Gosh, not only did I just notice this, but I find that the words of both Itori and Nico, who are the only two Clowns we didn’t see fighting this time, are particularly meaningful to the parallel between the other Clowns.
I find it pretty awesome that Kuzen’s small act of defiance against V has sprouted into a full-fledged rebellion against them. By abandoning them and their values to try to create a small locus of peace in the world they corrupted, Kuzen proved another world was possible – the world that his friends and pupils are struggling to create now.
Kaiko realises the connection when Yomo mentions Anteiku, and much like Furuta’s criticism of Kaneki in the preceding chapter, Kaiko’s criticism reveals much more of his own flaws than those of his enemies. He can only see the world through a lens of manipulation and domination, and since his foes aren’t controlled by him, he assumes they must be controlled by Kuzen. He fails to understand their individuality and independence of thought and action, inspired by Kuzen rather than manipulated by him.
Kaiko’s obsession with the order of the herd is seen in his frequent use of the ‘we’ pronoun, referring to the collective interests of V. This is in stark contrast to the selfish Furuta, whom Kaiko naturally did not get along with – particularly in regards to his bad manners, which defy Kaiko’s orderliness and propriety.
The uniform faceless mass of black hats, coats and katanas that makes up V emphasises this collective, with Kaiko acting as the spokesman of the whole. He cannot stand rebels. Even now he resents Kuzen for breaking from the collective, disrupting its perfect unity, and still wishes to force him back into it. In fact, nearly every time we see Kaiko he’s mulling over Kuzen. That’s one hell of an axe to grind.
In the first, he joyously proclaims that Kuzen’s rebellion has come to nought, laying his anxieties at rest, while in the background Kaneki and Eto, the successors of Kuzen’s legacy, talk; thereby proving Kaiko wrong. In the second, his frustration is so great he breaks even his own rule of manners by swearing at the effect of Kuzen’s legacy in fermenting rebellion and disturbing his ‘peace’.
But his paranoia is justified – that single act of rebellion has caused his entire house of cards to come tumbling down. In the first series’ final arc, V’s control seems an unbreakable birdcage.
It’s implied in this scene that V orchestrated the Anteiku Raid to punish Kuzen’s insubordination, placing their well-polished heel firmly over Kuzen’s head. But in the final arc of :re, it’s Kuzen’s legacy that triumphs over V, and as for their birdcage…
Eto reveals the fragility of their seemingly solid control in the panels below. It rests precariously on a balance that is bound to eventually be overturned by the legions of oppressed beneath it, both the ghouls being slaughtered and the humans tricked into an endless war.
The return of Eto, as Kuzen’s child, is the most explicit symbol of the triumph of Kuzen’s legacy. Kaiko even refers to her as ‘Yoshimura’.
The importance both of Kuzen and Eto herself in this arc reflects their significance in the Anteiku Raid. Eto was the first major destabilising element created by Kuzen’s disloyalty, and Kaiko directly attributes Eto’s actions to Kuzen:
So Eto’s victory over V is Kuzen’s victory as well, and like him, this chapter she has finally broken free from their control.
The spectre of revolution has long been coming for V, and Kuzen’s small disruption of the system has led to its full-scale collapse.
not just public cemeteries, but eating the fallen CCG Investigators too!
This really highlights Urie’s feelings over Shirazu’s death
ALL of the CCG have been mourning empty graves.
this whole time, Akira and Amon have most likely been talking to Mado’s empty grave.
Honestly, I feel like THIS over everything is what is gonna turn the CCG towards changing the way of the world rather than an empty promise of an alliance with ghouls. Not being able to mourn their loved ones properly is something they can sympathise with ghouls over.
this scene broke my heart…. the emptiness in their eyes, the way they’re unfocused and cross eyed…..
even though Koma and Irimi are husks of themselves, being turned into living quinques… yet they’re still exchanging banter as if you’ve pulled the string on an old talking doll that’s glitching and repeating itself. Irimi chastising Koma as per usual, Koma wanting to get coffee, expressing that same desire as Irimi back in the Anteiku Raid
to have one last taste of Anteiku
they really did follow Yoshimura to the end
*LIES ON FLOOR*
Ooh I like this idea of a doll repeating itself, because it fits so well to what thing used to control them means. Spieldose means music box in German.
I think there are versions of music boxes where you just have to turn the handle/key, and it will then play a song automatically that has been put into the music box.
So Koma`s and Irimi`s bodies are like creepy music boxes. Kaiko turned the “gear” which activated the inner “mechanism”, and like the song that plays automatically, Koma and Irimi move and speak in a predetermined, automatic fashion, possibly repeating things that they have already said, like the music box following it`s music sheet.
That’s so cool! They really are like music boxes then- wind the handle and watch the ballerina twirl and dance on it’s own
nah it seems that we really were meant to take Miza saying “let him sleep” at face value!
