I will try to make an analysis of him as a character and to underline what his main attributes and themes are.
First of all, letās look at how Kurapikaās arc is structured throughout the narrative.
Differently
from Gon and Killua who share the screentime, have arcs which are both
parallels and inverses of each other and who up until this arc have been
constantly present within the narrative, Kurapika, after the first arc
which introduced him, has been out of the narrative except for coming
back in specific arcs which have had him as main character. We have had
two of these arcs so far: York Shin City arc and The Succession War arc
which is still ongoing.
Both these arcs have two attributes.
1) Both arcs are pretty intellectual arcs meaning that the focus is
shifted from facing enemies and monsters in battle to being able to
survive complicated political situations where information and knowledge
are extremely important to succeed.
2) In both of them Kurapika is the only main character.
Both these features are important for Kurapika himself.
of our main relationships especially when the people keep putting themselves in said dynamics. Like, Haise was the Qxs parent-like figure, but he didn’t really have to be and it would be better for both him and the Qxs to face each other as people on the same level. Ironically many of our ch try to grow in the wrong way: they either refuse their parents or try to emulate them, but the only way to grow is to realize a parent is a person with good quality and flaws and that you don’t have to cont.
depend from them and that you are your own person and once you do you may be able to face said parent as a peer. Many of our MC lost their biological parents and so they tried to substitude them with other relationships which are more or less successful, but these relationship can offer the chance to actually grow away from the hierarchy the ch put themselves in. Also, a child often tends to idealize their parent to an extent and idealization is a form of objectification. Meta Anon ā¤
YES. Thank you Meta Anon! We really see the objectification with Mutsuki and Kaneki especially.
Thereās been a lot of use of Freud lately in the fandom, especially with Rize showing up in Kanekiās subconscious again. Ā It all sounds like this to me, though.
This is going to be a response to the wild and vastly different interpretations of Freud in the fandom I see right now. A lot of it incorrectly using Freudian imagery to discredit certain ships.Ā
Post 125, or letās call it the instant that sex was officially introduced in a manga that was before pretty much sexless except for the implication that Nishiki and Kimi were sleeping together at one point, so letās talk about the way literary works frame sex, and we as an audience react to it within the context of Tokyo Ghoul.Ā
the original in the sense their arcs are inversed and their relationship follows the same trajectory of Touken in TG. Plus their panels of their little self crying are very similar and reminds me of each other. There is also the parallels btw Yoriko/Touka and Urie/Takeomi and how Y and Ta’s love story is a foil to both Touken and Mutsurie. Chapter 28 of both series has respectively a ghoul (T) and a human (Sh) kill a member of the other species and recognize in when it’s too late they weren’t co
that different (Mado’s ring and Nut’s last words). Also the reason why they’re in such a situation to begin with is for the sake of a younger sibling (Hinami and Haru). Sa’s case is the strangest, but the way in which her Brother was introduced reminded me of the way Ayato was. Sa and her brother’s designs are also similar like T and A. For T A was a double, another self, a person she could become if she had chosen differently. Maybe Sa’s Brother will have a similar role in Sa’s arc. (Meta anon)
Omg Meta Anon, I never thought about it like that but damn. That fits eerily well and makes sense because of the Kaneki-Touka parallels. I really, really hope that Saikoās brother is indeed going to have a similar role.Ā
(This is one of my favorite metas youāve sent haha, SO GOOD)
Kaneki is torn up over the humans heās killed recently, but interestingly, back in Ch 76 of the original series, he seemed ready to kill these CCG soldiers before Noro did it for him. After this initial outburst of violence, Shironeki wasnāt quite as ruthless – he killed and ate ghouls, yes, but post-time-skip Shironeki really didnāt seem to take the same kind of sadistic pleasure in it as he did with half-killing Ayato. See how depressed he looks in the image when his activities are revealed:
Indeed, as he slowly began to realise his actions were little else than self-destructive, he fell more and more back into his old restrictions, until the circle was complete when he became Haise. And then we have Reaper, and the parallel outburst of violence and ruthless decisions when he hurled Shuu off the rooftop expecting Karren to sacrifice herself for him. But then, just like before, his old rules began wrapping themselves around him again, and he refused to kill his enemies on the Goat campaign. Until, once again, a similar outburst of violence, the most graphic and all-consuming yet.
