I originally wrote this meta before the announcement about TG ending was made and never posted it so it might as well be my final meta about TG for now. I was originally going to finish writing it on that fateful Monday, but didn’t go through with it due to the announcement so unfortunately the Akiramon/Ayahina comparison I wrote as well is not going to be included. I noticed that it still needs a lot of polishing and adjustments and since I’m not in the mood to write about TG anymore I had to scrap it completely, sorry about that.
Now that we’re all still depressed about the fate of mutsurie, I can at least prove that it was always intended to be romantic and was leading up to the same point as Touken up until chapter 179. No idea why Ishida shafted it so suddenly, but at least the development in the previous chapters is still there.
Basically the manner in which Touken and Mutsurie are paralleled is that Touka and Urie share their roles while Kaneki and Mutsuki share theirs for the most part. In the beginning Touka and Urie were hostile towards Kaneki and Mutsuki, though both did it in their own ways, Touka by being openly rude and Urie by not expressing his feelings out loud and only being salty in his mind. They disliked the other person and had a wide array of insulting names to call them, hypocrite, idiot, dumbass etc. Kaneki and Mutsuki on the other hand tried to be kind towards Touka and Urie and had no ill will towards them. They tried to get along, but it didn’t always work out too well
Touka started warming up to Kaneki over time and Urie changed his way of treating Mutsuki after the Auction, but I’ll get to that in a bit. Before that the important parallel moment is the first big battle where the two are fighting together. Leading up to that moment are the first Tsukiyama arc and Auction parallels with Kaneki and Mutsuki going through very similar experiences. Both of them for example end up on display on a stage and have a dangerous ghoul after them, Tsukiyama wants to eat Kaneki while Big Madam buys Mutsuki at the auction and wants to make them her pet.
Kaneki and Mutsuki eventually come face to face with Tsukiyama and Big Madam, but this time they are joined by Touka and Urie. They do most of the fighting since Kaneki doesn’t really succeed at anything he tries and Mutsuki only rather unsuccessfully deals with Big Madam’s lackeys. They’re still very bad at fighting so they just get kicked in the gut and are unable to do anything anymore
Touka and Urie try to fight Tsukiyama and Big Madam after Kaneki and Mutsuki are injured, but are unsuccessful as well and fall to the ground defeated.
Kaneki and Mutsuki, despite being very injured, crawl over to Touka and Kaneki. What follows are two scenes that are portrayed in a very romantic manner. As a result Touka and Mutsuki manage to release their kagune.
Touka embraces Kaneki and her biting his shoulder looks rather erotic. This panel as well as the panel before it emphasizes Touka’s lips and Touka bites Kaneki on his shoulder, the same place they bit each other when they later on got married. Kaneki also afterwards looks at his scar left by Touka and thinks about this quote:
Touka left a permanent mark on him that won’t go away so the scene is pretty undoubtedly romantic. The Mutsurie scene that parallels this moment also parallels a Touken scene that happened before the Tsukiyama arc, but it gets the same point across by combining these two. That scene in question happens to be this and it is the one where Touka fell in love with Kaneki
Touka has insecurities about being a ghoul and doesn’t think her life is worth as much as a human’s, but Kaneki says her life matters to him and is empathetic and kind towards her. Mutsuki too shows Urie empathy and kindness as well as comforts him about his own insecurities, about feeling like being a hindrance to Sasaki and being lonely. This is most likely the moment Urie fell in love with Mutsuki too since immediately afterwards his attitude towards them changes drastically so there is the added romantic element. This scene is also sexual in tone like the Touken scene with the embrace, period blood, Urie figuring out Mutsuki’s sex and him penetrating Mutsuki through the stomach etc.
Urie and Mutsuki as well as Kaneki and Touka grow closer after the incident, but the peaceful times don’t last for long. Kaneki and Mutsuki end up getting kidnapped by two horribly abusive ghouls, Yamori and Torso, and are put through very violent and traumatizing torture. This changes their behavior drastically and makes them more mentally unstable. I won’t get into how similar white haired Mutsuki and Kaneki are since that would need a meta of its own, but it should be obvious anyway. Meanwhile back at home Touka and Urie are extremely worried about them and are comforted by their friends.
While both are aware of the fact that there’s a high chance that Kaneki and Mutsuki are already dead…
…they still have a strong resolve to go on a rescue mission to bring them back regardless of what others may think
Here the roles that Urie and Mutsuki have compared to Touka and Kaneki are reversed briefly, but the parallels still stand. When Touka sneaks into the Aogiri base, she comes across Ayato and ends up fighting him while on Rushima, Mutsuki ends up in a fight with Takizawa and Amon. They end up losing, but are saved at the last moment by Kaneki and Urie who appear out of nowhere
Touka and Urie are worried about Kaneki and Mutsuki’s health after reuniting with them
It’s also worth to note that Kaneki and Mutsuki engage in a rather brutal act of violence. Mutsuki after hearing about Urie ends up hurting Takizawa and Akira, Kaneki hurts Ayato after he beat up Touka
Despite doing what they’re doing, they seem to care a lot about what Touka and Urie think
In the end Touka and Urie only want Kaneki and Mutsuki to come back home and live happily together like they used to
(Touka commenting on Kaneki’s hair while blushing and being awkward is probably also a parallel to Urie checking out Mutsuki’s coat in chapter 100, which like this was the first interaction we saw them have after the fight. Touka, Urie, your crushes are showing)
Kaneki doesn’t want to stay at Anteiku anymore though and starts going after his own goals instead. Small difference here is that Mutsuki left the Qs squad already before they were kidnapped, but, started going after their own goals only after the kidnapping incident. Both of them start spiraling downwards with their mental health, doing terrible things and eating ghouls/humans to become stronger. For example Kaneki raiding Kanou’s lab and having to see Rize taken away is a parallel to Mutsuki raiding :re cafe and having to watch Sasaki escape, but again, I’m not going to focus on the Kaneki/Mutsuki parallels much since that would take too long.
Touka and Urie are aware of what’s going on and hear about the things Kaneki and Mutsuki have been doing. They take the initiative and decide to go and confront Kaneki and Mutsuki. Touka runs after Kaneki and meets him at the bridge and Urie comes to Kuroiwa’s wedding just so that he could talk to Mutsuki. However, they both end up struggling to come up with the words.
This time their approaches end up being the opposites though, because Touka and Mutsuki end up being the ones who get angry and shout while Kaneki and Urie are more meek. Touka says true things about Kaneki, but ends up lashing out and getting too angry while Urie doesn’t say and express his feelings anywhere near enough. They both just want Kaneki and Mutsuki to come back home, but Touka tells him to stay away due to getting too angry and carried away in the heat of the moment and Urie doesn’t express his feelings enough to convince Mutsuki to come back.
