#akiras had a lot of themes of not wanting to leave their world just yet/see through what theyre there for

[flovverworks]

thought again how overwhelmingly lonely akira would become after everything while time does its healing. u go from having a twenty-something ppl around u at all times to being alone. no one to knock on ur door in the morning, no ppl going in & out, no chaos of sudden fights. even in the (more likely) case where akira forgets its like. this haunting feeling of having forgotten something u shouldnt have. guy who goes to every social gathering ever to have that chaotic energetic experience of having so many ppl around again

[halcyon-writings]

i checked this list and it said persona so im hoping this is still ok. Date night with the protagonists? (Makoto, Yu and Ren) please and thank you >///

ー『anonymous: Can i get dating headcanons for the persona protags (Makoto, Yu and Ren) please and super thank yous. I love these boys so much. ;A;』

note(s): I am going to combine these requests as they are similar enough I hope that is alright! no real warnings for this one either, I just think these dudes are neat. Also I know they all have like 5 different names, so I just went with the ones I am more familiar with. Maybe(????) spoilers for 3, 4, and 5, so if you haven’t finished or played them, be warned (although, idk if anyone would read it if they haven’t played the respective game but idk warning for spoilers just in case) also idk how i feel about these hcs rn, but i did my best dhdjdj

all my other links can be found in my navigation post!! If you like my writing and you’d like to support me, my tip jar is also linked there!

hcs under the cut so i’m not clogging anyone’s dash (originally these were gonna be a short set of hcs but i guess not dbdndn)

What our dear protagonist lacks in overall extrovertedness, he makes up for in action. Surprise surprise, dates can either range from hanging out in the dorms and cooking a nice meal together. Or maybe going to the mall and heading to the arcade. Or basically wandering around until your legs hurt and your purchases range from new outfits to weird antiques from the antique shop.

However he really does treasure these little trinkets, because the memory of your laughter when you were given a certain item will forever be ingrained in his mind. It’s a comfort in the end too.

Date nights are focused on you and you only. He definitely sets a date where he knows you both are free so that there’s less likely of a chance for being interrupted. He definitely wouldn’t want his time with you to be wasted. Although seeing his small pout when it does happen is very cute.

You also gotta be keen on if he sees something he likes and wants. While Minato won’t exactly say it, his gaze lingers a bit longer than usual. But he ultimately won’t get it, because he wants to focus on you and also save up for when the group goes to Tartarus. So if you surprise him with whatever he had wanted, he’s so happy.

While he is slightly more reserved in comparison to Yu and Akira, Minato speaks through action. Whenever you two are walking together, he always has your hand in his, or keeping close by in some way. He likes to cling to you when it’s just you two, his head buried in the crook of your neck as you two nap tother, legs tangled up together. Or the small jokes he says loud enough for only you to hear, but they’re still so funny. Sometimes you’re asked if he’s really a good boyfriend, and you have to laugh off the doubt, because they don’t see the sides of him that you do.

My god. Yu would absolutely be the best at arranging dates and hangouts. I take no criticism. Like you guys could literally just be walking all around Inaba, or just sitting by the river bed and it could be one of the greatest times you’ve both had together. A romantic at heart, Yu would also be a bit cheesy in arranging dates.

He shows affection through communcating it. Whether it’s a new outfit or something, he’ll say that you look incredible or if you’ve studied for a hard exam, he’ll make sure you know how amazing you are for passing. Idk just anything that has you smiling from sweet compliments and other words of affirmation. A big sap, honestly you try and joke about it but he just earnestly says “Who wouldn’t be for you?” And you have to sit down and hide your face in your hands for a solid 5 minutes.

You also gotta be cool with Nanako. But then again she’s a cute kid and a sweetheart so idk why you wouldn’t be. Although he does get a little flustered if it’s you two watching her while Dojima-san is working late at the station and the old ladies coo over how you three look like a mini family yourselves. Which is kind of a common occurrence. And I feel like Yu would know pretty well if he sees a future with someone he’s with, and with you he does shhh

Date nights in Inaba are really fun and a good way to wind down, sometimes it’s wandering Junes and finding whatever the newly advertised, as seen on tv appliance is. Or other parts of the shopping district, where he can really let go and just have fun for himself. When not worrying about school work or the cases the Investigation Team is working on.

some spoilers here; but after Izanami is defeated and the year ends. When Yu has to leave Inaba it doesn’t mean that he won’t put his best efforts to keep up the relationship. If possible, video calls or just the occasional text too. And when he visits, while he does miss his friends, he’s especially antsy to see you too. And when you’re both together again, he refuses to leave your side.

Now, Akira can be described as this suave, casanova type character. But he’s also a giant dork and you know it, he knows it, the Phantom Thieves all know it, hell even Sojiro knows it. It doesn’t mean his attempts at flirting doesn’t get you blushing. And when he sees the flustered expression, it only motivates him to keep going. But turn the tables on him, and he’s putty in your hands. (And he looks very cute).

Because of the way you met, aka, at Shujin, where his reputation was basically over and done with before it even began, he has a lot of doubt and trust issues, what if someone dared you to speak to the “criminal” or something? While he won’t show these doubts out loud to his friends, it’s still something he thinks back on a lot. But when you defend him vehemently one day, he knows he was right to trust you.

A part of dating Akira, is eventually finding out who he is. Maybe trips to Mementos cause him to be late to dates or not even show up at all. You end up stood up more often then not once things begin to get really serious. From small time school teachers to the literal Yakuza (and eventually a candidate for Prime Minister, and a god), you don’t know where he is. And that becomes really stressful because then the doubt™️ sets in.

To make this less angsty and more funny, imagine you know from figuring it out. He’s suspiciously watching the news on the PT, and no offense to Ryuji, he’s not the most quiet. So he’s so nervous trying to tell you when you’re just “yeah I know, sorry for not telling you, I wasn’t sure if you wanted me to know.” and he’s just the surprised pikachu face.

As for date nights, the city is your oyster. I’d say the world but mans still currently has a criminal record so probably not yet. But he’s gonna take you wherever you want. Whether it’s a themed cafe, or just the streets of Shinjuku, as you take in all the sights from the bright places, he’s willing to do whatever for you. That includes facing off kids at the arcade for a stuffed plush you saw and admitted it was cute. He is a man on a mission. And you cannot stop him. So you both end up back at Leblanc at the end of the night carrying your plushies and eating some curry that Sojiro left warming for you. That even includes the Big Bang Burger challenge he will do it for you , even though you probably do laugh at his pain after but you still coo and praise his efforts.

After he goes back home, record clean and world hopefully peaceful. Virtual dates become a thing, either just sitting and talking while having dinner or something is nice. He still loves to say those cheesy pickup lines that had you hiding your flustered expression as you walked through the streets of Shibuya on call. You only hung up on him once but he quickly called back and was very pouty about it. You were forgiven though with the promise of giving many kisses when he visits.

[side-lizabeth]

ONE PIECE DRESSROSA-ZOU ARCS IMPRESSIONS

This part is the spoiler-free part of my impressions.

I don’t know what I was expecting from Dressrosa but it didn’t left me wanting for more... outside the animation part, probably. But I mean when you get spoiled on how OP’s being animated rn, no sh*t. Although I really did enjoy the new characters. Cavendish is accidentally becoming one of my favourite characters and this is because of the anime of Gintama... But that’s because I’m finding more and more seiyuus in One Piece that just so happened to be voicing recurrent characters (or straight up main characters) in Gintama, so I shouldn’t be suprised.

And then there’s Zou and I’d lie if I’d say I should have had expected an island with furries, and yet I didn’t. ...and once again the “holy sh*t I wasn’t expecting these seiyuus being in One Piece too” striked back. But at this point I don’t know if it’s really because of Gintama or just because I’m starting to go back to my old teen hobbies like when I was a hardcore Seiyuu fan, and recognizing a lot of seiyuus is giving me a huge bust of serotonin. (?)

Above all, I liked Dressrosa more than Zou, even if Dressrosa has... it’s own issues.

If you want to go straight up to the spoiler section, click down here:

Let’s start with Dressrosa:

I thought to just continue this lil update, where I started the non spoiler section by saying that I won’t feel any shame or make an apology for reblogging non stop posts of Roronoa Zoro, I’m still on that Idea, fight me if you want(maybe no); but I decided to explain more about my first impressions, and then maybe elaborate extra stuff from those bullet point-lighning round from that post.

Overall, I had fun. I geniuently enjoyed Doffy as a villain, and his motivations where pretty interesting too. NGL, this arc is basically new world Alabasta” and it pretty much shows... But the thing is that this time it was a little bit more interesting because of Doffy.

Doffy being the combo of Warlord and Celestial Dragon may sound like that moment of the Simpsons of “it’s just the same doll but with a new hat” in comparison to Alabasta, but even if I also enjoyed Crocodile as a villain in there, at least Doffy had a more interesting backstory and motivations to explore... while Crocodile was just an excuse to show off Nico Robin in all her glory. That’s it. I said it. (and probably made a fwend sad). Please, Crocodile, sir, next time you come back please do show us the secret Ivankov and you only know and then we talk.

Overall, I just had the time of my life hating Doffy, that’s it. I’m not going to try to explain anything else. I’m a basic b*tch whose favourite villains are the ones who are just so evil I just have the time of my life hating on. Like Tsurumi from Golden Kamuy, another despicable motherf*cker, for instance.

And now that I’m talking about Doffy... I KNOW UNDERSTAND WHY PEOPLE LIKE CORA-SAN AND I ALSO JOIN THE GANG. BEST FATHER EVER AND HE BARELY WAS ONE FOR 6 MONTHS. BUT GAVE BABY TORAO ENOUGH LOVE TO PREVENT HIM FROM BECOMING LIKE HIS BROTHER. KUDOS TO HIM.

...Btw, I just need to break this impressions one moment to openly say that, as a Spaniard, I feel weird now saying Doffy’s entire name. For a reason. And Cora-san’s too. Now I understand english speakers(americans to be more precisely) when they watch Bungou Stray Dogs and some characters from there just happened to be named after famous english literature writers... (the first comparison I just thought about, don’t attack me plz)

Also, kudos to the voice actors because they did an amazing job and I had even more fun, like for instance Koyama Rikiya. I absolutely loved Kyros thanks mainly to him... Although I wish I could entirely say the same about Rebecca and Baby 5 because they barelly had any screentime or, at least personally speaking, didn’t to bring something interesting tothe table... Well, maybe I can excuse Baby 5 because of the ending of Punk Hazard, but with Rebecca definetly not. FFS her seiyuu is the Queen Hayashibara Megumi, I was expecting more from Rebecca (although maybe the blame is really in me for expecting that much) than what we got. But don’t get me wrong, I did like her but.. I wanted just a little bit more of her.

Another thing I enjoyed a lot was the introduction of Fujitora. I knew he was popular for a reason, but I wasn’t expecting it to be... because of this. I was expecting him to be popular only because he was a blind old man who could fight harder than the dudebro’s gary stu fanfic-like idea they have of Zoro, but he’s definetly not that. Fujitora is a really interesting man who geniuently thinks about people’s safety (can’t say the same about Sakazuki and Borsalino, lol), and I respect that.

*LAST MOMENT EDIT BECAUSE I FORGOT ANOTHER VERY IMPORTANT THING* THE REUNION OF LUFFY AND SABO MADE ME CRY TOO. I DON’T KNOW, I’M CRYING TOO MUCH OVER ONE PIECE

Now I’m just going through some bullet points from the update post:

First bullet point I’m actually elaborating: The Colloseum part was hella boring.

I just couldn’t stand it. I barely gave any sh*t about the characters and there’s also times where I’m just thinking that the Colloseum part could had been handled differently, with more interesting characters but well, that’s my opinion. I mean the only tournament arcs that I genuenly enjoyed were the Galaxy Wars from Saint Seiya (the OG one from the 80′s if somebody’s wondering), and maybe the Heaven’s Arena arc from HxH, so even if I was interested on seeing the OP take on it.. It kinda went sour for me at the beggining of this tournament, honestly. The fight versus Diamante was probably one of the very few interesting things happening inside the tournament.

And don’t get me wrong, interesting things do happen inside, like the encounter of Luffy and Rebecca, the fate of the losers from the colloseum, etc. But the tournament arc itself... not the best thing, pretty boring tbh.

The second bullet point I’m actually elaborating, but this time I’m literally copy-pasting the bullet point... for a reason: I STARTED TO SWEAT IN F*CKING FEAR WHEN NAMI’S GROUP ENCOUNTERED BIG MAM’S SHIP, AND EVEN MORE WHEN SANJI SAID “I’M GETTING INTO THAT SHIP”. NO. PLEASE. DON’T. I’M NOT READY FOR WHOLE CAKE ISLAND YET.

Look, by the time I’m writing this I’m already in Whole Cake and let me just tell you one thing; I’m still not ready for this arc. I know it’s very important, specially for Sanji’s development as a character and it’s like a re-introduction of him, but I’d lie if I’d said that I “do feel sensitive” around the themes explored in this arc, and it’s personally tought to go throught it but... Since it’s just too long and too personal to share the entire reason on a public post, I’m just leaving it as the following: “I’m not ready to tackle those themes, but I feel like I need to tackle them if I want to be the best version of myself”. That’s all.

The third and last bullet point I’m actually elaborating, LET ME TELL YOU HOW GINTAMA F*CKED ME UP ENTIRELY

For the sake of being short, I’m a crazy Gintama fan. I’m almost like an encyclopedia of shorts for all(?) Gintama content. I’ve been like this since I was 14-15 y/o (when I’m writing this I’m currently 25), so of course, if there’s something that remotely resembles something from Gintama (mainly gintama jokes or references when it happens), I’ll react to it instantly (but in a healthy way, not like an obnoxious annoying elitist lil sh*t of a fan), and sadly, part of this curse I ended up with included reconizing every single seiyuu that appeared in Gintama (or at least the ones who voiced important/popular characters) in other anime. And of course, seiyuus from Gintama did already appear before Dressrosa; like kid Ace’s seiyuu Sakaguchi Daisuke (voice of Shinpachi), or... Akainu’s seiyuu Tachiki Fumihiko (voice of Hasegawa “Madao” Taizou)... But then there’s Dressrosa and... It just went all over the board (pun not intended... does it even count as one tho?).

And don’t get me wrong, this did also happened to me on reverse with One Piece Seiyuus, but.... coming back to “Gintama f*cked me up”, it hitted differently, because it almost looked like they were casted to play certain characters based on the characters they played in Gintama and... NGL, it made everything even more hilarious. Like the fact that Kugimiya Rie voices a bad mouthed “child” in One Piece(Sugar)... just like she does in Gintama(Kagura). And I know technically speaking Sugar “is an adult” BUT, if we follow the logic of her Hobby Hobby fruit, she’s doomed to be an eternal child for the rest of her life, as in “no more development like a normal adult human would”. I’m just saying what the canon says, don’t mind me.

...Or Cavendish. I can confirm you that Cavendish is pretty much Gintama’s Katsura Kotarou’s madness as an OP character. And now he’s one of my favourite background characters in One Piece... Mainly because of that. And yes, they do in fact share the seiyuu Ishida Akira. (Also, is it just me or is he inspired by Lady Oscar from The Rose of Versailles???)

...So yeah, TLDR: too much gintama made me shout “oh shit, gintama’s taking over one piece”

Now with the Zou impressions

I liked the idea of Zou being an “island”, that’s not an Island but a millennia old elephant, walking around and hard to track down. Brilliant. Also, I’m pretty sure it’s inspired by something mythological but I still can’t point out which one.

...also I wasn’t expecting Pedro to be voiced by Miki Shin’Ichiro, in the same way I wasn’t expecting Orikasa Fumiko as Wanda... although she already voiced someone previously in One Piece so...

Even if it was a short arc, it gave a lot of valuable information like the origin of the poneglyphs and the link between the Mink tribe and the Kozuki clan from Wano but...

What I wasn’t expecting was how we got introduced to the Whole Cake arc. I came to this arc, thinking the Whole Cake thing won’t be that mentioned and... I ended up crying because of the sacrifice Sanji was willing to partake in... I feel bad for that guy... And since by the time of writing this I’m already in Whole Cake... Without spoilers I’ll say: yeah, no sh*t I was feeling bad for him” (also because I got almost entirely spoiled over all Whole Cake arc).

...but look, ngl, I didn’t like very much the ending of this arc. Probably what happened to Momonosuke and the Millennia old elephant may be more interesting and better explained in the near future but... I was more confused than anything, and I’m hopping it to be better explained in the future. I’ll just leave it as such.

Over all, if I had to choose, I’d say that Dressrosa was more entertaining than Zou... Although Zou did deliver bigger stuff when it comes to plot development, while Dressrosa was more focused on the next step to overthrow a Yonkou than anything, I felt like I had more ”fun” watching Dressrosa... Probably because I also want to get to Wano already.

.

.

.

Now I’m in Whole Cake arc, I’m more or less by the beggining of the arc and oh boy... This arc is going to be harder than expected and the only thing ready I have are the pocket tissues by my side because I already know I’m going to cry the hell out of this arc. And of course, have my soul utterly destroyed by the Reintroduction of Sanji and his past.

I hope he has a break after this because wow... He needs too many hugs to count. Probably more than Luffy in Marineford.

[gear-project]

Famitsu Interview with Katano and Ishiwatari

Source.

Translation: Gear-Project (Me) (Read the GG+Interviews tag on my blog for older entries).

At the Sega Atlas booth at TGS 2019, a stage event was held for ARC System Works' "GUILTY GEAR".  On the stage, General Director Daisuke Ishiwatari of ASW and Director Akira Katano took the stage to introduce the appeal of the game.  In the PV that first became public, a forceful battle was shown, participation of May one of regular popular characters in the series was also announced.

After the stage event, I was able to interview Mr. Ishiwatari and Mr. Katano, and published this article.

[It was commented at the event that this is not a sequel to GUILTY GEAR but a completely new work, but there isn't any X or number in the title?]

Ishiwatari: We didn't give this a subtitle or number at the time, but we're exploring how we should treat this new work.

Katano: I'm making it clear that it's not part of the Xrd Series.

In this title, I'd like to emphasize the stance of creating a new fighting game with ARC System Works, a brand new work for GUILTY GEAR.

[Is the Xrd Series now complete with Rev2?]

Ishiwatari: In terms that being a game I worked on (Under soley Ishiwatari), you can think of it as complete with Rev2... However as part of the story on the whole, the series continues.

Katano: Rev2 is not scheduled to be upgraded as a game in the future.  I would like to follow up on the people who still play it right now, but that's not something I can promise you at this stage.

[When you watch the PV, you can see that the video work side is improving, but as a fighting game, does that change the system drastically?]

Ishiwatari: As a fighting game, I think it will be a response system that will change a lot as GUILTY GEAR, rather than compared to the Xrd Series.

[Including May that was announced today, four characters in total have been released at present.  I don't think you can say anything else at this stage, but what is the total number of characters for the roster?]