Kanekiās rules are his humanity. His breaking of those rules, his Ghoulhood.
The function of the Ghoul in this series is to act as the Jungian shadow for both the human characters and the human readers. They are the sins of everyday life brought into explicit vision. The premise that the series revolves around is thatĀ āto live we must steal from othersā – nothing demonstrates that fact more than a race of people who must devour other people to survive.
Yoshimuraās speech comes fittingly from a chapter titledĀ āOriginal Sinā, the sin in question being this irremovable part of human nature.Ā
So when Kaneki becomes a Half-Ghoul, itās the beginning of his connection with his shadow self – those parts of his mind and soul that terrify him. Itās only through this forced collision with his Shadow that he uncovers many of the base secrets of his psychology, like his motherās abuse. Ishida is definitely familiar with Jungās concept of the Shadow, as he has been name-dropped in the manga itself.
Jungās argument was that the qualities we hate in others are the same qualities that we fear in ourselves – we project them onto other people, but itās really ourselves that terrify and repulse us. Just take a look at the CCGās hatred of Ghouls for snatching away peopleās lives for survival. Look at the Ghoulsā hatred of the CCG for doing exactly the same. Look at how Takizawa transformed into what he feared, and Amon into what he hated. Look at how the man who aimed to be a Hero of Justice was complicit in the destruction of Tokyo, or how the woman who fought to live up to her fatherās legacy now abandons it entirely. In the words ofĀ @hamliet, in Tokyo Ghoul you become what you fear – and this, I believe, is how we develop.
The failings of shadow projection are expressed nowhere so well as in the also aptly named Chapter 25 of the original series, Enlightenment, where Amon lecturing Kaneki on the injustice of Ghouls is juxtaposed with Touka lecturing Mado on the injustice of Doves. Every character in that chapter is looking through events, literally, through one eye – Kaneki and Amonās eyepatches and Touka and Madoās hair obscure their total vision of the world.
The path to the enlightenment comes not from running from or despising but embracing the Shadow. This is something weāre beginning to see with the CCG-Ghoul alliance, the Ghouls throwing off their monstrous masks to reveal that there is no real difference between them.
Kanekiās struggle between the maintenance of his principles and the casting of them aside, his struggle between what he identifies as his humanity and his Ghoulishness, is the struggle between his Shadow and his Ego (his conscious self). Because the Shadow is so utterly terrifying to behold, whenever it bursts out due to enormous pressure Kaneki will gradually begin to re-impose his old principles to make it once again comfortable for him to behold.Ā
This is why the introductions of Shironeki and Reaper are so much more violent and without boundaries than they are post-time-skip. Post-time-skip theyāre still considerably more Ghoulish than before, but they are gradually returning to another more Humane state of being; Shironeki became Haise, and Reaper became the King. Kaneki returning to his human ways in Haise is reflected by him being a member of the CCG, that Human organisation that seeks to exterminate its own Shadow. Haise and the Kaneki in his mind embody the very archetype of the Shadow: heās frightened of it and refuses to look at it, only to find when he does it is in reality the incarnation of his vulnerabilities, until slowly his Ego loses control and the Shadow takes over, its very blackness running down his face.
The King meanwhile is on a mission to unite Humans and Ghouls, but this proves difficult to do when he has yet to reconcile those parts of himself.
The caption almost sounds like self-mockery. Kaneki is attempting to solve the problems between Humans and Ghouls in the macrocosm without having solved them within the microcosm – within himself. He canāt make the right decisions while still being blinded to half the problem; he canāt deduce the world through one eye. As such, his motives do not line up with his actions, and his campaign shatters.
Kaneki has no great passion to see that world because he still doesnāt want to co-exist with his Shadow. Itās why Kaneki didnāt panic at killing Ghouls in the same way he is doing now with humans – Ghouls are the projections of his Shadow, so itās fine to kill them; but humans are projections of his Ego, and if he kills them, thatās not an action of his Ego – itās an action of his Shadow. To kill humans is to destabilise his control of his own mind. How could this have been more accurately represented than by losing consciousness completely and becoming the monster he feared in Dragon?