The scene ends with the boys getting absolutely wrecked and Mutsuki and Touka exiting the stage dramatically. One is beaten to a pulp physically by Touka’s fists, the other is beaten up emotionally by the friendzone. (lol)
Despite Touka managing to change Kaneki’s mind briefly, the end result is the same as with Mutsuki and the two leave and aren’t seen again for a while. They go on dangerous suicide missions to protect Anteiku and join the 24th ward raid despite having people waiting for them at home. That is due to their own goals that they still refuse to let go of, both goals in this situation being related to their father figures Yoshimura and Sasaki. Kaneki and Mutsuki of course don’t succeed at what they set out to do and end up going through a near death experience.
After which they disappear for a while and their loved ones don’t know what happened to them. Touka nor Urie make an effort to look for Kaneki and Mutsuki and instead sit still and do nothing, waiting for them to come back instead.
Meanwhile Touka and Urie go on their own missions unrelated to Kaneki and Mutsuki, Touka goes to Cochlea to save Hinami and Urie goes to save Kaneki from the Dragon, both joined by their respective groups. In the middle of the mission they happen to come across Kaneki and Mutsuki and are finally reunited with them for the first time since their fight. It is the same for Touka and Kaneki since Kaneki only now regained his memories and met Touka while being fully aware of who she is. The situation isn’t sorted out so easily though, because both Kaneki and Mutsuki are very suicidal. Kaneki is trying to get himself killed by his father figure Arima and Mutsuki, after their plans were soiled, is trying to get themselves killed by their own family, Urie and Saiko.
This is the point where Hide and Saiko come especially relevant. Hide is Kaneki and Touka’s friend (yes, he is Touka’s friend too) and Saiko is the friend to Urie and Mutsuki while Touken and Mutsurie are the intended romantic pairing. The group dynamic is basically the exact same. What ends up saving Kaneki and Mutsuki from committing suicide in the end is actually their friend rather than Touka or Urie, though they did contribute to the cause. If Saiko and the imaginary Hide were the MVPs, Touka and Urie provided the necessary support. They for example manage to shake up Kaneki and Mutsuki and make them cry and falter, but it is not enough to stop them from trying to kill themselves.
Imaginary Hide and Saiko to the rescue, because sometimes you just got to call your friend out for being an idiot.
Kaneki and Mutsuki’s need to die is put on hold for now since they have people waiting for them. Touken and Mutsurie are eventually reunited in an place that resembles the old days at the beginning of their relationship. Despite Kaneki being the One Eyed King and the leader of Goat, the Anteiku still has been reborn in a way with Touka and Kaneki together in a cafe again with rest of the gang. The CCG too has gone through some changes with the human-ghoul alliance, but now Mutsuki is back in the Qs squad with Urie and Saiko, even Kaneki is back.
Things don’t start working out for between Kaneki and Touka as well as Urie and Mutsuki immediately though and there is quite a lot of awkwardness and lack of communication. They have one conversation together that doesn’t really go anywhere even if both Touka and Urie have things they’d want to say, instead they seem rather content with the way things are on the surface (they also have such beautiful smiles)
There’s also the moment of very obvious discontent, Touka’s bothered by being left behind again and Mutsuki’s bothered by Urie’s “work this, work that” attitude.
And those are all the major parallels we got until TG:re ended. The way the ships developed were identical and leading up to the same point, that point being them finally having a heart to heart talk together about their issues together. After the parallels I showed before, there was a big mission Kaneki and Touka were part of before things calmed down and they talked together, that being started with the famous “are you virgin” question. Urie and Mutsuki too were part of a big mission after some issues with their relationships were highlighted (the big fight with V), meaning that logically they would have talked things out too after the fight was over.
Instead though we got the time skip and chapter 179 so the parallels stopped in a rather awkward spot, right before we got the pay off Ishida had been setting up for a long time. Touka confessed in her discussion with Kaneki so logically we would’ve finally seen Urie confess his feelings to Mutsuki as well. If the parallels would’ve gone even further than that, we would’ve gotten everything beyond that point as well. So even if there was a major 6 year time skip, Urie and Mutsuki should’ve been married with kids by now, just like Touka and Kaneki were. It feels rather strange that Ishida would do something like this with the parallels to an obviously romantic relationship if he didn’t go through with it in the end. Even if mutsurie was meant to be an example of two people that never got together due to Urie’s feelings being unrequited, we should’ve still gotten the heart to heart discussion before the manga ended and Urie confessing. Now that Ishida ended it here, none of the build up lead anywhere. Why include that panel of Mutsuki looking bothered by Urie’s words if it never even was addressed? It’s clear that Ishida’s plans were always to do something different with this ship than what we got in chapter 179, but I guess that’s all we’ll still get and there’s no guarantee we’ll ever find out why. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Mutsurie got a rather disappointing end, but it’s clear that they were always intended to be a romantic couple.
Hinami in an edgy outfit, Ayato would drool. Came from an old headcanon ask to @hamliet about Ayahina wearing each others’ clothing style. Might draw comfy Ayato sometime.
Ayato: swoons
Touka: nice, let me know if you want to borrow eyeliner.
Kaneki: WHAT THE HELL *cracks knuckles*
Touka: that, in and of itself, proves why you cannot criticize Hinami for exploring edgelord-dom.
TG has always walked the line between idealism and realism in an absolutely fascinating way, and it’s one of the main things I adore about this series. Both of these themes are explicitly explored through the characters of Furuta and Kaneki, and the reason people are not happy with what has been done with them is not because “I just hate Kaneki but Furuta’s an angel who deserved none of this,” (I LOVE Kaneki) it’s because the themes, depending on the person, may not have been satisfactorily addressed.
The series’ ending conclusion is that it tries to bring these two disparate pieces together in a way that was framed peculiarly, and because of that framing the message ultimately comes across as simplistic and, to some, confusing, because textually, it’s simply inaccurate to say Kaneki fought tragedy but Furuta did not. Instead of emphasizing individual responsibility and choices, the story seems to have emphasized choices made by others.
(It’s great that some find 177 optimistic, and this is not an attempt to convince people it’s not optimistic, but to explain that, even though we all agree Ishida was trying to send a hopeful message, many of us came away with the opposite message instead. It’s not correct to say that the message Ishida intended to say is the message he actually sent, nor is it correct to say that he did not send that message.)
We all know that TG wants us to live. It’s the most powerful line of the series imo: live, even if it’s not stylish.
That’s idealistic, and optimistic. Hence, the series sets up an expectation that it will deliver on this front. And in many ways it does just that. Even when things look hopeless, like when Mutsuki spirals, or when Urie frames out, or when Kaneki breaks into Dragon, these three characters are rescued by their loved ones, rescued from themselves. That’s beautiful.
However, the framing around Kaneki’s case in particular troubles me. He was told he did not have long to live.
We all wanted him to live, and the story granted it to us: he fixed his issue. Good. But fixing his life span came at
the cost of 100 kids’ lives: one hundred traumatized orphans who were experimented upon and legitimately called “100 Kaneki Kens” by the narrative, and the narrative has not explicitly acknowledged this. Which the story could have work… except it contradicts the
story’s earlier themes of having to truly grapple with the wrongs done
to children as the concept of wrongs done to kids has been reflected in just about
every characters’ arc, and even in the worldbuilding, starting from the Doves’ Emergence Arc.
