linkspooky:

My son is beautiful, I’m glad you noticed. (I’m talking about Matsuri here). 

As for why Matsuri and willing to work with Marude, I think Matsuri’s own inner monologue provided a reasoning for this as flimsy as it may be. At the moment of his assassination attempt and death, what he was thinking of was not losing out on his chance to avenge his father on Marude, but rather his chance to see Urie again. 

It’s a moon illusion, what we’ve seen characters do over and over again this arc. They mistake personal relationships as more important than greater justice. Even one sided ones like the one Matsuri experiences with Urie. The same with Mutsuki, who wasn’t really concerned with the ethics of Furuta’s regime or the fate of the Oggai and only cared about returning to Kaneki again. It’s likely that after Marude came to save him, Matsuri realized that with both V and the CCG turned against him, that this was going to be his only rout to return home.

It’s also important to remember that Matsuri’s feelings about Urie escalated in direct response to him losing his family. It’s likely that he chose once again, to ignore his duty to his family to avenge his father because he was indulging on those same feelings as a means of comfort. As much as Matsuri was genuinely disturbed by the death of his father, both his father, and his grandfather were also incredibly restricting towards him. Matsuri cares more about germany and the freedom he experiences there with much more fondness than he recounts any memory of his family, or his forced marriage. 

So as much as it seems in contradiction to forget about his father, it’s also been set up previously that Matsuri indulged in Urie and his affections for Urie, latching onto him in grief after losing both his family, and also his direction in life for the assure heir of the Washuu.

We also have a reason why Marude is directly working with Matsuri, when he kileld Yoshitoki for cooperating with V. He says that Matsuri would have been a much more preferable leader after witnessing the bloodshed and deception that Matsuri was capable of. 

If you’re thinking, “Huh, those are both really flimsy reasons to work together.” 

Well yeah, they are.

That is the point.

Moon arc. 

It’s almost like, the faction that is now highlighted in opposition to goat is made up of people with drastically motivations. Hide has never even met Urie before in his life and now has recruited him as a close confidante for cooperation. Matsuri still likely has a grudge against Marude even if he’s ignoring it right now. Hide’s priorities are likely different than Marude’s, as even so far back as the Anteiku Raid Hide didn’t join to support the CCG but rather to help Kaneki. Kaneki is also now the thing that Marude is referring to as a worm. I’m not even sure actually what Marude wants to do with the CCG now that he’s retaken it. He hasn’t really presented any kind of case or ideal on how his CCG will be better than Furuta’s, if it’s still going to exist purely with the purpose of hunting ghouls still. 

All of these people have flimsy motivations to cooperate, yet they are putting it aside for the greater good. Except, on the CCG side of things, for characters like Kuramoto, Marude, Hide, etc… we haven’t seen consequences reach them for their actions and unexamined motivations. In comparison to Goat, who are devastated and washed out now, the CCG is still mostly untouched and even looking hopeful in comparison.

I mean, Marude literally got what he wanted by walking in. Just, walking in. In a manga that’s about how difficult it is for people to cooperate for each other, and an arc that’s about how hard it is to lead, Marude succeeded in about .2 seconds. Not only that, but Marude’s ambiguous feelings on ghouls aren’t exactly made clear either. The first ghoul he has to fight when he comes back is literally a giant monster that eats innocent people, something that seems entirely black and white the kind of thing the CCG should be fighting rather than the tangled web of V that he had been fighting against. 

Marude and Matsuri’s inexplicable cooperation, Hide’s “Hide-ness”, the fact that the CCG are being presented as heroes in this situation when it was the CCG’s total crackdown of ghouls, and everybody’s cooperation with this that led to Goat an organization that did not kill humans, and only broke quinques and only asked that ghouls be allowed to live, and that hid in the 24th ward rather then fighting directly for space on the surface to be pushed against a wall and create Dragon in the first place. 

So, I don’t think the fight between Marude and Matsuri is forgotten. Just like I don’t think that Bujin and Yoriko are going to be able to exit the plot here without Yoriko going to see Touka again.

This chapter is entirely set up, and I definitely think it’s setting up for the CCG to realize they can’t handle Kaneki alone. Moreso than that though, what the plot needs for them to realize is that they too helped create the conflict with ghouls which is something that won’t happen if the CCG’s feelings towards ghouls goes unexamined and they reclaim Tokyo just by killing the bad ghoul monster.

After all none of the original Quinx have realized that it’s Kaneki yet, and that’s bound to complicate things.