Tokyo Ghoul:re Chapter 58: Playfully Faint

The edge is real.

Impression

Touka saves the day!

It’s good that we’re ending the year by entering into a transition between arcs – at least things can end relatively peacefully for :re, with what feels like relatively little suffering. I was perfectly content with assuming that Tsukiyama managed to get away, but I guess it’s good to confirm that he managed to escape Lunatic Eclipse with the help of Touka, Yomo and Hori Chie. What was more surprising was that Mirumo survived somehow. He must have presumed that Tsukiyama failed at getting away after seeing the helicopter explode, and decided it was worth struggling against the CCG after all. His survival means two things: that the Tsukiyama family might not be completely ruined yet, and that the CCG can’t exactly call this operation a success. If their main target and his heir have both escaped, then no matter how many fodder ghouls you kill or how many buildings you blow up (or how many flights of stairs you climb, if you’re Ui), they’ve failed at what they primarily set out to do. I’m also rather perplexed by how Hori even managed to convince Touka – did she just waltz into :re and announce she was Tsukiyama’s friend? As ever, her lack of fear over getting eaten despite being a human is astounding. Watch how she ends up being a Clown.

I say ‘relatively’ little suffering above, because it looks like for poor Shirazu, suffering continues beyond death. At the very least, the Qs technology will now be used by Aogiri against the CCG in the form of new pro-Aogiri half-ghouls being created by Kanou. Haru being one of the victims is a worrying possibility. At the very worst, Shirazu will be subjected to some sort of Noro-like treatment and will end up returning as an animated corpse powered by Eto’s kagune to fight his former squad. Won’t that do wonders for Urie’s mental health? It’s also now ambiguous as to exactly what sort of allegiance Furuta has. Is he with Aogiri? Wasn’t he a Clown? Or is he a triple agent, pretending to be working for the CCG and pretending to be working for the CCG for Aogiri when in fact he’s pretending to be with Aogiri as a Clown? They do place their members in key factions within the story – Nico was in Aogiri, and Roma was with Anteiku. A lot of people believed that Furuta was in the CCG on behalf of the Clowns, either as a half-ghoul or a human as he’d never fool the sensors on a daily basis otherwise. What if he’s Souta? Does that make him affiliated with the Ghoul Restaurant too? And how can he possibly have done that without being a ghoul himself? Also note that Hirako (whom Kaneki now outranks) has white hair in one of the frames. Being Hirako really is suffering.

As for Kaneki, his transformation to a second Arima is now complete. And this isn’t even his final form! He now mirrors Arima in every possible way, from wearing full black (with black hair) in contrast to Arima’s full white (with white hair) to having a title like the ‘Black Death God’. This would definitely be a less effective parallel had he not driven away Eto, because we’d all have assumed he’d be weaker than Arima. I’m a little disappointed that we’re not seeing more of Kaneki’s current personality through interactions with other CCG members, especially because all he seems to have right now is cold ruthlessness – the talking kagune is very worrying though, and it might be something he picked up after eating through Eto’s kakuja. I feel very sorry for the poor doves acting as his subordinates, too. They must be terrified.