The story has always emphasized this theme as highly important and influential for Kaneki personally and for the other characters as well, so if it was emphasized so much, it sets up an expectation in the reader that this should be dealt with explicily rather than never expressly acknowledged. I actually think Kaneki eating the Oggai is a good narrative decision for his lowest point, even if I personally find it triggering. The fact that it wasn’t then acknowledged, however, makes this theme of choosing to protect kids kind of fall apart. It also again stresses the idea of making choices for other people about the value of certain lives over other lives. And yes, Kaneki did not have a choice once in that scenario, but again, that emphasizes the idea that the world doesn’t allow for choices.
The story then also has Kaneki choose to kill Rize even though he does not want to (and it’s good that he doesn’t want to), but I don’t think anyone thinks that the way in which it was done was a good narrative decision. I actually haven’t seen anyone saying it was, lol. It would be one thing if he had not just been saved from the same exact situation, but he was. It would be one thing if he tried and then realized he could not. It would be one thing if Rize’s decision to stay at the Torii Gates was given more narrative emphasis rather than her commenting only on Kaneki’s decision, but it wasn’t.
Keep pressing on no matter what is a fine message, but to press on at the
cost of kids’ lives and the life of a girl in the same circumstances he
was just saved on frames this theme in a very uncomfortable way. Especially since Kaneki’s major flaw is criticizing behavior in other people that he also exhibits (that’s what Shironeki was kind of about).
Additionally, it can be interpreted as sending an “ends justify the means” message which I personally
find morally reprehensible, and, well, there
are lots of implications to Kaneki having to kill 100 orphans and a
woman with little current choice that are deeply unsettling. While I
totally agree that Ishida did not mean to imply what that implies, it
doesn’t change the fact that some of us are going to be more troubled by
how problematic that is than others. Intentions to communicate something important do not necessarily matter if the communication becomes muddled and the receiver hears something other.
I personally
root for Kaneki against Furuta and always have, but the entire framing
of this scene left me with a deeply pessimistic message. Accept the
world, yes, do what you can, yes. But kill or be killed, rather than
asking why anyone needs to die at all? That struck me as contradictory for the rest of the series’ themes. It is true that you cannot save the world, nor can you change it: you can only change yourself. The problem is that the narrative places emphasis on this when it comes to Kaneki’s character, but not with other characters, and allows Kaneki idealism in ways that it does not allow others. Of course, he is the main character, but thinking of himself as the center of everything has always led to disaster for him within the story. And it is not actually Kaneki’s choices that saved him, speaking textually.
It’s Touka’s. It’s Tsukiyama’s. It’s Hide’s. And it’s Furuta’s. They saved him.
I don’t think anyone would say Touka’s love for Kaneki is not idealistic. Most people would not wait three years and dig their husband out of a Dragon. I’m not saying this is bad in any way at all, mind you. I love Touken and think it’s beautiful, but I am saying it’s idealistic. And that’s good, but it sets certain expectations: namely, if Kaneki is on the receiving end of a lot of peoples’ idealistic forgiveness and belief that he can and will choose to make better decisions in the future (Hide, Tsukiyama, the Qs, etc. all share this perspective), it makes sense that we would expect him to then share this idealistic perspective with others, even if in they end they do not take it. But he does not. And this is actually not something new. He admitted to Takizawa he only cared about his loved ones (which is fine! But if you put yourself in a position where you are responsible for those people multiple times, as he has and as Ayato called him on, that’s less fine),
and he did not save Eto (the clowns presumably did) when he’d promised to: and she wasn’t trying to kill him then. She was lying there dying in front of him and had just saved Touka and everyone else and told him so. So it’s hard to see this Rize thing as growth when he’s done it before.
Again, this is where the rushing comes in: if Kaneki had offered this to Rize and she expressly rejected it, or if this was emphasized more in the Torii Gate scene, it could have worked, but it was truncated. To have the conclusion of “some people do need
to die” (which is Kaneki’s conclusion) told to us from Kaneki’s perspective rather than shown (especially when Rize’s issues tend to be about precisely not being allowed to share her perspective), and not explored when TG has a
habit of exploring its themes until Moon Hell, means that the themes ultimately come across as muddy. Is it Rize’s choice to die tragically? Or Kaneki’s to kill her? We’re supposed to see it as Rize’s most likely, but it simply isn’t clear, and to have it not clear when Kaneki is making a choice about someone else’s life is putting the onus on other people rather than on individual responsibility.
Continuing along those lines, the story early on tells us that connection is important. Interactions are chemical reactions; people are forever changed by them. People like Yamori, Arima, Furuta, and Rize, who do not connect with people, die without redemption (Eto is an exception, for… some reason. I’d say this is an inconsistency). However, the story also shows us that connection is hard. That’s a realistic view of connection, in that Kaneki struggles to connect with people and has actually deliberately severed himself from connection multiple times: first with Anteiku, then with the Qs, etc. It’s always been framed as something sad, because he doesn’t believe he can be loved, and Kaneki’s struggles to maintain connection are realistic and for me, highly relatable. However, the way in which people respond to his struggles to connect is idealistic and indeed beautiful, but also creates a dissonance with its contrast. It is honestly hard for me to believe that literally not one person would have expressed frustration or sorrow over Kaneki becoming Dragon, rather than just sorrow for him. That is not realistic. It’s beautiful in its idealism, but contrasts in an awkward way with the realism of Kaneki’s own struggles. It again puts the onus on other people rather than on oneself, which doesn’t work if we’re supposed to be interpreting Kaneki’s choices as what makes the difference. Such idealism also doesn’t work with Kaneki’s ultimate “kill or be killed” conclusion with the rushed pacing and framing the latest chapter had.
The conclusion of “I need to kill the Oggai/Rize to save everyone I love” struggles thematically because it is this entire mindset that has run the cruel world TG inhabits. The CCG agents (not the Washuu) kills ghouls to save the people they love. Like, I think what makes TG so interesting is that we can all relate to the notion that if there were terrifying people who had to eat humans to live, the world would not respond with empathy. The ghouls kill humans to stay alive and keep their loved ones alive. Essentially? While ghouls and humans may now be working together, that basic philosophy has remained the same. Making choices for other people about the worth of their lives is how this Tokyo runs in TG.
A lot of people find that pretty pessimistic. You can interpret that as “well, we can’t change the world, but we can still find happiness”–except TG has always offered a solution: changing the world via empathy. Empathy, putting yourself in the place of another. It’s what Touka offers Mado as a solution in the Dove’s Emergence Arc, and then she kills Mado because again, it’s kill or be killed there.
