#tg shachi

[eltheabberation]

Can’t believe tokyo ghoul parents are so terrible that the mass murderer who lured in a middle-schooler with her dead mother’s hand so he could kill her is one of the best dads. Like this man was incredibly murderous but was still willing to suspend his bloodlust to take his daughter shopping. This guy would kill a school bus full of elementary schoolers if they were ghouls but you know he would drop everything for his kid’s piano recital.

[elmaxlys]

Arima's plan was so stupid like the dude was completely unbeatable and instead of fighting V on his own with also unbeatable Eto he?? left his title and life dream to some guy that could barely touch him in combat??

The impact from having THE ghoul investigator teaming up with ghoul would have been soooo much more, for the humans especially, than whatever Kaneki had going on. Especially paired with the Takatsuki is a ghoul reveal and her new book release. As for the ghouls, all Arima had to do was. stop killing them.

And instead of that, he killed Shachi and gave Rize to V and then made Kaneki his successor like???

[kyanitedragon]

Shachi means "Orca"

His bikaku looks like an Orca tail

One of his group members is named "Gil"

Their bar is called "Orca's Bar"

A pretty clear oceanic theme going on, right?

Kinda wanna see him recruiting Nishiki now...

I know that his name Orochi and his mask have more of a snake theme, but I've always thought his tail looked like a dolphin tail.

And besides, it could meet in the middle and be a sea serpent?

[ipsen]

Kamishiro and Kirishima: Ends of a Spectrum

(Alternatively: Women Too Pretty to Ignore So I Wrote About Them)

Thanks to @just-another-tokyo-ghoul-fan for unlocking a part of my brain I didn’t even know existed. It’s definitely not like Touka is tied for 2nd place for my favorite character in TG. No, sir.

As always, I’m using the official translations because of my monolingual curse.

Under the cut.

Let’s get this out of the way first. Rize and Touka are not friends. I doubt they could ever be friends due to their opposing philosophies. They are fundamentally different people who should not be left in the same room together. Why?

(she hates her so much)

Besides the obvious, it’s because they view their common circumstance-- being born a ghoul-- very differently.

(TG ch3)

(TG 46.5)

Touka blames her status as a ghoul on the reason why she’s had to run and hide her whole life, especially after losing both her mother and father. Rize prides herself on her ghouls powers because being a ghoul in the Garden meant a lifetime of imprisonment, and she wanted out. Touka is tethered down by her identity, while Rize flies around using it.

Ironically, Touka becomes “free” at the end while Rize remains trapped and dies. Let’s tackle that next. Why, in the context of the overall story, does Touka live, and Rize die? It’s pretty straightforward, fortunately.

Rize doesn’t confront her problems, instead electing to always run away. Whenever she gets bored, she leaves. Whenever someone, in her view, tries to tether her down, she leaves. Because she doesn’t want to return to anything resembling that helpless womb in the Garden. Watch:

(TG 46.5)

(re 64)

Running away isn’t a bad thing in a vacuum. Personally, I think you should try to run away when you can afford to. But the thing about Rize’s brand of running away is that she forces the consequences of her actions onto someone else. Like Banjou, who was forced to take over the 11th ward because she killed the last one. Shachi as well, who takes the fall for her and gets imprisoned in Cochlea.

And as a result of her constant running and tendency to leave behind no trace, any chance at a meaningful connection is lost. No one really helps her, because she’s already disappeared. She literally cannot be helped. One of the positive themes of TG is the achievements people can achieve together. Rize, embodying the opposite of this, does not achieve anything substantial. And in the end, she is reduced to someone else’s plaything with no mind of her own.

(re 119, featuring the tip of Touka’s head.) ("Tip of Touka.” “Touka’s Tips.” Someone should use those. She offers very sound advice.)

It’s sad.

Meanwhile, Touka reaches out to people (when the story wants her to). Because unlike Rize, who does the leaving, Touka is the one who is left behind. She deeply understands the loss and hurt that comes with it, and she has tempered that helpless feeling into a kind hand to reach out to anyone.

And I mean anyone.

(re 69)

Even the brother who, when she last saw him, violently tore out her kakuhou. She doesn’t blame him, only supports him when he needs her.