Ishiwatari: Because everything is being remade, labor has occurred in its own way.  I don't think all the characters from previous games will appear from the timing of the release date (2020).

Katano: I think many of you are wondering how the continuity follows from Rev2, but I'm making this game from scratch as a completely new work.  None of this will deviate from the previous work's story, so expect it to include aspects of it.

As much as is possible, we want to make a game in a way that will meet all your expectations.

[In the first PV, there was a character with dreadlocks who was completely new, what kind of character is he?]

Ishiwatari: I was able to present that character by showing more visuals that no-one had ever seen before, and it was part of the appeal that it was completely new, but I still can't say much about him.  Let me just tell you that he has something to do with the HISTORY of Guilty Gear.

[In recent games by ARC System Works, there are many support systems that are easy for entry level beginners to access, but does this work contain some kind of system that is easy for beginners to enter?]

Ishiwatari: The fact that there is a follow-up for beginners suggests the game is difficult to play in the first place, so I have my own interpretation.  In that sense, I think about a game that doesn't need to follow that kind of trend.  If it is a complex system like conventional GUILTY GEAR games, with multiple system/mechanics, we are developing this work by throwing all of that away and reconsidering things from scratch.

Katano: I think it's closer to keeping everything simple, rather.  Since we can't talk about specifics just yet, it's an ideological statement for the time being, but I hope it will be a title that can be played by a wider range of people, rather than a mechanism built to follow beginners in to ASW's world.

Ishiwatari: It's easy to think about the way the game itself has shaped up (so far), but the entrance is simple.  The depth of the game was not cut out.  I want to make this work a deep fighting game like we conventionally do.

Katano: I wish I could get rid of the fact that it's going to be difficult to look at (and play).  In conventional games, there is also a system that allows combos to be played by a series of buttons, and I think there are many people who were able to enter fighting games genre via that route as a result.  Even if such a system is implemented, with good mechanics in it, there currently isn't any.  Even if there was a back-to-back combo, it doesn't seem easy from the point of view of people who don't play fighting games, and I think they (still) don't know what's going on.  In this game, if you don't usually play fighting games, you want to cherish the way the game plays and actually SEE what's going on.

Ishiwatari: That's our 'key word'.

Katano: Not everything has been decided because it's still under development at the moment, but I would like to make the game a game that can touch a wider audience in a way that is different from the usual approach of ARC System Works.

Ishiwatari: When I was making the GUILTY GEAR SERIES in the first place, I had a problem that I couldn't solve because of how much I "knew" about GUILTY GEAR.  With this new GUILTY GEAR (work), we are in the process of reviewing whether or not that problem can be solved.

Katano: Even in Japan, Guilty Gear was built very strong, meanwhile from the starting line, even people who played the games for a long time changed with each numbering.  I'm not denying that, but there's also the idea that if you want to market the game as a "completely new game", it might be better to make it a flat game system for a variety of players.

[What are your new challenges and goals in this work?]

Ishiwatari: I think the game itself is the challenge, rather than what we should do with this part.  "GUILTY GEAR", but I was thinking about where to power up so far.  However, in this work, as GUILTY GEAR had up to now, being built from scratch is something that's never been done before, and I think in that instance leaving things that way was good up to now.

Katano: Up to now, the GUILTY GEAR SERIES and ARC System Works games have had a lot of approaches towards Japan, and Japanese players have been very strong (as a result).  I would like to take on the challenge of approaching the entire world further through the game system and promotion.  I don't want to play a game that you can't play unless you've played the original GUILTY GEAR or someone who was born and raised in the game center (arcades).  I hope I can play equally on ANY device!

Ishiwatari: GUILTY GEAR has mainly been in Arcade Game Centers, and there are many people who play with Arcade sticks, and we were developing games based on that.  However, if you look overseas, the penetration rate of arcade sticks is very different, and there are many people who are playing on the pad.  Well, there's part of me thinking more than ever about what to do if I play this on the pad.  Competition becomes difficult if you press so hard in to it, but this time it's just "GUILTY GEAR", so let's stop competing for difficult combos.

[May appeared in the latest PV, and I got the impression that she has grown up, in the current time period, will this be a time-skip future story beyond Rev2?]

Ishiwatari: I think that the change in time period is not set in stone, but the design was able to be considered as things changed.  As a world setting, it is being continued as a basis, but it's not a story about a distant future.  It's still a story after Rev2.

[Speaking of GUILTY GEAR, it is also one of the attractions that the music and BGM are composed by Mr. Ishiwatari and used in these works.]

Katano: I'm asking Naoki Hashimoto to do the theme song for this one, just like in Xrd.  Ishiwatari is also in charge of the music.

Ishiwatari: Just like how the pattern has changed, it may be that the location and routes have also changed (in his music).

[The most interesting part of the PV was the scene where the character swept away and the stage changed.  From the perspective of ASW's past works, I think there is a system-like function rather than just directing, but do you think about that?]

Ishiwatari: Our exclusive patent is to balance fighting games and incorporate them into our philosophies no matter what we do.  It's definitely not just a production.

[ARCREVO AMERICA 2019 seems to be able to hold several demos, what kind of game will be played there?]

Katano: It's not full spec, but you can play something that's easy to understand about the game.  Please wait for more information about the available characters.  It was also announced that it will be released on the PlayStation 4, but it is not an exclusive title to the PS4.  For other measures, please wait for more information.

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball 067

This title card is awesome.    

Goku’s currently deep inside the Red Ribbon Headquarters, only a few floors below the Dragon Balls he came for, and Commander Red himself.   Bad guys keep shooting at him, and they either miss or he just shrugs it off and kicks the crap out of them.   Also, every fourth or fifth guy in the Red Ribbon Army is a furry, like this adorable bunny soldier Goku just crushed with a table.  Is Goku a furry?   I mean, the tail and all.   Really, with all the animal-people and the kid with the backpack, and the nervous guys in uniforms, this feels like a convention hall got double-booked, and now they’re all fighting it out.   

I just noticed the pool table over there on the upper left.    Damn shame, but those are the fortunes of war.

 By now, the men are starting to run away from Goku instead of fighting him.  Commander Red’s really pissed about the whole thing, but there’s only two things he can do about it: Jack and shit, and Jack just got killed by Goku.

Oh wait, he just found Colonel Violet on one of the closed-circuit security monitors.   For a hot minute, he’s super thrilled with Violet as the lone hero who’s willng to run towards the enemy and defend her commanding officer.   Wait, why is she headed for the vault?

Yeah, so Colonel Violet’s only sticking around so she can blow up this huge safe and clean out the Red Ribbon’s treasury.

And I mean clean.   She left a few stacks of bills behind, but I have to assume they were worthless RRA scrip or something.    I mean, she took everything else with her.  

Oh, and she even looks at the security camera while she does this, like she knows Red is watching.   Colonel Violet is the best.  

While Red blows his stack over Violet’s treachery, Black watches the soldiers openly fleeing the base.   Turn out the lights... the party’s oooo-ver...

This guy rules.

Commander Red still won’t give up.   Now here’s where the anime and manga take very different paths.  In the manga, Red never leaves this room.   In the anime, he gathers his two Dragon Balls and orders Black to defend this floor while he goes upstairs the next one.  

Black doesn’t get it, but he complies.  He fights Goku for a bit, and doesn’t do too bad, but it’s clear that he’s no match for him.    I’m not sure how strong Staff Officer Black is supposed to be here.  For all we know, Black might be as strong as General Blue was, or maybe he’s somewhere in Colonel Silver’s class?   I mean, Goku defeated him easily, but Black lasted a lot longer than you’d expect from a desk jockey.

Is it just me, or does General Black kind of look like Michael Jordan?   He was a huge celebrity in the 80′s, and maybe the tallest guy Akira Toriyama could think of, so maybe there’s something to that. 

It turns out that Red’s plan was for Black to keep Goku occupied while he activated a deathtrap that would collapse the entire floor.   Black narrowly escapes this by falling out of a window and hanging on for dear life.   It’s at this moment that he realizes that Red was willing to kill him to take out Goku.

Red heads down to what’s left of the crushed floor, and savors his apparent victory.   All he has to do now is dig up Goku’s corpse, get the four Dragon Balls he was carrying, find the seventh one, and he can finally get his wish........................................................to be taller.

As he says this, Black climbs back inside and asks him if that’s what this was all about.   Like everyone else, he assumed Red planned to wish for world domination, but instead this whole campaign was just to alter Red’s physical appearance.  

Red insists that he can conquer the world without the Dragon Balls, but it won’t do him any good to rule the world unless he looks the part.   So Step One is to get taller, and Step Two is to conquer the world.  Step Three is to get the babes. 

There’s a distinct amount of chauvinism in Dragon Ball, but there are times when I think it does serve as a kind of social commentary.    Just about everyone in this story is motivated by sex, one way or another.   Bulma wants a boyfriend, Yamcha wants to get married, Chi-Chi wants to get married, Master Roshi wants to do a bunch of perverted stuff, Oolong wants to do a bunch of perverted stuff, and Krillin wants to get good at martial arts so girls will like him.   And now this.  

And I get it.   Hell, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t writing this for the attention.   Commander Red has a lot of money and power, but he hates the way he looks, and he either can’t get women to love him, or he thinks he could do better if he were taller.  

I also relate to Black in this scene.   I’m pretty tall myself, so I don’t really get why this is such a big deal to Red.  I’m pretty sure Black’s even taller than me, so maybe he really doesn’t get it.    It’s an easy thing to take for granted.   Nonetheless, Black is disgusted with the way Red has thrown away Red Ribbon blood and treasure on a mission which would have achieved nothing for the Army as a whole.    Red insists that he is the Red Ribbon Army, so anything that benefits him personally is good for the entire organization.  He then starts to gripe about how useless Black and all the other soldiers are, and then...

Black shoots him.   This scene still gets me.   I watched this arc thinking I had a pretty good idea how it went down, because they recapped a lot of it in Dragon Ball Z when Roshi explained to Maron who the Red Ribbon Army was.   But they never showed this.    I had no idea that Red planned to wish for height, or that Black would be so offended by this revelation that he would gun down the commander in his own base.  

And it’s amazing.   I like the manga version better, because this happens in the other room, without the whole death trap thing.   I think Toei threw that in to add the idea that Red was willing to sacrifice Black for the cause, but that’s kind of how the Red Ribbon Army always worked.  I think Black understood the risks when he signed on.    What really pushed him too far was that Red was making these increasingly erratic decisions for something so trivial.   And then Goku walks into the room and Black takes off his coat and throws it over Red’s corpse.  

Thats the big irony of this conflict.    Goku and Commander Red never meet.   There is no big showdown between the hero and the Dark Lord here.   There really isn’t a “final boss” in this arc.   Goku didn’t beat General White; Android 8 did.   Goku didn’t beat General Blue; he got help from a mouse, and then Arale and Mercenary Tao finished him off.   Goku did beat Mercenary Tao, but he was always a hired gun. 

The theme to this story seems to be that the Red Ribbon’s downfall came from within.   Goku’s opposition served as a catalyst, a stiff gust of wind to bring down the house of cards, but he never really got to beat up the masterminds.    In the end, their arrogant plans and secret weapons ended up backfiring.  

And this is why I find Staff Officer Black to be such a fascinating character.    He’s the last guy standing, the eye of the hurricane, the lone voice of reason among all the blustering egos of the Red Ribbon Army.   And yet even he hasn’t figured out the moral of the story.   He’s standing alone in a nearly empty base, he just killed the guy in charge, and he still thinks he can fix all of this and restore the Red Ribbon Army to its former greatness.  

Then Goku shows up.   In the anime, Black is somewhat surprised by Goku’s survival, but in the manga, he’s expecting this.   He tries to negotiate with the kid, offering to team up with him so they can rule the world together.   When Goku explains that he needs to wish Upa’s father back to life, Black agrees to let him have the Dragon Balls, but suggests that they team up to conquer the world afterward.  

I like this, because Black (mostly) gets it.   He alone understands that Goku can’t be taken lightly.   He has to be dealt with here and now.   If Black just lets him leave, they’ll only have to fight him again someday.   His only options are to defeat him here and now, or make some sort of alliance.    But Goku isn’t interested in an alliance, because these assholes got Bora’s dad killed.   He tells Black to just turn himself into the police.    This is about as close as we’ll get to Goku saying “Call the cops, I don’t give a fuck.”

So Black pulls out a capsule containing a mech, and fights Goku with it.  This seems kind of pointless, but as it turns out, he does pretty well against Goku, and like I said, he’s got no other choice.   If Goku won’t join him, then he’ll have to be stopped here and now, or the Red Ribbon Army won’t have any future.

The dub has a line where Black plans to rechristen the army as the Black Ribbon Army, which I think is super awesome.   Unfortunately, he never said it in the original script, but I guess it would have been too soon to make those kinds of plans.  Black Ribbon Army.   That just sounds so cool.

Meanwhile, Yamcha’s team is still headed for the base, but they meet Colonel Violet flying away from the base, and they both desperately struggle to avoid a confrontation.   It’s a pretty cute scene, but kind of superfluous.   Also, this is the last we ever see of Colonel Violet.    Well, she’s in Path to Power, but that’s a long ways off...

Back at HQ, “Commander” Black is actually working Goku over pretty good.    Maybe he should have broken out that robot suit a while back, when it would have done more good?   This is sort of like how Mercenary Tao had a sword and a grenade on him when he started losing to Goku.    Up to that point, Tao had been completely untouchable, so it really makes you wonder why he bothered carrying those weapons around with him.   Oh well.

[hamliet]

In This Fading World: How Shipping Solves Everything (in TG)

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.

[nemirutami]

I'd like to know literally everything about Goro in this AU. What's he planning, what's wrong with his hands? /everything/

I can’t speak for straylize bc our two Akechi’s are very different, so I can’t answer your “hands” question since that’s strictly in her version of the AU. I can answer what my Akechi will do (spoilers tho) and some of his backstory. Tbh getting questions like this helps from writing long descriptions on art.

I’m going to ramble for a while bc when else is anyone rlly gonna ask me for Akechi content.

My Akechi ran away from a different region at a young age (reasons unknown) to look for a new home. A palace guard from the Arisato kingdom found him, felt sorry for him, and asked the king if he could take care of him. The king basically agreed only on the condition that 1) He be raised/groomed to serve the Arisatos and 2) He should be taught his place early on so he doesn’t break rules or overstep boundaries (since he was raised outside the kingdom prior to this and they’ve got no clue where he’s actually from).

Since my Akechi arrived at the palace when he was young, he got to grow up around Akira and Minato (although, not exactly to the same extent Akira and Minato did giving their relationship as prince and future retainer). He got to see the young nobles spend time at the palace (as a kid, he was curious when there were other kids around and wanted to hang out, understandably?) but there was always a kid in the mix that didn’t look like he belonged with the nobles, and that was Akira. It gave Akechi a sense of hope that, maybe, he’d make friends with Minato and Akira? And the other kids? Regardless of their ranks? Because Akira looked like an outsider compared to the prince, and yet he was the closest to the prince? 

Minato and Akechi actually bump into each other during one of these meet ups because Minato runs off to steal popsicles for everyone from the pantry (Akira dared him jokingly and he took it seriously) and Akechi as a young child starts mouthing apologies and remorse over “I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have spied on you!” and Minato just “…” because man, Akechi got so scared of being penalized for peeking that he just ran his mouth for a straight minute. Minato offers him a popsicle before the guards interrupt them. That’s the only interaction he’s ever had with the young prince, and it’s at that early age. So, overall, Akira has no memory of Akechi or Minato ever meeting, but Minato and Akechi have an early fond memory to share when shit hits the fan later down the line.

Akechi basically spends his childhood longing for friendship he can’t have, while, once he grows up enough to climb ranks, spends every waking hour trying to get into the military (because that’s where Akira is the most, and he’s always wanted to have a casual conversation with Akira and ask him more personal questions. How are the nobles like? What’s the king like? Was it fun growing up with him? Do you have any hobbies? WANNA GO OUT FOR COFFEE I KNOW YOU LIKE COFFEE AM I SUBTLE ENOUGH YET? Etc.) but climbing ranks is very difficult and can take years.

That’s why, once Akechi manages to finally pass the test with hard work, he feels cheated when it’s taken away just because “the current king needs to approve of you, too”. To put more salt on the wounds, since they were attacked and a number of people died, they’re actually low on members. The military took a hit, so they do need new members, problem is, not only soldiers were killed in the hell that transpired during that war. Akechi’s forced to remain a kitchen attendant because there’s not a lot of people they can afford to train to know their way around such a complex kitchen right now. Even if Akechi can take the test, and pass again, it’ll at least be a year or two until the Kingdom collects itself before he can climb to the position of soldier and go outside to do field work like he wants. He grows so bitter over it, but he promises himself he’ll reach Akira one day.

The sad thing is, he never will.

Not with honest work. 

Much like in themes of P5, the world, sometimes, can be really unfair. People who are born into the right family (IE- The Kurusu Family) get special privileges. People who keep in touch with them or work close to them sometimes benefit from knowing them or being kind to them. Connections help you climb ranks. Sucking up helps you climb ranks. Although, obviously, it only works selectively, and Akira’s time is really limited because of all the shit he has to do. So, when a kitchen attendant walks up to him to converse or ask for a favor, he won’t take it seriously, and will tell him to “go talk to someone his own rank” if he wants a favor, because to Akira- there’s nothing valuable Akechi can do for him in his position. The problem Akira doesn’t realize is that he’s keeping Akechi in his position by dismissing him, therefore rendering anything he can contribute to a clean zero. He’s not doing this to be a shit to Akechi. He’s doing it because that’s what the Kurusu’s were raised to do. A Kurusu’s only job is to act as the King’s human shield. Anything that looks like it might waste his time or pull him away from that will just be dismissed. What can a kitchen attendant do for him? What benefit will Akira have speaking to someone beneath him with no real ties to other nobles? He isn’t looking to make friends or socialize, so all he does is dismiss Akechi.

Akechi, who grew up admiring Akira, wishing to be close to him one day, to be like him one day, begins to loathe him for what he’s become. Because true, Akira was different before he took on his retainer position, but that’s partly because Minato almost died and both their parents were murdered in the war. Enforcing that Rank policy was the only way to keep people organized and keep them within their own lane not to complicate his work.

Akechi asks about the position to join the military often, but Akira’s answer is always “The King is busy right now,” which is true, but dismissing Akechi’s problems like that is still cold. 

It gets so bad that Akechi has to sneakily make his way to Minato personally without permission to ask him about the position. He’s breaking rules (something he only considers because he’s getting desperate). He’s afraid to get penalized, but he’s hinging his bets on Minato’s punishment being lenient since that seems to be a running theme and the talk of everyone around (given Minato’s not executed anyone as of yet regardless of their crime- so anything that isn’t a death sentence will be worth it to him HE DOESN’T CARE…).