And yet the narrative does not let her off for this, because she deeply regrets it. So the scene in 177, without Rize being afforded a chance, suggests a cycle that is unbreakable, that the cage cannot be broken, and if you try to break it, you become a villain. The three characters who tried the hardest to break it are Furuta, Eto, Arima. That’s… an issue, especially when the story begins with this:
The only character who has tried to break that cage, who tried for revolution, is Furuta. Claiming that Furuta wanted to make things worse and Kaneki only wanted
to make things better is a false ditchotomy.
Kaneki only wanted a world that he could live in.
This is the entire point
of Kaneki hiding in the 24th ward arc. He would have probably stayed in
the 24th ward forever if he could rather than actually confront the
others. He admits as much inside his head: he had no plan, no intention
of fixing the world for ghouls and human, he only wanted a world where
he could belong, where he was needed and therefore he only acted on what
was directly in front of him. Maybe that’s the point, maybe he was never supposed to be born for love and revolution, but then I think it’s odd that everyone reading it thought it was supposed to be about freeing ghouls… because the story did set up those expectations.
This is in comparison to Furuta who has spent his entire life trying to
break the system from within, who dedicated his whole life to one
plan. All of Furuta’s actions are making things worse with a purpose.
We see exactly why this is necessary because every single person within
the CCG is simply so accustomed to the cruel way things are that they
barely even react. Torturers like Kijima and Tokage run free
with no repercussions. Saiko has consent forms for a life-altering
surgery signed by her mother and not her. Mutsuki is given a knife, and
then turned into a living weapon when they show both a predisposition
for violence and also come from a horrifically abusive family. The
entirety of the CCG is built on compliance.
They literally needed to be pushed to that extreme in order to break
free. The Oggai are the CCG’s method of taking child soldiers. The Washuu which control everything were slaughtered by Furuta who then went
on to replace them, and show exactly everybody how the Washuu acted in
his personality as “Kichimura.” Dragon literally drags humans into a
conflict that ghouls have been living and born into their entire lives,
and humans have the privilege of just treating like it’s an urban
legend.
All of these are targeted strikes against the system.
Kaneki, on the other hand, broke quinques and hoped for the
best.
Kaneki’s successes are all built explicitly on the back of Furuta’s work. If Furuta had not done
the dirty work Kaneki never would have even survived as king because
Furuta did all the dirty work for him. He never had to confront the CCG
because Furuta dismantled it for him from within. He never had to
destroy the Washuu because Furuta already took care of that and he did
it much better than both Marude and Hide.
Kaneki
wanted to talk to the Washuu. He had no plan.
When Furuta was not
directly challenging him, the only thing Kaneki did was move to save
investigators. When Furuta was directly challenging him, he hid to the
24th ward and then slowly starved to death. When Kaneki was presented
with the exact same limited life span problem Furuta dealt with his
entire life, Kaneki didn’t fight tragedy. He distracted himself. Kaneki
only fixed his lifespan because of something Furuta did once again:
because Furuta provided him the Oggai to eat.
Furuta acts, Kaneki reacts. That’s been consistent throughout the entire narrative. The fact that the story suggests that acting is wrong in Furuta’s case (and it hella is! Nothing he does is excusable, but his motivations=dismantle the system so that no one has to suffer what he suffered) and that it’s right in Kaneki’s case (his motivations=protect his loved ones from suffering) is… well, the line between them is really thin. Not wanting to do something (like Kaneki has seldom ever wanted to hurt anybody) doesn’t change the fact that he has, in fact, hurt someone, and as Yoshimura says, “the act of taking a life is always evil.” To have the significant choice of Kaneki’s, the choice that’s supposed to exemplify him taking responsibility, being to kill someone who has no choice, is strange.
You have to accept the world and decided not to twist it yourself. In theory, I like these messages from Kaneki and Amon. In practice, the framing of the story with pushing aside other themes and Kaneki still committing an action the story has always described as wrong against someone experiencing the exact same thing he just went through, makes it hard. It’s a tightrope between just what the difference between Furuta and Kaneki actually is, and I personally can see why people buy this chapter as inspirational, and why people do not.
Disclaimer: This is for @fangirlingforeverz and @tanagers, I have no words but thank you. Also, this has elements and scenes from my previous work, Lifetime. It is based from the song, Remembering. Do enjoy!
Words: 1708
Rating: Fluff and Romance
PREVIEW:
A breath of nostalgia escaped her lips as she put the sign of
her shop to its usual place. The air was warm and crisp, with the smell of
brewing coffee permeating in the breeze.
It
was the usual blend, the usual order, the same unforgotten recipe. And yet,
something was different today. Touka closed her eyes, letting the breath of
coffee enter her lungs in surrender. Her mind drifted back to warm gray eyes
and a kind smile – memories of jokes and banters, the scent of coffees and
books.
I am happy you liked my meta and thank you very much for this ask!
So we could say that Kaneki and Meruem have very similar arcs structure-wise.
They
both start their story entering a new phase of their lives. To be
precise Meruem is born and Kaneki becomes a ghoul which is framed as
some sort of new birth since Ken himself associates Rize to a maternal
figure:
Urie. Please. Take a page from Touka. Say. That. Sentence.
Are you a virgin?
Or really something more like I love you would suffice perhaps better but AT LEAST THAT WAS SOMETHING.
But yeah, they clearly care a lot for their love interests and neither of them try to force the other to come back home. There is good to that and bad too, but they notably are not trying to control Kaneki or Mutsuki, and I think that is meaningful especially given the trauma Kaneki and Mutsuki have both been through.
aka hamliet’s ramblings about what the point of all the romance is in the manga
*before my inbox explodes, the title is facetious, please don’t send me hate*
I like ships. A lot. Usually I view them as fun for a series but only a few, if any, are like, central to the plot/themes. But in TG the romance is actually extremely relevant to the series’ themes, and despite the common assumption that TG isn’t a romance manga, it… kind of is in a lot of respects, because TG is about life, and what makes life worth it is connection, and all kinds of connections–family, friendship, and romance. (I might do other metas on the family and friendships in TG and how they convey certain themes too, just as powerfully as the romances, but this meta is specifically about romantic dynamics.)
TG honestly has a lot of romance (like the whole story started with a date) and is basically Ishida’s “shoujo with corpses.” Each canon/likely to be canon ship is at its core driven by loneliness answered with empathy, and each ship allegorizes the story’s main themes and the importance of solving the ghoul/human conflict the same way: through an alliance based in empathy and self-reflection.
NB: there are some dynamics I consider subtextually romantic in TG that I won’t get into here, like Hsaiko (though Saiko’s feelings are not clarified) but since Hsiao and Saiko don’t have proper arcs it’s a little harder to extrapolate on whether or not they’re conveying a theme at this point.
I’m also not saying anyone has to ship these ships, or not ship certain obsessive ones I discuss (I ship several of those ones!), just simply explaining what I think Ishida is doing with them/why he included this dynamic in the story.
Kuzen/Ukina, Kasuka/Kureo, Hikari/Arata: Tragedy and Repetition
I debated whether or not to include these but ultimately decided to because I think they best represent the world everyone needs to move away from.
