Ah thank you! Yeah, it’s really unclear. I don’t know that she sees ghouls as the epitome of biology though–it really depends on if this Rize is a projection or actually Rize which is suddenly seeming possible.
I actually do think Rize will go villain for awhile… the question is whether people will help save her from that or not. I hope they do. If that was the real Rize, there is a lot of hope I think. Because the reality is that, even though Kaneki is someone who is on paper a lot better of a person than Rize ever was, looking at Rize’s life and what’s been done to her–if Kaneki is worth saving, then so is Rize.
It would be strange thematically to me if TG ended with Kaneki killing the woman who admittedly tried to kill him, but was a child bred to be raped and then mined of her organs for years and years and starved while at it, the woman he has said he does not hate. I would hope it would give a kinder message than that.
I think he will be the same as he was before–a half human and half ghoul… though if Kimi is able to solve the food problem for ghouls, which it’s looking like she will absolutely have to do, Kaneki would be able to live as a human presumably? I’m not entirely sure how it works!
I absolutely love Furuta. He’s a genius and he breaks my heart. He’s how you write a villain. I don’t expect redemption for him, but I don’t want him to die. If he dies, though, I really don’t want it to be laughing.
He’s a perfect foil for Kaneki, exactly what Kaneki could have become were it not for people who love him. Basically both Kaneki and Furuta are motivated by desperately wanting to be loved but believing they are unlovable. Kaneki thinks “well I’ll die as a hero and make everyone love me that way” Furuta thinks “well I’ll die as a villain and make everyone hate me.” They’re both suicidal and it’s heartbreaking.
I don’t think he’s a meme man at all, but an extremely well done antagonist. He has been planned since the beginning of TG with Souta, etc. His current motivations are not clear to me, but I do believe he wants a new world. He seemed sincere, vulnerable, and broken with Ui after Dragoneki, apologizing. But now with V he’s putting on that same front again.
Furuta is a wounded child just as much as Kaneki is, crying out to be loved, but he’s lashing out rather than hiding in a corner like Kaneki. He’s one of the kids who is desperate to be acknowledged but only knows how to get negative attention thanks to how he grew up. And it breaks my heart.
This isn’t a meta so much as speculation + what I would like to see.
Itori starts this question by telling Kaneki that a ghoul named Kamishiro Rize does not exist… but also that Rize is the key to everything. Which the latest chapter reinforced.
This is foreshadowing both for Rize’s past in the Sunlit Garden (was her original last name Arima? seems possible), but also for her role in the story going forward, in which Rize is not given agency since her attack on Kaneki. She’s first captured and mined by Kanou and then she loses her mind. She’s then recaptured in :re and taken to the lab again, where Furuta turns her into the Oggai. She appears in Kaneki’s mind, but she’s just a hallucination in Aogiri, unable to speak for herself. Kaneki instead projects the worst of himself onto her and this continues. Furuta becomes enraged she wasn’t grateful to him for freeing her and lashes out.
Personally, if Furuta and V are intending Rize to be some kind of final Dragon/Boss, I’d like her to subvert that expectation in the end. Because the Rize we have known has been a plot device more than a villain, an unkind person yes, but someone who never deserved the things that happened to her. Unlikeable people are victims too, and I would really like to see Rize say “fuck it” to Furuta and his expectations one last time. He’s someone who, while I love him, has repeatedly seen himself as a god in her life, as someone who can give and take her agency away from her (and V has as well, given what she was born to do).
Rather than the ending be Rize being killed by Kaneki as the Revelation/Kaneki as Christ symbolism seems to hint, I would like Rize to say “No” to Furuta’s plans again, as saying “no” to expectations is something Rize does best. I’d like her to begin by not eating him, leaving him alive to witness her defiance of the constraints he repeatedly places her in.