(re 120)

Even the daughter of the man she killed.

God, she’s so cool. Peak big sister. I wish we saw more of it; her contributions to Goat would have changed the tides if the story just let her.

Sorry, focusing. Okay.

But it’s because of this willing to work together with people, seek peace through proactive methods, that she succeeds and lives through the horrors of the world. She uplifts those around her and is lifted up in return. Kindness begets kindness, and I’d say kindness is one of the best parts of living.

It’s nice.

... “What about their relationship to Kaneki?” What about their relationship to Kaneki.

--

Anyway, hopefully this made sense and you got something out of it. These lovely ladies are such a joy to talk about.

Thanks for reading!

[jupiterj0]

I was reading TG volume 11 this morning and I just need to share my favorite little afterword (the Rupunzel one with Nishiki and Shachi being my second)

Ayato, Jason and Rize as the ugly stepsisters 😂

….the Hide fairy???

Kaneki calling Shu a pervert.

It’s so perfect 😂

[yourfaveisagoodfather]

Matasaka ( Shachi ) Kamishiro of Tokyo Ghoul is a good father!

Requested by anonymous // REQUESTS CLOSED – !!

[superryunosukeyuki]

Rize’s Rebirth

In the final arc of Tokyo Ghoul :re, a number of plot points were left unanswered. The most prominent and mysterious of these points was Rize Kamishiro, who was the driving plot point of the arc. After Kaneki (who became a one-eyed ghoul by having Rize’s Kakuhou implanted into him) ingested the Oggai (who each had a Kakuhou of Rize’s as well) and a “core” from Furuta’s body, he transformed into an enormous Kakuja called “Dragon.”

After Kaneki was extracted the Kakuja dissolved, but it left behind a number of oviducts that continued to function. The core of the 19th ward oviduct turned out to be Rize herself.

However, if you look closely at the egg membrane in the first panel, you’ll notice that there doesn’t appear to be a body inside. There are merely tentacles writhing around, but these tentacles consolidate and then Rize herself burst out of the egg. This suggests Rize was formed from the egg rather than already being present in it. But how could Rize have been “formed” if she already existed? Also, why did she later form strange, animalistic features when she was confronted by Kaneki?

“The core”

As shown in the first image above, Kanou stated the final step towards creating Dragon was a “core” placed in Furuta’s body. @littlemissymonster​ once speculated that this core could have been Rize’s main Kakuhou. In the series, it’s confirmed that severely damaging or destroying the kakuhou is a death sentence for a ghoul. 

During Nishiki and Kurona’s fight with Roma on Rushima Island, Kurona tries to pierce the latter’s Kakuko because it would presumably be fatal. In the original series, Nashiro is unable to recover after having most of her Kakuko destroyed. Also, in one of the Tokyo Ghoul novels (Void), a ghoul named Noyama dies after Kaneki eats his Kakuho. However, there are also references in the series to ghouls that have multiple Kakuho sacs.

Eto (and later Yoshimura who posed as her) was determined to have 6-8 kakuho during her initial battles with the CCG. Later, during Kaneki’s battle with Shinohara in Kanou’s lab, Shinohara suspects Kaneki has multiple kakuho after he unveiled a new kagune form. 

For six months prior to the battle in Kanou’s lab, Kaneki engaged in several acts of cannibalism to increase his ghoul abilities. This consumption of excess rc cells is likely what caused the formation of new kakuhou beyond the original one he received from Rize. The same is likely for Eto as she grew up in the 24th ward where it’s said cannibalism is common place.

However, this creates some confusion. In several places it’s mentioned that damaging the kakuho can be fatal. In addition to the above examples, it’s mentioned that in Yoshimura’s first fight with Arima his kakuhou received “lethal” damage. However, Shinohara managed to destroy a few of Kaneki’s kakuhou during their fight, but he continued fighting just fine. It seems that only if a ghoul’s original kakuhou (not those formed by excess consumption) is damaged then it is lethal.

