Tokyo Ghoul

Since RC cells are natural and people can develop a disease from having too many in their bodies I'm starting to suspect that Ghouls are a mutation of the species.

...I hadn't thought of it that way, that just makes chapter 43 even better.

^^ I suspect so as well. Ghouls and Humans can reproduce, which means that they are both within the genus Homo.

edited 7th Sep '15 4:25:02 AM by harostar

You have no idea how hard it is to resist making bad puns about that, given the point you just made about the Tsukiyama lurv.

I wonder if Amon became a kakuja or whether he managed to keep the Arata armour, given the glimpse of his foot we saw. (Or even fused with the Arata armour, though that seems a more outside possibility.) And I just realised, but the reason Akira wanted to speak to Saiko is that she suspects/hopes the armoured rescuer is Amon, isn't it? After seeing Takizawa, she knows the presumed-deads might not have been all that dead after all.

I'm a bit bummed out that Mutsuki ended up worfing again in the latest encounter. (Actually, Mutsuki probably doesn't even qualify for Worf level since he hasn't even given much of an impression of strength in the first place.) I was hoping training with Suzuya might let him take a more active role.

It feels weird to see Touka again after so long. Even back in the first series she pretty much went out of focus once Kaneki left Anteiku. (I must say, I liked her previous hairstyle better...it's cute that she's still pretty much recognisable just from the expressions she makes though.) It's sweet that Kaneki's friends are letting him enjoy his new life, with a fallback option in case that breaks down...

Hairu somehow manages to be entertaining each time she appears...her permanently stoned look might have something to do with that. (I've realised that Ishida has a thing for making speech bubbles with little identifying marks specifying the speaker. Kijima's has his patchwork scar.)

edited 7th Sep '15 10:41:30 AM by ashnazg

I wouldn't say Mutsuki worfed, he did kick Torso's ass and put up a good fight against Hakatori.

edited 9th Sep '15 3:12:03 AM by TheCuriousFan

I like Touka's new hairstyle though. She looks much prettier and more mature now.

Oh, I know. I know.

I don't think Mutsuki got Worfed at all in that fight. He clearly was doing really damn well for most of it, he simply got ambushed with Hakatori's trump card. Beyond that, Hakatori seemed to be the leader of that operation and is Tatara's direct subordinate. So clearly a pretty tough customer.

Humans produce RC by themselves, but what do their bodies do with the RC to prevent it from accumulating and thus resulting in psuedo-ROS, assuming it's constantly being produced?

Never mind that, what part of the Human body even produces the RC cells in the first place? Like, blood cells are produced in/by bone marrow and various enzymes and other bodily substances have glands etc where they're produced or secreted from.

Chibi had a theory that this ROS factor may have a connection to what makes some people compatible with hybridisation experiments like Kanou's Kakuhou transplant operation (explaining why most people reject the Kakuhou and become failed test subjects like the Scrappers) or the Quinx creation process. Not sure what he said specifically cos I was busy with something else and just had the video playing in the background >_>

I guess I'm just hoping that Mutsuki gets to win a fight for once...

(Wait, come to think of it - has that potential plot thread with the QS squad meeting Uta really led nowhere so far? I'm a little surprised, I thought it would be followed up on. They're going to be facepalming so hard if Uta pulls a reveal before they figure it out for themselves.)

^ I imagine Uta is also being kept in mind, but allowed to roam free because they don't want to spook any potential leads. A mask maker getting nailed by the CCG would have a lot of Ghouls scrambling to hide.

He did win a fight, He cut Torso to pieces before Hakatori intervened.

As for Uta, they noticed he was a ghoul but decided to trust Sasaki and not act on what they noticed.

EDIT: Sorry, forgot.

edited 9th Sep '15 3:07:17 AM by TheCuriousFan

She was beating Torso...but he was going full In Love With Your Carnage/Foe Yay/whatever during that time, going on about how they were 'connected by blades'.

edited 9th Sep '15 12:54:13 AM by Sykosis

He only started doing that after Mutsuki started cutting him to pieces.

Just a request, but could you maybe not use feminine pronouns with Mutsuki? Not trying to start anything, but it's kind of.....a very rude thing to do and as someone that has a Trans friend IRL, it makes me really uncomfortable. Thanks. ^_^;;

Remind me again on the Japanese viewpoint of this whole male/female/trans thing? Not sure if it's the same as for the West.

