Time for me to ramble about my very favourite character in Tokyo Ghoul: Suzuya Juuzou. Idk what it is about all the murder children like Juuzou Mutsuki Touka Ayato Hajime and Rio but I have a soft spot for all of them. He’s had one of my favourite arcs, going from being completely unable to understand empathy and love and the value of life to realizing how much those things matter to him only when it’s too late.
Since then, he’s become a respected CCG agent, paying for Shinohara’s medical care and earning the respect and love of his squad, as seen in Joker and :re.
But Juuzou’s issues with Shinohara are not resolved–he never got the closure he needs, as we saw when Uta used a Shinohara mask to completely unnerve Juuzou, and more recently when Nakarai tells Hanbee that the reason Juuzou stays with the CCG is because he hopes for Shinohara’s recovery, a hope that is futile (and there is the possible implication that Shinohara has actually died and Juuzou doesn’t know, which might make zombie Shinohara a possibility).
Juuzou wants to honor Shinohara’s impact on his life through how he lives his life. However, he’s going about it all wrong.
Juuzou is operating under the delusion that the path towards being like Shinohara involves becoming a stronger investigator and inspiring others to follow that path as well: he believes that his mentorship should inspire bravery and strength in his mentees. But he’s completely forgetting that the whole reason Shinohara means so much to him is not because of Shinohara being a strong CCG investigator, but rather it was because of the love, kindness, and empathy Shinohara showed Juuzou. That is Shinohara’s legacy to Juuzou: inspiring kindness and love in him, rather than inspiring violence.
The path towards becoming more like Shinohara, for Juuzou, is actually not served by him inspiring lost children to become better investigators, but rather by showing them love and kindness. He’s been mentoring his squad in a sense and while that’s gone fairly well, he’s failing at mentoring someone who had a similar background to him (and who actually killed some of those animals he was accused of killing): Mutsuki. His squad member Nakarai is failing at mentoring Aura Shinsanpei, like Kiyoko requested of him. And now Mutsuki is failing at mentoring the Oggai in any sort of positive direction.
This will probably come back to bite Juuzou at some point, and he’s going to have to realize where he’s gone wrong and try to fix it before he can really become like Shinohara. (And I should say that I really do not see a tragic end for Juuzou, at least as the story stands currently, so I think he will.) He still hasn’t fully understood what he did to Kurona and Nashiro–he really needs to develop a sense of empathy, even for those on the “opposite side.”
And he just might have the opportunity to do that soon. His friend, Kaneki, is the One-Eyed King right now. When asked about how he feels about killing Kaneki, Juuzou says this:
This blind acceptance brings to mind Juuzou’s confrontation with Big Madam in the auction arc, where he tells Big Madam that he doesn’t feel any animosity towards her, but rather is killing her because it is his job.
Presumably he is trying to adopt the same attitude towards Kaneki. However, as Juuzou himself hints, there is a key difference here: Kaneki loved Juuzou as a friend (however imperfect Kaneki’s love was, as Mutsuki calls him out on when he asks Kaneki whether Suzuya and anyone at the CCG at all meant anything to him when he attacks :re). Big Madam really did not, as she brutally tells him:
I do think Juuzou and Kaneki might face off in the future (the “20” that he wears in his hair, a symbol of the Judgement tarot, suggests this as well). But I don’t believe Juuzou will be able to kill Kaneki–not because of his lack of physical ability, but because he cares about Kaneki, and Kaneki has shown him kindness and love. Juuzou’s reaction to fake Kaneki’s execution by Furuta reveals that Juuzou’s statement that “it’s already been decided” is not what he truly feels.
I think Juuzou is likely to defect at that point, or at least come to work alongside Kaneki and thereby with ghouls. He might not literally become a ghoul, but he could work with them. Maybe then he will cast off the “new Arima” label Furuta has saddled him with–essentially proving that he is not so easily bent to Furuta’s will even though he currently is indeed being bent by Furuta’s will despite knowing how shitty Furuta is–and be able to truly follow in Shinohara’s footsteps: becoming a mentor to other lost children. He might help Mutsuki, and/or the Oggai who survive. Unfortunately, if Shinohara is indeed dead and/or zombified, he might realize this too late to help his old mentor (paralleling again how he realized too late how much he loved Shinohara in the first TG), but he can honor his legacy.
hamliet 