This would explain why Rize was able to survive multiple Kakuhou extractions. After Furuta dropped steel beams on Rize in the first chapter, she was handed over to Kanou to extract her kakuho to create one-eyed ghouls. While Rize was never stated to be a cannibal, she did eat several times the number of humans a normal ghoul typically eats (hence her title “Binge Eater”). This could lead to the formation of extra kakuho, and so for Kanou’s experiments he would extract these extra kakuho to implant into humans. By leaving Rize’s original, or main, kakuho alone he could keep her alive and wait for these extra kakuho to grow back for further extraction.

So, the “core” that Kanou implanted into Furuta was likely Rize’s main kakuho. Extracting this would lead to her death, and this was necessary for Furuta’s plan to resurrect her (will explain below).

RC Cells as Memory Cells

In a ghoul biology post by @coromoor​, it’s hypothesized that rc cells are a type of blood stem cell. This is evidenced by their presence in the bloodstream, their appearance being similar to blood cells affected by sickle-cell anemia, and their ability to regenerate multiple types of tissue.

Stem cells are able to differentiate into any type of cell. This includes memory cells, and if rc cells are a type of stem cells than this explains why Kaneki (who has Yamori’s rc cells as he ate his kakuhou) is able to replicate Yamori’s kagune. 

This would also explain Kaneki’s visions of Rize. In part 1, whenever Kaneki was in a mentally low state, a vision of Rize would appear and speak with him. If rc cells also double as memory cells, then this could explain these visions. As Kaneki had Rize’s kakuhou (and therefore her rc cells) he also had her memories inside of him.

Later, when Kaneki is inside the Dragon in part 2, he has another vision of Rize. She refers to the Oggai as “small coffins.” A coffin is a container for dead remains, and this further supports the idea that she died after her her “core” (main kakuhou) was extracted from her body to be implanted into Furuta. However, her core and dozens of her other kakuhou have now been reunited inside of Dragon. 

One of the panels shown at the beginning of this post showed Rize’s body forming inside of an egg. If rc cells are stem cells, then they can differentiate into any cell or tissue type (skeletal, muscle, blood, brain, etc.). By bringing together so many of Rize’s rc cells, it’s essentially created her a new body. It created a new Rize.

When this new body is formed, it’s still lacking its lower half. However, when Kaneki encounters it in :re 178 it appears more developed. It seems the purpose of Dragon was to gain energy (by eating humans) so Rize could be fully reformed.

Purpose of the Resurrection 

All of this begs the question: why would Furuta go to all this trouble of resurrecting her when he could have avoided killing her in the first place?

It’s implied that continually extracting kakuho on a ghoul has negative impacts on their mental health. In a flashback in :re 65, Shachi mentions that Yoshimura’s kakuho is constantly being extracted by the Aogiri Tree (for One-Eyed Ghoul experiments). He says this has left him incognizant (lacking knowledge or awareness). This suggests the extractions have left him in a vegetative state.

This seems to be the same case for Rize (who also suffered from multiple extractions). While Furuta is talking to her in :re 119, she doesn’t acknowledge him or any of her surroundings. 

Furuta’s goal from the beginning was to overthrow the Washu clan and to destroy the system they created, and to do this he needed Rize’s kakuho. However, he was also in love with Rize (having helped her escape the Sunlit Garden) and wanted to marry her. So, he used her to destroy the “cage” created by the Washu and V by unleashing the Dragon. Then, he planned to use the same Dragon to resurrect her so he could be with her.

In the end, all Furuta really wanted was a normal life.

[brave-symphonia]

So Rize was like a daughter to Shachi?

And this explains why Yomo kidnapped Rize from Kano. He was probably asked by Yoshimura as a favor to Shachi.

[star-fiend]

Tokyo Ghoul chapter 160 “Fortitude”

[dreamofcentipedes]

I’m by no means an expert on Japanese language, but can’t Kamishiro be read as ‘white god’?

As the host of Dragon, the most powerful ghoul to ever live, Rize was a kind of god, and evidently a very white one. Additionally, Matasaka Kamishiro was killed by Arima, the white death god. That’s some bomb-ass foreshadowing.