The journey towards the acceptance of the Shadow, the final goal Jung called individuation, when every aspect of yourself is known to you and works in harmony, is a gradual process. To preserve his own sanity Kaneki naturally backslides after one Shadow revelation, only to be propelled forwards, further than before, by the next. Eventually, the full acceptance of the Shadow will come. Kaneki is not the same as he was at the start of the manga, he is a great deal further; he understands Ghouls, sympathises with them, empathises with them, falls in love with them, has children with them. Because even while being frightened of the Shadow, we are fascinated by it. It is the unloved part of ourself desperate to receive the same care as the rest, and deep down Kaneki wants to love it as much as heās frightened of it.Ā
This we can see through Touka (and one of the brilliant parts about this romance is that the same Shadow-Acceptance narrative works from her perspective as well). Touka, who he was at first frightened by, then kept at a distance to spare him from the truth which she twice delivered to him anyway on the bridge and in Cochlea, was what had been missing from his life all along; was the person that he loved most of all. Touka has brought his heart closer to the the Ghouls and closer to his Shadow:
And their hybrid child will be the ultimate expression of acceptance of the Shadow in a world that was torn apart by its fear of it. The series has always prized love over hatred because love is the acceptance of the shadow, and hatred the rejection of it. The former is the only antidote to the latter.
So Kaneki, who has been edging all the time closer and closer to accepting the complete truth of his Shadow, finds himself on an island with no way out until he does. The torii gates give it an air of spirituality as Kaneki reaches his final enlightenment. And who better to demonstrate his Shadow than Rize, who brought him into contact with it in the first place? And who Kaneki for so long projected his own Shadow onto?
The prophet has told her parable, and now it is time for her to explain it. Until now, Kaneki has been struggling between man and beast. Itās time for him to realise that they are the same. When he accepts his Shadow, he will accept Ghouls, and he will accept himself.
His human eye bleeds while his ghoul eye sees. Through suffering, he will have found the courage to look at the world through a red eye.
and Saiko fight Nuts. While he fights Karren and Eto, the Qxs fight
Noro. When Haise disappears, Shirazu dies. When Kaneki is at Cochlea,
the Qxs are on Rushima, while Kaneki has his own self-realization
moment, Mutsuki has his. When Kaneki faces the clowns Urie and Mutsuki
do the same. When Kaneki sees a kakuja Amon, Saiko sees a frame-out Urie
(ironically Urie lashes out against Sasaki who is absent and Kaneki
avoids a confrontation with Amon). While Kaneki is at Goat we follow the
CCG cont.
Ā Ā Ā Ā
Ā Ā
through the Qxs. As Kaneki says heāll confront Furuta Urie does and so
on. I would say that the difference btw Touka and the Qx is that Touka
has Always been Kanekiās equal while the Qxs have been coded as his
children and so not equal. The point of Kaneki and Toukaās arcs in TG
was to show the similarity btw the 2 races and how the line was
blurried. The point of the Qxs is to illustrate in the structure of the
plot itself the cycle of the Black Goat Egg repeating. The Qxsā
confrontation with c
Ā Ā Ā Ā
Ā Ā
Kaneki has been built up for the Whole series, but has yet to
come. Touka and Kaneki confronted each other several times in TG. Thatās
because confronting a peer while growing up is more natural than
confronting a parent. Obvs Touka remains a fundamental character and she
is still paralleling Kaneki, but I woud say :re is divided btw the plot
reguarding Kaneki (MP) and the ones reguarding the Qxs (subplots) which
at one point have to meet.
Ā Ā Ā Ā
Ā Ā Ā
You write excellent metas Anon.
I donāt really have anything to add besides: yes. I agree. Since Shirazuās death Urie and Mutsuki are the Qs with the most character development/growth, so I wonder if Kaneki will confront them first and then Saiko and Shirazu later on? Or maybe them all together, itās hard to speculate.
But yeah. TG:re is kind of a repeat, and thatās the pointāitās a reference to the Black Goatās Egg, the idea that the cycle repeats and repeats and repeats, unless you break out of it, unless you tear down the structures enabling that. Eto gave Kaneki that hint, and I do think thatās where weāre going to go ultimately. The Qs confronting Kaneki might be how Kaneki realizes this.
