“645 times. 645 times I could have fatally wounded you. 645. 645 times I decided not to.”
Impression
Why is Hairu so cute? Why did Hairu have to die?
It’s been about half a year and I still haven’t forgiven Ishida. Anyway. The start of the chapter had me hoping that we’d finally learn more about Arima and how the world looked through his eyes. We never got the latter, but I think we know a bit more about him now – or at least we can confirm that no-one understands him, from his colleagues at the CCG to Haise himself. I absolutely love how Hirako just responds with silence when asked about Arima. If Arima ever dies and has a funeral, Hirako’s going to be the first to arrive and the last to leave. Arima dying will cleanse Hirako’s soul. It’ll be a major turning point in his life. He’ll take a break from the CCG to find himself, maybe find someone special to share his life with and go out to see the world. He’ll reach the top of a mountain somewhere and feel at one with nature. As he stares at the beautiful sunset he’ll start to feel that maybe, just maybe, everything will be okay.
Sorry. Got a bit distracted there. I do think that Arima is definitely not like what the CCG thinks he is, if that makes sense. They seem to look up to him as some sort of genius investigator who embodies righteousness, strength and is the epitome of perfection. I don’t think that’s it. If anything, the comment about him going as far as ‘being cruel towards ghouls’ is the most accurate of the lot. He embodies the CCG, sure, but what you’re supposed to gather from that is that, like the CCG, he’s not what he appears to be on the surface. These recent chapters he’s actually come across a lot like Hairu is in battle – someone sadistic who takes pleasure in battle and in killing ghouls, and leaves a gory mess behind when doing so. In fact, it might even be the other way round in that we know that Hairu looked up to, admired and imitated Arima as much as possible. And not insignificantly, they’re both (along with Furuta) from the Sunlit Garden, and all of them (as well as Rize, come to think of it) have shown a lot of in-battle sadism.
Arima even smiled while watching Kaneki crawl across the ground in an attempt to pick up his severed legs. He talks about killing the Rabbits and Hinami after he’s done with Kaneki. He talks about how he could have killed him 645 times but just decided not to. If we assume he enjoys doing this sort of stuff, then maybe we start to see a justification in why he left Kaneki alive and raised him as Haise – was he raising a CCG member, or a future opponent? He admired Kaneki’s battle skills at V14 – did he want to make Kaneki stronger so he could enjoy a death match with him in the future? Is that what he meant this chapter by his efforts ‘going to waste’? That even though he’s spent time on Kaneki, Kaneki’s still too weak for him to enjoy a battle with? And does Arima know that Kaneki is suicidal – is that what he meant by ‘your eyes are that of a dead man’?
I have a feeling that V is watching very closely, by the way. And I mean Kaiko and the other higher-ups, not members like Arima and Furuta. How else could Arima have gotten Owl (the SSS-rate ukaku quinque most likely made out of Yoshimura’s kakuhou) so conveniently after Ixa broke? Ixa breaks, and Arima says to someone, ‘The quinque. I’m underground.’ and all of a sudden a briefcase randomly shoots towards him. At least on Kaneki’s side, it looks like Eto is watching (and will hopefully start helping, he might really need it). I’m not sure if his talking kakuja (or is it still his normal kagune) is actually Eto talking to him or just him or just his confused mental state. The mouth tells him ‘protectt…’ and he goes ‘I will… you idiot!’ but for some reason I initially thought it was the mouth saying ‘you idiot’.
It’s also not looking good for the Kirishimas, Hinami and Banjou. I hope Banjou didn’t die there by the way, by the way, it looked like he was fairly close to one of the compactors before Furuta turned it on. I doubt they can stand up to Furuta and a bunch of V members at the same time, so we really need either a successfuly escape or for someone to intervene, else rabbit stew appears on the menu tonight at the Cochlea canteen.
I think Arima is bullshiting when he told Ken that he will definitly kill his friends. I start to have the wierd felling that Arima what
s ken to snap out of his sucidal path and actully be there for the People, who love him. If he wanted to kill him he could have done so easily now. Arima is defintily a mistery. Other than that, Touka and co. are in big trouble right now. Touka herself has Plotarmour, so she is going to be safe. The Rest on the other hand, especally Ayato and Yomo...not so much. Lets see who makes it out of this.That’s a really positive perspective on Arima, hahaha! He’s shown almost zero emotion throughout the entire series, so I’m inclined to believe that he simply doesn’t care and that him not killing Kaneki is for his (Arima’s) own benefit in getting to fight someone strong. But as you said, we have no idea.
Yomo has exhausted all his flashbacks, it’s not looking good for him. And by virtue of precedent, Ayato might be in trouble too. He had 103 bones broken in Chapter 75 of the original manga, and Furuta might complete the job in :re Chapter 75.