Kasuka and Kureo and Hikari and Arata were both truly in love, yet Kasuka was killed in the conflict by Eto and Hikari by Arima–both of whom are children forced into this conflict from birth but who decided to create a new world. The people who want to create a new world literally kill Hikari and Kasuka, both of whom can’t escape the role they were cast into in the world. Kasuka has more choice as a human, but chooses to fight and dies for it, and Hikari was a “wild” ghoul in her youth and it eventually sent Arima after her even after she changed, because the old, tragic world is unforgiving. Both Kureo and Arata then lost themselves to grief and fought to protect what they had and were taken from their kids as a result.
And Ukina and Kuzen show us that a relationship between ghoul and human was not possible so long as people keep to the rules of the old world, yet also suggests what might be possible if they break them.
We don’t know Ukina’s motivations–Eto seems to think she was simply
motivated by her story, though Kuzen’s claims about what Ukina said to
him cast doubt on this.Ukina empathized, and that drew him to her. But in the end he couldn’t break free of the cycle, and killed her, though she empathized again… maybe.
But forgot her daughter, and Yoshimura too then abandoned Eto. You can’t nurture a new world if you abandon it no matter your motivations. All three of these love stories, however simple they are in the manga, are tragedies that the rest of our cast is trying to avoid.
Touken: Humanity and Ghoulhood
Ah, the main ship, and a parallel of all ships in TG because everyone is a parallel to Kaneki (I’m not kidding. Everyone is). We begin with Touka and Kaneki refusing to empathize with each other. Kaneki calls her a monster. Kaneki is the living embodiment at this point of how humanity views ghouls: he draws them as monsters, but then Kaneki becomes one (because the monsters in TG are not ghouls nor humans; they are everyone and no one at the same time).
She tells him to go to hell when he has the nerve to ask her for help without any semblance of empathy. Because how can humanity dare ask ghouls for anything after what they’ve put them through?
Kaneki fears violence, but Touka uses violence to cope with her trauma, symbolic of how ghouls are forced to used violence to survive.. Kaneki is terrified of being abandoned, but Kaneki abandons people when he grows to fear them leaving him. That’s what drives humanity in fearing ghouls: losing the people they love (and their own lives, of course). Touka and Kaneki then both inflict these traumas on each other.
And yet throughout part one, they rescue each other. Why? Because both of them can’t stand to see the world the way it is, and in each Touka refuses to accept that she couldn’t do anything about Ryouko’s death and turns into a murderer, in the process revealing to Kaneki just how little she values her life.
But Kaneki tells her even if she doesn’t value her life, he does. And he helps her, even though he thinks it’s wrong, because he empathizes. And when Kaneki can’t let Nishiki and Kimi die, Touka shows up to help. But they can’t be together in this terrible world. Like Ukina and Kuzen, they’re separated by the selfishness of humans and ghouls and the entire conflict, a conflict that makes strength the only way to survive. They both just want to be with the people they love, because they’re scared of being alone. And Touka sees Kaneki’s pain. She calls him on it, because she feels the same way, but she does it in the wrong way, and regrets it. Which is why it’s so important when they reunite and she calls him on it again, but doesn’t push him or force him.
It’s also important that it was on Kaneki to come back and not on Touka to go to him. As a human (sort of) he’s on the privileged side, and it’s more on humans to make amends at this point because they’re oppressing ghouls instead of seeking to talk to them. Kaneki can’t ignore ghouls for humans (Haise) or humans for ghouls (OEKneki).
And when Kaneki and Touka get together, it’s not perfect. Their relationship has codependent elements and they have communication issues because they are still both afraid of losing each other, of being alone. The human/ghoul alliance also has major communication issues and humans like Kaneki are still struggling to realize they aren’t better.
Touka doesn’t want to lose Kaneki: hence, why she tells him she’s pregnant and doesn’t go to save Yoriko. Kaneki knows who she is; Yoriko doesn’t, because Touka’s afraid of being known just the same as Kaneki is.
And Kaneki doesn’t want to lose Touka.
But Touka needs to learn to hold on a bit more now, because unlike before when Kaneki was Haise, this time he’s married her. They’ve committed. And she does, digging him out. A ghoul saves Tokyo.
However, now that they’re reunited, they’ve got to communicate better, and trust each other more. They’re having a baby. A life, as Yomo says, that gives him hope for the world. That’s why we saw the fetus panel in 160.
If Kaneki died, there would be no future. If humanity dies, there is no future for ghouls, and same for ghouls with humans.
The baby represents new life (since the main theme is live, life=hope) directly from an alliance between ghoul and human (a marriage). But the baby who is both human and ghoul represents the fact that they have to overcome it, that they have a chance to break out of the cycle their parents perpetuated and that the word perpetuated. As the alliance overcomes their issues, so will Touken, I believe.
Akiramon and Seiaki: Justice and Sacrifice
To start with, it’s impossible to discuss Akira and Amon’s relationship without Takizawa since he’s an integral part of their relationship, and it’s impossible to discuss Seiaki without Amon, so I’m discussing them together. Through Akira and Amon, we see the CCG’s two main sources of existence: traumatized orphans seeking to escape their legacies (Amon) and people seeking to honor their legacies (Akira). And then we have someone like Takizawa, who like Ui is neither and therefore an outlier of sorts, and hence is the one best able to have an honest perspective on the situation: it’s why he’s the most self-aware of the trio, though he has his own flaws.
Akira and Amon are both searching for justice, and specifically for answers. Takizawa from the beginning is a very stereotypical businessman, less about the noble aspects of the CCG. That’s why he’s the one who breaks down when facing the Owl Suppression Operation. He sees it for what it is and he doesn’t want to die.
Akira, in contrast, and Amon both believe the answer is to wipe out ghouls and therefore right the twisted world. Their idea of justice is black and white; there’s right and wrong, and they want desperately to be on the right side of it. So they don’t consider their place or role in the world. They are like Kaneki before the Steel Beam Incident, content to consider themselves separate from ghouls, yet unlike Kaneki they both choose to be a part of the conflict.
We also see the idea of sacrifice as it ties into justice in their relationship, and with their relationship with Seidou. Seidou is willing to sacrifice himself to save Amon–for Akira. Except both he and Amon wind up captured and tortured, and Akira believes them dead, and winds up alone. And then Akira sacrifices herself for Seidou, and Amon sacrifices himself for both of them, and Seidou sacrifices himself for both of them.
It’s. A sacrificial cycle lol. But Amon himself said what he thought of redemptive death, because really they are all seeking redemption–Akira for not stopping Seidou, Seidou for what he did as a ghoul, Amon for Donato: it’s trash.
Sacrifice is not justice. Justice is not served by looking outwards; it’s served by looking at yourself.
