that belief of his with an ugly mind-game:
By not being able to choose (despite Kei’s insistence to save her son), both mother and child were killed. He failed to even try.
Kaneki faltered like any person would have in his situation, but it underscored what would become a huge problem for him in the future. He has always struggled to do harm and to make difficult decisions that hold him responsible.
Fast-forward to today’s chapter, we find Kaneki faced with a magnification of the same situation. At the end of E14, Touka, Hinami, and a flock of starving ghouls unable to fight– many of which arechildren– are backed into a corner by an inescapable death. Nearby, Kaneki is laying in a bloodied, limbless, lifeless heap, surrounded on all sides by a hoard of deadly child-soldiers.
Without Kaneki’s intervention, Goat’s children will be slaughtered like lambs. However, in order for Kaneki to intervene, he would have to slaughter children himself. It’s a total conundrum that Ishida has purposefully created; a twisted, horrifying, challenging predicament for us to muddle through… hence the name of the Oggai:
Death, mirrored. A behemoth wrong from all angles.
With this, Furuta is Yamori dangling lives in front of his face once more. He’s Arima, handing Kaneki the opportunity to win on a silver platter….
… But more than anything, Furuta is Furuta: a man barefacedly showcasing the CCG’s dirty little secret in a stunt that the average investigator is still willing to overlook.
Furuta confirms here that it really is no problem controlling the masses. So long as they feel unified on the front to Defeat Evil, a person won’t look at their own wickedness in the mirror.
The last chapter was the first time we heard Kaneki reflect on his decisions and life choices outside of admitting his inability to do so in Cochlea. But unlike Cochlea, we finally see him take a grand step forward. He considers dying here (also knowing that a chunk of his adopted family is in grave danger), but despite adversity, FINALLY digs his nails into life and comes tearing all horns and thorns back to the surface.
HOWEVER. I want to reiterate that what he’s done is still sickening. It isn’t the Oggai’s fault that they are who they are, and no less now that Furuta has fanned the flames of their personal vendettas against ghouls. They are all just children who– like the Garden Kids– have been exploited by means outside of their control.
Has Ishida made this theme blindingly apparent yet?
The thing is, Kaneki understands the nature of act he’s about to commit. It doesn’t necessarily make him right, but he understands the gravity of the situation.
He does interject with uglier thoughts (”I don’t care”, “I will kill”)– BUT! He also considers those old flaws of his and finally, finally kicks them aside.
Furuta accused him of never learning; of always choosing himself. He’s always put his own moral righteousness above actual life. He’s never killed humans, never choose one life over another, and never made an honest decision that forced him to take responsibility for his actions. And for all of that, he has done nothing but suffer.
But now, in the face of all that, Kaneki gathers up all of his experiences over the last several years, pins positives against each other, outweighs the cons, and for the first time ever reaches a solid conclusion: kill, and put an end to the senseless murders the Oggai might commit in the future. Kill, and save those innocent children and the people he loves. Kill, and take control of the the life he’s been handed. Kill, even at the expense of others.
Hello Anon and haha, same! It’s tragic, ridiculous and funny at the same time. So I smiled but at the same time, I felt so much pity for Kaneki…
So many expectations you know? When what keeps him going is…
So, it was funny, I smiled, like you, but at the same time I really wanted someone to just… hug him. He went through sooo much and it’s definitely not over!
Have a nice weekend Anon. 🙂
Hello!
Well, to be honest, I think the moment when Kaneki slaughters all the Oggai was made to be confusing, especially since some of those kids had white hair similar to him, so it’s hard to make out who’s who, which I think was totally on purpose by Ishida. xD
Have a nice weekend Anon!
Hello Anon! And I couldn’t have explained better! I 100% agree with you :))
Thanks for reading, sharing your thoughts and have a nice weekend! 😀
Nooooooooooope. I ain’t changing my mind, even less so after this scene…
midnight-in-town 