People are complaining that the Anteiku raid seems like a big lie now that people who were supposed to be dead (cough Irimi cough) are back alive.
But if you think about it, the Anteiku raid is a big lie..in a logical way.
-Arima is revealed to be not only a ghoul sympathizer but the OEK himself.
-Kaneki survived the Anteiku raid, contrary to what some (Tsukiyama) believed.
-Amon lives (foreshadowed a long time ago though)
-Takizawa lives
The Anteiku raid seems like one big stage play for the CCG superiors, and Rue island (rue=regret) is the CCG finding out that they had been duped and made large mistakes. People that are supposed to be buried or suppressed are coming back, and people that they trusted had betrayed them.
So in a way it’s….poetic? I guess? I personally like it.
Hey Anon 🙂 Well, seeing as I have no idea how they could have escaped from Arima (unless… he decided to let them go when he killed hundreds of other ghouls) I agree with you, I am really not a fan of Koma and Irimi (or just one of them) actually surviving the Anteiku raid arc.
I also kind of… felt cheated since I was really moved during the whole final arc of TG and ch143 because of everything that happened (their death included), so between that and the high number of characters who came back/will obviously come back
from being “dead”, I would prefer for them to be resting in peace, even if I love them both a lot.
And you meant that panel, right?
The thing is, while it would be easy to think of Irimi, we don’t have any name or clearer picture so this girl could just be a member of Irimi’s gang and not Irimi herself. Don’t worry, initially I thought that was Irimi too, but now… Well I guess we will see next week.
Other people mentioned that maybe this girl of ch96 could be Rize (since she didn’t have any official mask in TG), or new character who was Irimi’s underling or Itori (lol I’m pretty sure people were trolling but why not, I miss her too much so I’ll take every crack theory), but then again, with how she recognized Kuramoto, the chances of her being Irimi are rather high.
To be honest, at this point all I want is a decent explanation as to how she survived if that’s her (Arima might have let her go indeed), even if that isn’t the plot move I like the best of all there could have been.
I think I finally understand what Ishida is trying to do with :Re though, so I don’t feel any disappointment but I can’t blame people who really don’t like the idea of Irimi (and Koma) returning, that’s completely understandable. 🙂
As for Arima… well I believe his little ‘conspiration’ with Eto means he probably lied often for a long time (for example, the reason so many Clowns are still around could be because he didn’t really annihilate them 11 years ago, just like he didn’t kill Eto).
This arc is a bit intense for sure Anon, so if you feel the need to take a break, just do it :3
Thank you for passing by and have a nice weekend! 🙂
The title of the chapter seems to be echoing the Quran again.
Urie’s whole phrase is weirdly translated. It seems like he’s quoting the CCG SOP. It should be “Given the possibility of an investigator hindering a critical mission, the recommended course of action is their removal”. However, in the TG universe, the word 「排除」 (”removal”) has been mostly used to mean “elimination”.
It’s not the Akira “won’t survive” in the human world, it’s that she “can’t live” there anymore.
“Next time make sure to get away” should be “this time”. Since Japanese is weird, if the circumstances of “running away” (meaning, the battle) hasn’t started yet, they still use future tense.
Hakatori’s “Why” should be “Let me.. go”.
“I can make sure you ain’t thinking I’m tryina save her” should be “Don’t go around thinking I’m all “saved” now”. Takizawa doesn’t change the topic of the sentence from himself, so it’s still about him, especially as it echoes his and Amon’s previous dialog.
Why is Amon saying “Tooru”? Mutsuki’s name isn’t even written with this kanji. He’s actually saying “You shall not pass”.
Roma says “desperate people are just so fun to look at!”
Shikorae is probably trying to call Roma “Bro Roma”.
Also there’s a lot of insults and derogatory language thrown around in this chapter, but MS missed their chance to finally be true to the original with their use of swearing and didn’t translate most of it.
And he never said he is going to forgive Seidou for what he has done. On the contrary…
Amon is no longer a ghoul investigator… not because he is now against the CCG’s standards, but because he will never be accepted by them. He has seen things… he is finally able to understand how Kaneki has felt before. This is why he wouldn’t accept slaughtering Seidou. He knows how tormented Seidou was and knows the struggling he has been put into. He knows that it is not Seidou’s fault he ended up this way, but knows all too well that it is Seidou who chose to kill that grotesquely. Had he still been a ghoul investigator, he wouldn’t have hesitated to kill him, without giving him a chance to repent for his sins. However, he is not.
Furthermore, Seidou is Amon’s colleague and friend. Seidou sacrificed his life for Amon’s sake, and Amon probably feels responsible for what happened to Seidou (even though it is not really his fault). It goes without saying that for this reason, Amon won’t kill Seidou, but won’t let his sins slide.
As for the Qs… Amon is only forced to fight them. He is not fighting out of his own volition, and he is not fighting to kill either. He is fighting because he was being attacked. That’s it.
