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.
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
Eto is definitely reemerging at some point, but I don’t think this is a sun arc yet. I definitely would put more weight in a connection between Hide and Itori, if Itori had not just given up and walked off bored after Tsukiyama interrupted her.
Though, I’m doubtful this is the final swing of the pendulum when it comes to her character. As I’ve said before though I agree with you anon, that Eto is likely going to become relevant again when Yoshimura’s body also becomes relevant.
Especially since Kanou no longer has any claim over it, considering that he dead. Both Rize and Yoshimura should be relevant at some point unless V takes control of both of them.
I find V’s remarks about Kuzen to be suspicious though, as well as the fact that we’ve never seen what’s in that journal, or even Ukina’s true face. Unlike Hikari who eventually we got to see her full face when Yomo came to terms with her loss.
Considering that Yomo and Yoshimura are such similiar characters with similiar flaws, it makes sense that a similiar revelation of coming to terms with the loss with either Eto or Yoshimura would also prompt a full reveal of Ukina’s face.
There’s also about 700 parallels to Ukina and Kuzen, and the circumstance of Eto’s birth, and the 24th ward that are being paralleled right now between Touka and Kaneki, and both of them seem to be kind of wandering into that parallel blindly without learning the lesson that Yoshimura should have.
All of those are perfectly good reasons for Eto to return to the manga at some point. In fact she’s almost conspicuously absent by now, even though we’ve finally gotten into the old one eyed king and the 24th ward which are both Eto related, and ideas tied heavily to her character.
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.
I know the chapter isn’t really out yet but I think I have a feeling of what exactly Ishida was going for on the last page. One the last page of Chapter 126 Touka and Kaneki were having a conversation talking about strength as Touka gave Kaneki her fathers wedding ring which she considers her strength. Kaneki tells her that because it’s so special to her he will look to it for strength which cuts to the centipede on the ground. The centipede in many ways however has been a symbol of Kaneki’s delusions of strength. The centipede has been a symbol of his more chaotic nature as it was even his kakuja’s code name in part one. It’s interesting that these two symboles of strength are shown together as one of the many lessons of tg one that Yomo gives is that strength comes from within a person and nothing else.
With that in mind I find the juxtaposition in these two things so amazing as the ring can come off as a pure good luck charm and the other is a symbol of a dark path to strength. Until that is you remember that the ring Touka gave Kaneki belonged to her father whose characterization is that of a man so overcome by grief that he ruined himself to seek strength to get his revenge. Both of these items are signs of the dark path to strength and it gives such an intense sense of foreboding. As not only the centipede but also the ring itself.
I think in many ways it foreshadows a dark future on that will involve something Kaneki loves getting hurt. But considering he just in many ways put all of his happiness on Touka it wouldn’t be shocking if it involved her. I also see it as a return of Kaneki seeking the strength in the most terrible of places for himself mentally leading to his downfall. Which will not be his death but probably the end of goat and his reign as the One-Eyed King.
Excellent point.
See, the thing is, I personally think Kaneki is more likely to be the one getting hurt at this point (because he needs to develop more and he is the MC, because the Clowns love him and he is the OEK, because he’s of interest to Kanou, because it’s easier to imagine him getting wrecked rather than Touka since it happened before) and I also believe that :Re won’t necessarily end tragically (unless there is a third part) but you raise a fair point about Arata’s ring possibly being bad news.
I took the ring as something that will possibly make him remember Touka as he said it would, which could be positive in a similar way as his talk with “Hide” during the Cochlea arc for example, but… it’s true that it is Arata’s ring and that Kaneki parallels Arata.
And Yoshimura. And both saw the women they loved being killed (with Touka having a strong parallel on her own with Ukina and Hikari).
That being said, it might also be that, because Kaneki paralleled them in an obvious way until now, Ishida will decide not to give him and Touka the same fate as Hikari/Arata and Yoshimura/Ukina, thus maybe making Kaneki suffer (for sure) and only indirectly hurting Touka.