I’m not sure that Eto was ever dead either. V clearly picked her up in Cochlea and have been keeping her since. They have Nico who can heal so its possible he kept her going when she was meant to die
When Amon attacked Donato, Owl lost power telling us it was Donato remote controlling Eto via the Cross in her neck
after Donato died, the Cross melted away and she regenerated
So rather than remote controlling her entire body like Koma and Irimi, they had cut off her head to remove her own conscious thought. In it’s place was the kagune cross doing the “thinking” for Owl via Donato and preventing her regenerating. Once that was gone “POP”. If Eto were truly dead there probably wouldn’t have been a need to remove her head ya know?
So yeah, I think there are a few distinctions between whats happening with these characters being “””resurrected””
Due to the aftermath of Dragon, there are 8 more oviducts that have made their way across Tokyo. In order for each oviduct to remain in a functional state however, it has to have a nucleus host inside to keep it active as a sort of symbiotic battery. As seen with Kaneki, the host is presumably given a surplus of RC cells which in return keep them alive longer and reverse their telomere to halt or reverse aging effects.
Similar to Kaneki’s relationship with Dragon, there are likely other people inside of the oviducts that are spread throughout the wards as well to keep them stable for an indefinite interval of time as Kimi stated earlier.
Thanks to this, it’s been speculated that a few characters will be revived in a zombie fashion during this final arc of :re to haunt and judge many of the current cast members so they can grow away from their past and make better decisions in the future. This also correlates with the themes of the 20th tarot card in the Major Arcana, Judgement.
“The Judgement card suggests that you have had a recent epiphany or an ‘awakening’ where you have come to a realization that you need to live your life in a different way and you need to be true to yourself and your needs. You have opened yourself up to a new possibility – to lead a fulfilling life that serves your higher needs and that offers inspiration and hope to others. You feel as though you have had a ‘calling’ in life, and you are getting much closer to the point where you need to take action. Something that was lying dormant within you, some unconscious knowledge or truth is finally being awakened and brought into the light.”
The character I’ll be discussing though is of course, Karren/Kanae Von Rosewald, whom we know died earlier on in the manga. The relationship between her serving Mirumo and Tsukiyama Family subtly foils that of Kaneki and his Aunt.
Instead of being welcomed into her new surrogate family at the Tsukiyama’s and shown proper empathy for her loss, she lived under the identity of a male in accordance to her father’s wishes for a heir to carry on the family line since he brothers died protecting her. Thus she sealed off her identity, relinquished her agency to become a servant, and couldn’t embrace who she truly was in her newfound household despite simply wanting to be loved and praised.
While it’s not painted in the same light, this is identical in nature to the time Kaneki started living with his Aunt but couldn’t be himself since she would verbally abuse him to the point where there was no comfort to him living there, and he ended up feeling lonelier than ever when he only wanted to be in a family that accepted him.
The foil between Karren and Urie is prevalent here since the two lost relatives and were moved to new families, Tsukiyama’s for Karren, and the Quinx for Urie, and embraced their professions instead of speaking up about their true feelings.
This is something Karren successfully tore away from towards the end of her arc when she broke free of the stitching that bound her lips and symbolically regained her agency during the dying moments where she pronounced her love for Shuu while saving him so he could live on, and was accepted for who she truly was.
Whereas Urie sadly still struggles to abandon his work ethic at the CCG which comes into conflict with him being able to properly speak up and express his emotions and thoughts to Mutsuki. Because of this he has yet to properly support him and discover each other’s pasts, which gets in the way of them growing closer to one another and forming a relationship.
Instead of Shuu living on for the sake of the Tsukiyama Family like Karren had died to achieve however, he is abruptly saved by Touka and Yomo, and greets his father who actually broke out of prison to survive the the raid so he could see Shuu. As a result he treats everything that happened as water under the bridge and goes back to following Kaneki once more while completely avoiding confronting him about everything that took place.
After flying from the Lunatic Eclipse Building with her body perfectly intact, she was likely scooped up by the CCG to be made into a quinque. Around that same time period though, Aogiri swooped in and attacked the CCG transport trucks that were also holding onto the deceased Shirazu and countless other bodies.
Since we know his body was moved to Kanou’s lab for experimentation, it’s entirely possible that her body was also taken in the process as well and is likely being used as a host to keep one of the eight oviducts functioning currently.
With that out of the way, guess who made his reappearance in this final arc after being missing since the earlier half of :re during his prime relevance? Mirumo.
So to make a wild prediction for how her revival sequence will play out.. Karren will lash out and kill Mirumo in the process of the fight since father figures and mentors typically die for their sons or other characters to grow in their absence, which will then result in Shuu being forced to put her to rest.
In the aftermath Shuu will replace him and adopt the mantle as the head of the Tsukiyama family since he previously resolved to live on for their sake during the climax of the Rose arc, and also mourn Karren’s death and erect something to remember her by in return.