Dumb boy actually mANAGES TO SNEAK INTO MINATO’S OFFICE SPACE AND CASUALLY STARTS WITH “Hi” like a dumbass and startles the hell out of Minato so much that Minato automatically reacts to shout for the guards. Akechi starts mouthing apologizes instantly like “I’m sorry, this will only take a minute!” and “I know I shouldn’t have snuck in, but-!” and it’s like something clicks in Minato’s mind like. This seems really familiar. And he just.Oh.You’re the kid that runs his mouth a lot.Ok gotcha, I don’t feel that afraid now lmao.

Akechi manages to tell Minato his rank and occupation before Minato makes a call for them, though, and it calms him somewhat. Seeing Minato so easily startled up close shows Akechi that his king is stressed and that something’s very wrong? But he doesn’t know what. During the early years, they’ve had a huge number of assassination attempts, most of which Minato is unaware of, but some of them, he knows pretty well because some actually came close. So, seeing Akechi just WALK IN… without a sound to boot… yeah.

Minato doesn’t penalize him but he does say something along the lines of “God, I will fucking slam that door in your face next time you enter without permission.” Not exactly like this, but he’s shouting this version in his head lmao and giving Akechi the kind version. Akechi tells him about his troubles, and Minato’s just “…This is the first time I’m hearing about it. Why didn’t you approach me sooner?” Minato he fucking tried ok it’s hard. Because at this point it’s been like… several years? Akechi’s been waiting it out as he was told, meanwhile, Minato wasn’t aware of his issues at all. Something always came first. It shows how fucked the system is for people who aren’t high enough on the list. The news never even reached Minato because so many other things took precedence over his issues.

Minato though, wanting to take action immediately as soon as a problem presents itself, decides to leave what he was doing to try and appease Akechi because… having to wait several years is a long waiting time just to join the military? Minato can’t promote him right away (given how much he actually has left to do) but at the very least, he gives Akechi a date where he’ll initiate it personally much like his father did for all new soldiers. Minato also apologizes to him? And it makes Akechi feel guilty because hey, look at that, Minato would have done the thing if he had just known. Makes him feel guilty for sneaking into Minato’s office without permission. Makes him feel guilty for not even getting penalized but for getting a promotion instead. His moral compass gets a little fucked at this point when he realizes that this is the first time he’s broken the rules, and it’s the only time he’s ever benefited. He shouldn’t feel guilty for getting what he deserves, in his opinion? It’s the method with which he reached it, but no other methods were working, so, was it really that bad of a thing?

It starts a downwards spiral of more things after he becomes soldier. Certain more experienced soldiers get sent on specific missions, while Akechi mostly tends to things within the palace again. He never gets to meet high ranked soldiers or people he thinks will help him up his rank to get closer to the king, and unless he actually does something extraordinary (of which the chances are very slim) he won’t be able to make a huge impression enough to get promoted above C rank (the lowest military rank).

So. He figures. Alright… I broke the rules that one time. I guess spreading a little rumor about this one soldier might kick him off field work for a while. So, he spreads a lie, feels a little guilty, but it’s easier than sneaking into Minato’s HQ. Plus, there’s no penalty just for a little rumor that they can’t even trace back to him for certain. Guy he’s spreading rumors about naturally has to step down from a mission, and one of the rookies has to take over. Akechi offers to go, and that’s how he slowly starts his manipulation streak to get to the top. It isn’t fair to others. But what did the others ever do to him? They ignored him for years just because he wasn’t important enough to them- so, they can go fuck themselves for all he cares. 

Minor misdemeanors turn into actual crimes over several years where he loses himself more and more, becoming so corrupt he can hardly think about friendship anymore but about power and the benefit it will have if he manages to get close to the king. At Rank A, he has such bloodstained hands that he doesn’t care about Akira’s friendship. His only motive now is to find something incriminating on Akira to kick Akira down from his position. “Dethrone” a Kurusu? The Kurusus were special breeds, and he’s always wanted to put Akira in his place because he’s always struggled, but Akira was handed friendship, love, and yet treated everyone else like they were secondary. Problem is that Akechi doesn’t actually understand Akira’s purpose as Kurusu. 

Akira’s purpose is to only really care for the King’s best interest, not anyone elses. So, anything Akira can do to make Minato’s life easier, he does, and not telling Minato about Akechi’s problems is just an extension of that sense of duty. It’s something Akira does to everyone because it’s how he was raised. King first, you second, nation last. The reason he comes second is because he’d sacrifice himself for his king, but not for his people. If he died for a civilian or a rank beneath him, Minato would be exposed to threats, and his life would be in danger. It’s something Akechi can’t know because he wasn’t raised knowing the ins and outs of the Kurusu family. So it creates a divide between them where Akechi constantly calls Akira out on how shitty he’s being to everyone who isn’t Minato, and Akira basically going “yeah, that’s my fucking job, asshole, i’m not here to please you or pat you on the head for doing a good job, go get friends your own rank if you want that” in not exactly those words lmao but something similar.

CLAPS HANDS. THIS HAS BEEN A LONG RAMBLE THANKS FOR COMING TO MY TAMTALK I’LL GLADLY TALK MORE ABOUT AKECHI because I love writing him and his descent into the most corrupted mindset just to get ahead. This isn’t even all of it, this is just the buildup to the shit that leads Akechi to become Minato’s second personal retainer…

That’s right Akira, Akechi is coming for yOUR JOB.

[alexistitania]

TOKYO GHOUL ENDED AND I AM EMOTIONAL

Like, it legitimately ended. That’s it. No Part 3. I mean there IS material for potential Part 3 but this is the definitive closure to the story. 

AND GUESS WHAT? IT AIN’T A TRAGEDY?!

I know people are always gonna be divided on this, like I’m seeing actual hate in the tag, and I guess that’s to be expected, this always happens when a popular series is ending. But I don’t think this particular ending deserves so much hate, and hopefully there are more people who are happy with it. Personally, I will FOREVER be thankful for this chapter! It’s not perfect, but then again, no ending is. Yes, it could’ve wrapped up more loose ends, but I think it did enough. What’s more important is that it’s not bad (in MY opinion ok chill thanks). No, it’s SO far from bad! For me, it’s an overall GREAT ending, more or less along the lines of how I always imagined TG ending. I just never really believed it WOULD end this way, like I was legit afraid Ishida would go for the tragedy thing instead, but hey, thanks anime gods! 

I think most people expected a tragic ending with Kaneki dying and everything being hopeless or bittersweet at most, but we actually got an extremely pure and happy chapter, with a neat bow on top, and I for one am LOVING it! Because I’ve been following TG since 2014, and I’ve wanted a happy ending for Kaneki and all of these characters for so long, and now I’m finally getting the payoff for all those years of suffering, don’t TOUCH ME I AM FRAGILE! 

It still feels kinda weird though, seeing genuinely happy things happen in this manga, it’s like a dream I never thought would come true, but it did! Obviously, you can’t please everyone, and there will always be people who will hate this ending because they envisioned it differently, but I think at the very least the ending shouldn’t ruin the rest of the story, for anyone! Of course, people will have to take some time to recover before they decide exactly how they feel about the series after its ending, but I mean, we all stayed for the ride, didn’t we? And although this final arc - for whatever reason - felt rushed toward the end and stuff, I think Ishida made the most out of the final chapter, considering where the previous chapter left off!

So we have TSC instead of CCG now, and good riddance, I hated that organization lol, although I loved a lot of the characters who were a part of it. I really like how it’s emphasized in this chapter that nothing is really over yet, the fight still continues. The difference is that there’s a new enemy of both humans and ghouls now. As expected, for the two species to finally coexist, a mutual enemy was necessary. But even though a lot of ghouls are now living peacefully with humans, thanks to the two races’ joint effort, it’s not like everyone is willing to make peace. Speaking of peace, I like how we have the title “peacekeepers” now instead of investigators (it reminds me of one of the home worlds from the Spyro the Dragon game, but that’s just my own nostalgia speaking), although it’s just in Tokyo, because apparently, other branches of CCG are still active and fighting the ghouls that are disrupting the peace. Hopefully the investigators have a new policy now, and they don’t attack friendly ghouls nowadays. Of course, there are always gonna be bad feelings from both sides, but hopefully the hostility isn’t as strong anymore. I actually wish the chapter had gone into a bit more depth and explained the nature of an investigator’s job in this new world, since some of the characters we know stayed investigators, but oh well.

Basically, both species have obviously made incredible progress in the past six years, but it’s not all flowers and rainbows, not EVERYONE is happy with this new world. And that’s so very like real life. What I think is great about this chapter is how it builds this new society as broadly as possible, and tries to explain as much as possible from different angles, because so many things have changed, it’s practically entirely new worldbuilding. It’s surely only a glimpse of what this new world looks like, but I believe it’s as detailed as the 30-page format allows. And I actually LIKE how we aren’t given everything, I feel like that’s very much Ishida’s style, leaving some things open. Because, nothing is really concluded, this fictional world didn’t just magically reach Nirvana, nor did it completely crumble down; it’s just transformed, it’s still transforming, PANTA RHEI MY DUDES! The overall theme of this chapter goes perfectly with the message of Kaneki’s speeches about the world and the never-ending change. I just really, REALLY like how the chapter emphasizes that constant change. And I like how you get this sense of cause & consequence from the chapter, as it’s made very clear that, while the Dragon war was definitely horrible, it actually allowed for new technologies to develop, which ultimately led to a better world, a changed world. We’re definitely meant to see this chapter as a closure, or actually more of an afterword, but we’re also urged to realize this is not the end of the story; the story goes on, and we were only shown a fragment of it. Like, that’s real poetic stuff right there my man.

Now, I also have a few things to say about some of the characters featured in the chapter. There are so many, I can’t even remember half of what was said about most of them, although I reread the chapter three times. It’s just extremely text-heavy. So I’ll just list the things that were important to me personally, mostly the things concerning the main characters. Otherwise, this post would get waaaay too long.

We actually got these little notes about pretty much every character I can think of (man this manga has so many CHARACTERS), telling us what all of them have been up to during the six-year timeskip. My only real complaint is that there was no mention of Eto, even though the previous chapter didn’t really bother to explain what exactly happened to her. It would’ve been fine if she’d never even come back at all, but this way, it kinda feels like the author just forgot to mention her lol. Maybe I’m just reading too much into it, it’s probably just that when the Dragon died, so did she. I was also hoping for a Rize mention, since she was such an important figure in Kaneki’s life, but at least we got a mention of the Washuu clan. And that was actually really sad, but it’s a fitting outcome, the main branch going extinct. Because first Furuta died, and then Rize shortly after, although her destiny had already been sealed much earlier. The fate of these two, and especially Rize, foreshadowed this outcome; Rize & Furuta equals Washuu inside the narrative, and when they disappeared, the Washuu they symbolized had to disappear as well.

Ok, I lied, I have another real complaint, and it actually bugged me much more than the lack of Eto mention. And that is, we only got a cameo of Akira and Amon, and no textual explanation of what was going on with them. We actually didn’t even see their faces, when literally 384576 other minor characters made an appearance. Like, they’re super major characters, what’s up with that? I guess we’re just supposed to assume they got married and lived happily ever after, but other than that, what else? Like what do they even do these days? Even just one sentence for both of them would’ve sufficed, and I really hope it’s included in the volume version of the chapter. Like, it didn’t really ruin the chapter for me, but I kinda felt like I was left hanging. And they deserved to have their faces shown one last time for closure, why all the mystery? They were both pretty important in the final arc too. Maybe we’ll get an omake about them in the final volume, who knows, but they still should’ve been shown in the last chapter. Well, I’ll admit it IS kinda poetic how we only see their backs and how it’s implied they live peacefully nowadays, and this closure IS kinda fitting for them, but still, I’m a little salty. Another thing I felt was missing was a note about Touka. I was really looking forward to learning where she ended up, other than being a mother and a wife. I mean, it’s still amazing that she was blessed enough to be able to have a normal life with her family, but the girl also wanted to do things. So yeah, it’s another thing that I hope will be added in the volume version. 

Other than that.... I think pretty much everyone else was mentioned, but then again, I am not a machine and I’m pretty sure I’m forgetting a lot of characters already, so I’ll just talk about what really made me happy personally. I really liked how the narrator of this chapter was Hide, it allowed for a kind of outside look at the very end of the story. It wouldn’t be the same if it were Kaneki who was narrating, and anyway, having slept for weeks, he wouldn’t even be able to tell us the full story of the events that took place right after the Dragon war. Hide was the perfect choice for the narrator, because he’s so involved with everyone and everything. We even got Hide’s very summarized backstory, and although I believe he deserved to be exposed more thoroughly much earlier, I’m thankful Ishida didn’t completely forget about it, and that he told us basically all we needed to know. It would’ve been nice to know more, since Hide is one of the main characters, he could’ve been given a more meaningful backstory, but as it stands now, it seems that his story isn’t really crucial to his character or the series overall, so I guess I’ll take it. One thing that made me extremely happy about Hide’s ending is that he’s literally travelling and changing the world, he’s like some kind of hero history books will talk about. That’s the ending Hide deserved! And DAMN, he deserved to stay Kaneki’s friend for the rest of his life! They’re finally together, and together they’ll stay, and my heart is so full right now! Oh and another thing. I’m pretty sure the part of the translation where it says Hide was adopted by fatherS was just a typo or a mistranslation, since there is no plural form of nouns in the Japanese language (so you can’t always tell if it’s father or fathers), but it was nice believing Hide had gay dads for a while, even if it was a short while lol rip.

I like what Tsukiyama ended up doing, he’s helping rebuild the society and his family, basically being super important and leading the entire ghoulkind, more or less. The boy will go down in history! I knew he had it in him, his character growth has been incredible, and he’s finally getting the recognition he deserves! But I still think wedding planning would’ve been the ideal career choice for him.... Also, the way he spoils Touken’s daughter later in the chapter is ADORABLE! And he has different hairstyles in these two scenes, I like the second one better. And there’s Banjou, awww he’s also a really important figure now, I’m happy for him! Old man Marude got a new hairstyle too, and a beard, why am I not surprised? And he’s still the boss, so that’s cool. Ah, Kiyoko being such a forever single mood lmao. Ui boy’s doing his best and I am proud of him, but he’s missing his girlfriend rip... As for Hirako, damn, the boy looks so distant, I hope he’s doing ok. Well, he’s finally living a normal life, even if he’s detaching himself from his comrades. And wow Yusa really out here at the top of his game, both his career and his looks, damn. 

The Qs also got their own satisfactory endings, I believe. I nearly sobbed at Urie searching for Shirazu’s body, this boy’s amazing development and how he constantly goes back to Shirazu in his mind has seriously cost me a few years of life. And then him visiting Shirazu’s grave, with Shirazu’s sister there! I was hoping to see her, we finally know what her condition is, and can sleep peacefully knowing Shirazu would be so incredibly happy that she’s all up and healthy again! It’s kinda sad how Mutsuki seems to not be around as much, but at least he chose his own path that hopefully fulfills him. And it’s super sweet how he sends Touka apples, like I was totally not expecting that, but I am so glad they are on good terms now and Mutsuki is doing much better emotionally and mentally. Also, I was totally expecting like a Moment™ between Mutsuki and Urie but I guess not lol... I don’t really like actively ship it, but I like their relationship, they could have gotten more of a wrap-up, so there’s that I guess... And then there’s Saiko, who has just... become so beautiful? Like what the hell, she’s just so gosh darn pretty? And is apparently living her best life, so you go Saiko! And she’s such a CUTIE when they’re visiting Touken family, calling Touka “mama-wife” and everything, baby you are my ANGEL!

And then comes the Suzuya squad, and they’re all doing fantastic, bless. And then Suzuya and Shinohara and I jUST! I’ve been waiting for this scene for so long, and I am SO glad it didn’t just happen off-panel during the timeskip! We actually got to see it, got to experience it first-hand, the full emotional impact of it! And let me tell you, this is the scene that FINALLY made me sob! Wtf so many years of suffering paid off, and Suzuya crying at the top of his lungs, but out of happiness, paralleling that panel where he was crying out of despair in Part 1 of the manga? I’M CRYING! AND THEN! Suzuya’s also like the literal star of this whole TSC project, YOU GO LITTLE MAN! AND THEN! And then Naki and Miza, and just... WOW! Miza, how much D can you even take?? NINE KIDS??? I mean good for you, I love you both, but DAMN! Man, I’m just so happy they’re both alive, I seriously thought Naki was a goner until a few weeks ago, so seeing him and Miza happily together like this is so surreal. And then we have another very important ship, Nishiki and Kimi, and damn Nishiki is either having a bad hair day or that’s simply a bad haircut lol. Like dude seriously, go back to the fantastic hairstyle you were rocking before. But anyway, I’m so happy seeing him and Kimi together and MARRIED? BLESS! Been waiting for that for literal years! Kimi is doing such an amazing job, helping create a more peaceful society, even though she’s using her boyfriend as test subject in the process lol. LOOK AT MY GIRL CHIE YO! She be going PLACES! SEIDOU! DUDE! Why you gotta be an Edgelord like that, please come back! Well, he’s probably too broken to fit into this new society, so he’s working out ways to live his life the best he can, helping in his own way. But don’t make such a sad face Seidou! I was hoping to see a bit more of him, but I guess we’re not meant to know much. He’s a loner, a mystery even for the readers. 

And now... AYAHINA IS CANON MY DUDES! THAT IS ALL! Listen, I don’t even like... hardcore ship it, but it’s just plain obvious, it’s just right THERE! Hinami is playful, Ayato is tsundere, and love is in the air! PEACE! Also, Ayato sure saved his brother-in-law’s ass back there, just like we’d hoped he would, he really does care! Hinami is a teacher *sobs* Kaneki you taught her well, and Ayato’s this cool Main guy, look how far he’s come! I’m just so happy for both of them, I’ve been rooting for these kids for so long, Hinami is finally free from all her burdens and is genuinely Happy, and being Ayato is no longer suffering, can y’all believe??? And then we have Yoriko and Takeomi and a new addition to their family, how precious is that! Now, I would’ve liked for those notes about each character to say something about Yoriko’s relationship with Touka, I mean they were best girlfriends! And their friendship was kinda huge, I think it deserved at least a mention. Just something like “She visits Touka regularly” would’ve been enough. Ishida probably just forgot lol, the poor man, having to think about so many characters and their entire lives, I don’t blame him for just randomly forgetting to include some things. I just think this is one of those things that are kinda hard to forget, considering how meaningful this friendship was for Touka, and how it even played a big role in the final arc of the manga. But hey, maybe there’s hope that it’ll be included in the volume version lol. Or maybe in the omake! Ishida you have the opportunity to give us such pure, domestic omake, you’ve never failed us before, do your magic! 

YOMO!!! RIBBONS! YOMO WITH RIBBONS IN HIS HAIR!!!!!! This transcends all the levels of adorable of anything ever! We were right, Yomo is the most doting uncle in existence, and it’s all I ever wanted! And damn, he still bangable af. AND THE SMOL TOUKEN BABY! Well, she’s actually like six now, BUT BABY! THE TOUKEN BABY IS A GIRL is this Ishida spoiling the shippers again? And she looks like a tiny Haise, can y’all believe?! Even Haise practically made a cameo, through this precious child. Amazing. I guess she has no name, so we’ll just keep calling her Pleasure-chan, sorry baby, it’s your parents’ fault. And I guess the Clowns are just doing their thing as usual. Clowns always have the last laugh, so of course this new society has nothing on them, they’re just laughing at everything and gathering for drinking games on Friday nights. Uta is still the Sasuke to Yomo’s Naruto, I guess some things never change. 

