Tokyo Ghoul

(Chapter 108 spoiler) Holy tripping balls Kaneki's favourite author turns out to be Suzuya?! At least, that looks kind of like him.

Edit: Okay, seems it's probably not him after all. They look and act a bit differently.

edited 11th Aug '14 10:33:11 AM by ashnazg

Binge on all the chapters, including the 3 available scanlation of JACK.

Holy shit, poor Juuzo. Now we know why he look feminine. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.

Episode 8:

• So, here I was, thinking that Mado was gleefully taking down ghouls because he could. But even he had his reasons for indiscriminate ghoul killings.
• I wonder if Kaneki reached Amon, or did his viewpoint on ghouls remain unchanged... Especially since Mado ended up dying.
• Mado sure was tenacious. Welp, he can still enjoy wasting ghouls in the afterlife. And Hinami, your parents are having a cosy afterlife.
• Moral of the episode(and this arc, by extension): Revenge is junk.

Agreed. Despite that reason, he's still an epic-level douche.

edited 22nd Aug '14 9:16:59 AM by Diamite

Having a grudge against one particular ghoul is no excuse to indiscriminately kill every single ghoul you find though.

edited 22nd Aug '14 9:06:59 AM by HanabiraKage

Not counting the Gourmet arc (which has moved earlier in the anime), how many chapters is it between the end of this arc and Shiro Kaneki?

Cos if this is one-cour that's seems like a serious rush-job.

---

Any way.

YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES!

Finally. That prick Mado is dead.

I'm surprised Amon thinks a blunt tool like that quinque of his can actually kill Ghouls. Either he was holding back against Kaneki or that is a shit weapon.

Barring Rize, most Ghouls seem to have to be sliced or impaled in order to be killed. Amon's quinque might be effective against Ghouls but blunt trauma doesn't seem sufficient, except in Rize's case but she got crushed by a lot of scaffolding (or whatever that was) falling from a huge height.

Hinami and Kaneki deserve points for their actions this episode.

---

Seeing as Tohka's a Fragile Speedster type Ghoul, what type do Rize (and by extension Kaneki), Nishiki, Gourmet fag and Hinami's parents seem like?

What was in your right hand is hope; And in another hand is something else to fade.

Rize, Kaneki and Hinami's dad (going by the placement of the kagune on Hinami's back) have Rinkaku. Nishiki has Bikaku. Ryouko, like Tsukiyama, has Koukaku.

Note that some ghouls have fairly unique kagune; Hinami inherited kagune from both her parents (Koukaku AND Rinkaku), while Rize (and by extension Kaneki) is able to defend with her kagune to great effect, which is unusual for Rinkaku. Oh, and she has a really powerful Healing Factor.

How are Ghoul's ranked anyway? They talk about S-Ranks like Rize, Jason, Yamori and Gourmets.

That implies other ranks like A to (presumably) F.

What was in your right hand is hope; And in another hand is something else to fade.

They're ranked by the CCG according to how dangerous/strong they are. We don't know if there are even any ranks below S, actually, since nothing's been mentioned. Only S and SS have been mentioned, along with a "Dangerous" category or something for the most dangerous ghouls.

So yeah, it's completely arbitrary, as far as we are concerned. In-universe, the CCG probably has a list of criteria somewhere, but we don't know what they are.

edited 23rd Aug '14 1:16:45 AM by HanabiraKage

It always bothered me how (Mado stuff) the later parts of the series seem to be trying to portray Mado as an actually-quite-decent guy. The level of sadism he displays in killing ghouls is too much for me to accept that idea. Though perhaps the point is more to show that people are complex, and can be perfectly decent people in some respects and horrible monsters in others.

In fact I feel the series as a whole forgives people too easily. Nishiki's something of a sociopathic jackass when he first meets Kaneki, Mado is as described above and Tsukiyama's just a huge prick.

Really? Anime only here, but I got the impression Mado was just a psycho who became an investigator bc killing ghouls was legal. Sorta like why bullys become cops. I really got the impression that his next career choice in a world without ghouls would have been "serial killer".

Flashbacks to Mado seem to portray him as a good superior to Amon and a loving husband and father (albeit a little creepy or eccentric at times, especially in his colleagues' opinion). Which is pretty sweet and all, but contrasts sharply with how he treats ghouls. There's also some attempt to show that he's partly driven by revenge for the death of his wife, but few details have been revealed on that point - and it's not enough to excuse his delight in killing the Fueguchis.

edited 24th Aug '14 6:13:34 AM by ashnazg

That's actually not all that unrealistic. Serial killers are often fairly nice and well balanced to everyone outside their target zone

That's true, which makes me wonder if the series is trying to portray the complexity of people. The appeal for sympathy (see: the classic trope of focusing on his wedding ring) is hard to stomach given his past behaviour though.

edited 24th Aug '14 11:46:27 AM by ashnazg

I thought that was just making the point that Even terrible, terrible people have families that care about them . I thought it went will with Kaneki and Amon's fight in that regard.

