“WHY… WHY ARE YOU HIDING IT?!”
Impression
What the actual fuck?
I’m seriously scared of Eto sometimes. Is such extensive torture even necessary? I don’t even like Kanae, and yet I’m praying that he retains some of his sanity at the very least. Eto has been with him for, what, two weeks now? I can’t imagine what it must have been like for Takizawa and his two years – but I have my suspicions that he went through something different, as presumably the aims of Aogiri differ with each torture victim. For Kaneki, he was tortured simply for fun by Yamori – it was designed to end with him being killed, so it’s reasonable to think that Kaneki could still function as an individual with his mind relatively intact after his experiences. For Takizawa, the goal was most likely to produce an effective half-ghoul soldier for Aogiri, and so removing his sense of pain and most of his sanity was what they chose to go for. For Kanae, it sounds as if Eto is trying to erode his loyalty and manipulate him at the same time – but why sew his eyes and mouth shut? And what’s up with all the clocks? It honestly reminded me of that one panel at the end of the original manga, when Kaneki lies on his back with both of his eyes having been gouged out by Arima. I suppose her kagune sticking out of his back is her way of transplanting more power into him somehow? I don’t even know why she’s decided to do this, though – what she’s telling him is that he should go and kill Haise if he wants to be truly treasured by Tsukiyama again. So does she want Haise dead? And most importantly, wasn’t Kanae already on the brink of doing that anyway?
Haise is going through a personal crisis of his own – or rather, it might be more apt to say that he’s starting to reveal his inner conflicts to the people around him. I think this is really significant – Haise is now saying that he is not Haise. He’s asking himself who he is, where he came from – and calling himself the ghoul who killed Amon. I can’t help but think back to the very recent chapter when Touka claimed he was happier as he currently was – maybe he is, but only relatively, and on top of that his happiness levels are falling on a per-chapter basis. Haise isn’t quite right when he accuses Akira of ‘hiding’ stuff from him, though. At least, she’s not doing it out of malice. For argument’s sake, let’s say she told him everything, and he remembered his previous life as Kaneki. The issue is that the CCG’s tolerance level for Haise reverting into Kaneki is very low. Remember when he fought Nishiki? Hirako was going to kill him if he couldn’t be subdued. So Akira choosing not to tell him anything is for his own good – it’s in his best interests that he learns as little as possible, both for his quality of life and his very life itself.
I think something big is going to happen soon on the Haise and Kaneki front. Not least of all because Ishida tweeted a drawing of an older Rize with a new character design – we know how much he likes his parallels between the original manga and :re, and Chapter 46.5 was about Rize and Banjou. Next week is Chapter 46.
As for the raid, I’m glad they’re taking into account the economic implications of destroying the Tsukiyama group, but what I’m more confused about is why they don’t just run away. Mirumo is clearly aware that their secret has been compromised, and like with the Anteiku raid the sheer scale of the operation means that there’s little chance of Rose winning. But unlike the Anteiku raid, Mirumo and the rest of the family can’t be feeling the same sense of responsibility and remorse that Yoshimura did. Like with what Yomo did with Hinami and Touka, Mirumo is asking Matsumae to get Tsukiyama to safety. So why isn’t everyone else running, too? Are they not able to, even with kagune walls? Is it too late to, even now?
I played the catch-up game this morning and I want to say that this chapter was simply greatness (and from a purely plot perspective it is) but Kanae’s treatment disturbs me far too much. If only Tsukiyama could be the master that Kanae needs and I’m hoping that Touka’s previous remark upon Tsukiyama’s ego will lead to that, since he really needs to start caring about the people who want to care about him.
I think he does care. From the flashbacks we’ve seen, Tsukiyama’s treatment of Kanae has been by no means bad. It’s just that Kanae wants Tsukiyama to care about him as much as he cares about Tsukiyama. He wants the utter devotion he shows to be returned in the form of Tsukiyama paying attention only to him – or at least, much more to him than towards Haise. That’s a little less reasonable of him, I’d say.
You’re right, those are certainly all good points. For my part I should’ve clearly said what I meant before, but now that I actually scale it against Tsukiyama’s care for Haise I guess it doesn’t sound as ridiculous as before. That is, I was actually hoping for the possibility of Tsukiyama at least playing a fatherly role – almost like he did when he first me Kanae – much like Akira is doing for Haise. Hmm, it might even be necessary in the sense of Tsukiyama taking on his own father’s role if the latter really cannot escape the Doves.
If enough of the Tsukiyama family survives this large-scale raid. I bet it was the ‘shocked’ vice-president of the Tsukiyama group who tipped them off.
It’s interesting you mention Akira and her motherly role for Haise, it wasn’t something I really looked at in the post – there are discussions online about the extent to which Akira really cares for Haise given that her role was merely an order from Arima when Haise was first taken in. I didn’t say much as it was never in doubt to me (especially now) but I can see how some people might wonder. Kaneki did kill Amon (or so she thinks) after all, and Akira loved him. And he’s friends with Hinami, who killed her father.
As an anime-only viewer, where is Kaneki in this manga?
It’s literally written in this chapter’s review. :/ Seriously though, read from the beginning of the first manga, the anime really left out a ton of important content to the story, and it’s honestly worth reading.
The anime is nowhere near as detailed as the manga – all it was good for was Unravel and giving us the chance to see all the characters in colour and moving around. If you’re avoiding the review text just in case, then here is where Kaneki is:
[spoiler] Sasaki Haise, the First-Class Investigator with the black and white hair, is Kaneki. Or rather, he was Kaneki. During the fight with Arima at the end of the original manga (which the anime skipped out and changed the setting of) Arima runs through both of Kaneki’s eyes with his quinque, causing him severe brain damage and long-term amnesia. Instead of killing him or putting him in Cochlea, he’s given a new identity by the CCG and is now working for them.
Over the course of the manga, he’s been triggered for various reasons and has learnt more and more about his former life, not least because he’s met ghouls he used to know again. For Haise to now say that he is not Haise, and agonizing about the 20-year complete blank in his memories really shows the turmoil he’s going through. [/spoiler]
You have to also take into consideration that when Haise went Kaneki he was also acting crazy, which is why they are to kill him if he reverts back. The big deal seemed to be that Kaneki likely wasn’t all there before he became Haise, which is totally believable considering how he lost track of time and thought Arima was surrounded by beautiful flowers that were actually corpses or the poem he started to recite even as Arima stabbed him through the eye.
Haise is still better off and more adjusted than Kaneki. Indeed even happier.That’s why earlier he mentions how he didn’t like how the characters always died in the stories written by Eto, unlike Kaneki. It’s a huge shift that while he’s certainly not super perfect happy, his life is better enough that he doesn’t enjoy such depressing and cynical stories where the only joy is the sweet release of death.
Plus a part of this is his fear of being swallowed and replaced by Kaneki motivating him to get answers, likely as a way to accept something he sees as inevitable.
Eto was always screwed up. It should have been obvious when she put her dad in a test tube, used his parental feelings to act as a scapegoat, and lets him be used in Kanous experiments.