AND THEN TOUKA MY LOVE! She looks so pretty, so beautiful, so dazzling, so fresh! I am so happy for her and so proud! She finally has a peaceful home and a happy family she’s always dreamed of having, IT’S WHAT SHE DESERVES! And on top of that, she has all these amazing friends who come to visit her! So many good things for my favorite character, thank you Ishida for my live! Again, I would’ve liked to know more about what she’s doing in life, but I can still hope the omake will tell me that lol. I’m just satisfied knowing she’s living her absolute best life, after struggling so much through life, suffering from such an early age, having to deal with abandonment issues her entire life, and then selflessly waiting, AND IT PAID OFF MY GIRL IT ALL PAID OFF! 

AND THEN COMES OUR BOY! OUR BOY! The lonely boy who has gone through so much pain, lived his own tragedy for most of his life, never even imagining he would ever find joy or fulfillment or that he would ever heal. YET HERE HE IS! HERE IS THAT BOY WHO ONLY WANTED TO GO ON A DATE BUT GOT HIS LIFE TURNED UPSIDE DOWN INSTEAD! And now his life is finally, FINALLY fixed and things are OKAY and he is so LOVED and has a FAMILY! And yes, he’s definitely not 100% ok, and he never will be, but he has matured so much and come so far in life, he’s able to at least be at peace with himself and live a somewhat normal life. IT’S WHAT HE DESERVES! Like, I know we were all expecting Kaneki to face the consequences of his actions. From the narrative point of view, it seemed logical. But looking at it now, it wasn’t really necessary. Kaneki’s already learned his lesson. And he’s not living a life free of burdens either. He’s still an active part of the collective effort to recreate the world, and the chapter gave us a glimpse into his mind and his feelings. He is still unsure and conflicted, and it’s frustrating not being able to do anything, but he has to live with it. Finally, Kaneki has to settle for “there are things I cannot do”. He has to settle for a new and different life, and learn to live with himself and everything his actions caused. The consequences follow him every day, in the form of this new conflict. He has already suffered enough, is torturing him more really that necessary, just because he’s “the tragic protagonists”? Characters have gotten away with worse things, just saying. Also, judging from the marks on his face and neck, it seems he’s still having some trouble with his RC levels and healing and stuff, I just hope it doesn’t affect his body in bad ways. I mean he’s damaged his body so many times, it would be unrealistic not to expect consequences, but at least it’s not serious. Otherwise it would’ve been addressed. I mean, judging from Touka’s round tummy, it appears he managed to fill her up yet again, so yeah, he fine. (All the condom jokes can end now, Touka and Kaneki are nothing compared to Naki and Miza.)

In the end, Kaneki’s story ends on a positive, hopeful note, although still somewhat bittersweet. And it pulls the whole narrative, with all the other characters’ individual stories, along with it. The cycle of tragedy is finally broken. And personally, I just couldn’t be happier! I’ve been hoping for this kind of ending for so long, I literally never really wanted a tragic ending! And don’t give me that “Happy ending = Bad ending” NAH! You can’t deny that happy endings can be good if written right! It’s true that the general profile of Tokyo Ghoul screams “TRAGEDY” but that’s exactly why I think this ending is a beautiful twist! You might have expected it, you might have not, but it’s certainly a neat contrast to the rest of the story, but instead of ruining the “vibe” imo it worked unexpectedly well! Now, if your problem doesn’t lie with the type of ending we got, but the execution of it, then I guess we’re just not on the same page lol...

Now, this ending certainly wasn’t 100% happy, which is GREAT, but it’s still very hopeful and kind of bittersweet. All in all, I’d say it’s a beautifully positive closure to an incredibly sad story. It gives a positive message, that things can sometimes work out even if life seems hopeless. We may not always have control over it, but we can damn well do our very best! And it’s not unrealistic, it’s just real life! And it’s not your typical “happily ever after “ type of ending either, because, as I said earlier, the story isn’t actually over! The author simply decided to stop telling it at this particular point. And by teasing some future events, he made this chapter feel not just like an ending, but also a new beginning, a very hopeful one at that. And one that leaves infinite possibilities for potential Part 3, if Ishida ever feels like writing one, though right now I doubt it. I think he’s done with this series, and what an amazing job he’s done, for seven years! 

Well, I think that’s probably all I wanted to say lol. My emotions are all over the place and I’m practically slamming my keyboard in excitement right now, so I’m probably forgetting a lot of other thoughts that were going through my mind as I was reading the chapter. But this encapsulates most of it, probably.

Tokyo Ghoul has been one of my main fandoms for four years now, and I’m so thankful for all the time and effort Ishida put into this work! It’s so unique and means a lot to me! It has helped me through some tough times in life (which is probably hard to believe since the story itself is sad but yeah...), so seeing that all the suffering wasn’t in vain, and that it all led to THIS, is just so amazingly fulfilling and satisfying!

Thank you for everything Ishida-sensei, get some rest now!

[linkspooky]

A Romance of Three Kings

Despite being rescued from certain death, Urie seems less than happy. Note the dialogue exchange between the two of them. 

“An explanation, to you? You think I can forgive you like this?”

(....)

(No, I can’t. No, I can’t!!)

Urie ehoes the same sentiment of being unable to forgive him, and the elipses show a clear hesitance. 

Why does he say those things though, and what are we meant to take from Urie’s apprehension. 

If it’s Urie speaking then it also makes much more sense what he can’t forgive, them not showing up in time to save Iwaccho. As with Urie, his number one priority is not actually the war of succession which Marude, Matsuri and Furuta are all engaged in at the moment but rather the people directly around him.

It’s likely the grudge Urie holds is Marude and Matsuri’s own failure to act sooner. That if they had interfered earlier, Iwao would be alive and not bleeding his last out on the floor only comforted with the fleeting image of his old friend before death.

Emotionally Urie is robbed of any victory he might have felt in this scene because of the loss of Iwao. His number one goal was not his own priority but protecting that one man and Urie failed in the end, and not only that but Iwao is not even a sacrifice in taking down Furuta as Furuta managed to escape. 

Why is Urie uneasy with his own rescuers, and why does the expulsion of Furuta which should be an unambiguously good thing feel so empty and ambiguous a victory at the moment?

The formation of this third faction has been set up for awhile in the background. Marude mentioned specifically that it was Hide who tipped him off.

Amon mentions he has comrades on the other side of the island for Takizawa to retreat to.

Scarecrow is seen leaving the island much earlier.

It’s possible Amon might have interfered in Marude’s fight to protect him from Yoshitoki, considering the Ukkaku shape shards driven into his chest and the fact that it was claimed a ghoul attack was what did him in.

As Washuu have been shown incapable of producing any kagune, and also Amon has a tendency to lose control of his and destroy everything that is in sight. 

Marude also watched the Matsuri fight and suggested it might have been better off to let Matsuri succeed than Furuta, which is most likely the grounds for their current alignment. Scarecrow when saving Amon relies entirely on CCG Rc suppressant gas to deal with the ghouls guarding him, and beyond that calls him by name.

Then later on, Amon seems like he is about to tell Kaneki that Hide is still alive but when Kaneki says the news would only worry him more Amon stops.

Finally all of these distant plot pieces have come together, yet in their moment of true victory they were unable to defeat Furuta in any significant way only forcing him to retreat. It echoes a bit of the fight with Eto, as Furuta was backed into a corner and lost all of his allies yet still managed to escape and get exactly what he wanted by reuniting with the clowns and leading a slaughter of the clowns.

Perhaps because the true cathartic victory over Furuta is one that’s set up to happen with a uniting between human and ghoul forces. A true victory then cannot be achieved with only human forces raising their hands up against Furuta. Yet, somehow paradoxically we see the opposite happening. Even though this new insurgent group is headed by Hide, Kaneki’s own best friend, they seem to be operating in the shadow of Goat with no contact with them whatsoever.

The story has eluded to such a thing for a long time though. As Roma’s own simplistic view of the world as a stage show was disproven, then so too was her understanding of the conflict. This is no longer a fight merely between two kings on the opposite end of a chess board. 

The meta narrative of Tokyo Ghoul has always been about conflicting viewpoints, a tendency of people to simplify conflicts down to black and white. The CCG and Kaneki, both which carry such black and white views of the world have a floor colored in the same black and white, Kaneki in his mindscape, and the floor of the main office itself. 

When Kaneki tries only to think of ghouls and is told by Arima to fight for the side of ghouls, the black tiles fall off of his mindscape and a white sky is revealed. However, the blue sky he attempts to see is still not there. As Kaneki tries to force himself into the role of fighting only for ghouls, despite temptations and people left behind on the other side. 

It was always possible that this stagnated conflict between two opposite sides, black and white, Furuta and Kaneki, the extermination of all ghouls and a world where ghouls belong, was going to be interrupted by a third party. 

There was the unwillingness of several key members of what should have been Goat to accept a world full of ghouls, or that their previous thinking about ghouls may have been wrong. Most notably, Amon who said so point blank, and Akira who while empty of hatred did not know what to do to step forward.

Akira and Amon, rather than their own personal wrongdoings in the past and what they have done to ghouls, instead act as if they are now liberated from this conflict. At the same time they are unwilling to let go of the emotions they had in the past, they want the same purpose they had when they were investigators. To believe more than anything that they were not wrong. 

It’s an emotion that Marude shares in his realization of the Washuu’s deception, that those who have died so far for the conflict died for a meaningless one. That, just like Amon and Akira everything he has done so far is empty, even of purpose as its’s foundation was built on a lie.

Their reaction to this however, has not been to turn around and sympathize with ghouls, who were all this time the greatest victims of the lie. Eto writes an epic about ghoul rights and a nameless half ghoul fighting to reform a world against them, one that was written in sympathy to the ghouls who were born into tragic existences and pulls out the only detail relevant to him. That the Washuu were his enemy and were ghouls themselves.

When Arima is asked to describe the motivation for his master’s horrible and crude breeding project, he gives one much more sympathetic than anybody would have thought. One that is overlayed directly over Marude’s decision to shoot Yoshitoki in the head. 

Marude quotes Mado too, one of the most unsympathetically anti-ghoul characters in the series. The one whose legacy is part of the reason Amon and Akira are unable to grow properly, just before making the decision to shoot Yoshitoki in the head. 

The ultimate irony of Tokyo Ghoul has spelled out clearly for a long time that Mado’s intuition was not all that it was cracked up to be because he let himself be blinded by hate. There was nothing actually that remarkable about his death, the world did not necessitate it, he instead chose tormenting and murdering a fourteen year old girl for his kagune and ignoring a seventeen year old girl who was just begging her to empathize with her and understand her as his hill to die on.

Touka even points this out, did you really respect your father so much as a ghoul investigator, or did you simply want him to come home?

Which obviously conflicts Amon’s statement, that the world  gave them no choice but to do what they did.

Akira and Amon seem to regard themselves at this moment, more as observers and contemplaters than actual active participants in the fight. Marude might even share that to a degree as 

Amon showed up at the beginning of Rueshima with much fanfare but made absolutely no difference until towards the end. He suggests to Akira that they need to contemplate their emptiness as their path forward, even though Goat saved both of them and their layer currently has a sign with blinking neon lights saying that their redemption for what they did in the past is now helping create a better future for ghoul kind. 

Marude is similarly shown doing almost nothing to interfere in the clown raids that secured Furuta’s position of power, but instead commenting on only as an onlooker.

It’s not their actual position though, as Amon, Akira, Marude are all important people in the bureau who could change a lot of minds simply by speaking up. However, all three of them similiarly have lost their place to belong in the world. Not only that, but all of the previous motivations they fought for, the foundations were always built upon lies. 

If you look upon Hide’s current gathered forces, assuming Akira and Amon are or were going to be among them this theme repeats itself. Even Matsuri has lost the rest of the Washuu family which he belonged to, the chairman position of the CCG which he worked towards his entire life, and even to himself the place of masculine and heterosexual dominance that seemed to be his birthright. As he realized through all of this that he naturally does not fit the mould of a Washuu heir simply because of his feelings for Urie.

They lost their place in the world, but also cannot find a place in the world of ghouls that Goat now inhabits, so they band together instead. Not only are his forces made up of people who have lost their place in the world, but also of members who have a blinding nostalgia for the old days of the CCG. It’s revealed so in Amon and Seidou’s fight.

Even with everything they have learned, there is an urge within them to go back to the way things were in seemingly simpler days. When their actions simply were to protect Tokyo and they believed that they were in the right. 

One more thing to point out about this budding alliance is that almost every member is extremely anti-ghoul, and their anti-ghoul believes go conspicuously unchecked or unexamined by the story.

Akira and Amon are saved and basically hand held by Goat, but in the end do not agree to fight for their purpose. Moreso than that though, if you look at the emotional release in this scene, the person who was comforted was not the ghoul Hinami who was the main victim of the situation but Akira herself. Hinami barely got a word in about what she opened up to Ayato about.

Akira and Hinami’s scene, while somewhat touching on Akira’s end mainly happened for Akira’s benefit, with no attempt at all for reparations towards Hinami. 

Amon already said his feelings have not changed, and moreso he does not even accept his body as a ghoul. Even in the omake, Amon cannot even answer a direct question about whether or not he’s a ghoul.

As for Marude, his motivation to act has always been human lives. With his regret for failing to stop the breach at the cochlea, and his own later hatred towards Matsuri for being so wasteful with human lives in his bloody strategies.

Furuta’s phrase “peace on death” even comes from Marude originally as a war cry to exterminate all of the ghouls on the opposite side of the conflict. 

While Marude has of course grown since then and become more self reflective about the conflict and the loss of lives it deals in, and dropped a lot of his own cocky attitude or at least shown the doubt hidden underneath, his concern has been raised all of 0 for the lives of ghouls, he’s only motivated about human lives. 

Urie has not changed his sympathy towards ghouls even the slightest, and the only thing that motivated him to act once more was human lives being put on the line rather than ghoul ones. He was fine backing up the Oggai when it meant the extermination of more than 90% of ghouls in a single ward, dragging them out into the streets and letting them die bloody deaths. 

His own reading of Takatsuki’s book, basically calls the fact that ghoul’s have rights and emotions nonsense. For all of Urie’s progress in regards to himself, he has yet to even change his stance on ghouls one inch, and he has not even acknowledged that essentially for all intents and purposes he basically is a ghoul by this point. 

So here we have our group of terrorists, not a single one of them motivated in any way to fight for the actual victims of the Washuu’s violence, ghouls themselves. 

One of their key members even is a Washuu, and a mostly unrepetant one as well for the legacy of what the Washuu inflicted upon ghoul kind. Then what exactly is their motivation to fight if not for ghoul kind?

Marude as said before, has always been motivated mainly by minimizing the deaths that come with this conflict. Matsuri even commented to such, that Marude has stayed single his whole life because of his devotion to the CCG. 

The conflict is something that has permeated through Tokyo Ghoul since the beginning, the supposed natural conflict between humans and ghouls. Marude’s approach seems to be to minimize the loss of humans to this conflict, and also to fight for the right reasons. Urie’s has been to grow stronger so he can dominate it, achieve rank and glory so he can get what he wants from the conflict. Meanwhile Matsuri is somebody who loses himself in it entirely.

He enjoys it like a game, and delights when both allies and enemies die as long as those deaths manage to align in his favor. While Matsuri definitely has a sympathetic element to him by being forced to fit the mold of the Washuu which is entirely restrictive and also makes him repress his identity as a gay man, it’s important not to forget that he has been set up as an antagonist to everyone, and especially Sasaki’s brand of empathy from day one.

He saw nothing to comfort Urie when Urie lost Shirazu, he enjoyed the deaths of his allies if it benefitted him, and most important Matsuri has always known that his life is highly restricted but considers the power and achievement he gains as a result completely worth it. He says so point blank, that the restraints on him are necessary for him to wield the power that he does. 

If there’s something serious to be gleaned from Matsuri’s semi-ridiculous faux death at the end of the clown arc, it’s that Matsuri loses himself entirely in the conflict. 

Yes, Matsuri cares about Urie but it’s been far established that the reasons Matsuri cares about Urie is because of Urie’s own attitude as an investigator who cares nothing more about throwing himself into the conflict for rank and achievement. Urie’s restrictive framework which he sees the world through is shockingly like Matsuri’s. Even to the point where Matsuri just assumed Urie would understand him, even when clinging to the recently dead body of his former friend. 

The king’s conflict has always been this way though, reliant on figureheads and empty believes rather than the discussions which characters who want to change the world crave. 

Hide, and by extension Marude’s forces might lead us to finally the crowning of a third king. Something that has been foreshadowed since Amon’s awakening.

There are three containers marked: Re, foreshadowing that there will be three kings crowned. Kings one and two include Furuta and Kaneki, we might soon be seeing the entry of a third king.

Takizawa even explicitly compares Amon to Kaneki, as both are people he wants to be, famous heroes held up as figureheads. As that black and white way of thinking is the way Seidou saw things in the beginning, holding up individual investigators within the CCG as heroes to strive like becoming, but something he’s since moved away from. At least in recognizing that he can no longer fit the black and white hero mould, especially after failing to do so with Aogiri. 

With that king would introduce a third faction that fights for a status quo among the two extremes presented by both Furuta’s CCG and then Goat. 

Which would make the current predicted factions: Goat: Kaneki Ken, Take Hirako and the Garden Children, The former Members of Aogiri, The Re: Cafe Ghouls Hide’s Group: Hide, Marude, Akira, Amon, Urie Furuta’s CCG: Furuta, The remaining clowns, Juuzou’s Squad, The remaining Q’s, Mutsuki + Aura and the Oggai

With Kaneki fighting for a future that is secure for ghouls, because he has to at this point if he wants to raise a half ghoul child that does not turn into Eto 2.0. Furuta fighting to bring an end to all conflicts via one grand final swing of the scythe with all the hyper accelerationism he has been burning up in the CCG as of late. (Super Peace perhaps meaning death for all of them, both the humans and the ghouls).

Then finally a third group which fights for a return to the status quo. Perhaps a CCG that exists with the same duty, but not using Quinque, and not dependent on the Washuu, V’s, or even having it necessary ghouls be alive if they are moving past the need for Quinque.

While there’s no doubt in my mind Hide himself sympathizes with Kaneki, the only reason for Marude’s forces not lending their hand to Goat in what could have been a two pronged attack that would easily have saved both sides from tragedy is that they do not sympathize with the rest of Goat’s cause, that is the protection of those innocent ghouls who are again the primary victim of this conflict. 

We’re warned of such by Tatara early on in the setup for this current arc. People will continue to fight as long as they find reasons for doing so. 