[hamliet]

The Vanishingly Slim Line Between Protagonist and Villain

“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”    --Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night

I could get into how this quote applies to Kaneki and Furuta’s narrative coping-mechanisms, especially with Kaneki and the tragic protagonist idea, but instead I want to ramble about Furuta and Arima, who foil each other extremely closely, and the weirdly different framing around them as characters despite them being even more like each other than they are like Kaneki. As a trigger warning this meta is going to heavily deal with suicidal ideation, because for a manga with the main theme of “live,” the framing around Arima’s death has been... odd to say the least. I guess this ramble (it’s really more a ramble than a proper meta, soz about that) might be an attempt to make some sense of a death I see as profoundly tragic and heartbreaking in the manga (Arima’s), via Furuta’s character.

What makes a villain, in TG? I think it answers the same paradoxical way it would answer the question of what makes a monster: everyone is a monster, and no one is a monster. To quote SnK’s Armin Arlert:

I don't like the terms "good person" or "bad person" because it is impossible to be entirely good to everyone. To some, you are a good person, while to others, you are a bad person.

Everyone’s a villain to someone in this story, and so no one’s really a villain. Everyone is both victim and perpetrator. Everyone is a person. It’s not so much that every TG character receives redemption; it’s that our perspective on them changes first, and then most of them go on to live which means redeeming themselves to an extent. 

Commonly this week in the deluge of hate for Furuta I’m seeing the assertion that Furuta as the villain ruined Kaneki’s life (which Kaneki himself says is not the case in 159) and also Rize’s life. Which, I mean, sure, because he dropped steel beams on her and later mined her and teamed up with Kanou who originally mined her. But there were multiple years in-between those events, and the whole reason Furuta got his hands on Rize again was... not because of him searching her out and dragging her back.

It was because of Arima. Arima is the one who recaptured Rize and murdered the one person who truly, wholeheartedly, loved Rize unconditionally without wanting anything in return.

Arima is also the suicidal favored son of Tsuneyoshi who also carried out a genocide against ghouls with the goal of making himself a villain with the hopes that someone (Kaneki, but Amon & Takizawa were also considered) would be strong enough to kill him and thus unite all ghouls to take down the organization preventing them from living normal lives--but like, the other one, the not-Furuta one. It’s not a coincidence Ui went from clinging to Arima to clinging to Furuta. 

Does this excuse Furuta? No. His actions are condemned in every way by the manga. But why then does the manga seem to have a kinder view of Arima? Is it just because he loved Kaneki? Quite probably that explains the framing, since the manga likes to comment on how from a certain perspective anyone is a villain like the Armin quote above, a la Shironeki killing people we don’t care about and then Shiromutsuki going after people we do care about. (I wrote more about that here.) 

It’s perfectly fine and I have no problem with people liking one and not liking the other because either can be triggering, so that needs to be respected. But from a narrative perspective, if you say “cool motive still murder” about Furuta, it applies to Arima too. But it’s not that simple for either of them imo. Both Arima and Furuta were forced to become child soldiers, knowing they would die young, raised in a rape garden. They’re victims, too. In the end, Arima committed suicide, and it’s heartbreaking. And he didn’t have to die/it wasn’t inevitable, as Kaiko notes for us:

Hence I don’t think it’s a controversial opinion to presume that Arima did not want to live with his guilt (compounded by having years of depression after growing up as a child soldier). But why does everyone in a manga that discourages self-sacrifice and encourages living over suicide then laud Arima as the god of death who died at 33 for our sins (like the Jesus symbolism isn’t subtle)? There are some hints that the framing around Arima’s death is not something we should be taking as the manga honoring everything he did or saying the ends justified the means.

Motives matter in how you're perceived--but they don’t actually matter to the victims who are still, you know, dead, or missing their loved ones.

Touka and Ayato will never get their mother back. Yomo will never get his sister back. Rize will never get Shachi back. That’s even what Furuta’s using to taunt Kaneki in the most recent chapter: the fact that no matter what Kaneki does, it isn’t going to bring the dead back. (I think we all can agree that whoever Owl is--probably Hairu--it isn’t a life worth living.) What’s done is done.

Kaneki himself acknowledged that he had a role in creating Dragon when he decided to bear the weight of his sins. Was he solely responsible, no, Furuta orchestrated it of course, but the manga and Kaneki accept responsibility for his role in it too; that’s all I’m saying:

Good for you, Kaneki, grow my son grow. It’s like what Urie tells Mutsuki: admit what you did. Face it. That’s the way to redemption, not in dwelling on the past (it’s also what Hsiao tells Aura during their fight).