Both possibility can happen at this point, and anyway, no matter if Touka or Kaneki are the one who gets it harsh, the other will definitely suffer as a consequence…
Having being the first naturally born OEG. When you look at Rize it’s the same: she was depicted as having a very special Kagune even if she was born as a part of the sunlit garden initially before she ran away. And here’s the thing, the other ghouls with a special kagune are the Clowns, as we could see with Donato and Uta, but also Nico to some extent, and since it seems that the Clowns will be explained at the same time as V, I’m pretty sure there is a link there. So yeah, I’m wondering (2)
About an eventual pattern between V, who they recruit, why they wanted Rize back so bad, even the Washuus (who’s kagune we never saw, which could be for a specific reason), the Clowns’ even stranger abilities and I think maybe you found a part of the answer with your idea about Eto and Yoshimura. Sorry if that doesn’t make a lot of sense though but thanks for the great post! Have a nice day 🙂
Hi!
Yeah, that’s along the lines of what I was thinking, too. Yoshimura said the reason he was approached by V was just because he was very strong, but it’s not like he’s the only frightening kakuja out there, so I think it must be something else on top of that.
The Clowns and V are definitely working together through Furuta now, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s always been this way. Furuta said that the CCG has a history of dressing up organizations just to have an enemy to fight, and the Clowns were included on that list. It’s always been suspicious, for me, that “even Arima” had a “hard time” with their extermination. I get the feeling that certain members like Donato were given immunity, especially because he was so willingly a source of information while he was in Cochlea.
Oddly, I wonder if regenerative abilities like Yoshimura and Rize are put to use later on the members of V. Arima says the demi-humans die early, but Hirako stated that the crones were like “advanced” Garden members. They remind me a lot of Kanou’s Q’s and have the same automatic movements of Noro, so it almost feels like there’s been some kind of zomboid puppetry going on :O
Thank you for your answer, I’m glad that it made some sense. 🙂
Just on the matter of the Clowns’ annihilation and Donato’s jail time, I agree with you: the whole thing is fishy, because if V/the CCG had really tried to eradicate the Clowns’ gang (especially with Arima involved), then I don’t see why the remaining Clowns would have wanted anything to do with V in :Re (even if they are odd characters, so we can never be sure).
At the same time though, other investigators (like Hirako and Houji) were involved so if the whole thing was a set up, it was orchestrated quite well, especially since Donato’s own timeline is strange in regards to being a part of the Clowns’ gang (since he went to jail a few years before the Clowns’ annihilation took place and he’s presented as a boss, even if he never was called as such).
Anyway, between Itori being so knowledgeable on hybrid babies and Uta referring to himself as an outcast, it’s probably a safe bet to consider that the Clowns probably had a relation to V since the very beginning, maybe because of the weird kagune abilities that they showed in the last arc (I do wonder about Donato since he’s Russian and all though… unless there is a V equivalent in Russia, like there is an equivalent of the CCG in Germany).
Also, excellent point about the “advanced Garden members” like Kaiko, I hadn’t realized that they were a bit similar to Noro but I see what you mean. So maybe V does use special kagune abilities from certain ghouls to keep demi humans from the sunlit garden from dying early.
I’m not so surprised that Arima possibly lied about that to Kaneki though. I mean, he did also say that V/the Washuus “wanted to become more humans” but so far, we rather got hints of the opposite. Maybe he didn’t want to discourage Kaneki because being the OEK is a difficult task (and Eto didn’t mention anything either)…
Thanks again for your reply and sorry for rambling away!
oh yeah, I answered a followup to that post here! [x]
Basically, I think Eto/ Yoshimura’s RC cells have healing properties (come to think of it, that may actually be part of why Eto survived as a fetus on top of her mother cannibalizing). Banjou is able to heal after having “seeds” planted in him by Eto, and both Noro and Kanae showed extreme regenerative abilities after being gifted with Eto’s “strength”.
Arima stabbed Kaneki right in his kakuhou twice with Fukuro, meaning it regenerated with Yoshimura’s RC cells planted within it. If I’m right, all of Kaneki’s RC pathways will be reinforced with those cells, essentially making him indestructible and possibly nulling out the chance of him aging rapidly.
There must have been some deeper meaning to Arima ripping out Yoshimura’s kakuhou and holding onto it for 13 years. My guess must’ve learned about the RC cells from Eto, went after her father, and stole it with the intention to protect whoever he’d raise to take his place.