If Furuta’s goal is to bring an end to the meaningless fighting via one giant double suicide, then Marude’s goal may be the antithesis of that. To return to the fighting with a better leader in charge, perhaps Matsuri, or perhaps just himself, so that the fight against ghouls can be conducted more ethically from now on.

As the series has told us from the beginning though, the bird cage is something that needs to be smashed if a new world is ever to be born, not simply made more comfortable. 

Perhaps then the reason this conflict continues to take from the characters present in Marude’s group, the loss of Iwao noticably affecting both Urie and Marude is a consequence for this. As long as they only fight for the side of humans, they will never fully be able to see why this conflict propagates itself and therefore the conflict will continue to take and take from them.

What’s required is not a military coup against Furuta, better technology, but rather perspective and understanding of both sides.

[pluienoir]

Pluie/Noir Interscapes 02 “Interior Design”

Sound Mixed and Compiled by Rubi Visual Interpretation by David Surman

Soundcloud Link: https://soundcloud.com/pluie-noir/pluienoirinterscapes02

Welcome to the new Pluie/Noir podcast series, Interscapes. 8 years after our debut we decided to press the reboot button and return to our roots. With a new format and back to a regular monthly schedule, Pluie/Noir Interscapes will feature audio collages, mixes, live interviews and live recordings from P/N artists, friends, and other collectives we admire.

Because less is more, instead of the usual triptych format, this series will feature one single visual interpretation of the music by a graphic artist. The artwork will be available to purchase in poster format on our rebooted Bandcamp page very soon, with cassettes or CD-r of the mixes as a bonus.

World events have taken the series out of its planned monthly schedule, but priority was on the safety and functional structure of the private lives of everyone involved in the project during these unprecedented times. 

For Interscapes 02 we welcome Rubi, a versatile german artist based in Myanmar, with a visual interpretation by english painter David Surman,

— Interview: Rubi

Hi Christina, welcome to the P/N Interscapes series. How have you been?

Hi there, and thank you so much for having me on your wonderful series! <3 I’m good, I’m enjoying what I can from the comfort of my own home together with my little kitty, currently working online and otherwise painting and reading a lot or watching movies!

Why did you move to Southeast Asia? Was it mere chance or a long-term goal?

A little bit of both, but I’d say it was intentional :) I moved here initially only for a short-term gig of three months early 2017 which I found really quite randomly but was very intrigued by. And honestly, I just liked it so much that I felt like I needed to come back and spend more time! I moved back to Yangon, Myanmar in August 2018 and have been here since, and I deeply love it – there’s a different energy in the air in Southeast Asia, people are kind and positive everywhere around you and there is still so much space on an economic and artistic level that it’s a very fulfilling place to be!

Your endeavours seem pretty vast. What did you study, what do you do for a living, and how do you entangle it with music?

Ha, I’m an economist and data scientist during the day. I’ve always been listening to and surrounding myself with music, but actually got deeper into DJing when I started my PhD in Barcelona in 2013 – I just felt like at the end of a long, mentally draining day I needed to use a very different part of my brain to really relax and let go, and getting creative with the music perfectly hit the spot. I’m currently teaching at a Liberal Arts and Sciences Institute here in Myanmar, which has the goal of bringing quality education to students from different walks of life, particularly those from ethnic minorities and less privileged backgrounds. 

I finally got to combine my two worlds by teaching a class in music psychology this term, where we are exploring the role of music in everyone’s life from early childhood, how it is used as a social identifier and its connection to politics and conflict. My students are in their early 20s, and I’ve put them on the guestlist for several of the club nights I’ve organized here and they think it’s the coolest thing ever to see their professor behind the decks haha!

How is the audio-visual arts scene in Myanmar and the surrounding Nations? Are you helping activate it somehow and what are you working on nowadays?

I’d say the scene particularly in this part of Asia is at an early stage compared to Europe, but driven by a lot of passion and daring, forward-thinking people. In most of the major cities, you’ll find a beautiful venue and a small dedicated crew of people behind it - some of my favourite places I’ve played at in the area are Savage and Observatory in Vietnam, the Resonant crew at B1 in Taipei and Club Kowloon in Hong Kong. Also, the early-stage vibe brings the liberating attitude that as a DJ it’s really just about making people dance, and there’s no ego yet about the tracks you play or how you achieve this – if you can manage a dance floor, you get a stamp of approval. 

Myanmar I’d say is the youngest scene by yet another margin, particularly because of its very recent coming-out of a military dictatorship. There’s a small number of local DJs and very few venues that dare to program (non-EDM) electronic music, and I was lucky to get a residency in my favourite club in town within the first month of arriving! I started my Out Of Sight events here, a monthly series which gained a very regular following and is the only one with international bookings in the whole country. Upon coming here, I didn’t really think I’d get to start another series of my own, especially inviting over so many DJ friends to come to visit and also contribute and explore the country while they’re here. Honestly, part of my joy in doing this has purely been getting inspired myself by seeing people play, bringing together a community of friends to dance through the night and just have a really great time. 

It’s been a very gratifying journey, not least because it received appreciation from people in town – many of the local DJs became loyal followers and very excited to see artists from different countries play here in Yangon. Over the past couple of months, I’ve had Adam Collins here, Exos (twice!), TC80, Avos & Moses Mawila, Max Davis and many more. So yes, I feel like I’ve made a small contribution to the scene in one particular place – and honestly, there is still so much space here for people doing things that it’s very fun and easy to create something impactful!

Tell us more about "Interior Design": How, why, when?

I’ve recorded this podcast at home in Yangon, on a chill midweek evening when I felt a little spark of inspiration. I honestly take forever to record podcasts, as you already know from me submitting this so late :) I get deeply into overthinking mode and since I don’t publish many mixes I want them to have a specific theme and vision behind instead of just putting tracks together – which usually ends up with me procrastinating for months until it finally clicks and I know exactly what I want to do. There are quite a few tempo changes inside as I tried to create an arch from very slow ambient tracks to something I’d play in the middle of a night and then back down again. But somehow all of the tracks I put feel deeply me and representative of the style I like, so I identify with it. 

The name was a last-minute hunch, but seemed fitting with the current phase of everyone spending time inside their homes and through this discovering maybe not just their furniture but also the building blocks of their inside world :)

And music-making? Is it something you want to explore?

I’ve actually gotten into playing acoustic music here with friends in recent months, and that’s been a really fun journey! I have a bunch of instruments at my home, and hosting small jam sessions has been one of my favourite pastimes. All of them are much more talented and experienced than me but have graciously taken me in so I’m constantly learning a lot. 

On the electronic music side, I feel most compelled by making more experimental and ambient things as it feels like there is a larger range of freedom for exploration. I’ve been sampling some of the sounds in my surroundings for a while as the hustle and bustle here sounds so different from what I’m used to in Europe, so we’ll see what comes out of it!

Short, medium and long term goals?

Honestly, I’m a pretty chill person, so my overall goal in life is just to spend my time in an interesting and creative way, surround myself with people I love and somehow leave a positive trace with what I do. If I manage to keep combining all of these things I’ll consider myself a lucky and successful human!

— Interview: David Surman

Hi David, such a pleasure to have you at P/N. How are you, all things considered?

Thank you for asking, I’m very good right now. The pandemic has shifted my reality in all sorts of unexpected ways. I had coronavirus after taking a trip to Madrid, then New York. I came back to London and got sick immediately. I’m so glad to have fully recovered. I’m enjoying the empty London.

Have you lived abroad and explored different artistic fields apart from painting, or has it always been about England and canvases?

I was introduced to painting when I was a teenager by an artist Rob Fairley who my dad knew. I had always drawn a lot, but I didn’t consider being a painter until much later. I actually trained to be an animation film director, which seems so ridiculous to me now. I thought of it as a pragmatic choice -- the kind of profession which is somewhere between a reliable job and artistic freedom. Little did I know that hand-drawn animation would all but disappear. 

I absolutely loved good quality animation, films like Akira and Ghost in the Shell, and the Studio Ghibli films. I wanted to make them, and I also wanted to disappear into them. I started seriously painting again in my early 30s after a decade of working in animation and videogames in the UK and Australia. The timing has been perfect for me, as I started to paint really when I was ready. Australia changed my work, it made me think about colour and light and scale. I made films and animations and games there with my partner Ian Gouldstone before we came back to the UK and I started to paint full time around 2013.

I'd discovered your work through Sound Of Vast's "5th Anniversary Series". It featured a series of paintings from your "Paintings for the Cat Dimension" exhibition/installation. What was it about?

That was such a wonderful collaboration, and the team at Sound of Vast are brilliant. My exhibition was a series of 12 paintings of the same cat motif, a mother with two kittens, interpreted in 12 different ways. I wanted to make a statement on what it means to paint in the post-internet era, without giving in to the impulse to simply paint or reproduce imagery directly from online culture. So I created a cat motif in response to the prevalence of cats online from the beginning. The real statement though was the stylistic shifting around. I wanted to say “we are playing with identity all the time, why should an artist be an authentic singular identity?” I wanted to show that an artist can wear many masks, and they’re all authentic in representing artistic action.  

Do you consider the internet, social media and contemporary sub-cultures the biggest influences of your work?

I don’t believe you get to choose your influences so much in art. By the time you’re 8 years old or so, your plastic little brain has been shaped by certain formative things. For me, there are two fascinations, first the natural world, which nourishes the animal side of me. The second is the artificial human world of images, electronic media, videogames, movies, art. 

As much as I would like to be integrated into nature like a romantic dreamer I firmly believe humans are stuck outside of nature, so we have to make a new nature for ourselves to comfort and distract ourselves. This is art, and it takes many shapes, from youtube to painting to music. I see all these things as fundamentally the same, art is doing something with love. I see a lot of love in internet cultural activity and so it influences me. Though I have no idea how visible all this is in the work.

Your work isn't shy of colour or texture. Is this rooted in your fascination for animation?

When you learn to animate you become totally dedicated to line. It’s through moving lines that things come to life. Drawing is emphasised more than painting, and so colour and surface are less emphasised. When I came back to painting I really savoured the ability to subtly control the colour of the image and also the final quality of the paint. I go for strong colour because of various factors. You’re certainly right about animation being an influence, I think the colours of well-made cel painted animations are astounding. Particularly in good quality anime feature films of the 80s and 90s. 

My approach is also calculated, I am interested in having an impact followed by a slowly shifting understanding, and you need to push colour to achieve that. Also as I have gotten older and become more and more conscious of art history I feel a sort of obligation to have courage with colour and put out my ideas in a clear way.

Do you listen to music while painting? Does music have an impact on you while you paint?

I absolutely listen to music when I paint, and I am totally repetitive in my choices. I listen to David Bowie’s discography on repeat, and Kate Bush too. If I need to go to a particular mindset I will listen to Bach, Tchaikovsky, Wagner, Glass. Bowie and Bush are just always there, timeless, every aspect of it is totally known and listening to them while painting just greases everything along nicely. I would like to be a curious listener and search for different music, but I think I’ve become extremely focused on the experiences of the eye, and perhaps not so much the other senses.  

"Raucous Bird" is your visual interpretation of Rubi's podcast. Why did you choose this particular work?

Listening to Rubi’s work I was thinking a lot about the space of music, and the way we lose a sense of direction. It becomes spatial, but there isn’t necessarily a top or bottom. This is very different from visual art, which relies a lot on a structure of top, bottom, and so on. It made me think of the paintings of cockatoos I’ve made, who I saw often in Australia, playing fun games in the trees. They appear weightless and live to enjoy the space and their own free bodily movement. For me, the music creates a wonderful association with this memory.

Short, medium and long term goals?

To make exciting paintings that have an impact, and to bring the work to new places. That’s the priority for me at any given time. Thanks so much for asking such great questions. 

— Links:

https://soundcloud.com/itsmerubi https://www.davidsurman.com

W: https://pluienoir.tumblr.com M: info (at) pluienoir.com

[dreamofcentipedes]

Do you agree with Linkspooky meta about chapter 125?

Drawing me into the tumblr drama, eh, anon? Because we have very different interpretations of the overall trajectory the series is going to take, our views are naturally inimical, and I don’t really want to start anything that might be considered ‘beef’, because you see…

But you did ask, and fandom’s full of debate, right? Because it’s quite a lengthy meta and I want to provide a sufficient rebuttal, this post is pretty comprehensive and/or exhaustive.

Along with theme-related disagreements, there are two major things in the meta that I take issue with: 1) Itpresents a lot of assumptions as fact without making the case for them, and 2)It expects Ishida’s moral system and values to match the analyst’s own, even ifthere isn’t any evidence for it. I’ll be coming back to these two here and then. 

Early on in the meta it makes the argument that the final panel is unlikely to be a 19 because usually reversed Tarot are simply presented as upside down in the manga whereas this one is mirrored. But later, it goes on to argue the case for it being a 16, even though no matter how the image is moved, the 16 will remain in the wrong order, whereas at least in a mirror a 19 can clearly be made out. For that reason I would definitely say a 19 is more likely and could possibly even reflect (lol) Kaneki and Touka’s parallel development.

“Sex isn’t really a net positive or a net negative, it’s just neutral”

This is really justa personal opinion stated as fact, and ignores the very real and very powerfulemotional charge of 125. Such an objective view is far from universal, and inmany circles sex is triumphed as the ultimate form of love, which, I think, iscloser to what Ishida’s view is, judging from the care and dedication he tookto drawing 125. And again:

“having sex doesn’t really resolve any of Kaneki and Touka’sissues” 

This reduces theact to just a quick shag without acknowledging the clear emotional significanceof the experience for both the characters, proved both in the chapter andbeyond it. Sex does really resolve their issues when both of their issuesrevolve around the need to be loved. The comment is a subtle reductio ad absurdumwhich tries to instantly dismiss an argument without really fighting it.

“Having sex, or advancing their relationship might solve theirrelationship arc, but it’s tangential to their individual characterarcs.”

Again, itunderplays 125′s significance and the enormous impact a sexual-romanticrelationship can have on one’s character - it seems like it’s trying toclinically separate the two when, the way I see it, the relationship arc hasbecome a major part of their individual characters now. Just look at the endingnarration for Ch 131: “A reminder that the two of them wereonce two”, i.e. they are now one.

“Kaneki isn’t really experiencing a happiness of his inner spiritthough, considering he started crying in the middle of sex and could notexplain why.”

This is another example of stating assumption as fact. I really don’twhy everyone assumes crying has to be a negativething when tears of joy are a well-established concept. He leans intopassionately kiss Touka right afterwards, so why do people assume his heartisn’t in it? I would argue that he does explain why, butchooses not to do so with the unreliability of words, but the certainty ofaction in the kiss. And again, with evidence from recent chapters, he’sclearly drawing strength from his relationship with Touka in trying times forhim.

“There’s also the fact that they’re having this sex in the darkness,with black borders around the panels and constant cut to black. I hope thismakes a good case for why I think the sun isn’t exactly the perfect fit forthis scene.”

Not really, becausethe final page of the chapter is bathed in light, specifically for the sake ofshowing the illumination in their lives, the way I see it. Furthermore, thepanel specifically makes use of that darkness to make it seem as though lightis emanating from Touka over the naked Kaneki, strongly paralleling the SunTarot.

The darkness does in fact serve one of the purposes the meta argues for- to close them off from the rest of the world. But even then theinterpretation of that feature feels unnecessarily cruel. It goes on to arguethat Kaneki and Touka are being selfish for forgetting the troubles of theoutside world for this one brief moment. Considering everything they’ve beenthrough, and all the incredible effort they’ve put in (and are still puttingin, as the following chapters prove), to punish them for relaxing for a few hoursjust seems brutally unfair. Like yelling at Churchill for pouring a brandy in his room after a day hard spent towards the war effort. If this was just sex for the sake of distraction,then why dedicate a whole chapter to it? Why focus so deeply on the strength ofthe emotions involved, and why portray it so beautifully? As we have seen fromthe following chapters, no-one has suffered as a result of their actions,Kaneki and Touka are still working diligently for the future of the Ghoul, andin fact this experience has strengthened Kaneki’s resolve tofulfil his duty as the One-Eyed King rather than undermined it.

That white hair isGiri, not Ninjo. Kaneki stuck his head in the sand as Haise and wilfullyrejected the greater concerns of the world as the Black Reaper, but his senseof duty now is stronger than ever by working in tandem with his feelings ratherthan against them. Having one night of relaxation with a loved one is in no waya neglectful failure of duty, especially when it’s only improved his workethic.

The next partdoesn’t really make much sense to me:

“In a way it’s an unequal love because Touka can never value Kaneki theway Kaneki wants to use her, as a reason to live, as a symbol for all the goodthings that make life worth living.”

Yet not that long ago I was arguing against a meta by the same authorclaiming Touka had an unhealthy and unrequited fixation with Kaneki. Toukadefinitely wants to be a source of support to Kaneki, but that’s because shewants to return the favour for how he once supported her, knowing how much of adifference it makes first-hand. What we’re seeing with Kaneki now is not allthat different to what we were seeing with Touka back in the original manga’sfirst half, and as such, it is both equal and balanced. I’ve just seen so manystretches from people trying to find ways to claim their relationship is unhealthy,when there’s barely been any circumstantial evidence to suggestthat, let alone definitive. If you’re shooting from a tragic axis, then focuson all those death-flags in recent chapters instead - even though I thinkthey’re red herrings, they’re at least more substantial than this ‘toxiclove’ angle I keep hearing about.

“That being said, defining yourself entirely by the relationships youhave in your life and trying to keep them around is in and of itself aflaw.”

And see, this goes back to my major issue #2 with this meta. This isjust a personal opinion. There really has been very little in the manga tosuggest that Ishida thinks the same. I hear this statement like it’s a giventruth, but really Tokyo Ghoul has been much more focused on finding the right people to rely on than giving upon them altogether. The concepts of both :re and Anteiku are heavily lauded byall upright characters in the series and by the series itself; both Kaneki andHinami’s lives going off the rails upon leaving them and various troubled livesfinding peace within them – Yoshimura, Amon, Akira, and pretty much all ofGoat. These two cafes are founded on the story’s very heart, the current serieseven being named after the latter, and they are institutions that representcommunity and family, not strong-willed independence. Both Touka and Kanekihave been punished for trying to take that latter route and are now only nowfeeling something close to peace because they have embraced the former. Thewhole struggle between Humans and Ghouls exist because they reject interspecies relationships andstubbornly persist on their own path and their own way of being. So for thatreason, I highly doubt Ishida shares the same individualist outlook, whetheryou consider that to be personally right or not. His sympathies, and those ofthe series, lie on a more communal and social axis – a kind-of “power offriendship” for adults, acknowledging the rocky roads that relationships can godown, but for the sake of both parties, insisting that they’re worth preservingnonetheless. Tokyo Ghoul triumphs ultimate interpersonal understanding overindividual integrity as the way forward for societies and ourselves.

“At it’s core it’s a struggle of people from two different worlds trying desperately to connect.”