As Iāve said before, the manga is very anti suicide. No character has really been allowed to die and atone for their actions.
Which is why Kanouās sudden suicide and the implication that now, maybe people would pick up his work seemed a little too easy to me. Remember though, weāve seen this kind of sacrifice before.
Arimaās suicide is portrayed as near saintly in the manga. The ambiguity of his treatment towards Kaneki, his position of killing ghouls, itās all wiped away. However, weāre reminded a couple of times that Arima still has left some wounds open.
Yomo says it wasnāt enough for him, that Arima killed himself for the sake of ghouls and wanted to fight for them all along. That heād still want to kill him if he ever saw him again.
Arimaās sacrifice is among one of the many deaths that hobbled Kaneki from moving forward, even though it looked like at the time he had been given closure.Ā
The two things he was able to give Kaneki, his position as the strongest who never loses, and the hope of the garden children, Kaneki squanders them all and lets them go to waste.
Arimaās house crumbles without him. The things that were meant to be accomplished by his suicide were lost among the wayside. Partially because the people he left behind, like Ui, and even Kaneki himself could not move on in any significant way from his loss.
No suicide or martyrdom in the manga has ever been portrayed as well. Kuzenās sacrifice falls on deaf ears with Eto. Tsukiyama forgets that Kanae exists and goes back to only caring about Kaneki. Zero squad is torn to shreds without Arima, and his position of king and his plan is lost. Aogiri is destroyed without Eto there, and its last remnants the white suits and blades are born wiped out. Hide asks Kaneki to eat him to convince him of his worth to live, but the moment Kaneki remembers this he embarks on a suicide plan. The message of this manga has never advocated for any kind of suicide. All of these characters who include it as a part of their plans, after their deaths their plans quickly go to ruins. Which is why it would make little sense to me now, if everything goes so easily as Kanou has outlined it. If he gets what heĀ āwantsā so to speak and people immediately start studying ghouls for medical purposes after Kaneki returns from dragon, and the cage is broken so easily. The message of the manga has never been to die for your goals, but rather to live. The manga practically screams it at you at times.
So while I canāt really say if Furuta will live or not, I can say this. It wonāt be simple. If Furuta dies at this point he wonāt get what he wanted as a part of his sacrifice. I donāt imagine things going at all to plan, or those two sides that came together to save Kaneki, sticking together.
Because as I said before, that would be against the message of the manga. If the message of the manga isĀ āliveā, then why should the final and most important conflict of the manga be resolved as a part of Furutaās self important suicide fantasy to make his death the cause of both sides uniting.Ā
Kaneki and Furuta are both hanged men, but this trait about them has never been idolized. Every single time, itās whatās brought about their ruination. I canāt see this time somehow being different in a manga that is at least extremely consistent with thematic consequence.Ā
We spend time wondering if we should go on, or head back ā but after the slightest hesitation, our forms are seen moving onward. Thatās right, we have to go! Even if we have nothing, we have to go on living!
amazarashi – The Seasons Die Out, One After Another (Tokyo Ghoul āA ED)
A common theme throughout the current arc has been emptiness, and the measures one takes to keep on living while being beat down by it. Without being tied down by a chain, one will go and die. Kiyoko said it as well ā people without things to protect never fight to their last. In a world thatās been constantly threatening their lives, finding a chain to tie them down, finding something that will allow them to fight to their last could be called an act of survival. As long as it will allow them to achieve the end of going on living, most characters will not stop to wonder whether the means can be justified.