Their refusal to consider themselves as part of the problem is brought to the forefront when Touka talks to Akira and makes her hug it out with Hinami. The thing is, I don’t like this scene in many ways because I think it was disrespectful to Hinami, but like all things in TG it’s gray, so there is good in it too, and basically it’s that Touka was asking Akira to see herself in Hinami. The need to examine yourself is also tied to empathy, because it asks you to step into someone else’s shoes and see yourself there. An orphan who just wanted her parents, like Touka, like Amon. What is justice, then, if it just leaves hurting children, no matter what they are? As Akira says, whom should I be hating, then?
Akira and Amon both struggle with this, and they see that in each other and know that the other one understands this struggle. They empathize with each other, standing by each other’s side.
It’s convenient that Akira and Amon then get to disappear from the narrative while Touka and Kaneki get hunted by the CCG, because they’ve always represented the human privilege in parallel to the ghoul symbol of Touken. But everyone who’s been ignoring the ghoul problem–like, everyone in Tokyo–is then called on it by Dragon, and they have to go back to the CCG and face what they tried to ignore. The fact that they forgot what justice was.
And again, it’s gray, because it can also be seen as them returning to cling to their past safety, but Donato sees that that is shattered. And Amon faces him, and needs to realize that it’s not the answer he’s been seeking–no matter what his past is, he is the one who needs to examine himself to create justice. He needs to be honest with himself. And Akira needs to be honest with herself, and that includes taking this advice from Touka here:
And give those quinques back to Hinami, to allow her to mourn for her father as Akira mourns for hers.
Ayahina: Child Soldiers and Traumatized Orphans
Ah, our sweet lost children. One of TG’s main themes has always been how children suffer the most in any conflict. We see that through how almost every child in the series pays for their parents’ mistakes (Kaneki’s mom taking out her anguish on him, Eto’s abandonment, etc.), the Sunlit Garden, the Oggai. And then we have two sets of parents who love their kids: the Fueguchis and the Kirishimas, but neither are allowed to raise their children because the CCG hunts them down and murders/captures them. Both Ryouko and Hikari sacrifice themselves for their children.
Both Ayato and Hinami are traumatized orphans and child soldiers, but Hinami is initially presented as the former more so than the latter, and vice versa for Ayato. Hinami and Ayato both foil Touka in how they cope with trauma–Hinami grieves, but she isn’t allowed to grieve properly; Ayato is angry right from the beginning because no one allows him to grieve. Eventually both take a similar path in joining Aogiri both with the intentions of protecting the people they love. And it’s no coincidence the entire conflict is run on a diet of child soldiers in the Sunlit Garden. The conflict depends on hurting orphans like the Yasuhisas and Amon to populate the CCG and the soldiers created in the Sunlit Garden. And by creating orphans on the other (ghoul) side, they fuel the conflict on the other side as well, driving Hinami to join Aogiri as well as Ayato.
But the conflict doesn’t have to continue, as Ayato and Hinami’s relationship shows us. They both did terrible things as members of Aogiri, as it’s a terrorist organization after all, but they found a way out, and it wasn’t through learning to protect everyone and it wasn’t through fighting on their strength. It was through empathizing with each other.
Instead of fearing him as her superior, Hinami sees him for more than just a soldier. She sees him as someone with a sister (whom he’s desperately trying to protect in his own edgelord way). And so Ayato, who’s largely isolated himself from people who care about him, grows to empathize with her as well. They express the emotions the other cannot.
How can the world answer the wrong it’s done both of them? It can’t, not really. But they can find a way to live with each other.
The answer isn’t in Hinami hugging the daughter of her parents’ murderer; it’s in allowing her to mourn, and in empathizing with her loneliness. Which Ayato understands. He can’t fix her problems, he can’t fix what’s going on with Akira, but he can be there for her because he understands her pain. Even if the world never figures it out, they will have each other, and they can have hope in that.
However, that’s not enough, because the world keeps interfering in Hinami and Ayato’s relationship. Hinami almost dies sacrificing herself for other children against other children.
Because the cycle is going to repeat and repeat and repeat until someone says No. That’s why while Kaneki’s return was Bad for his personal development, it was good thematically, because someone was saying no to this child dying. That’s why Ayato is not going to get to sacrifice himself fighting kagune gremlins, either.
They find hope and comfort through their empathy for each other, but the world needs to be fixed in order for Hinami and Ayato to find peace.
Mutsurie: Duty and Compassion
Now let me talk about my favorite ship, Mutsurie. It parallels Touken (‘I don’t care if you die’ instead of ‘I don’t want you to die’ lol) and Ayahina (‘let’s go home’ and plans to save bae from death in Cochlea/Rushima) explicitly in terms of structure, but also brings elements of Akiramon and Ayahina’s themes. Mutsuki is a traumatized, exploited child turned into a child soldier like Amon, Ayato, and Hinami. Urie has a CCG legacy like Akira and prioritizes his job above anyone around him, shutting himself off and becoming cold. The first notion we have of what Urie thinks of Mutsuki is this:
A hypocrite. Worthless. Because that’s what the CCG thinks of Mutsuki as well, as we see when Matsuri then orders Mutsuki to go on a death mission and Tokage warns Sasaki about him. Mutsuki is worthless, because he has mental health problems and because he is physically weak. The irony is Urie is projecting onto Mutsuki his worst fear about himself: that he is worthless, not enough for his father to come home to.
That he is a hypocrite, because deep down he knows none of this CCG promotion strength stuff will make him happy. But Urie refuses to acknowledge this and projects it onto Mutsuki and Shirazu.
But the ship all starts in chapter 29. That’s where Urie fails. He’s following exactly what Matsuri wanted him to do, and he gets in huge trouble because he simply isn’t strong enough. He loses control, and he lashes out at Mutsuki, at the CCG’s weak reality. But instead of lashing out back at him, even though Urie endangered him for selfish gain, even though Urie hurt him by punching through Mutsuki’s stomach, Mutsuki reaches for him. Mutsuki tells him he is not alone. Mutsuki empathizes, the thing Urie refused to do with Mutsuki earlier though he knew inside that they were the same.
And that’s the answer for the entire series, isn’t it? Empathy. It’s not perfect–Mutsuki is behaving like an abuse victim in many respects because he wants the pain to stop, but the thing is, Urie does stop. Urie does change in how he treats Mutsuki from there on out, going to protect him from Hakatori, worrying about him on Rushima, etc.
Mutsuki does not want revenge on Urie for punching him because he understands him–in Urie’s pain, he sees his own, and that’s the answer for humans and ghouls and their personal relationships between each other as well. For example, if we get a Mutsuki-Touka talk, it’d probably be similar in that Mutsuki and Touka both fear abandonment, and can understand that in each other.
Later on, Mutsuki and Urie reverse their arcs just like how Kaneki clung to strength at the end of the first TG like Touka did at the beginning.. Mutsuki clings to the CCG, but his trauma is only growing worse the stronger he gets in the CCG. To the point where the difference between himself and a ghoul is no longer evident, even in what he eats.