This bit I agree with! Touken is a microcosm of Ghouls and Humans trying to understand each other. Only because to me the relationship seems so clearly positive, I take that as a symbol of hope for the triumph of peace between Ghouls and Humans as has been the goal from the series start. :re is not the same story as the original was and so is free from its trappings of Tragedy; making it possible to view its developments under a very different, and in my opinion more precise, lens.

“Re: and Anteiku before it was a place where both of them were sheltered and allowed to be mostly innocent to the world.”

No, not really. Touka dealt with her father being killed and lived on the streets as a predatory Ghoul before coming to Anteiku, and even when she was there she became embroiled in Investigator-killing and various loved ones put at risk of death. During Kaneki’s time at Anteiku a loving mother was murdered before his eyes, he fought a Dove who detested his very existence, he was almost made into a meal twice by an insane cannibal who pretended to be his friend, and he was kidnapped and tortured for two weeks. In no way can they possibly be considered to be innocent to the world during their time at Anteiku, and the claim holds even less water when referring to :re after everything they’ve been through in the first series. It’s an attempt to paint Anteiku and :re in a negative light when there really isn’t one.

“At some point theoretically the idea is that Touka and Kaneki will decide for themselves what they view as right and wrong, rather than following simply what Yoshimura or Arima told them, or endlessly substituting new parental figures to guide them.”

This is again a substitution of the analyst’s own rhetoric over Ishida’s concepts. Yoshimura’s ideology has no need to be replaced, because the story has only ever lauded his stance, and Touka is clearly benefiting from following his ideology (calmer, wiser, gentler) as well as providing a positive influence to others (through creating a home for them in :re). Yoshimura’s legacy ought to be honoured and not simply thrown away because it’s not Touka’s original idea; no ideologies really are original - you pick up everything from somewhere. Touka has chosen of her own will to adopt Yoshimura’s ways because she has seen firsthand the good it can do people. She’s not blindly obedient - she is capable of thinking otherwise and disagreeing with Yoshimura, as she did plenty in the original series, concerning how to deal with the Doves, Kaneki’s kidnapping, and his decision to save Touka from the Anteiku Raid - so why should her growing respect for his ways now be childlike deferral? Kaneki likewise has his own reasons for continuing Arima’s legacy, as Ishida has taken care to point out for us:

Kaneki is equally capable of turning against his mentor as he demonstrated when he physically fought against Arima. Respecting and adopting other people’s ideas is no great sin if it appeals to your already present sense of right and wrong, as is the case with both of these two. As for the parental figures part, that returns to the “finding the right people” argument I made earlier. Young people have a natural need for an older generation to guide them as they come into their own, as they have now. Demanding that they leave that hole in their heart empty as they continue to make poor, uninformed decisions is like telling a child to skip high school and go straight to work. Both Yoshimura and Arima have made a great contribution towards these two finding their own identities, and towards a huge and necessary step in resolving their parental issues before they can pass into life’s Adult Stage. 

“Surely she did that because she wanted to love a man, yet you say she wanted to be loved. It’s a good summary of their relationship and the tragedy of Touka’s own self conflicting selflessness.”

I agree with the Adam and Eve stuff as they will effectively be the parents of the new world of the Half-Ghoul ideology, but not the conclusion drawn from Eto’s speech; isn’t the point that she wants both? To love and be loved? Isn’t that exactly what Touka has received?

“Characters consciously wanting to change but being unable to do so is basically the theme of the past ten chapters.”

…But they have changed. In the past ten chapters before 125, and the chapters after them, characters have been addressing their past mistakes and moving beyond them. Their core desires may remain the same but that’s what makes them them. That’s what good, realistic character development is; to change their behaviour and their outlook without ever changing them into a completely different person. Amon has moved past his grudge against Ghouls and even the specific Ghoul that killed his mentor, and hopes to create what is a truly righteous world; Akira has come to drop her father’s vendetta and understand Ghouls as people; Urie is placing his morals above his position in the CCG; Saiko has finally decided to make a stand; Takizawa has found purpose and selflessness in his life once more along with something like a reason to live;and finally, Kaneki and Touka have talked over their relationship that has thus far been fraught with misunderstanding and reaped their reward, finally discovering the love that both of them have been searching for. That’s what makes this the Sun Arc of revelation. They don’t need to become different people, they just need to become the best versions of themselves. 

Then there’s the rest that I can mostly skim over (haven’t read Berserk yet so I haven’t looked too deeply into that segment, but I will say that inspiration =/= exact paralleling):

16 for Tower: 

I’ve already made the case for the Sun and I don’t really see what would be the point in doing the Tower again when we’re already long past that point in the Fool’s Journey. The Sun has much more appropriate timing.

Tsukiyama’s betrayal: 

Impressive analysis of Tsukiyama’s aesthetic/emotional divide, but considering how chill and even excited Tsukiyama was to hear about the Touken marriage, I think the fandom has collectively misjudged the nature of Tsukiyama’s feelings towards Kaneki. He’s already moved past his obsessive stage in the Rose Arc, and now I think, rather than wanting Kaneki all to himself, he just wants to be his friend because most of his other friends are now dead (a comedic omake doesn’t suggest any truly deep emotion on Shuu’s part). And I don’t think that’s an avoidance of reality. Goat was about bringing people from all corners together past their grudges to form a cohesive unit dedicated to creating a better world.

So Tsukiyama’s forgiveness of Kaneki seems to have been the mature thing to do, similar to Amon forgiving Touka, because they all share the same real enemy: the world - the egg they must shatter. Tsukiyama ending his emotional isolation by joining Goat is thus a positive emotional development his character, and so I highly doubt a betrayal. I think Furuta uttering Shuu’s alias was more of a hint to his identity as Souta than any kind of foreshadowing, and Shuu throwing open the door on Kaneki and Touka is due to him being Kaneki’s second-in-command rather than any symbolic reason. 

Hinami will also not defect. I’m concerned that the meta considers Hinami joining Aogiri a positive development for her character and her joining Goat to be negative. Joining a sadistic Ghoul terrorist organisation is never a positive development for anyone’s character, and indeed the narrative punished her for that decision. Aogiri did teach her strength, yes, but Goat allows her to use that strength together with her kindness. Just as it is made very clear that Kaneki was wrong to leave Anteiku, so it is made clear that Hinami was wrong to join Aogiri - the kind of isolated rebellion the analyst prefers is not considered favourably by Ishida, who has consistently championed the benefits of community, teamwork and understanding above the follies of reckless self-destruction. 

So yeah, that’s my two-cents where that’s concerned. Sorry for the delay btw anon, but, uh, you can see why.

[dlamp-dictator]

Allen Rambles about Symphogear

AKA Allen’s Ramblings XXVI. Yes I know I still need to do the Seinen ramblings, they’re coming I swear.

Ah, Symphogear, probably one the most memorable anime I’ve watched… and one of the few series I’ve kept up with throughout these last few years. I… don’t really know where to begin with this. To explain the plot of Symphogear is… like trying to explain the plot of Blazblue to a certain extent… okay, not really, but it’s still hard. In a nutshell, it’s a magical show featuring idols, singing, dancing, guns, kung fu, and over the top shounen action. As for the plot itself… at least for season 1, destructive creatures called Noise exist in the world, destroying and corrupting everything they touch. It’s up the idol duo Zwei Wing to fight them off with mysterious relics known as Symphogears, magical/ancient technology that grants its users the strength to fight back the Noise with the power of song. Literally. These girls need to sing while simultaneously fighting, and they don’t just play some pre-recorded tracks of these voice-actors singing, you can hear the grunts, growls, and forced breaths as they sing and beat up bad guys and I just find that detail cool. Anyway, that tangent aside, the plot takes off from there. Going into further detail would be spoilers, and I personally don’t like spoiling shows and games when I do these tagged Ramblings, so… moving on.

Now, I got into Symphogear right around the time season 3 was wrapping up. I think I was seeing some gifs of the main character, Hibiki, doing kung fu moves against some Noise and I was still on my martial arts girls high from finishing up Nanoha Vivid at the time, so I checked it out. Then… then I found out the show had 3 seasons. And with shows that have that much of a backlong I tend to worry about how long it’ll take for me to get to the stuff I wanna’ see, being all the cool martial arts stuff. I had the same experience when I saw a gif of that Rin vs Luvia from UBW, only to marathon all Fate-related anime material. What can I say, I like context for my fight scenes. So I marathon all the original Fate/Stay Night anime, Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA ILLYA, and Unlimited Blade Works just to learn that fight scene was in an epilogue episode… then again, that turned me into a fan of the Fate universe and made Prisma Illya one of my favorite magical girl shows yet, so… I took a chance on Symphogear, praying that I got to see kung fu, singing, magical girls in season 1 and not suffer through three seasons of magical girl tropes and monster-of-week style battles before I got there.

Thankfully, I didn’t. In fact, I was really invested into the plot after episode 1. The stakes were raised from the get go and I was hooked. Throughout the first season I actually found Tsubasa to be the more interesting character at the time between her and Hibiki. She was a battle-hardened warrior that had closed her heart to others, even to her love of singing, to become a weapon that could destroy all the Noise that faced her after she witnessed her partner’s death. She was surprisingly antagonistic at first, wanting more to ground Hibiki into the dirt more than even talk to her due to her involve in said partner’s death. Well, I there go my lack of spoilers. What really hooked me though was the fact that this wasn’t a monster-of-the-week kind of magical girl show like I was expecting. I’ve said this before, but I tend to lose interest in monster-of-the-week shows very quick unless I’m really attached to the characters do the fighting. Otherwise, it’s just a bunch of tropes with a lesson-of-the-day at the end of each episode. Symphogear didn’t do this, instead giving a clear antagonist, being Fine, and making the show about learning her plans and eventually stopping her. Now, I know a few other magical girl shows that do this, but most those shows tend to be a bit darker than typical magical girl shows, and Symphogear was more or less playing it straight with the magical girl stuff. It was something I appreciated.

I’d talk about Chris at this point, doing that would really spoil the first season, so I’ll just say I liked her as a villain and foil to the main duo of Hibiki and Tsubasa. The show had subverted a lot of what I had expected, and it only got crazier from there after season 1. To this day Hibiki is still my favorite character in the show, perhaps one of my favorite female characters of all time, right up there with Mikoto Misaka and Cecily Campbell. She reminds me a lot of Asuka from Senran Kagura in a wau. She’d rather not fight any battles, goes out of her way to try and resolve things peacefully, but she won’t hesitate to defend herself or fight against what she believes is wrong and evil if pushed to do so. And I have a soft spot in my heart for Kirika after season 3, but… again, spoilers, plus I’d need to rewatch the show to go into more detail and I’m already keeping up with season 4.

Speaking of, I’m hyped to be watching season 4, it’s been real good so far, and I seeing some possible development for Chris and Team Neopolitan (thank you for giving us that name AXZ). I’ve got high hopes, but… I’m curious where things go from here.

…

…

…

Y’know, I’d usually end this little essay here, but… whenever I make an “Allen Rambles about X” ramblings and tag it I tend to break down things into what I specifically like and dislike, and it wouldn’t be right if I didn’t that, so… this’ll my first time do that for anime, but let’s talk about…

The Good

The Music

When I was talking about my musical taste in my Persona 5 rambling I said anything with brass and jazz would get me to [RETRACTED] all over the soundtrack. However, a good rock song has the same effect, and all of Chris’s songs just get me pumped up. I really like how every Symphogear has they’re own kind of theme and genre. Hibiki’s has a celtic/rock/pop sort of vibe, Tsubasa’s is traditional Japanese instruments with some rock elements, Chris’s has some borderline Daisuke Ishiwatari hard rock in them (just listen to Bye-Bye Lullaby for an example), and the other Symphogears are spoilers, but Shirabe is my favorite out of the newer ones, so I’ll just leave it at that.

The Action

Seriously, this anime just does all the crazy shounen action I love so well, especially all the kung fu stuff Hibiki does in later seasons. Again, Tsubasa is probably my favorite character in season 1 not only for her interest personality and story arc, but her fighting style was so cool in season 1. A samurai that can summon swords, do demon fangs, manipulate her sword’s size, it was all so cool. And that fact that she was probably the only trained fighter up until Hibiki got training in just made watching her fight a spectacle.

The Writing

I’m not really going to go in depth about the write of a show I watch for its action, but I like how Hibiki has stayed firm on her attempts at trying to settle things peacefully before nailing people with tetsuzankos and other moves she ripped from Akira Yuki.

The Not So Good

I usually do the flaws in more of a list since I don’t like being in depth about them unless they’re really big flaws so…

Season 3 was... a little lacking, and I didn’t really care for Hibiki’s character arc when [RETRACTED DUE TO SPOILERS].

Really... season 3 is the only season I had issues with. Nothing big, but just some small holes I could poke at since season 2 was just going to be real hard to top.

Uh... I guess season 1 pails in comparison to the production values of the later seasons, but... eh, that’s like saying Sonic 1 is worse than Sonic 3, kind of an obvious thing, and even Sonic 1 wasn’t that bad to begin with.

So yeah, Symphogear is just a good action show that subverted my expectations and continues to grip me. Again, got some high hopes for Season 4 as it continues, and I hope you all get a chance to enjoy too.

[hedrigal]

Akira Live Comments

So I watched Akira last night and my friends made me put my comments in a document:

Impressions: I really like this movie, it is incredibly fast paced and gets so much through just in images and snapshots. Also brilliant use of red flags.

11:58: Akira, Just think. In two short years post nuclear gangs of motorcyclists will be assaulting taxi drivers in cyberpunk Tokyo.

11:58 Like that might actually happen.

12:00: What. Dog murder. This isn’t fucking Jojo. Why is this the anime theme I’ve been dealing with lately? If I wanted to be depressed by dying dogs I’d just watch plague dogs.

12:01: There’s a very old child.

12:04: Oh shit. So there’s also a revolution in the background as the gang war happens. Or atleast mobs of people waving red flags. Which is my favorite kind of mob.

12:05: So the incredubly old child had exploded TETSUO!

12:06: Ancient children are being approached by pod children who look actually young.

12:07: And for some reason my favorite coworker looks like roughly half of the background characters. Extremely short hair, Mustache, very angular face, looks exactly like the Colonel.

12:13: Kaneda helps revolutionaries escape attest if they’re hot women. Sexist, but also semi good Praxis.

12:17: Akira is already doing a good job of establishing this is a collapsing social order. Like capitalism is clearly in absolute crisis, and they haven’t even slightly used those words. So points for that.

12:27: Hah. Communist lady is still a character. And she was apparently involved with a terrorist bombing.

12:30: And she was apparently involved with a terrorist bombing.

12:33: .00005 degrees kelvin isn’t a temperature people can live at movie. I call bullshit.

12:34: his room is just looking like they’re bellow freezing. Rather than instantly freezing them to a painful death. Very slowly.

12:35: Ryu also looks like my coworker. Again. A very solid portion of these characters look like him.

12:37: The communist rebels are relying on millenarian cultists for their hope for the future. I would call that unrealistic, but there are communists who have done dumber things. this is also more radical and more thoughtful than the actual Japanese Communist Party would be capable of.

12:39: Why was the peace of neo tokyo ever left in the hands of a colonel. That’s like, General level responsibilities at least.

12:41: Whoever did the art on this loves angular face mustache men. Which I don’t think there’s anything wrong with. Just a bit hyper specific.

12:41: Oh shit. The bear is moving.

12:41: Oh shit, all the stuffed animals are walking.

12:42: Wait, Tetsuo is just hallucinating.

12:43: And the hallucinations are bleeding cum and attacking him. Oh god thats a lot of cum.

12:43: He scared off the cum monster creatures by bleeding at them from his foot wound. I know it’s milk but the look is too viscous.

12:45: Tetsuo popped those guards like grapes. It was awesome. Good for him.

12:46: Why did the communist terrorist squad recruit Kaneda? He adds nothing beyond so much risk that they’ll get caught.

12:47: Fucking sewer levels. Always lame! Oh, communist lady is named Kei.

12:50: Holy shit. TETSUO has just crushed the cops into a fine paste. Good for him.

12:51: Cum monster stuffed animal things are are back.

12:51: Now they’re just regular children. Who are also seemingly 85 years old.

12:56: Communist lady is already reacting with horror when he gets thrown around? Goddamn. You’ve known him for like a night. Don’t fall in love with him yet.

12:57: Tetsuo keeps saying aloud what he’s psychically told. You’re missing the point of psychic communications.

12:59: Why did they store psychic super child in the fucking olympic stadium?!

1:00: Colonel is staging a crisis.

1:04: Exposition on Akira is happening and I’m very bored by it. They don’t need to explain why there is a psychic child who can destroy the world. He’s just there. Especially when it boils down to him having amoeba powers.

1:06: Is he a pokemon, evolving as an individual, rather than in a process of punctuated equilibrium/gradual adaptation? So there’s now tanks rolling down the street in Neo Tokyo.

1:10: The communist rebels are burning their files in a way guaranteed to burn down their headquarters. Like, you don’t leave the files drifting out onto the very flammable carpet.

1:12: So Tetsuo is going to fuck up the military.

1:13: What the fuck is up with Japan and dudes with little to no hair and just a mustache but a very angular face.

1:14: And communist old guy is dying of a heart attack. Also that cult dead communist is relying on pulled through. Damn. He chose a bad moment to die.

1:16: Kaneda is now going to go deal with the problem for some reason.

1:17: So now there’s an ancient elvis man leading the revolution. Instead of communists. Again I feel like this has happened before.

1:17: Elvis cult man is dead now. Also the Bridge is pretty fucked.

1:19: Well he got to the deep freeze olympics building. He’s walking pretty slow for a rampage. Wow, this has all just kind of collapsed very quickly.

1:20: So communist Kei is being controlled by the bratty half pints who also happen to be like 87.

1:21: Oh shit. AKIRA pod is being flown by Tetsuo.

1:22: By the way, Neo Tokyo is fucked.

1:22: How are those scientists not just doubled over from migraines as the computer flashes at them.

1:24: Oh shit. Akira is just a collection of organs and body parts. Spoilers.

1:24: Also Tetsuos hair has grown massively. Is that just inconsistent art, or has this taken place over months.

1:26: Kaneda is doing pretty alright in this lazer vs psychic powers match all things considered.

1:27: But taking cover is a very dumb plan here. Like, it’s not like Tetsuo needs to see him to pop him like a grape.

1:28: Oh shit Tetsuos being abducted.

1:28: oh shit communist lady is still alive.

1:29: Tetsuo arm cut off. TETSUO!

1:29: TETSUO is literally on a satellite to blow it up. In space. It’s bullshit.

1:30: So Tetsuo murdered the satellite. And Who is actually saying it is SOL?! You’ve been there for like five minutes. Who has been spreading rumors?

1:31: Now his arm is back but robot!? TETSUO gets new powers by the minute.

1:32: The future doesn’t proceed along a predetermined course, there’s a future we can choose. Probably the truest line in the movie.

1:33: Einstein man is really impressed by the science that was made by TETSUO.

1:35: TETSUO’s girlfriend is back and is scared by his cool new robot arm.