With Arima’s usual hindsight-bias, it must’ve been a relief to see that it really worked. Plus, it would be a nice bit of irony to see Arima and Eto– who both suffered neglect of their parents– use Yoshimura’s kakuhou to protect their own “child”.
Okay so, I actually got a few questions on the subject and I didn’t see anyone making a post about it (please tell me if someone actually did), so I might as well write one quickly. Apologies in advance for those I might slightly spoil about Berserk.
Death flag. I think that’s one of the words I saw the most everywhere that I looked today and frankly, even though I’m generally not bothering so much with death flags, I kind of have to admit that I got worried after reading this chapter because, well, it’s TG. And Ishida-sensei. So we’re used to crazy and violent things happening, especially right after something sweet occured.
But what’s the link with Berserk?
Well, first of all, Sensei made several references to Berserk before, mainly through Amon’s character (please see the following posts: [x] [x]), that were explicit enough to think that he might be a fan of the series.
Second thing, for those who are not familiar with it, Berserk is the story of Guts, a mercenary, who was once sacrificed by his close “friend” so that the latter could be reborn as a very powerful demon entity. Obviously that kind of broke their friendship, especially since the other dude didn’t just try to sacrifice Guts, but also cursed and heavily abused Casca, Guts’ lover, leaving her with a big trauma towards men as well as a regression into insanity.
So anyway (please read Berserk), when it comes to the link between that and :Re ch125, it turns out that a little before Guts and Casca went through absolute hell, they had the opportunity to share a very sweet and intimate moment, exactly like it happened between Touka and Kaneki for this week’s chapter…
…A moment that resulted of Guts and Casca honestly talking for the first time in a while and finally admitting to their feelings for each other, so again, a little like it happened between Kaneki and Touka ever since ch122. EDIT: @lilylunac also saw the similarities between the two scenes! 🙂
Now obviously TG =/= Berserk, Kaneki =/= Guts, Ishida =/= Miura, but the two sensei still have this shared enjoyment that is to constantly inflict pain to their main character as they make them go through many hardships and, as I was saying above, the fact that so many TG readers are now bracing themselves for something terrible to happen, because ch125 was really sweet and positive in comparison to a lot of shit that Kaneki (and Touka) went through, makes me think that we learnt our lesson long ago.
So yes, as it happens, daily happiness never really lasts for long in TG, especially not when Kaneki still has a lot of personal issues to sort out and a lot of self-reflection to do (and especially not when the current main villain is aiming to fly the TG plane into an ocean of blood), but guess what, it’s exactly the same for Berserk, happiness never lasts long for Guts either.
So, it is very probable thatshit will go down soon in TG, if just because we could have an arc paralleling the Anteiku raid arc next, as many fans already explained and as Juuzou also implied…
…which would make the new relationship between Kaneki & Touka (and the sweet chapter of this weekend) the last positive moment to behold (both for us fans and for Kaneki) before Kaneki, Touka and the rest of Kaneki’s side might be separated and hurt/injured by Furuta’s side.
To be honest, I have no idea where TG will start again next week, but here’s what I understand from the recent developments:
Furuta has a good part of the CCG still ready to obey his command
Furuta is loved by most of the public opinion in TG (those fanclubs :/)
The Clowns might fight for Furuta’s side again (unsure)
A parallel to the Anteiku raid arc would mean a lot of blood and possible deaths
Furuta wants to watch the world burn and for Kaneki to die
Meanwhile Kaneki…
has issues to solve and for now doesn’t make for a good leading figure as the OEK
has less manpower than Furuta and way less deadly weapons (as far as we know)
is supposedly dead for a good part of the world, which means he can’t really gain new allies amongst ghouls
might be joined by the Clowns at some point (unsure)
might have CCG deserters (Juuzou, Urie and co) joining him (unsure again)
also Mutsuki is a bit insane and has a real grudge against Touka, which means they’ll face off again, definitely
TL;DR Kaneki doesn’t have the odds in his favor, for now at least, especially since he doesn’t really appear to have a good plan, which is why an arc similar to the Anteiku raid one definitely sounds like bad news and a lot of pain.
To be honest, I don’t know if Sensei really decided to include explicit lovemaking between Kaneki and Touka before shit might really go down as a parallel to Berserk and Guts/Casca, or if he found that the idea of a young love being tried by all sorts of madness was simply interesting, but… there is one more possible parallel that made me think of Gutsca, as I read the new :Re chapter.