Like Arima, Kaneki earlier did not want to live with the memories of what he’d done, so he tried to kill himself. Mutsuki, the same thing, but both of them chose to live. All of these suicidal characters are plagued by guilt for things that both are and are not their fault.

So how does this apply to Furuta? Well, if motives matter, does the fact that Furuta wanted to take down the Sunlit Garden--aka not really different than what Arima wanted--matter for him? I think the manga and all us readers might initially be like well... not when it comes to the people he harmed like Kaneki, like Rize, like Hajime. Because that harm remains. Good motives don’t justify the pain. If you act like a villain, with good intentions or not, aren’t you a villain? Or maybe, perhaps, there are no villains, and no protagonists? Perhaps there are just people. But objectively, if we say that about Furuta, we have to apply that to Arima as well--or perhaps his motives do matter in terms of his value in the story, just like Arima’s do. 

So if Kaneki decided to live and bear the weight of his sins, knowing much of Tokyo will never forgive him, and Arima could not, Furuta needs to be offered the same opportunity, like both Kaneki and Arima had that choice. Furuta is not narratively condemned to die any more than Arima was, and that’s the point. (Keep in mind that given that Furuta and Arima were both given favor explicitly because of their innate talent--aka what they could do--so the concept of facing wrongs and trying to right them has got to be absolutely terrifying, because I doubt failure was much of an option in the Garden (especially if freeing Rize is indeed what cost Furuta his favor with his dad).) If Furuta rejects this offer, as he seemed to kind of reject the beginning of Kaneki’s empathy this chapter:

...well, choices matter, so it really is on Furuta to decide whether or not he truly wants to die or whether he wants to live. If the manga fulfills his suicidal wish, he needs to regret it firstly, and it should then be used to dismantle the “St Arima who died for our sins” attitude by illuminating the tragedy of it all. Like, if Furuta isolated himself, so did Arima. Characters note this multiple times, and it still breaks me because Arima too didn’t believe he deserved to be loved. Furuta just took the mask off Arima as the CCG’s mascot of sorts, and off the CCG as a whole. Which is what Furuta’s entire role in the manga has been--taking the mask off the CCG’s actions, off Ui’s, off Kaneki’s, off Mutsuki’s, off Arima’s. 

If Furuta does choose to live, it has to be used to show that if Furuta could recover, so could have Arima--not to condemn his choices, but to portray them honestly as tragic. The fact that our other two suicidal parallels, Kaneki and Mutsuki, are recovering show us you can recover from the darkest of spirals, but it’s up to you to decide to redeem yourself, or drown. Importantly both Kaneki and Mutsuki had people to cling to, but Furuta, like Arima, has isolated himself. However, if Kaneki truly empathizes with him, that could help convince him it isn’t hopeless. But I don’t know; personally I’m not entirely that optimistic but I’m a pessimist about all characters living usually (sorry Yomo I thought you were gonna die like a million times) so who knows.

[midnight-in-town]

This is just my opinion but I’m assuming that by “specialist”, Hide/Scarecrow is thinking about someone who knows about what happened with the Nagaraj (a hundred years ago or so) since, as Dragon, Kaneki’s situation definitely parallels the Nagaraj’s so far [x][x].

As for who the specialist may be...

A doctor with knowledge about ghoul biology: Kanou, Chigyou, Shiba?

Or Ogura since he was called a specialist before, even if he wasn’t exactly one? Could be anyone from the Great Wheel act too, or even Kimi, since she’s been researching about ghouls as well.

It’s also not impossible that the specialist in question might be a ghoul: someone from the Clowns’ gang maybe? With all the information she has, Itori might know a few things and she had no role in :Re yet, but I guess Donato could also be a suspect since he knows many things.

Shachi and Eto might not be extremely relevant to this situation, but I’d feel bad leaving them out since we still don’t know if they’re dead or not. 

Considering that Furuta’s plan with Dragoneki was supposed to bring ghouls and humans together though...

