Tokyo Ghoul √A Episode 4: Centipede

The suffering never ends.

Impression

Well, well. Look who’s come out to play.

At long last, Centipede is here. Suffering in the throes of agony whilst attempting to retain his sanity – yeah, that’s more like the Kaneki we know. Things seem to be slowly escalating, and I do hope that they actually sit their asses down and get Sasarious starting next week, because apart from Kaneki’s emerging kakuja, the abysmal animation quality and lacklustre fights served to be a huge turn-off for me. And I was looking forward to it, as well! While part of my investment in Tokyo Ghoul lies in its character dynamics and the socio-political power play between the various factions, I would like some decent fight scenes. The discontinuities didn’t really help either, and perhaps this is where being a manga reader starts to backfire slightly – I can take change, that’s what I’m here for. But to my knowledge, Cochlea engages in some serious RC suppressing, which should leave all its ghoul prisoners barely alive – let alone able to use their kagune. I was fairly unimpressed by the kagunes this week actually, though I understand they can’t think up something personal and unique for each cloaked Aogiri lackey. The best ones were probably Kaneki and Ayato. I’m not sure what’s up with Shachi’s kagune, actually. His blatant link to Rize would suggest that he too should be a rinkaku, and the colour scheme certainly supports it – it looks like a fatter version of the one exhibited by Kaneki, Kuro, Shiro and poor Rize herself, who has clearly become a kakuhou whore. But at times Shachi looked like he had a bikaku instead, which would partially explain his advantage over Kaneki.

The fight between Shachi and Kaneki left me in two minds, and that’s after putting aside the reason why Shachi fought him at all. They were on different sides when this fight happened in the manga, but he still got absolutely wrecked – and it was probably the best chance after Yamori in which Ishida could reveal Kaneki’s kakuja. If I had to guess, the reason Shachi fought him in the adaptation is probably something to do with Rize. I don’t think he’s very happy with her, and Kaneki is taking one for the team as a result. It was the first post-Aogiri fight in which Kaneki was easily outclassed, so I was hoping for some budget to be injected into it – but alas, the exact opposite happened. It just didn’t seem like they were trying very hard with animating it, especially in the scenes where they just fought with hand-to-hand combat. The noble view is of course that Shachi’s apparent effortlessness came from the gap in strength between him and Kaneki, but we all know the real reason has something to do with money. It was pretty much the same with Ayato v Shinohara, and thus I’m happy they’re leaving aside Juuzou v Kuro and Shiro for later. Somehow they seem more expressive than I ever remember them being.

Fellow sufferers this episode include Akira as well as Ayato, who inadvertently discovered that his father was likely to be only a couple of floors down, albeit supervised under maximum security. The ‘Arata’ that gave the kakuja quinque ‘Arata Proto’ its name is indeed the very same Kirishima Arata, who is most likely being kept alive and harvested for this defensive armour. I don’t remember seeing this in the manga, so it’s a fresh change – the ghoul behind Arata Proto was heavily implied in the manga, but never outright stated like it is here. I suppose Amon went through some suffering too, albeit it was more like he was remembering his past suffering at the orphanage – it’s where he picked up his concurrent hatred and righteousness. It’s funny that Donato referred to Mado as the ‘reaper-like man’ actually, because you’d usually think of Arima instead. Arima’s not dead though, so it’s gotta be Mado.

Tokyo Ghoul:re

[SPOILER START]

“Become strong, Haise. Become strong and kill ghouls.”

Oh, Akira. It’s an irony you should be all too aware of. Also, it’s actually really interesting seeing the difference between the Juuzou in the anime and the current Juuzou – after only a couple of years, he’s grown this much. A major turning point was probably the incident with Eto and Shinohara during the Anteiku raid. And his involvement in this arc hints that we might get some closure for him as well, with the return of Madame A and whatever remnants of the Ghoul Restaurant that are still around. To be honest, I’m neutral at best towards the Quinx Squad, so I didn’t really feel anything over Washuu attempting to sacrifice Mutsuki – though it’s obviously not a nice route to take. Also, Eto-chan returns! And things end there. Ishida is seriously infuriating sometimes. 

One last thing, and it’s about the OP for this season. I’ve realized that what is otherwise a very static OP ends with Kaneki’s eye bleeding, which in retrospect seems to heavily foreshadow the critical injury dealt to him by Arima in the manga. I’m not sure if it was his kakugan that Arima ran through with Ixa, but the hint is there. I also remember him being stabbed twice in total, though I don’t know if it was through the same eye the second time round. 

[SPOILER END]