See, it’s a spoiler (sorry :/) but Guts and Casca actually conceived a child during that one moment of bliss that they shared, a child that unfortunately got cursed to have a really sad fate, and it just so happens that the cover of :Re ch122…
… triggered many theories about Touka possibly becoming pregnant, with the pregnancy unfortunately not going and ending very well (please read these posts [x] [x]).
Personally, I don’t really have much of an opinion about a possible pregnancy, if just because I don’t know if Kaneki can even reproduce in the first place (that is a very debated question within the fandom), but I have to admit that the pregnancy idea crossed my mind during ch125 more than it did with ch122 because…
the full chapter did remind me of a bittersweet parallel to what happened with Guts/Casca and their baby
So in conclusion, I can’t be certain that Sensei was influenced by Berserk when he decided to write ch125, but I suppose that it could be a possibility considering that he added references to Berserk before. I guess it might depend on what happened next in :Re and on if Touka actually becomes pregnant or not. Also please note that this is a possible parallel of situation, not a parallel of dynamics or of characters.
I hope this post was informative for the few people who were interested by the subject. Feel free to ask if anything is unclear!
Reblogging because I thought a little more about Touka possibly being pregnant and I realized that Touka and Kaneki having a child (even if that sounds too sweet for TG + we don’t even know if Kaneki can reproduce) would make for a real schism with every situation about hybrid children that we got to see throughout TG, so maybe it’s a path that Sensei could decide to follow.
I mean, as the OEK, Kaneki is supposed to fight for coexistence between ghouls and humans, and if there are characters who were a real proof of how unfair and twisted the current world is, it’s the “hybrids”, and by that I don’t just mean Kanou’s One Eyed Ghouls.
I’ll give examples below, but basically it’s a concept that was introduced by Itori at the beginning of TG…
and that Arima expanded on when he told Kaneki about V and the Sunlit Garden:
So we do know that hybrids are rare but possible. However, so far, how were those “hybrids” treated by the world?
I know, ghoul children in general don’t happen to have a very safe life (and look at Kaneki’s childhood, even though he was a human kid) but still, when it comes to Arima, Hairu, Furuta and the other kids from the Sunlit Garden -> in their case, they were all bred together to become ghoul killers without ever being left any choice…
And Furuta even refers to himself and the others as “unfit goods” while laughing, but his reaction when Eto mocked him for not even being acknowledged by his father was pretty telling of his real feelings on the matter…
As for Eto, she didn’t have a better fate since her mother was killed, her father gave her away to the 24th ward to Noro, because he wanted her to be safe from V. However we all know that the 24th ward isn’t a really utopic place to live at and anyway, Eto never had the chance to be with her two parents because of V, which triggered negative feelings towards both of them and herself…
(which is precisely why Yoshimura once asked Kaneki to save Eto by the way, because Eto refused to acknowledge that she ever was loved by anyone which fueled her desire to destroy this world, and that probably includes Tatara’s love as well [x] [x]).
So any child of this story who was born as a hybrid had it tough, no exception so far on the matter (and there might be one or two more hybrids related to the Clowns’ gang that we don’t know yet about, as Uta referred to himself as an outcast + Itori’s expression when she talked about hybrid babies was strange).
But then, or I should rather say now, we have Kaneki and Touka, whose future is obviously very uncertain but for whom pregnancy theories have been going strong ever since ch122 (please see above in the original post for links). Most of these theories conclude that the pregnancy would actually not go or end well, which is a fair point to have in mind since TG can go rough, but considering that…
Kaneki is the OEK, a leading figure that’s supposed to help change this world and make it about coexistence between the two species
He is also one of the strongest ghouls of all Japan now
He is aware of how unfair/twisted this world is and what terrible lives Eto, Arima and other kids from the Sunlit Garden had because of it
As a human kid, he also had an abusive childhood, leaving him desperately longing for love ever since then
One could also mention Touka’s abandonment issues because of what happened to her parents (amongst other things)
… if Touka’s theoretical pregancy were to somehow terminate (I know that it’s a pretty big if), their baby could be the first “hybrid” to have a happier life than any other hybrid children before, which could positively vouch for coexistence to the world’s eye (since the baby would likely be human by Kaneki and ghoul by Touka), on top of Kaneki finally getting the family he always wished for.