Initially, Amon attacked Mutsuki because Mutsuki was ruthlessly attacking Akira. Yes. Akira has betrayed CCG, but it is clear that Mutsuki is currently driven by his feelings – I explained my view on this issue in this post [x]. He did not give Akira the chance to explain whether or not she intends to capture Seidou alive. Amon, knowing that Mutsuki’s actions are wrong [as well as Akira’s], interfered to protect Akira, his own colleague and friend. The Qs, arriving to the scene, attacked Amon [who was primary saving Akira from Seidou]. They don’t know what happened: it only seems to them that Amon went loose. They had no choice but to attack. Amon had no choice but to attack back….
Why?
He is again using himself/body to shelter his ideals. His ideals dictate that Akira must survive and Seidou must stay alive to repent for his sins. That’s just Amon… the same Amon from TG. The only difference is that he can now relate to the sufferings of Kaneki [and thus Seidou].
I’m not sold yet on them being Irimi and Koma for this reason. The entire arc was set up as their final stand as much as it was Yoshimura’s. Their redemption, along with their gangs. Their last fight.
They were both about to die, in fact, when Kaneki swooped in and saved them, running and jumping away from the battle and giving them time to start healing. And he told them both to go to V14.
At this point, Kaneki was trying to take their martyrdom for himself, though the text didn’t tell us so until :re 53.
But in the end Tokyo Ghoul is a tragedy, and tragedies end the way they do because of the hero’s hubris and hamartia. When Kaneki finds out that V14, where he sent the people he saved, where Koma and Irimi and all of the other fleeing ghouls were going was not an escape but a death trap, you can feel the doors of that tragedy start to swing shut, the blade of this guillotine. And you, the reader, feel so foolish, because Kaneki and Ishida told you. Told you in chapter one. That this is a tragedy. So Kaneki walks through a field of Death and he sees Beauty.
Because of his twisted selfish selflessness, his suicidal drive to protect and fight and be the strongest until it literally killed him, his inability to stop himself, his inability to reconcile his violence and his love and to accept himself and accept others. It all led him to the Reaper’s blade.
It was truely a stunning work of tragedy.
But if Kaneki didn’t fail – if he succeeded in taking the martyrdom of Irimi and Koma and then of course not dying himself – and more so, passing that martyrdom onto Arima of all people in the most recent arc – then there was no tragedy at all.
It’s retroactively removed.
I suppose there’s a sort of odd, counter intuitive poetry in it – having the whole thing come full circle around back to Arima, the death god at V14 we thought was just the punishment and fulfiller of the tragic inevitability.
But at the same time, it completely refocuses the narrative and removes the weight of action and consequence that Tokyo Ghoul was all about.
Irimi and Koma were also role models for Touka, remember (and probably little Ayato and briefly Hinami as well). Their impact on Touka is undeniable. And the impact of their death, and the manner of their death, and their choice to fight while she was not allowed to fight were hugely important moments for Touka, and echoes of the most formative traumas of her life – of both of her parents deaths.
The night of the Anteiku raid effected everyone because of how it went, and the messages of it were very clear, thematically.
Fighting is perpetuating a struggle. It will not end the struggle. It will not save anyone. It will not magically make anything better. But some characters still chose to fight. And so far, the message the manga sent was clear. Every one of them died or worse, and everyone one of them knew that fate was what awaited them. And to some extent, every one of them wanted it.
It was the culmination of the cycle of violence and it’s destructive power and the way living inside it warps and twists how people live, dream, hope, and die.
I think Koma and Irimi’s noble but meaningless death is extremely important to the thematic and narrative messages of Tokyo Ghoul, and I think them surviving after all sacrifices a lot.
Right now, we don’t know who is under those masks. It could be anyone, using the reputation and the intimidation factor of old foes risen from the grave to their advantage. If Anteiku’s old hands are regrouping for another stand, than their masks are a fitting addition to the group, even if the original owners are dead.
But at this point, who knows. Maybe Ishida is intentionally trying to reverse the Tragedy. Kaneki has returned – and returned to the state he was right before the raid, poised to fight an army in partial kakuja with white hair. Old teams are regrouping again. Whose to say this isn’t part of a sort of rewind button?
Narratively, of course, a false victory often precedes a true defeat and a false defeat a true victory. We are entering the moon arc, of all things, and who knows what is going on with some of the persistent messages and themes, considering the throne our main character has just taken up.
I’m not going to try to predict this – I can only share my thoughts on it.
One guess as to who Amon’s “friend” who’s waiting for him to escape is (hint: we’ve seen him on a boat a few chapters ago).
He says “Akira can’t live “on the outside” anymore” (and well, he’s right, she’s essentially a criminal sentenced to death until the Ghoul Countermeasures Law is repealed).
Takizawa says that he’s only concerned about his own life and Akira is going to serve as a hostage until he can leave the island, and that Amon shouldn’t think he’s “saved” now. Good to see that he understands that /dry voice/ He does take Hakatori with him, though.
I wonder if Marude is going to end up together with Akira and Hide?
midnight-in-town 