1:36: TETSUO is turning into a very aggressive vine.

1:37: Also, poor aim Colonel. You just nicked his freaky arm thing into overdrive.

1:37 So Kanedas power is that he is a biker dude. And that’s it. He has some pretty insane luck. Rolls nothing but 20s.

1:38: Shooting the arm is clearly a bad idea. KANEDA did it again. Like seriously. The last time he did it he just shot out cancer beams to kill a dude.

1:39: TETSUO is going all body horror. And begging for help. and turning into a giant baby from the looks of things. Literally.

1:40: And also, Kaori was crushed to death. But Kaneda popped out like Pus from Sean’s terrible acne advice. The akira tubes have popped.

1:41: and suddenly TETSUO is receding.

1:42: Wait. Fucking what. Akira is alive again.

1:44: Whatever the fuck is happening here is very unclear.

1:49: Whatever the fuck is happening now is pretty incomprehensible. I enjoy it. But I have no fucking idea whats up. Other than that Tokyo is pretty fucked. And millions are dying.

1:50: And that for some reason the Colonel, Kaneda, Kei, and the dude who is so unimportant i don’t even remember when they even said his name are alive.

1:51: TETSUO might be the god of a new universe. Or maybe thats akira. It’s very hard to tell.

1:51: God rays mean deaden my opinion. I’m going to go with god of a new universe given the credits too. They aren’t contradictory.

[sambart93]

2017.02.20 TOEI HERO NEXT さらば俺たち賞金稼ぎ団 [Review]

Monday night I spent my evening watching the hilarious Toei Hero Next. It’s like the third of it’s installment, at least for the gekidan heroes series:

Original Movie here First Stage here

Official Website here Official Twitter here Official FaceBook here Press 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 DVD PreOrder here

CAST and CHARACTERS

Suzuki Shougo as Suito Saito Shunsuke as Kuroda Ken Baba Ryoma as Mizuno Satoshi Moritaka Ai as  Momose Niina Nakajima Kaito as  Kirijima Reito Kinjyou Yamato as Aoki Junzou Maruyama Atsushi as Kinbara Toshiro Soutarou as Hara Matsumoto Hiroya as Mysterious Guy Kubodera Akira as Kiseki Yuji Hiramaki Jin as Ruri Hayashi Tsuyoshi as Ran Tomita Sho as Sou Miyuki  Fujisawa Reika Iwasaki Nami Hata Mizuho 

AfterTalk Guests: Watanabe Tsurugi and Ise Daiki.

STORY

Kinbara is in a writing slump which means Gekidan Bazooka are without scripts and things to perform until then, so they decide to try out being hosts at Club Jewel, but soon they get caught up in an attempted murder, but with no script to guide them, they have to improv. their way to figure out what really happened.

NON SPOILER

This was so fun. I laughter so hard for 2 hours straight. The scripted comedy, the improvised parts, the accidental mistakes and the aftertalk was ALL hilarious. I very much enjoyed myself and it was very refreshing to watch - I expected to be super tired after doing 3 stages and 2 events the week prior - but this was so easy to watch and so easy to be entertained and is a lot of fun! Baba Ryoma is just the king of being over-energetic and funny in an ugly way, Sho-san definitely controlled the AfterTalk and everyone was definitely onboard with whatever crazy requests and daily challenges (higawari) and improvs that came their way. I really hope they do a next install me. And it’s so freaking cool seeing the entire cast and going ‘holy moly they ALL did sentai!’ it’s badass having that realisation in the middle of the play.

Rating: 8/10

SPOILER

The first few parts won’t be spoilerly, so you can read up to the ‘read more’ line without worrying ^_^

When I first walked in, I realised I had an aisle seat... and THEN I realised it was a host set up on the stage... AND THEN I realised there were stairs leading up to the stage, and I was just like ‘oh shit please do not come my way and approach me’ ... my heart was racing anytime they came down the stairs or towards me o_O

The spoiler part of the story is: So Gekidan Bazooka join the host club, with Niina (Moritaka) as a female guest, but then it turns into an incident when Suito (Suzuki) tries to attack the owner of the club and claims that the owner killed his father and that he’s responsible for his father’s death and responsible for why his father and his family have been labeled as murderers. The plan doesn’t go as he hoped so Suito’s only option is to then go on the run so he isn’t attacked or arrested. Thus, Gekidan Bazooka are left to figure out what really happened. I won’t spoil any more about ^_^

Now some random comments about the stage and some scenes itself before I get into the individual character/cast stuff:

Towards the beginning of the stage when they first join the host club, the main Gekidan Bazooka members joked and commented about it being ‘Watashi no Host-chan’ and in all honestly: it really was a parody of it.

I freaked out in the beginning because it went dark and I noticed someone had come in from the left side door in front of me but couldn’t figure out who it was. Then the lights came up and a spot light was on the person, and BAM Shougo is like RIGHT there and immediately he’s all excited and loud like ‘HEY! WELCOME! LETS HAVE SOME FUN!!!’ and I’m like, ‘I cannot handle Shougo being this close to me, being this gorgeous AND being this excited and loud’ my heart was definitely not calming xD

Kuroda Ken (Saito) and Mizuno (Baba) had to play Pocky Chicken which is essentially the game of Chicken but with them putting each end of the Pocky in their mouths and eating it and getting closer until someone freaks out and losses. When Ken first put the Pocky in his mouth he started flicking it up and down, and Baba’s face was gold. Baba (in character) was like ‘stop moving it! stop doing that’ but Kuroda was WAY too excited to get to play Pocky with him. Of course Mizuno losses xD later it almost becomes a Suito vs Mizuno Pocky Chicken but it gets stopped before it even starts because Mizuno is like ‘that’s not a good enough challenge to prove I’m a good host! We must do something that really tests us as Hosts!’ and of course Ken and Niina are totally upset and disappointed by the gaming being stopped - *cough* just like the rest of the audience xD

There was massive shipping all around for Suito x Ken - Shougo and Saito’s character. Everytime Shougo touched Saito there was this pink heart and a ‘kyun’ sound moment from Ken that was hilarious every time xD also Niina was shipping it hard herself xD

To be honest, I do have one little bitty niggle of a negative: I feel it dragged a little towards the end for abou 10-15 minutes but only because we’d been so spoilt with comedy for the first 60-70% or so that for it to suddenly get very realistic and dark, kind of ruined the mood and so that one part drags somewhat before we go back to the comedy again.

There’s two main higawaris and improv parts in this stage that I want to talk about:

First Challenge/Duel: About 20 minutes into the stage, Suito asks his number one guest (played by Miyuki) to decide a challenge for us. 

The theme was: Confess Your Love to the Criminal in the Interrogation Room.

Suito: *pretends to smoke cigarette* BANG on the desk! Have you eaten katsudon?! What? You’re on a diet?! I’ll leave you even if you’re round! Lets eat katsudon together again. That’s ALL!

I don’t remember who he was against -- I think it was Baba -- but Shougo obviously won so ^_^

Second Challenge/Duel: Pretty much the finale scene of the stage when the guest of the day comes out and gives them a challenge. So todays guest was Watanabe from Jyuuohger (HyuuohElephant). The higawari at the end and it was between Gekidan Bazooka’s Kinbara and Jewel’s Sho-san. 

The theme was: Blouson Lion Jyuurou.

I don’ really remember it much but I remember Kinbara pulling up his pants completely so his white hairy legs were showing and he forced Baba and Kinjyou to help him and he ended by using a Jyuuohger line (because Watanabe was there) ‘このちきゅうになめるなよ！/ Don’t underestimate this world!’ he really was hilarious and tried so hard!

Then it was Sho-san’s turn and again his was super fast and crazy and it made it worse by him asking Miyuki to come back on stage and was like ‘start a beat’ and she did this crazy off beat not good song that added to the hilarity of it all and she REALLY got into it half way through that even Sho-san was losing it a little while trying to perform. I don’t really remember what was said, but he was talking about ‘dont be worried about this... don’t be worried about that’ and every time he finished on a ‘don’t be worried’ which translates to ‘shinpai nai’, Shougo would immediately start yelling “Shinpainaisa~!” WHICH is apparently an iconic scene out of the Japanese Lion King Stage (see here and here) but Shougo does it MUCH better xD and much more hilarious! Every time he did it the audience got worse and worse in terms of how hard they were laughing.

Sho-san’s team ultimately won xD

I really do hope they’ve filmed all the higawari’s too! Especially because not many people were posting the daily challenges on twitter every day so if they weren’t filmed then they’re gone for good and I really want people to at least see this one! xD

Now onto the characters!

Suzuki Shougo as Suito: So he is essentially Jewel’s number one host, and as stated he tries to get revenge for his father’s death and for his family being labelled murderer’s BUT turns out that he only wanted to threaten the owner to get the truth rather than actually kill him and he spends his time on the run feeling awful about it and he’s actually a very nice guy who just wants to make other, especially women, smile. His voice when he did his solo song during the singing show down between himself and Baba was SO good!! Seriously, SO GOOD. I could not look away! I was completely absorbed in his singing performance. And a little part of my brain couldn’t not think ‘OMG look at Kazama!’ (he plays Kazama in the HakuMyu series... shh! I’m not using past tense yet okay!). At first I didn’t think I’d like Shougo with short hair but after seeing him in this, I’m okay with it. My comments about his personality are down in the AfterTalk section below. Suito basically matches his name: He’s a sweet and kind guy. And seriously the shipping for him and Ken was GOLD.

Saito Shunsuke as Kuroda Ken: I forgot about Ken’s phobia against women which made it hilarious because he ends up joining the host club BUT then he ends up crossdressing so he could be one of Suito’s guests and not only does he look pretty (Saito always looks freaking pretty!) but he really suits looking like a girl! When Kuroda dresses up as a girl, Suito obviously notices but he doesn’t embarrass Ken by letting him know and allows him to continue being a female guest at their hostclub. The scene between him and Suito where he’s like ‘you realised I was a guy (crossdressing) but you didn’t say anything, you kept treating me like your guest’ and it was such a touching moment <3 There’s a lot of hand and wrist holding moments with them! I don’t know how Saito does it really, he’s always up for pretty much any role and any type of character. He’s never done an uninteresting character I don’t think and he can very easily play both the more feminine role (like in this one) and the more masculine role (for example in BASARA).

Baba Ryoma as Mizuno Satoshi: Baba Ryoma... this man child. Every time he impresses me because he has such energy and he like never runs out of it and everytime I am shocked and astounded by just how... what the right word to describe him... disgusting in a good way! He’s such a hentai. He literally knows no bounds! 

Just before his singing showdown, Niina was taunting him like ‘ミュージカル王子だからね / because you’re the prince of musicals right?’ and Baba’s face was just like ‘ah balls now I have to be good’ and I honestly think it was an unexpected remake and his reaction was real at that moment. During his sing-off with Shougo, he was being so over the top and flamboyant and pulling faces and getting real close to the audience and making them feel uncomfortable as he tries to do these sexy moves but they come off really stingy (on purpose). I’m pretty sure Baba completely broke some rules when he went up to a girl in the front row and was kind like leaning into her and rolling his hips and crotch about in front of her like a strip show xD That boy will never not calm down will he xD

He is absolutely hilarious. Just his facial features and expressions alone are enough to make an entire audience lose themselves in laughter. Watching Mizuno drink himself silly on the first night working at the host club was hilarious too! The theatre goes black and then the lights go back up and him, Saito and Nakajima’s characters are just completely passed out from over drinking on their first night at the host club xD another hilarious moment from Baba is towards the end where Gekidan Bazooka reenact the murder and Baba plays the role of Suito’s father, so he’s mainly just playing dead on the floor, and everytime something breaks the scene and he gets up and then they go back into the scene, Baba (everytime) flawlessly rolled back into the dead body position and it was so smoothly done that it was cracking everyone up xD Baba I love you, never not be stupid, loud, hentai-y, and hilarious.

Moritaka Ai as Momose Niina: She's cute! And I definitely could get on board with her personality because she’s a Fujoushi and would just fantasize (as much as I did) every time she saw Suito and Ken together xD and she always put her hands up and made little bunnies out of them and reenacted the Pocky Chicken scene and imagines Ken and Suito kissing so that was enjoyable too. I’m a little upset that she couldn’t join the rest of the gang because (being the only girl) she couldn’t be a host, but it would’ve been fun if they’re done what they did to Saito’s character and made her cross-dress and try to get by as a male host. Now THAT would’ve added hilarity and more interesting scenes to the already great stage that it was.

Nakajima Kaito as  Kirijima Reito: This one I was worried about because he is so young and granted he wasn’t the worst out of the Ninninger’s, but he’s definitely got pressure on him for being a decent performer because in this stage he is surrounded by amazing actors like Suzuki, Baba and Saito. Also I think this was his first stage. But, looks like the directors and such agreed with me, because his character is very normal; obsessed with his phone, not really taking anything seriously, not really wanting to try and help, and his stage time was rather small too. So they let him play it safe which I think was the better option. Maybe in the next stage, when he’s had more experience and more work and mattured a little more, he’ll get more character development and stage time but I’m glad me and the showrunners saw eye-to-eye on Nakajima.

Kinjyou Yamato as Aoki Junzou: I don’t really have much to say about this guy; he plays a police officer who really shouldn’t have been allowed or given that job because he’s not good at his job at all and he lets criminal get away and he never arrests people and he’s too soft and nice. He got his limelight moment though when he had to take over Kinbara’s role and it was super cute where he was acting really badly but you could just hear Kinbara going ‘yeah like that! Ooooo you’re doing great!!’ and that was definitely a hilarious scene he was center for.

Maruyama Atsushi as Kinbara Toshiro: Even though the play is about attempted murder in a host club, it actually starts with everyone learning Kinbara is currently in a huge writing slump, and in order to regain it they all decide to just go into a situation unscripted; it ends up being them joining a host club and thus all the craziness ensues. There’s a point half way where Kinbara accidently gets caught up in a stabbing and then everyone thinks he’s dead -- which ends up becoming a hilarious scene and you could tell he wasn’t really going to die just based on what kind of stage this is (comedy if you didn’t get the hint already xD). The part where Kinbara, or should I saw Maruyama, really shined was during the final higawari of the day. The higawari came from the guest of the day which was Watanabe and each person from both teams (Gekidan Bazooku and Gekidan Blues) had to . Maruyama was devastated he lost xD

Soutarou as Hara: I think this one was a shocker for us all! He ends up being an onee-san and he looks completely different in all his makeup and his girlyness! Even up close he looked very convincing! But seeing him in his normal clothes and in a beard and everything, it’s difficult to believe it’s the same person! During the aftertalk, the said ‘if you keep talking like that (in his high, girly voice) people are going to think you really are that way (implying either gay or wants a sex change)’ and he very seriously looked (I think it was Sho-san xD) at him and said ‘I am that way’ oh dear lord xD his combination with Nakajima was so great and added to the comedy.

Matsumoto Hiroya as Mysterious Guy: Hiroya always seems to pull the short end of the stick. He had such a short amount of time on stage again *cries* his character definitely lived up to his name; mysterious. And his character has such a short amount of time << I already said this but I’m upset about this! I really do think Hiroya is an underrated actor, even in Sentai I think he’s underrated. I’m glad he got to be the MC during the aftertalk BUT Sho-san essentially, and very smoothly, took over as MC xD it was hilarious seeing Hiroya trying to control the group and trying to stay in control when Sho-san and Hayashi were just running amuck and completely taking over and handling the topics of discussion and the comedy. Poor Hiroya >.<

Kubodera Akira as Kiseki Yuji: I freaked when this guy came on the stage. I was like ‘OH SHIT IT’S MITSUHIDE!! (from TouStage)’. I realised who he was straight away and of course I was like ‘I automatically love this character’ even though at one point he gets accused of murdering and being the perpetrator to a crime, I was still like ‘yeah but it’s Akira from TouStage! who cares if he’s bad or not!’ xD he did a great job in this just as much as he did in TouStage. He may be an older man (okay he’s barely just turned 40) but you gotta admit he’s very good looking! and he’s always had this playful yet still mature aura about him. He definitely never shies away from comedy, even in this. Always with a smile too ^_^

Hiramaki Jin as Ruri:  Hiramaki Jin’s character surprised me. I expected him to be all cool and like ‘yah I’m a host. Look how sexy I am’ because the pamphlet shows him posing cooly, and let’s be honest that’s the type of image and aura Jin gives off (I don’t mean this in a bad way!), but he turned out to be a super cutie and adorable! He was all happy and jumpy and a little stupid but totally adorable!

Hayashi Tsuyoshi as Ran: I don’t really remember his character. The actor himself was more impressive. He was very funny and during the final song he overdid it a little and was just kind stood there out of breath and like ‘I’m too old for this’ xD he has a great dynamic with Sho-san. OH! The point that really killed us all is at the end of the story/play where they’re all having a heart-to-heart and saying all this nice stuff, but he messed up his line and with pure luck and timing it made everyone, including the cast, just break completely into laughter. No one could control themselves. It wasn’t even that funny of a mistake, but just the timing and the fact the audience had already been in fits of giggles for over 2 hours anyway, it was definitely the last straw that even broke the cast and were like collasped on the floor and laughing while facing each other and stuff. Pure gold.