If Kaneki’s identity is a giant question mark to us, and it is, so is Rize’s. Kaneki willingly submits himself to the loss of his agency, Rize does not submit but loses her agency all the same. If Kaneki is going to take his agency/responsibility the next arc, as the story seems to be setting up for him to do, I would love to see Rize, a foil and parallel of Kaneki, do likewise in the end–choose not to be some sort of villainous Dragon, or (more likely) choose to stop.
That would be hard to do, of course, given that facing all you’ve done is something that Kaneki could barely do and Rize even said so (hallucination or not it seems pretty likely Rize wouldn’t really want to do this)
Plus. Rize doesn’t have the world working together to save her. But there are a few people who might try to stop her without killing her. Banjou possibly, Yomo, Uta if he is the previous Nagaraj (for Yomo’s sake lol), Kaneki even, and Yoshimura in the lab who made that promise to Shachi.
Basically I just want to learn who Rize is, and for her to choose her own path rather than serve as a plot device for Furuta and Kaneki.
This chapter was pretty astounding. I hope Mutsuki taking responsibility for Aura’s going off the rails is foreshadowing (since Mucchan is Aura’s mentor) that Kaneki is about to do likewise for the Quinx (since he kind of failed mentoring them and he did say he was about to take responsibility when he talked with Rize).
Yes, I liked that too. It fits thematically, and while I need and believe Ken will be okay in the end, I appreciate that it wasn’t a quick fix and fixing Kaneki will be symbolic probably for fixing the world too–finding a cure for the aging and possibly even for the food, etc.
I’ve made a few posts about the Christian symbolism earlier today so I’m compiling them & adding a few things.
Kaneki was in Dragon for 72 hours (3 days). He spoke to Rize/was in purgatory for 3 chapters. He’s wrapped in a shroud when Urie’s carrying him. And Urie’s carrying him in a Pieta trope, which derives its name from Michelangelo’s Pieta statue of Mary holding a dead Christ.
Also tarot reasons. We’re entering Sun now, judging by the Dragon dissolving and Furuta finding Rize in the 19th ward (and likely approaching the end of his suicidal arc whether or not that means he dies). Next is Judgment, and here’s a description of what Judgment entails according to this site:
The Fool has been reborn. His false, ego-self has been shed, allowing his radiant, true self to manifest. He has discovered that joy, not fear, is at life’s center.
The Fool feels absolved. He forgives himself and others, knowing that his real self is pure and good. He may regret past mistakes, but he knows they were due to his ignorance of his true nature. He feels cleansed and refreshed, ready to start anew.
It is time for the Fool to make a deeper Judgement (20) about his life. His own personal day of reckoning has arrived. Since he now sees himself truly, he can make the necessary decisions about the future. He can choose wisely which values to cherish, and which to discard.
The angel on Card 20 is the Fool’s Higher Self calling him to rise up and fulfill his promise. He discovers his true vocation – his reason for entering this life. Doubts and hesitations vanish, and he is ready to follow his dream.
Note the concept of rebirth.
It’s also interesting to me and I’ve speculated for… awhile now that Judgment will have the revival of the dead considering the dead reviving on the tarot card.
We’ve gotten some hints of something going on with Dragon turning people into ghouls this chapter, we’ve gotten strong hints about Hairu coming back, Marude told them to bring Kaneki to the lab:
So if Kaneki is actually dead (which I’m ehhhh about) I think he’d be resurrected, but I don’t think he is actually dead, in which case his rebirth would be symbolic (the other revivals might be real though, cough Hairu cough)
Also Kimi needs to fix his aging and regeneration ASAP, not just for Ken but for Takizawa and Amon and Mutsuki and Hsiao and just. Everyone. Also Saiko since it looks like she might be a ghoul now too thanks to Dragon.
Not to mention the way Urie is carrying Kaneki is known as a “Pieta” pose. It’s not a bridal carry though it looks very similar. The Pieta pose is so named for Michelangelo’s statue of Mary holding a dead Christ.
Ishida likes scaring us. I think Furuta’s death will rebirth Kaneki. -___- (If he is dead he ain’t gonna stay that way we’re gonna get some Jesus symbolism I can smell it)
hamliet 