Tokyo Ghoul:re Chapter 73: Flower

“You won’t say anything to me anyway.” 

Impression

Fuck Torso. I felt sick reading through those frames where he abused Mutsuki. God knows what else Mutsuki has suffered through, given that he’s been with Torso for many days now. I know this is supposed to be the :re parallel to the Yamori torture scenes from the original manga, but it’s markedly different at the same time – I didn’t feel so repulsed during the physical torture Kaneki went through with his fingers and toes. There’s this added layer of emotional torture and suffering that Mutsuki is going through. And there’s a parallel in how Mutsuki had flashbacks of her father similar to how Kaneki and Rize explored Kaneki’s childhood with his mother, but again it was different this time – Kaneki’s mother was portrayed as someone who was taken advantage of and worked to death, whereas here Mutsuki’s father abused Mutsuki while his mother watched on. I think the implication is that he was raped. At the very least, I do hope Mutsuki goes through a transformation much like Kaneki does, with a drastic change in his personality – although who knows how that’ll happen at this rate. I wonder if there’s a reason Ishida chose this moment to bring just this bit of narrative from Rue Island? As opposed to some of the other battles breaking out around the island, that is. We’ve been at Cochlea for a long while now, and there’s still lots of stuff to build on here – is Ishida planning to reveal some sort of change in Kaneki and Mutsuki simultaneously?

As for Kaneki, I really don’t think he’s playing around. Well… he’s not playing around, but he’s weaker than he should be because he doesn’t want to fight Arima. If only subconsciously, his mixed feelings are interfering with his combat – and feelings are something Arima doesn’t seem to have any of at all, in contrast. I guess is the continuation to that chapter where Kaneki curled up and started crying at the thought of having to face Arima. He’s not only feeling fear, but guilt as well – even with all his memories back, he still admits that he wanted to live up to Arima’s expectations. And he wanted Arima to talk to him too, as does every single one of us. The first half of the chapter pretty much sums up what I’ve wanted Arima to do this entire time – to drop that stone-cold face and fucking say something!

It’s almost like Arima is treating this fight as a practice session. Even with his supposed blind spot weakness Kaneki wasn’t able to do a thing. Arima hasn’t even been hurt! I wouldn’t actually be too surprised if he knocked Kaneki out and just put him in confinement. Could he just do that now? Is it over? I guess it depends on how much pain he’ll feel from this – it hurt like a bitch when Kanae cut off his hand, after all. We might see Centipede, but I actually wouldn’t be too happy about that – it feels like it’d become a repeat of the V14 fight. I’d rather have someone interfere, it’d mean Kaneki has much higher chances of leaving Cochlea alive too.