Tomita Sho as Sou: My dear Sho... I was never even supposed to fall for you but the more I see you, the more I fall for you! You’re just.... so sexy and so funny and so energetic and so great and you rally understand how to shape the mood and make everyone smile while also enjoying the moment yourself. Sho-san’s character was great too. He was the number one host and the main leader of the hosts. Also his character was well known for fucking up names which really helped the comedy and hilarity. He’d be yelling and he’d be like: ‘Will you listen to me Ren?!’  ‘It’s Ran’  ‘RAN!’ I’m not doing it justice but every time it was pure gold. I’ve already mentioned his shenanigans in the aftertalk, or it will be listed below. Seriously, his is one handsome devil and he’s great at what he does and he’s so funny and....OH! I only bought his bromides; I almost bought Baba’s but in honesty, his pictures in the pamphlet are better than his shots in the bromides. Whereas Sho-san just looks great in both bromides and pamphlet xD I might try and collect his randoms too... I really liked Sho’s character and he was a very good leader and he was a very nice and forgiving character and just wanted to help everyone out. He treats the other hosts so well. He’s just a very good, decent character. Did I mention Sho-san is very unashamed of embarrassing himself and others? Which makes him all the more amazing and funny! Last thing about his; during one of his entrances from the left side door, he came down and sat on one of the aisle armrests and put his arm over the girl and like winked and her and then went up to the stage xD From the feeling I got from her, I don’t think she appreciated it (she was much older - wow I sound ageist, sorry - than I assume his fans would be, but maybe he’s seen her from his past events sand so knew she was his fan and therefore okay to go to her?) but she damn well should’ve! I had an iasle seat! Come to me!!! xD

The AfterTalk

I’ve probably already spoiled most of the aftertalk when I was talking about the actors individually but anyway, here you go:

During the aftertalk, Nakajima and Watanabe were talking about their time making the new Ninninger and Jyuohger movie and they spoke about how they went for dinner together one time and Sho-san was like ‘what did you eat? How was the food?’ and Hiroya is just like ‘食事グルメ番組になっちゃったな〜！/ This has turned into a Gurume/Food report show hasn’t it!’ xD Hiroya could NOT control Sho-san at all and it was hilarious! At one point Hayashi turned to Sho-san and was like ‘who’s supposed to be the MC here?! You or Hiroya?!’ because he was completely in control of the conversation and the questions xD

They asked the Club Jewel / Gekidan Blues members what it was like being hosts and how they prepared for their role and Hayashi was like ‘well I was a host for like 2 hour but then I quite so I’ve already done it in real life so I didn’t need to prepare’ and then Sho-san was like ‘well I’ve done a lot of host roles so I’m pretty much a professional’ and just the cool way they were like ‘yeah been there, done that, I know what I’m doing’ was soooo good without the being cocky about it and everyone was genuinely interested like ‘when were you a host Hayashi? What other roles were you a host Sho?’ and I was sat there like ‘smoothe buugers’ xD

Suzuki was SUPER quiet during the aftertalk. He didn’t talk at all after he gave his introduction. He just kind of sat there and enjoyed everyone else’s conversation which really surprised me; he’s completely the opposite of his character. I remember being surprised the first time someone told me he usually cries at the end of his stages and I was like ‘nah... Shougo is tough!’ and then I saw him ball at the HakuMyu Live 2 senshuuraku and thinking about it, it it makes sense that he would ultimately be the type of guy who takes a back seat and would be the type to stay quiet and just enjoy everyone else’s conversation rather than butt in (complete opposite to say Sugie Taishi shall we say xD that boy does NOT stop talking. He always loves jumping into conversations! Anyway...) and give his own say in the matter. He only spoke during the greetings, at the very end and when he was directly asked a question. The rest of the time, Hayashi and (especially) Sho-san were running a muck and causing everyone to laugh and controlling the conversation. Poor Hiroya couldn’t wrangle them in xD Sho-san is so funny; I swear to got I fall more for this man every time I see him; he’s just so funny and he really knows how to pull a joke and he knows how to wreak havoc without it going to far or without it becoming annoying and he’s such a great taling; he really should have been the MC for this aftertalk.

The guys doing the sound kindly had Nakajima and Watanabe’s henshin music on standby so they both did their henshin poses and sequences ^_^ but after Nakajima’s he was like ‘I didn’t realise how long mine was!’ because he spent a lot of time just stood there xD

Ise sang the theme song at the end and all the actors (even those from backstage) came out in the sweat wear and Saito went passed me and holy moly he smelt freaking amazing and then cute but shy Nakajima went past me a little. Sho-san was being himself and found an empty aisle seat about 3 rows in and just sat there and getting high fives and waving to everyone during the entire song xD I really wanted him to come over and around the theatre like everyone else but that too was fun to watch - but I was a little disappointed.

Apparently they’ve been filming the aftertalks (or at least they said that they did on this day - so safe to assume they filmed them all?) so hopefully this one is on the DVD too so we can all laugh at Sho-san and co.

---

And that’s all! I hope you enjoyed the review ^_^

[drkreviews]

Life is Beautiful

Here I am with the first part of the themed week expected for last month, in “Lyrical Love”! Today’s subject is a song by the alternative visual kei band Plastic Tree, entitled Life is Beautiful and released as sixth track of their twelfth album Ink, come out on 12th December 2012. This song is one of their most engaging ones, because of its unique rock sound and of the theme dealt, which is more extended than that the title only, concerning deeper and crucial aspects of our existence.

THE MUSIC

Akira’s sweet and warm guitar introduces the song, with Ryutaro’s suave and simple vocals adding inside the theme, which is really nostalgical and enchanting; then the sound becomes more energetic and well driven by the rhyhtm and the piercing vocals, especially in the repeated parts, made for creating a distinctive effect. This song is a rocking, powerful and astonishing song, which leaves a particular mark after the first listening, even thanks to the several facets it features.

Lyrics (Romaji)

Hidarime niwa naite miemashita migime niwa waratte miemashita Meto meno aini shori dekinai kimochi ga imadaninanka arundesu. Hajimete Uenoeki heitta nowa mezurashiku yuki ga furu kurisumasu Shuuden wamou mukou gawa tooku ni icchi yau hikari wo miokureba taishouteki Tanoshi sugitakara shaberi sugitakara kondo wa damatte sekai no oto ni mimi wo katamuketa Kouen no oku no shoutou shitiru hakubutsukan de hakusei tachi wa towa no yume wo miteru Tatoeba konna utsukushii kyoumosouaruyounito isshun omou Matteru yuki wa tsumorisounimonai. Life, life, life, life, life is beautiful Life, life, life, life, life is beautiful Life, life, life, life, life was beautiful days Was beautiful days, was beautiful days. Bokuwa kimi ga suki nafuri woshite kimi ga suki namonowo suki toshite Dakaramata dareka shirani sonna kanjou ga mebae unara zenbu sousuru Korerawo rokuon shita boku no utawo gyakukaiten shite saisei sureba Kioku wa kyuru kyuru kyuru kyuru kyuru kyuru munashii jumon wo tonae dashite Kitte hatte itta kotoba zenbu chitte matte itte shimauyoudesu Tsumariwa bokura wa sekai dechiisaku meramera moeru gomi ninaruno.

Life, life, life, life, life is beautiful Life, life, life, life, life is beautiful Life, life, life, life, life was beautiful days Was beautiful days, was beautiful Life, life, life, life, life is beautiful Life, life, life, life, life is beautiful Life, life, life, life, life was beautiful days Was beautiful days, was beautiful days. Chiisaku fubukiku yami ga nande konnaniitsu made mo mada kirei Itsumo mienai okuga nanka kanashi kunaru hodoni tadakirei. Sonna kanjou nantoka dentatsu dekimasu younito tako ashi haisen de denkyuu wo Tenmetsu meimetsu jaku metsu shoumetsu hikari ni kidu ita minasama ni Arayuru kamen wo youishiteokanakya chinpu na kaijin hyaku mensou da Naiteru kao wadoudattarou? Waratteru kao hadoudattarou? Nee? Life, life, life, life, life is beautiful Life, life, life, life, life is beautiful Life, life, life, life, life was beautiful days Was beautiful days, was beautiful days I, I, I, I, I, my, me, mine Ai ai ai ai ai maisugite Ai ai ai ai ai sareta idakedesu Was beautiful days, was beautiful Was beautiful days, was beautiful.

Lyrics (Translation)

My left eye could watch and cry My right eye could watch and smile And between my eyes there are still the feelings that I can't elaborate. (I)

The first time I had gone to Ueno Station, there was an unusual white Christmas The last train already left, in contrast with the light that I could see moving away I had too much fun, I spoke too long and so now it was silent and the sound of the world is emptied in my ears I have a dream of an eternity, different from those stuffed animals in the darkened museum of the park For example I think for an instant to those days that seem so beautiful The fluttering snow seem to not have any plan. (II)

Life, life, life, life, life is beautiful Life, life, life, life, life is beautiful Life, life, life, life, life was beautiful days Was beautiful days, was beautiful days. (III)

I pretend to like you, I like even what you like Therefore if those feelings bloom again in someone else, they will be whole I reverse these songs I recorded and when I play them Loading, loading, loading, my memories recite a vacant charm And all the cut-and-sewn words seem to spread, to float and to die We plan to become the little flames of the garbage which is burning in the world. (IV)

Life, life, life, life, life is beautiful Life, life, life, life, life is beautiful Life, life, life, life, life was beautiful days Was beautiful days, was beautiful Life, life, life, life, life is beautiful Life, life, life, life, life is beautiful Life, life, life, life, life was beautiful days Was beautiful days, was beautiful days. (V)

Even the darkness of the snow storm is still beautiful Even the inside which I can ever see, despite of the sadness, is still beautiful.

These emotions I feel as I could somehow transmit them are only bulbs in an overloaded circuit Trembling, blinking, dying, vanished to all the others I have to prepare each disguise, the clichè faces of a mysterious person What about a crying face? Or maybe a smiling one? Hey? (VI)

Life, life, life, life, life is beautiful Life, life, life, life, life is beautiful Life, life, life, life, life was beautiful days Was beautiful days, was beautiful days I, I, I, I, I, my, me, mine Too, too, too, too, too unclear Love, love, love, love, love is all I want. Was beautiful days, was beautiful Was beautiful days, was beautiful. (VII)

THE WORDS

Like all the songs by Plastic Tree, this one has been written by the singer Ryutaro Arimura, whose distinctive style can be perceived during the reading of the text. If you look carefully to the original lyrics, there’s a thing more than the rest which quickly comes to the eyes, or better, it would come if the song plays on during the reading: the musicality. In fact all the words used here have a phonetic analogy, with the repetition of syllables or even expressions, a feature which means a lot for the comprehension of the text and they likely represent an image, a feeling, a mood, a memory, shortly something which comes out from the reader’s mind. And this important element leads to the meaning of the song itself, where the title already carries the main message. Life is a beautiful thing, not meaning that it is like that and enough, but rather it is beautiful what composes it, the single days spent in it, the little details, good or bad, concrete or abstract, make it a thing worth to be experienced, as we will see in the following analysis. And now... let’s analyze the song!

I) The text starts up with a direct reference to the protagonist, in particular to a part of his body, his own eyes. While the left one is watching and crying (Hidarime niwa naite miemashita), the right one is watching and smiling (migime niwa waratte miemashita) and between them there are the feelings he can’t elaborate yet in his mind (Meto meno aini shori dekinai kimochi ga imadaninanka arundesu), meaning that the eyes are the vehicle of his most important feelings, while the rest is put in a state of uncertainity, as the life itself leads.

II) Then he says that the first time he went to Ueno Station (the cultural heart of Tokyo), there was an unusual white Christmas (Hajimete Uenoeki heitta nowa mezurashiku yuki ga furu kurisumasu, a really nostalgical setting, where the snow symbolizes the concept of beauty), where the last train, which just left, created a contrast with the light going far away from his sight (Shuuden wamou mukou gawa tooku ni icchi yau hikari wo miokureba taishouteki, a contrast between urban and natural elements, which recur throughout this text). But in that moment he had so much fun (Tanoshi sugitakara) and spoke so much (shaberi sugitakara) that now everything is silent (kondo wa damatte) and the sound of the world empties in his own ears (sekai no oto ni mimi wo katamuketa), in a peaceful but lonely setting. Then he says to have a dream of an eternity (towa no yume wo miteru), different from the stuffed animals seen in the darkened museum of the park (Kouen no oku no shoutou shitiru hakubutsukan de hakusei tachi wa, where the animals are symbol of a fake interpretation of reality and the museum of the park is another reference to Ueno) and for an instant his mind goes to an example of this eternity, such as the beautiful days he spent (Tatoeba konna utsukushii kyoumosouaruyounito isshun omou), while the fluttering snow has not a peculiar plan of itself and it won’t leave for a long, long time (Matteru yuki wa tsumorisounimonai).

III) The refrain sequence, entirely written in English, encloses the meaning of the text, already mentioned above: the life is a beautiful experience, or better, the days inside of it are beautiful (the repetition of the lines is linked to the musical use written above, along with a symbolic meaning).

IV) In this sequence, the protagonist talks with someone else, probably a person who loved, saying that he pretended to be liked by her (Bokuwa kimi ga suki nafuri) and even started to like whatever she liked (woshite kimi ga suki namonowo suki toshite, synonym of deep and strong love). So if the feelings he had for her would bloom in someone else, they would be whole, and so more authentic (Dakaramata dareka shirani sonna kanjou ga mebae unara zenbu sousuru, probably he felt that he was not a good mate for her and their relationship ended). At the end, he finds himself to reverse the songs he recorded (Korerawo rokuon shita boku no utawo gyakukaiten) and when he plays them again (shite saisei sureba), they load more and more, until his memories recite a vacant charm (Kioku wa kyuru kyuru kyuru kyuru kyuru kyuru munashii jumon wo tonae dashite, the power of music in evoking the past is underlined in this line, somehow linked even to Plastic Tree’s concept) and the cut and sewn words inside them seem to spread all over, fluttering and finally dying (Kitte hatte itta kotoba zenbu chitte matte itte shimauyoudesu) and in that moment he realizes that each one of us is planning to become a little flame of the garbage which is burning this world (Tsumariwa bokura wa sekai dechiisaku meramera moeru gomi ninaruno, a strong critic to contemporary society, which has been always a relevant element of their songs).

V) This sequence is identical to the third one, repeating itself twice.

VI) Life is so beautiful that even the darkness coming from a snow storm is a beautiful thing (Chiisaku fubukiku yami ga nande konnaniitsu made mo mada kirei) and even its inside, which he can’t see, despite of the sadness it brings, is beautiful too (Itsumo mienai okuga nanka kanashi kunaru hodoni tadakirei), making even bad and meaningless things more appreciated by the protagonist. The feelings he has, as he could transmit them to everyone, are defined by him like bulbs in an overloaded circuit (Sonna kanjou nantoka dentatsu dekimasu younito tako ashi haisen de denkyuu wo, meaning that they are overloading his soul), which trembles, blinks and dies, fading with all the rest (Tenmetsu meimetsu jaku metsu shoumetsu hikari ni kidu ita minasama ni); so he needs to prepare his own disguises in order to go forward, creating several faces for a mysterious person (Arayuru kamen wo youishiteokanakya chinpu na kaijin hyaku mensou da) and finally he asks to his partner what face she wants more, the crying one (Naiteru kao wadoudattarou?) or the smiling one (Waratteru kao hadoudattarou?, linking to the fourth sequence, to the part where he pretended to be as she wanted, another strong love proof).

VII) After the refrain is repeated, there’s another little sequence, with the first line in English, where he repeates all the manifestations of himself and of what he has of his own, which is really too unclear, too uncertain (Ai ai ai ai ai maisugite) and the only thing he really wants is the love (Ai ai ai ai ai sareta idakedesu), because it was what makes his days more and more beautiful, giving to him a reason to live on.

Life and the little details and events which compose it, good or bad, right or wrong, are the best gift ever received for each one of us. Plastic Tree use an existential theme, inside a melodious and nostalgical sound, for reminding us that our existence mustn’t be wasted and rather it must fulfilled in each its part, whether you like it or not.

That’s all folks! See you with the next part of the themed week, in “Let’s Listen to”!

Thanks for the reading!

*Sorry for the delay*

[midnight-in-town]

Hello! is there some theories you really can't agree with in tg fandom?

Hey Anon :) And… um, not really recently, at least not from what I’ve seen of the theories these days?So unless there is someone in the fandom who believes Furuta is the ultimate big bad and that the Clowns are his loyal pawns, I should be okay with everything xD

…Though there is this theory about Touka being abducted soon (as a reason for why she is not joining the others for this arc) and it just doesn’t sit well with me, mainly because Touka never was a damsel in distress kind of character (not even when Kaneki rescued her from Ayato) so… I just can’t see it (personal opinion there, I could be totally wrong).

Don’t get me wrong, hurting one of Kaneki’s friends would be an excellent way to take it out on Kaneki and to make him suffer, I’m not denying this, but I just feel that Ishida apparently leaving Touka out of all the fighting is not because she’s supposed to suffer and end up as broken as him. 

On the contrary…

…I believe Ishida leaving her out of all the fighting is because Kaneki will need to be emotionally supported by someone who’s able to keep a clear head on their shoulders despite all the violence and the crazy world outside of :Re (the coffee shop), and I think that person is more and more made out to be Touka…

which is why she’s sitting this one out and staying at :Re.

This might not make a lot of sense to people who believe she didn’t mature at all ever since TG (dat infamous punch scene.discourse) but in fact, she grew up steadily ever since the very first arc of TG, and I can see her becoming some kind of brake to Kaneki’s unstable emotional self when the situation goes crazy, probably very soon. 

The punch scene was just an introduction to all of this, because obviously Ishida isn’t going to make things easy for Kaneki and, now that she punched him, he is a bit wary of her doing it again, which is why opening up to her will be hard and that’s why Touka is the one who will need to make the first step.

The second thing is (as Anon below is pointing it out) that the OEK role is creating a gap between him and his old friends, becoming wider the more Kaneki gets into it, to the point that now even Nishiki refers to him as a king…

and one might think it’s just funny, but that means Kaneki is slowly being isolated from his old friends because everyone is taking seriously the idea that he’s supposed to be that one dude who changes the world, and that’s why he needs at least one person to stay as his equal now that he’s the OEK (so again, by sitting this one out, Touka is made not to be like everyone else, which is precisely what Kaneki needs).

As Anon below says so well, Kaneki doesn’t need people to put him on a pedestal and to just do as he says, he needs comfort and people helping him on a personal level, and for now the only one who seems to be heading in this direction is Touka and yes, despite the punch scene (because it’s 100% a plot move leading to bigger developments). 

Um, wow, sorry for this huge thing xD I hope it makes sense, I just can’t see Touka becoming yet another way to make Kaneki suffer, especially because she has her own important characterization and because, even if Ishida can still think of ways to break Kaneki, at the end someone needs to be able to reach out to him and for now…

Hide is God knows where and I’m… not trusting him so much because he’s made out to be so fishy (even if I think his friendship with Kaneki is 100% genuine)

Amon has his own issues to take care of.

Akira is currently playing Sleeping Beauty and personally I think she’s more supposed to help Amon than to save her son

which leaves Touka.

I am sorry for rambling but I hope that it somehow answers your question. Thanks for passing by Anon!

omg Anon your insight…! 100% on point from my point of view, thanks a lot for sharing!! :D

My answer above is completely related to what you’re saying, so I hope you’ll read it because I agree with you, creating a gap between Kaneki and his friends with the OEK role is totally a bad idea and not something he needs, even if that’s precisely what Ishida is doing right now (with almost everyone starting to refer to him as a king).

Also, it’s easy to see that gap you mentioned when one compares the current arc with his life back in the CCG, when he could at least pretend he had some sort of family he belonged in with Arima, Akira and the Qs…

and he certainly looked a lot happier back then, even if the people he’s with now all are good friends who don’t want to hurt him in any way.

So that speaks volumes of what he actually needs and that’s definitely not to be the one everyone relies on and trusts with changing the world…

… because, considering all his issues with his childhood and his mom, what Kaneki inwardly longs for is probably nothing more than to belong within some sort of family, so that he’ll be able to feel the love and affection he’s been craving for ever since being a kid (that’s one of TG’s main themes anyway and not just for Kaneki’s character). 

So, all of Kaneki’s friends looking at him and seeing a king (which is something he’s responsible for as well, since he’s making it out to be that serious) are making him to be more and more isolated and unhappy, and that’s why someone needs to realize this ASAP, otherwise he will break down.

It’s nothing new that he needs help, but in my opinion that’s starting to be a little urgent right now. :/

Aaah, this subject is endlessly fascinating but I better shut up now xD Thanks a lot for sharing your thoughts Anon! Please have a nice day :))