And the more Urie’s trauma with his father repeats, the more unable to succeed he becomes: at work, and in everything. Symbolically, Mutsuki and Urie embody the alliance as well. The alliance is bound to an extent by ignoring wrongs, and there is good and bad in there. Urie blinds himself to Mutsuki’s faults (like Mutsuki didn’t acknowledge what Urie had done to him) and that leads to their issues boiling up and boiling over because issues have to be addressed, not swept under the rug. But what made the difference for Urie initially was that he took the lesson, and changed. Mutsuki is now showing that he, too, has changed. And that’s what the CCG needs to do: change. Accept that they hurt ghouls, and ghouls need to do likewise, and change. But no change comes unless there is empathy.
Mutsurie having a proper resolution would include a conversation, and also leaving the CCG I believe since the CCG is limiting Urie’s growth. They both need to leave in order to heal like the traumatized children they are.
Nishikimi: Desperation and a Holdfast
Nishiki and Kimi were introduced together and have always really shared an arc. Their entire relationship is blatantly about loneliness and empathy.
It’s interesting to me how they go to such opposite, and both wrong,
extremes post Anteiku Raid. Nishiki dumps Kimi, ostensibly to protect
her, but when he hears she’s working with Kanou he decides to search for
her. Dude, you shouldn’t have waited. If you wanted to be with her,
regardless of the dangers, that was her decision to make, not yours for
her. And Kimi goes too far in the other direction, committing atrocities
for the sake of creating a world where she can live with Nishiki. They
are both desperate people, as we see from their introduction:
The only thing they’ve had to cling to is the other, and that the other understands their loneliness. Kimi’s attempts to fix the world have brought more loneliness and pain into it, and exploited the loneliness of the Oggai orphans like Hajime. Nishiki’s attempts to avoid the conflict brought more loneliness to Kimi, driving her to do what she did.
Maybe working together, they can make a better world.
Yoriomi: Ignorance and Memories
I’ve jokingly called this a plot device more than a ship before but @aspoonofsugar wrote a great analysis of how Yoriko and Takeomi’s relationship contrasts Mutsurie, Touken, Akiramon, and Ayahina here. It is symbolic of how humans have a relatively easy time fitting in in society, in contrast to Kaneki and Touka, and also Urie and Mutsuki, even in terms of gender roles.
But like the entirety of Tokyo ignored the ghoul problem until Dragon erupted from below them, Yoriko and Takeomi’s relationship is not perfect and is founded in memories (childhood classmates) and what’s expected of them. They can’t escape the conflict, though, because Takeomi is a voluntary part of the CCG and even though Urie hates them for the fact that Takeomi’s father is still alive and he seemingly has it all as the perfect human, consequences start to hit Yoriko and Takeomi. Yoriko’s friendship gets her arrested and sentenced to die, and Takeomi loses his father.
Neither of them are major characters, and that’s why I find Mutsuki’s jealousy of Touka (that he projects onto Yoriko) and Urie’s jealousy of Takeomi a more interesting way of looking at their relationship. Yoriko even realizes how little she empathized with her friend, not realizing she was a ghoul, and empathizes now when she can’t even see Touka:
Takeomi still does not get it. He doesn’t understand Urie hated him for years, and to an extent, that belief in his friends parallels him to Yoriko, but it’s ignorance. He doesn’t get he helped create the culture that sentenced Yoriko to death. But he does do the right thing and springs her from prison, but returns to the CCG to fight. In the end, I would like Takeomi to empathize with Urie since they’ve both lost their fathers now and he can now understand the loneliness eating Urie, and I’d like him to empathize even with Urie’s love for Mutsuki because he’s going to have to face Yoriko’s platonic love for Touka soon. Now Takeomi will have to face someone who’s personally hurt him/tried to take away people he loved, and I hope he gives Urie encouragement even if he doesn’t ever forgive Mutsuki.
Utaren: Hope and Despair
Uta and Yomo’s relationship is subtextual but it’s definitely there so I’m including it ’cause I can. Their relationship was first categorized by anger and by a desire to be strong with each other. Firstly they used their strengths to fight each other, then united them in the hopes of taking down Arima for Renji’s sake, and then Yomo left when his strength got him almost killed by Arima. The fact that they were equal in strength is not to be dismissed; it’s symbolic of how they see themselves in each other, of how they can relate.
But they also suffer from terrible communication issues, and Yomo isn’t able to understand Uta beyond the physical strength aspect. Uta didn’t understand Yomo’s hope, how the world could be different, partially because Yomo completely failed to communicate to both Uta and Itori what it was about Anteiku, about ghouls and humans–and I think the reason for Yomo’s failed communication is because he was still clinging to the idea of living while losing. If Yomo can only find hope through watching others’ happiness (Touken) then Uta can only find it when watching others’ despair.
But don’t they both deserve some happiness themselves? Yomo doesn’t understand Uta, but he wants to live with him anyways. He wants to connect, because that makes them feel alive. I have hope they will learn to empathize with each other. Even if you can’t understand, living with each other, perhaps you can connect, perhaps that initial spark of empathy through even just physical strength can grow.
After all, they’ve saved each other.
Yomo was wrong, as he says now. There are things worth holding into, and he’s starting to learn that. And Uta was wrong. He can’t not live with Yomo and not live without him. He has to live with him. He couldn’t, after all, let Yomo die, no matter how fun it might have been, and yet Yomo counters his exact worldview that life is despair. Like Nishikimi, they offer each other something to hold onto, and slowly, I would hope, that would mean branching out to get to connect with others as well.
Uihai: Lies and Comfort
Ui loves Hairu, but she’s a mirage–or is she? Her personality is entirely hers, as far as we know. But she represents the Sunlit Garden, being the first character to introduce it to us. And Ui, being Ui (an Amon and Urie foil) is so focused on The Mission and justice it disrupts him showing his feelings to her, and his actions and assignments lead to her death.
Good job Ui. -__- And Hairu is the opposite. Her desperate desire for love and praise is what drives her to get herself killed:
Of course Hairu didn’t know Ui cared about her, and she was appreciated. Why would she? Ui never told her. And the thing about Ui is that after her death, he’s been unable to break out of his own pride, which keeps him trapped in loneliness. We see it here, when he cries:
Hairu is less of a lie than Ui is. Having people around convinced him that everything was fine, that he didn’t need to examine himself, but when they’re stripped away, he loses himself.
He sees no need for justice when he might just be able to get Hairu
back, because he misses her, he misses closeness, because that’s what Ui
craves. He doesn’t want to be known because like Kaneki, Amon, and more
he uses the idea of being Just to justify the fact that he exists and
deserves to be known, and yet paradoxically all he wants is for someone
to be with him, for comfort.
Ui’s slowly starting to learn that justice may not quite be what he thought, but I’m not sure he entirely gets it.