...I’d rather bet on a specialist that’s not exactly human, so I’m all for Hide maybe mentioning one of the Clowns, especially since we can’t be sure he isn’t acquainted with them [x][x] and we still don’t know how he managed to escape from the sewers back in TG, if he apparently couldn’t heal. ;) 

[elmaxlys]

TGSMP Loser Bracket - Round 2: Dr Kanou Akihiro VS Kamishiro Matasaka (Shachi)

Kanou is a surgeon and ghoul researcher, and Shachi is the leader of the 6th Ward.

TG Sexyman Poll Masterpost

TG Sexyman Loser Bracket Masterpost

[kyanitedragon]

[ID: Manga panels from the redrawn version of Chapter 1.

Image 1: At dinner with Rize, Kaneki asks "What's at the top of your list of books to recommend, Rize-san?" She replies "Oh? What would I recommend? Hmm... I'm not sure... I like things like "industrial" where they try to outsmart each other in a secret room... And the sorrow of wanting one's parents even when inside the terrifying "otoshihako" was beaitiful... However, my favorite at the moment is her newest work, "Black Goat's Egg". The devilish, murderous mother, "The Black Goat", and her son who sympathizes with her even though he doesn't want to on the basis of karma... The inability to resist one's heritage and circumstances... It really makes you think."

Image 2: Rize says "My family circumstances are quite complicated as well... Although I may not seem to be the type, I would get in fights with my dad quite often... Fufu... There was a time I ran away from home as well..." Kaneki responds "What?! You did?! That really is unexpected." End ID]

[ipsen]

tl;dr root a is dumb and stupid and i don’t like it

gee whickers @just-another-tokyo-ghoul-fan​ i’m glad you asked!! my hater self’s gonna jump out now and i apologize in advance. under the cut:

Root A is a textbook definition of wasted potential, and I’m not just talking about the animation! It also is a detriment to its own story!

I remember when they announced Root A (flashes my “old guy” card) and the staff said it was gonna be “anime original.” GASP, a reason to watch the anime besides so-so animated versions of iconic TG fights? Sign me up!

The first episode was honestly pretty alright! The last few minutes, where Kaneki says “I’m going to Aogiri lmao”, is really cool! Soundtrack? Banger! Yutaka Yamada hitting it out of the park as usual (his work on Vinland Saga is particularly immaculate. Highly recommend both the soundtrack and the anime itself. Very nice!).

Cut to the Cochlea raid. Which, in Root A, happens after the 11th ward raid. Instead of simultaneously. WHAT. The writers literally made Aogiri dumber just so that Kaneki could get a ripoff Shachi fight. Eto showing up in her kakuja was kinda cool, but I digress.

Basically, Root A refuses to engage with the raw potential of Kaneki joining Aogiri to kill the One-Eyed King. It fundamentally changes the tragedy aspect of Tokyo Ghoul in the manga, because Kaneki is now surrounded by actual functioning members of Aogiri and not psychopaths like Yamori or even his own twisted version of Aogiri in his head.

See, an actual “Kaneki joins Aogiri” story would inevitably have to address the disparity between the real Aogiri Tree and Yamori’s torturous tendencies that Kaneki projects onto the organization as a whole. Ayato is there. Miza, Yumitsu, Eto, Tatara-- they are all there and are fighting for “a world for ghouls.” It would have to flip Kaneki’s mindset on its head because what he’s fighting for is actively detrimental to his own mental health and also doesn’t even help Anteiku; Aogiri only attacked the 20th ward in the first place to find Rize, a Washuu that could bypass CCG RC scanners. A second insider agent besides Arima (Eto being Takatsuki strikes her off the list), who could come and go without raising a single alarm (remember that false positives happen all the time because of the Washuu and the Garden kids and aren’t questioned).

The reason Tokyo Ghoul the manga doesn’t have Kaneki join Aogiri is because it is a tragedy; the whole point is that he is fighting a pointless battle that he constructed in his head. It’s why Touka calls him out when they finally talk. It’s why Aogiri doesn’t attack Anteiku again. It’s the perfect set-up for his tragic flaw that catches up to him in the end. If he did join Aogiri, that whole mental battle has to get upended because Aogiri’s ultimate goal is actually beneficial to the ghouls of Anteiku. Everyone else is just too blinded by the targeted violence to realize that.

God, I might actually just write this myself out of spite.

[mymangacaps]