Kaneki Ken did nothing wrong.
Impression
The predominant feeling this episode was one of melancholy, but there was just enough on all three fronts -and perhaps a couple more- to keep us interested. The most stagnant of those is the Anteiku faction, who have opted to return to business as usual despite the absence of Kaneki. This is most likely to be the best course of action for them, given that the CCG has pumped in some renewed interest towards the 20th ward. Ironically for Amon, Rabbit is feeling down, Eyepatch and Binge Eater aren’t around any more and Gourmet can take care of himself. Touka-chan is doing better than I thought she would, actually – she has a goal to work towards, but it’s a bit sad when you realize that even if she does get into Kamii, it’s not like Kaneki still attends it. All that’s there is Nishiki and Hide. And there’s also that added discomfort that Kaneki is now in Aogiri – Touka went through a bit of an ordeal when he left Anteiku in the manga as well, but there’s a retrospective comfort in him having formed his own anti-Aogiri group in one case, as opposed to running straight into their clutches in the other. As for Yoshimura, there’s probably no longer any point in skirting around the fact that he’s the Owl who joined in on the Aogiri raid. There’s a lot that’s been left unsaid about Yoshimura, and I didn’t miss the significance of the lone, unused pink teacup on the table.
Speaking of Yoshimura, the CCG are wrong about him on a couple of fronts. I know they aren’t mind readers, and it’s impressive that Akira managed to pick up on the regulative role Anteiku plays based on pure data, but it’s still funny to watch them make mistakes nonetheless. Yoshimura isn’t leading Aogiri at all, and Anteiku has no ties to it – the only reason he appeared there as an ‘Owl’ was because Anteiku happened to be there to rescue Kaneki. Had Kaneki not been involved, the CCG would have gone ahead with the Aogiri raid without encountering him at all. The CCG often seem to lose sight of the fact that ghouls have a society too, and that they’re not all friendly with each other by default. In fact, the pure concept of kakujas emerged from the notion of consistently cannibalizing other ghouls. Anyway, the observations made by Shinohara and Iwa in the lift were of more importance. In the flashback we saw at the start of the episode, the One-Eyed Owl killed lots of investigators until Arima came in to save the day. Yet in the recent encounter, no-one was killed. The Owl even preached about the sinfulness of killing. And it was smaller. Hahaha, I love how they were talking about Yoshimura like he’s an animal or something. But the point is, it’s like a totally different sort of Owl, and the possible implications of stretching that theory further is grounds enough for them to keep quiet about their conversation.
There was surprisingly little on the Kaneki front. We learnt more about what he was up to through other parties instead of directly watching him in action. If he’s truly working with Aogiri to protect the people he holds dear, he’d better put his plan into action soon – because he’ll be returning to the 20th ward sooner or later with the rate at which Aogiri’s taking over Tokyo. He now has no qualms over killing indiscriminately, but still spares humans when he can – there’s still a bit of compassion in him. Given that Ishida’s gone to all this trouble of implementing his original plan for the manga in animated form, there’d better be more Aogiri in the near future – we have no idea what the current dynamic amongst the executives are like at the moment, and so far it just seems to be Ayato and Kaneki doing their stuff. I’m still very hyped over Eto, and at least they’re truly delivering on that at last. Also, look it’s Kuro and Shiro! With the addition of Akira as well, it seems that many of the manga characters will still be making an appearance, though the differences in the roles they play have yet to be seen.
Tokyo Ghoul:re
[SPOILER START]
…I thought Takatsuki would be blonde! I actually questioned whether Eto was really Takatsuki for a minute there, although the lavish living space and the many bookshelves was enough to re-convince me. I wonder how he’ll find out her identity this time? There’ll be no meeting together with Hinami at which he can connect the dots, and as far as we know they haven’t even spoken yet. Also, in hindsight I wish Kaneki had brought out his half-kakuja at the Aogiri raid, if only so that the CCG would start calling him Centipede instead of Eyepatch.
No new chapter again this week, unfortunately. Hopefully the raws for Chapter 13 are released this weekend. In the meantime, I’m getting more and more convinced that the ghoul with the key to Haise’s memories is in fact Amon, especially as he’s shown a preference for staff or spear-like quinques in the past, and lost his right arm to Kaneki the last time we saw him. It’s actually quite interesting that all three possible routes for Kaneki’s future have been explored across the different types of Tokyo Ghoul media – in the anime, he’s joined Aogiri, in the original manga he became an independent anti-Aogiri third party and in :re he joined the CCG.
[SPOILER END]
You’ve covered everything and every possibility quite nicely. I just read the raws for Re 13 and, uh… [spoiler] I’m quite scared about what could happen next for my own reasons. It’s like the Q squad is about to walk into two traps, either consecutively or all at once. Haise might be in for quite a trauma trip if my fears come true considering what Nutcracker is all about. In fact, with Saiko’s lazy habits I wouldn’t be surprised if she missed out on being trapped and her time to shine came with a rescue operation! [/spoiler]
[spoiler] A trauma trip? Do you mean… oh no. Oh god no they can’t do a Yamori again… right? I’ve been treating this Nutcracker thing as a bit of a joke, but this is Tokyo Ghoul in the end, and Haise has a penchant for suffering. And Pierrot are back, which has terrible prospects for Haise this early in the manga. I want to put a steel beam through Roma, maybe she can learn how that feels. [/spoiler]
[spoiler] If we say that Yamori’s trauma was more physical than emotional, Nutcracker’s could be the opposite. She does operate under the guise of a prostitute and while she may skip straight to the cracking for human male’s… a ghoul male with Kaneki’s reputation, or even just because he’s an Investigator might prompt her to have some “fun” with him. I can see him escaping the nutcracking, but if he’s abused I can just imagine his heart crying out for Touka ;_;
As for Pierrot, whether their plan involves Nutcracker next time or not, I would love to see them have dealings with another deadly female: Rize. We haven’t heard anything about her for a while and if she ever comes back to herself again, there’s at least one Clown who won’t be having the last laugh! [/spoiler]
[spoiler] Ah yeah, they’re not too fond of the CCG are they? It depends on how much Haise and the Quinx value their cover, because ultimately his power level is a bit too high for an A-rank ghoul, even if she has a bikaku to his rinkaku. Haise was able to thrash an S-rank Nishiki, whose bikaku kagune got really big over the time-skip! That all changes if Nutcracker really is a ghoul we know, but that’s unlikely to be the case.
I do want to see more of Rize. I’d like her to become more than just the initial mechanism for the plot and to become an actual character. And because she recognised the Pierrot before she was crushed, she’ll definitely be out for revenge. I think her return has a moderate chance of happening actually, since they seem to be slowly bringing in characters that were featured in the early chapters of the original manga, even though the order’s slightly out of whack. We’ve had Touka, Yomo, Hinami, Nishiki, Tsukiyama and the Pierrot (albeit not Souta) to varying degrees. With regards to the pre-Aogiri cast we’re only really waiting on Rize and Hide, both of which should be major encounters for Haise. [/spoiler]