This will lead him to grow away from viewing Kaneki as a master whom he has to serve and dedicate himself to as his sword, but more along the lines of a friend and ally. He also needs to confront him about being responsible for the death of Karren as well as his family associates since he was an active member of the Tsukiyama Family Extermination, and never said sorry or made proper amends for what transpired.
Something else worth mentioning is, during the middle of the Rose arc after Kanae clashes with Urie, she states “That damn triangle eyed bastard… next time I meet him… I’ll kill him… for sure!” but never faces him again after that instance because of her death.
So perhaps Urie will be present alongside Shuu to aid him against a revived Karren, since he as well lost a family member that he promised to honor but forgot about after the events of said arc. This will hopefully allow him to take ques from her, and develop the ability to express his feelings properly.
Her brothers Nathanael and Arunolt, who died while defending her during their escape from the CCG’s grasp bear an uncanny resemblance to both Urie and Shuu, two characters who can be coded as knights symbolically in the manga. This is ironic since in fairy tales, knights are typically sent on quests to slay the dragon so they can unite with the princess, and the two of them will have their own personal “dragons” to defeat later this arc.
Credits to @hamliet for pointing this bit out, but another nice detail worth bringing up is that Karren’s mask after being “Noro’d” via Eto’s Kagune, shares resemblance to Dragon.
Well considering everything we’ve learned about zombie quinques today I would not be shocked at all and I’m gonna cry.
One thing I don’t get is that the Washuus are the ones who allied with the old CCG to take the One Eyed Washuu down 100 years ago
and then they created V when the second OEG of the timeline showed up??
It was even around the same time as (or just before) they developed quinques for human investigators:
So when did the change of power take place? When did the Washuus become a part of V (as Furuta explained in ch101) and when did V start having the upper hand when they were initially supposed to be the Washuus’ creation?
Unless V really existed before the Washuus, but then it would contradict some stuff that was said in previous chapters, I’m just ????? lost?
EDIT: never mind, @linkspooky pointed out to me that we’re probably supposed to read the scene as followed
This little part that Kaiko is thinking…
meaning that he’s simply still super mad that his pal Kuzen left V behind for Ukina and Eto all these years ago.
TL;DR the Washuus still created V in order to defeat the second OEG of the timeline who threatened to overthrow the CCG just after WWII:
now if I could just know who this gal/dude is that’d be nice
I’ve also been thinking that the Washuu became a part of V around when the second OEK appeared. Maybe V is an amalgamation of various influential families, primarily consisting of ghouls. As a part of V these families are producing soldiers in the form of half-humans for the organization. One hint suggesting that there might be other Washuu-like families elsewhere, is Shao. She’s a half-human who was born in Taiwan, but was sent to Japan’s CCG from an external source. I hope that makes sense.
@donatoporpora yeah, excellent point about Hsiao or even Germany, which has always been referred to as the #1 partner of the CCG (and both organizations belonging in V could explain this partnership). We also still don’t know why Donato (who is Russian) was hanging around in Japan (not that there has to be a specific reason but eh).
That’s why the idea of a part 3 targeting a more international scale of TG’s world always sounded interesting (iirc Middle East was also mentioned by Yoshimura and there was also the link between the Rosewald and Tsukiyama families), even if I doubt that it’s ever going to happen by now.
In the end, it depends if V is really just Washuu/Japan-centered or if there might be a real international side to it (Taiwan and Germany at least) and I can envision both possibilities honestly. For example, maybe Hsiao could simply be born because at some point Tsuneyoshi visited Taiwan and had a fling with her mom, which is why she then joined the sunlit garden. Just like it could be what you said. 🙂
What we were told is that initially V seemed to be sunlit garden-only, but then they slowly opened their ranks to other strong ghouls (like Yoshimura)
which is why V now represents an organization that is encompassing the Washuu family and the sunlit garden (and why they can afford to get rid of the Washuus).
So maybe the same thing happened internationally, as in, the Washuus created V around WWII but then V slowly expanded over the years and ended having affiliations in other countries (Germany, Taiwan…).
Since it really seems the Washuus created V to defeat the second OEG of the timeline though, then I’ll stick with this timeline until we’re given more info. :3
There’s a big announcement in the next issue, now guessing it could be Part 3. The preview say that the series has reach its climax. I don’t know what happens in Chapter 175, but when they used that line, it tends to indicate the end is next. I know Gintama pulled a swerve, but then again, it is technically not a lie.
Well, we’ll know soon enough.
Oh my god this fandom. Story structure 101 means stories do not end on climaxes. It’s climax–> falling action –> resolution. If anything that indicates it isn’t ending at 176. Also the marketing team knows their shit to hint at big announcements right when it looks like it could be ending (144 and now) but the announcement is likely to be a second cour of the anime like the first time was a re anime adaptation.
midnight-in-town 