Obviously, we’re completely in the realm of possibilities with this post, especially since happiness never lasts very long in TG, so expecting such a sweet and positive development might be too much, but I still felt like pointing it out since, in my opinion, it can still fit whole-heartedly within TG’s story.
I’d like to conclude by pointing out that Kaneki and Touka have been associated before with Touka’s parents but also with Yoshimura and Ukina…
…which would make their theoretical child possibly paralleling Eto; Eto whom Yoshimura asked Kaneki to save (again through bringing coexistence).
So I’m honestly really on the fence here: I didn’t particularly think a pregnancy was likely before this week, but then again, I didn’t expect Ishida to include a full chapter dedicated to Kaneki and Touka finding each other through intimacy so… at this point, I suppose anything is possible and it’s not a development that I would dislike anyway. 🙂
Sorry for the long post, but feel free to leave your thoughts or to ask if anything is unclear!
Amon’s kakuja is the one that most resembles Yoshimura’s, with the exception of his own daughters when Eto was fourteen. This also necessarily did not have to be the case because Takizawa is shown with a kakuja too, and both of his are notably different from the one eyed owl mask with slicked back hair that Yoshimura and Amon both share.
Both Seidou and Mado not only have white hair, with one significant bang in the middle that falls down their face. Takizawa was also drawn by Ishida’s admission to look like a horror movie monster the same was Kureo was. They also do the same eye buggy thing, Seidou’s is quite literaly because the eye that he keeps half lidded is his Kakuja eye, on the right just like Mado had.
Both sides of their personality, Kaneki and Arata look similiar and have visual parallels draw in between them.
Baiscally dads, there are dads everywhere.
I think this observation becomes even more intriguing when you remember the connections they have with the people that have complicated lingering attachments to them.
Touka sees Arata in Kaneki, as someone who left her when she needed him there with her because he was too deep in the belief that fighting battles far away would be the best way to keep her safe, hence her tendency to wait for him endlessly in silence – the same way she probably did for her father after he disappeared. She thinks herself to have compounded Arata’s suffering, completely unable to help him
as a child and realizing that confronting him about her knowledge of his activities at the time would’ve made it a heavier burden for him to carry. The bridge scene in the original series summarizes this aspect of Kaneki’s and Touka’s relationship well as not much has changed with them since then, all the more because every word of her screaming at him was what she wished she could have had the chance to tell her father.
Mado mirrors Arata, in that both lost the women they loved and were thus driven into an existence that held little meaning beyond bloody vengeance, whose children were inevitably scarred by their decision to lead such lives. It’s suggested that Kasuka was someone of strong work ethic and had initially rejected Mado’s proposals before giving in. Ironically, the person Taki has feelings for is Mado’s daughter, who has inherited much of her reserved demeanor and appearance from her mother. He’s like an inverse parallel of Mado in that he lost himself and consequently devotes whatever is left to live for the one he loves, rather than for revenge on those who tore him down into what he is. Akira herself, similar to Touka, didn’t want to lose any more people close to her after having experienced the death of her father, which is why when Touka posed this question…
…I was brought back to the moment Akira took the near-fatal blow for Taki, when she said, “What if back then, I had stopped you?”as though she had also meant it for someone else — because what if she not only stopped Taki from running off alone, what if she had somehow been able to steer her father in a different course than the violent one he had chosen for himself? Perhaps she could have saved him from his death, from his blinding, self-destructive hatred, but she will never know.
In Amon’s case, it’s interesting that he’s taking after Yoshimura like Eto did, reminiscent of the way a son takes after his father: Amon still has complex unresolved feelings for Donato, who preyed on the helpless as a kindly priest – a holy giver – while Yoshimura was the opposite, genuinely reaching out to aid those in need without the use of any disguises. After the traumatizing years with his foster father, Amon’s ideal father figure would have been a sacrificial provider like Yoshimura.
Many of the complex relationships in the series seem to stem from the characters’ unfulfilled desires for a normal family. Failing to come to terms with the incongruity of their emotional wants and their reality causes them to live a loop of what-ifs through other people, until the time comes when it’s no longer safe for their hearts to go on that way.
midnight-in-town 