Is she still Hairu to Ui, if she’s only half-human, if he’s faced with the fact that justice was all a lie and he was never just? That’s the question the manga still has to answer. He can’t truly empathize with her until he knows who she truly is, until he knows what the CCG is. That’s why it would make so much symbolic sense for Hairu to be ET, for Ui to realize that he was not fighting against the “other” of ghouls the entire time: he was fighting against people worthy of love. He was fighting against himself. And Hairu who was always fighting against her own kind, what with her virulent hatred of ghouls:
…despite being a ghoul herself–well, it’d be fitting for her to be turned into the very Beast she comforted Ui after his fight with in the first manga.
And that’s why I would like to see a moment for Uihai in that, wherein Hairu sees she is loved, and Ui sees that he is accepted even by a half-human he fought against.
Nakimiza: Nostalgia and Freedom
Nakimiza is a ship I’m still bitter about how it ended so bear with me. The themes of nostalgia and freedom from that nostalgia are Everywhere in the manga. Like, everywhere. Nostalgia is understood, but dangerous, and clinging to it prevents the conflict from ever being solved.
Naki is a very caring individual, but he doesn’t seem to get how much Miza cares about him, because he’s focused on Yamori, even when he’s saving her.
They’re both leaders of various ghoul gangs, and they care about each other and understand each other (at least, Miza understands him), and Miza expressly has feelings for him. But Naki never gets to overcome his nostalgia. It kills him instead. It kills him, ironically, as he’s idolizing Yamori, despite the fact that he’s fighting to save the Aogiri kids:
When Yamori killed an Aogiri child. But Miza after his death shows that she wants to move on from nostalgia, that she still can continue:
That’s why I think Miza will find happiness, but I’m still heartbroken.
Shuuneki, Tsukikana, Hairima, and Mutsuneki: Obsession and Mirages
And now, let’s discuss the ships that also are one-sided canon, but that I think unlike the other ships listed above, do not balance each other out and were obsessions because they focus more on an idea of who the person is, on what the person represents to them, rather than whom the person actually is (there’s definitely idolizing going on in every single ship I discussed above too, but I think these ships are more… it was not going to work out, let’s just say that).
What do all these ships have in common? They’re one-sided and extremely unhealthy, and you could add Hinakane to it too because though I don’t think that one has a romantic element to it there’s still something not healthy there.
For Karren, Hairu, and Mutsuki, the reason they loved their respective crushes was because, well, they showed them the kindness as a child no one else did. (Kaneki called the Qs his kids; it counts.)
Rather than true empathy, there’s idolization and an encouragement of bad behaviors thanks to a lack of equal connection and communication, amplified by a power dynamic that sets these ships apart from the other ships even if the previously discussed ships have at times encouraged each other’s flaws too. Hairu aspires to be like Arima, her mentor and very likely her relative–by killing and is killed for it. Shuu is a master to Karren, and she dies serving him–though beautifully, he empathizes with her in the end and shows he values her life.
Kaneki is a king and a boss to Shuu, and he’s forgotten his family following him–though I do believe Shuu’s love of Kaneki is moving in a more healthy direction having planned Touken’s wedding for them, as he’s no longer desperate to keep Kaneki all to himself–but while it was romantic it was completely unhealthy.
Kaneki is a father to Mutsuki, and Mutsuki became like him in abandoning the Qs pursuing him.
(Notably other ships like Uihai and Ayahina wherein Ui and Ayato were respectively above Hairu and Hinami in work, the power difference is not present, which we see in how Ui allows Hairu to call him Koori and Ayato and Hinami are equals in every sense.)
So what’s Ishida saying with this? The human-ghoul conflict is not ever going to be solved by people staying in their lane, nor is it going to be solved by people idolizing the other (and we see a lot of humans wishing they had the strength of ghouls and ghouls wishing they had that privileges of humans) or sweeping issues under the bridge. You can’t write the wrongs of the past if, like Kaneki, you fail to communicate to your children, or if you are too afraid to directly counter the system like Arima, or if like Shuu you pretend it never happened. The reason these obsessions all lead to death and destruction is because of this lack of communication. Connecting is vital to creating a new world.
Fururize: Obsession and Control
Ah, the Disaster Ship that started this whole manga. But it parallels all these other ships, too. It’s obsessive, so it parallels the unhealthy one-sided ones I mentioned, but it also foils the canon/likely-to-be-canon ones even though Fururize won’t ever be canon except one-sided. The reasons why Furuta and Rize have thus far not had a chance at happiness is because neither of them is capable of empathizing.
And how could they? As Rize says, as Furuta says, they were created to be used, and unlike Hairu, never had a chance. It’s really not surprising Rize uses Furuta to escape. She’d only seen people be created to be used as breeders or as soldiers.
Furuta then uses everyone around him. He tells Kaneki he was just a pawn in his game. Even Rize doesn’t show much care for Shachi despite the fact that he loves her and is a Good Dad, and it’s Shachi’s love for Rize that gives me a smidgeon of hope for her, because Shachi is honestly the best dad in the series and that should be rewarded, I would hope.
Rize uses pleasure to distract herself from ever feeling lonely, and whether she does or not, we don’t know. But we know Furuta feels lonely. He’s consumed by it, by how alone he’s been since his birth.
Eto points out he doesn’t get to call his father, father. He’s furious that Rize can be with other people instead of wanting to be with him. He’s destroying himself with his own loneliness (like Kaneki), and the world around him (unlike Kaneki), because he’s so lonely, and can’t empathize.
That’s why, before the ending, I really, really, really want to see Kaneki show Furuta some compassion, and think it would be fitting for both their arcs.
So. This is hard to answer haha. There was a ton of build up for Touken, so it didn’t come out of nowhere, but yes, they rushed into sex and a marriage, and I think we’re supposed to see them as rushing–but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a bad thing. It’s gray, like most things in TG. I don’t think thinking of it in terms of healthy/unhealthy is really helpful to what Ishida is trying to convey.
Basically, we’re supposed to see both Touken and Akiramon as relationships that would have happened had tragedy of Anteiku Raid not interfered, but it did, so when they reunite they rush into it without taking the time to figure out how each other has changed. But that makes sense. Of course traumatized people will want to cling to something that they thought they’d lost that returned, especially when both couples have an axe (aka the CCG, looking for all of them) hanging over their heads. Their love for each other is real, but they still have issues because falling in love didn’t complete their arcs, and I think that’s realistic and therefore beautiful and kinda refreshing to see.
Touka’s character arc’s pacing is something I’m a bit ehhh about because the only relationship the narrative is challenging her with right now is her relationship with Kaneki. Even Amon and Akira have Seidou (though they haven’t made anything of that so), but Touka right now doesn’t have another relationship pushing her to grow, and I want to see more of that because Kaneki has other relationships challenging his growth so it’s only fair that Touka does too. My bet is on Ayato and Arata to impact her, but I wish she’d had more focus because I love her.
Touka jumping in out of nowhere to help Kaneki was a reoccuring event in the start of TG (saving him from nishiki, stopping him from eating hide, the church battle…)
It’d be a nice horseshoe parallel for her to do it again.
hamliet 