But in their pursuit of reasons to live, most characters have also become so single-minded itās like theyāre walking with blinkers. Theyāre so fixated on not losing what their perceive as their reason, that they have failed to look around them and be flexible enough to take the alternatives that are presented to them:
We see it with Takizawa, who in making his purpose to save Akira and Amon, has let himself believe that his destination was the end, when he has not even spoken to the very people he made his reason to live,Ā
We see it with Akira and Amon, who in believing only each other could help them find purpose, did not see the one who saved them both, and excluded themselves from a conflict they could learn from,Ā
We see it with Ui, who in thinking his allies could only exist within the CCG, had not realized his ties to them did not have to be as colleagues alone, and instead reached for whatever allowed him to keep on being himself within the organization,
We see it with Mutsuki, who in latching himself to the first person that showed him kindness, has let his found family be torn apart,Ā
We see it with Hinami, who in the pursuit of forgiveness from a single person, has failed to see nobody blamed her and she was accepted as she was,
We see it with Juuzou, who in chasing after a person that wonāt wake up, might have lost the squad that cared about him,Ā
We had seen it with Arata, who in seeking revenge for Hikari, allowed his children grow up without both parents,Ā
We had seen it with Kureo, who in seeking revenge for Kasuka, allowed his daughter to grow Ā up with guilt about simply letting him do his duty as a father,Ā
Finally, we see it with Kaneki, who in thinking that Touka is the sole person in the world that could ease his loneliness, cannot see that he has never been alone at all, and that saving her wonāt change his fundamental belief that he is.
Furutaās plan was as follows: create an enemy so strong, that both sides have to unite to defeat it. When pushed into a corner, Kaneki, the strongest ghoul, would look at his reason to live to find motivation to go on, then feed on the Oggai to become the common enemy, and then the script would proceed as he had written it. He got it, to an extent ā Ui and Hirako could become a single team once again. But now weāre presented with a defeated Furuta, who does not seem to believe that there will be a world left to unite after all. As he said himself, kagune are the fruit of the imagination, and without getting into Kanekiās mind, he could not have anticipated that Kanekiās own imagination was nothing but despair.
If the Dragonās rampage were only about saving Touka, he could stop once this goal is achieved. But where Furutaās plan failed was in trusting that Kanekiās foremost intent would be to save someone else. After all, though we donāt know exactly which reason he had, he had talked about the need to have reasons to act. After all, Furuta had saved Rize from the Garden so she wouldnāt become a womb to the Washuus. Where he failed was in thinking Kaneki could be the same, but he was a King without a purpose, and the first person he intended to save was his lonely self.
Over and over, Kaneki has been surrounded by people who supported him, yet he has never been able to get over the idea that he is alone. Now, being literally married to Touka, he has tangible evidence that he is not, but being unable to actually accept it, he clings to this proof with utter desperation. The Dragon canāt be stopped until it achieves its goal, but if the goal is unachievable, its rampage wonāt end. His many eyes can search for solutions anywhere but inside himself, where Kaneki needs to find that his loneliness is a falsehood.
Kaneki does seem to have realized where exactly his loneliness starts: itās in the absence of Hide. There is fault in Kaneki himself, as Hide was the first person he pushed away to protect without realizing he was doing more harm than good. Like Touka, Hide continued to support Kaneki from behind the scenes, but unlike her, he did not ever reach out to tell him his modus operandi was flawed. Believing Hide sacrificed himself so that Kaneki could confront Arima feeds straight into his idea of letting oneself be hurt for the sake of others, as he kept on living while Hide did not. Death by sacrifice aligns perfectly with Kanekiās principles, and death is eternal, painless rest.
So what could finally challenge Kanekiās core principles?
Perhaps realizing that pushing his friend away actually hurt him. Words alone have not been enough for that to sink into Kaneki, but if Hide is truly as scarred as he is believed to be, Kaneki might finally be able to see that sacrificing their friendship hurt him emotionally and also condemned Hide to live with his wounds
ā
something worse than death, where one canāt think or suffer.
If, like Ui
Kaneki can see that his reason to live wonāt save anyone around him, and that those people are and have always been there for him, perhaps the fruit of his imagination does not have to be destruction alone.
āOnce, they carried zero atop their shoulders. Yet after losing their head, that has all come to naught.ā
Thereās a lot to decode in this cover page. Ā Letās start with the first and most obvious, the caption.
Itās a caption that clearly relates to Ui at least. Not only is Arima the leader which he aspired to be like whose now dead, but also Hairu herself died specifically by decapitation and losing her head. It is also quite literally that same head that brings Ui over to Furutaās side and clouds his judgement. SayingĀ āUi lost his headā is not even symbolic by this point.
:Re for the majority of the manga has been about shallow returns and soft resets. After all the manga itself starts out with Kaneki being given a so calledĀ āsecond chanceā that heās totally fine with in the form of Haise.
hamliet 