Cos y'know, Japanese and the West have different viewpoints on quite a number of social aspects.

I get the feeling that Ishida (obviously) didn't intend for this whole...debate.

Sorry, I normally remember not to but I forgot.

Complicated, I think, is the best answer. The Japanese are in general not as aware of LGBT issues and have a very rigid structure involving gender norms/roles. So Trans folks are only just beginning to really get any recognition from the mainstream society, though they've made some pretty big advances in recent years in terms of legal rights and recognition.

That said, Ishida does seem to be someone that is aware of all kinds of fringe and subculture stuff. For example, Body Modification is very frowned upon in Japanese society. But he shows that he's very versed in that subculture, and he's already included some LGBT elements into the series.

Ishida doesn't seem to have said anything on his end to indicate his End Game intentions. Hell, from what I understand, the famous Ch. 13 line is one that uses a highly contextual and open-ended phrasing that is difficult to translate out of Japanese. It's apparently one of those very Japanese linguistic things where pieces are left out, which can completely change the meaning.

That said, I personally feel sticking with masculine pronouns is best because it's less likely to bother folks and matches the language in the series. So it's consistent, unless/until the series uses feminine pronouns.

edited 9th Sep '15 3:13:45 AM by harostar

INCOMING!!

Ch. 44:

• Dr. Kanou's Rize Experiment used 1200 people, total. Only Kaneki, Kuro, and Shiro succeeded. Kuro and Shiro were deemed vastly inferior to the prototype, Kaneki.
• It seems that Naki is talking with Kanou about Gagi and Guge. It sounds like maybe Kanou is going to use them for making more half-Ghouls?
• Sasaki looks for more info on Amon, and finds that the records are classified.
• Sasaki visits Tsukiyama, and asks if he knows Uta or Hinami. He then asks if Tsukiyama knows Kaneki, and mentions the other Kaneki in his mind. Tsukiyama begins to hesitate and worries about the tragic memories that might return. He starts walking away, while Sasaki calls out to him. He recalls Kaneki's group, and how happy being with them all made him.
• Kijima dumps a body, telling them to give a message to their master. It looks like the maid, Aliza?

edited 12th Sep '15 1:56:53 AM by harostar

Well that simplifies Tsukiyama getting back Yuma. Now he just has to worry about how traumatised she is (and how she probably has a tracking device on her) after getting tortured by Kijima.

edited 12th Sep '15 2:12:48 AM by TheCuriousFan

Hmm. I was just wondering, maybe ROS is really just people growing actual kagune due to a mutation, but because humans don't have a kakuhou it grows wherever and they can't control it. Kind of like if you grew an extra arm with no bones in it - you wouldn't be able to move it. In that case, Kanou's experiments may provide a "cure": if they had a kakuhou, they'd be able to control any kagune that forms and retract it at will.

edited 12th Sep '15 2:31:53 AM by HanabiraKage

Poor, poor Aliza. Looks like Kijima killed her and left her body as a "present".

We also got a new detail with Kanou discussing RC levels of his subjects.

• Kuro: ??? (text cut off)
• Shiro: 189 (?) -> 3787 (?)
• Kaneki: 170 -> 977 -> ??? -> 2753 (as Sasaki at the beginning of Re)
• Takizawa: 211.2 -> 7188.7

edited 12th Sep '15 3:14:57 AM by harostar

Considering that Kanou's procedure has a 1/400 chance of survival it'd need a hell of a lot of refinement for use in treating ROS.

Looks like I spoke too soon. And does that mean that Kanou also knows what Sasaki's rc level is or are you just adding that detail since it was given to us in the first few chapters of re?

edited 12th Sep '15 3:20:12 AM by TheCuriousFan

^ Adding that detail. Kanou's list ends presumably after the last time Kaneki did a check-up, when his RC levels were below 1000.

Kanou never got to examine him after that, but we know as Sasaki his level was that at the beginning of Re.

Yamori's was somewhere around 5000.

Okay then.

And now Kijima knows about Yuma working for the Tsukiyama Finance Corp. Shit is going to hit the fan soon.

It really is. @_@