Chapter ~139: Bloody hell.

I'm starting to think that the reason CCG kicked Kanou out was because they already succeeded with their research and created a superhuman; a human with all the benefits of being a ghoul but none of the downsides. And who else could I be talking about besides Arima? Dude's a complete monster. There's no way he's human.

edited 25th Aug '14 7:54:51 PM by HanabiraKage

I just saw the eighth episode, and Kaneki's idea of conversation are rather weird :)

When kaneki was beaten up by Amon while thinking of convincing him that human and ghoul can coexist why does is not speak? Try to convince him with words? Even though it is maybe useless, it's a free action and it is still more effective than just standing here in silence.

Is there a specific reason I missed?

Well, he was trying to control Rize/his kagune thing also. I think that might have been part of it. Also, Kaneki isn't the brightest bulb ever.

Yeah, Arima's ability is just insane. Though he does make heavy use of quinques...very effectively. Perhaps there's potential in Kaneki (with the Awesomeness by Analysis style he seems to be going for) learning to use quinques, if he can somehow get his hands on them? Probably they'd be less intuitive for him to use than his own natural weapons, but they can give him more variety in abilities.

And wow, having the gaps in the translated chapters filled in...Owl (Mk I) is Yoshimura's son? I wasn't expecting that, but it all fits so well. Such a tragic story...

Was that one panel where Kaneki modelled his kagune after Tsukiyama's meant to suggest Kaneki ate Tsukiyama, or was he just copying his style?

edited 26th Aug '14 10:12:06 AM by ashnazg

He was copying Tsukiyama's corkscrew with his right tentacle.

Regarding Mado, I'll point out that he really, really hates Ghouls because his wife was murdered and partially eaten by One-Eyed Owl. He was a good husband and a good father, but he was also hell-bent on finding a Quinque that could be used to kill One-Eyed Owl. And to be frank, given that most of the ghouls - Tsukiyama, Nishiki - seem to be quite monstrous, I see where he's coming from. I'll add that Touka outright kills a completely innocent businessman in passing, the first time post-op Kaneki meets her.

Arima is awesome, though. While it's very unlikely, it might actually be quite interesting if Kaneki was killed off and Touka became the protagonist instead. When reading the manga, I honestly root more for the humans than the Ghouls. Juuzou, for instance - Who hasn't shown up in the anime yet, for some reason - was mutilated and tortured, up to and including castration, by one...And is equally hell-bent on killing as many as he can.

I'll add that Amon is a lot more stupid in the anime than he is in the manga. In the manga, he initially assumes that Kaneki is a human pretending to be a Ghoul, but he shows no mercy when the fight starts in earnest. In the anime, he just seems to be trying to swat Kaneki away, which is silly setting-wise: Doves are supposed to kill every Ghoul they meet, baring special circumstances.

Kaneki's little speech about coexistence was also both stupid and impossible - The wolf cannot lie down with the sheep. The only way for humans to be safe is to kill off every last ghoul.

edited 27th Aug '14 2:04:50 AM by iridium248

Yes, but the ghoul biology seems to have a little bit of a You Eat It You Bought It nature to it, which makes one wonder if it's implying anything.

edited 27th Aug '14 7:33:48 AM by ashnazg

oshiete oshiete yo sono shikumi wo

Episode 9: Oh fuck. Shit's about to go down in the 20th Ward as various Ghoul Gangs and Squads make their way in search of Rize.

Which means terrible things lie in store for our MC Kaneki.

Surprised to see Tohka's brother is one of those Squad members. Crack-Knuckle Yamori is already in the 20th Ward.

What the hell did Rize do that everyone wants her?

What was in your right hand is hope; And in another hand is something else to fade.

From what we've seen, Rize was always either doing her best Black Widow spider impression or arbitrarily claiming the moral high ground over the psychologically imbalanced.

Neither or those traits are particularly likely to make her any friends.

Was Rize's interest in literature geniune or was it all a ruse to get close to Kaneki?

What was in your right hand is hope; And in another hand is something else to fade.

No idea whether the anime got here yet, so just in case (though it's a pretty minor fact anyway.)... Tsukiyama mentions her tastes in reading at some point, so it might be genuine...especially given the genre she's reading, and what she said when she was about to eat Kaneki.