“I will be the sacrificial pawn (buy you time).”
Impression
I was really hoping for a parallel this week, but sadly I couldn’t find one at all. Nor could I find any indications or references to 103 bones or it being ‘halfway’ through the series. Other than that, the chapter played out pretty much as I expected it to, which is unusual because that’s never happened before. As you’d come to think by now, Arima has a heart of stone – his son (or quinque) suddenly stands before him as an enemy, and all Arima does is to immediately move to attack him without a word. Ishida is unlikely to give us any insight into Arima’s thoughts any time soon (if ever) so a huge lingering question mark is exactly what Arima thinks of Kaneki, both currently and in the past. We might possibly get some Arima flashbacks throughout this fight, but I really doubt it. As the Kirishimas and Hinami have managed to escape, what we’ll see from here on out is a rematch of V14, with Arima even switching to Ixa instead of using what looks like a broken Narukami. He might also have just deemed it ineffective against Kaneki (his kagune can deflect the lightning after all) or it’s run out of batteries or something. Or it could be Arima’s attempt to cause as much psychological damage to Kaneki as he can by fighting him with the quinque that he previously used to gouge out his eyes.
Kaneki clearly still wants to die. He perceives his own role to be that of a sacrificial pawn – someone who stays behind to stall Arima and buy the rest of them some time. I don’t know whether Touka’s words will do anything to him in his current mindset, because to me it just seems that he’ll feel guilty dying in style, and that Touka is making it harder for him to do so, but ultimately he’ll still go through with it. Unless he manages to actually defeat Arima (which is unlikely) or someone interrupts the battle (maybe Furuta, Eto or perhaps Amon, if he’s not on the island) it looks like it’s over for him, and so I really do think the latter will happen. I’m not doubting Ishida’s willingness to kill off Kaneki, but I do think it’s a little early for him to do so given that there’s still so much of the story left to tell. Furuta might actually intercept the Kirishimas and Hinami at the drainage channel – I’ve been wondering exactly what escape route Kaneki and Ayato have been thinking of using, and it being a waste disposal area sounds surprisingly straightforward. If I were a Cochlea guard, it’d be the very first route I’d think of given that there’s literally nothing other than increasingly dangerous ghouls the deeper down Cochlea you go. There’ll definitely be something waiting for them down there.
It feels like a surprisingly short chapter this week, so I don’t have much left to say. Here’s best girl getting her cheeks squeezed.
Dat cheek squeezing. But yeah, Kaneki vs Arima HYYYPE! This is one fight I’ve been waiting for. It also looks like, if the last page is any indication, Kaneki is about to go kakuja on us.
As for someone interrupting the fight, my guess is on Amon. Eto and Furuta are more likely going to wait until after Arima and Kaneki are finished fighting, so they can profit off of their weakened state(s).
I wonder if going kakuja is a good thing. Unless Kaneki has a full kakuja like Arata or Eto, a half-kakuja will make him lose his sanity and it’s precisely because of his lack of rational thought that he lost at V14. Arima might also be able to damage him until he goes crazy like Eto did. Something wonderful is pouring out~!
I’m hoping Eto helps out Kaneki if she arrives, they worked together on the wiretapping after all. Another possible ending is that Arima beats him but again decides not to kill him. Arima and Furuta got called to V to talk about Kaneki, so maybe they have plans for him.
I’m surprised by how buff Kaneki was. You can’t really tell by the clothes.
I think he was already pretty buff post-Aogiri, I remember him being ripped in one scene when he had his top off after exiting the shower.
Ayato got super buff during the time skip though.