A mini rant on TG Root A (please skip this if you do not like insults about Root A)
Wow, let me tell you, I am just utterly amazed and shocked by the sheer amount of bullshit they made it out to be. Respect, man. It's not every day you get to see how a studio decided to cram the brilliance of Tokyo ghoul into an anime – and becomes one of the most epic mess-up of the century.
Now why so?
1) Touka becomes absolutely useless for the whole 12 episodes. And she takes a damn long time just to reach Anteiku, leaving her effectively useless except for some screen time where she's just running around in the snow. So interesting. Very cool. Much wow.
2) Kaneki joins Aogiri. Woah, back up. We're talking about the Aogiri right? That's the organization that tries to kill all his ghoul friends and tortured him until he becomes a sadistic pscyho? Why not just join a knitting club, Kaneki? It's way more relaxing and makes more sense than joining Aogiri who are supposed to be your enemies.
3) Where are all the deliciously dark and psychotic moments we get to see in the manga? The one that makes Kaneki's descent into madness realistic and heart wrenching? Oh, what? Pierrot studio took it out? Well, screw you too. What we see in the anime is Kaneki going from a little lamb into a fire breathing Minotaur with eight red eyes and sprouting demonic wings. 0 to 100 real quick. What happened to transition, guys?
Apologies if I have offended anyone with my view. I'm just rather upset by the atrocious adaption of the TG manga. The manga is richer in depth than the anime and having a poor representation of the manga irks me a tad bit. By trying to compress all the chapters into one shoddy-made anime with bad pacing and unsatisfactory explanations, it's a straight road to disaster.
Still, I would like to suggest reading the manga if you have not, if only as an apology for having wasted your time watching the anime. You may be sick and tired of people comparing between the two, but the truth remains: the manga is worth it.
(end rant)
Apologies, I had to get it out of my system. ^^"
Many thanks to CharlietheSpider for your brilliant beta-ing skills and kudos to JuneEllie for the First Reader anaylsis.
The fact that he is looking directly at her only makes it worse when she sees it. There is a terrible terrible emptiness in his eyes that reflects back cruelly in all its honesty.
"W-w-who are you?"
Touka's heart stops.
The first thing Kaneki does is to fumble around for a weapon, and his hand closes around a pen.
With a disbelief that borders on hysteria, Touka watches him aim the sharp edge of the pen at her. A pen? Seriously? To fend off an intruder with nothing but a pen? It's laughably absurd, perfect for a prank- but this isn't one and Touka isn't laughing. Not with the way her throat's closing up and her breathing stutters traitorously.
She tries swallowing past the lump in her throat, forcing herself to speak. "I'm Touka, remember? Your friend at Anteiku and…"
At the word 'friend', he finally looks up at her and what she sees in his eyes is infinitely worse than the original sucker punch into her gut.
With blank, blank eyes, he intones, "I don't know you."
She has to stop herself from flinching from those barbed words that seem to dig deep in her flesh. There's something caught in her chest that she won't let free. She's forcing herself to look at him really, but her gaze keeps sliding away from the horrible emptiness in the whirlpool of his eyes, alien and unfamiliar.
When Kaneki lifts the pen up and warns, "Leave now or I'll call the police." His voice wavers a bit and that small bit of cowardice, of shrinking away when directly confronting someone, an inherent nature of Kaneki's, makes her – foolishly perhaps – take one step towards him.
Whatever she expects him to do next is nothing compared to what actually happened. Maybe he thought that she wanted to attack him and he reacted immediately, didn't even know what was happening except that there's a stranger in his house, there's a stranger in his house, there's a stranger in his house. He might have been operating on fear and he rushes forward and grabs at a vase of flowers, brings it crashing down on her head.
There is a blinding impact and, stunned, she falls to the floor and her vision has gone blurry at the edges and damn, why isn't she standing up? Her limbs are being uncooperative and there's a dull ache behind her eyes.
It is well known that a ghoul's body is inhumanely strong and knives cannot pierce through their skin. But the one thing both humans and ghouls have in common is that a powerful blow to the head is effective. For humans, it would mean a split skull. For ghouls, it's temporarily incapacitation. While she recovers from the harsh blow, Kaneki has picked up another vase and is approaching her with it.
"Get away from me," he whispers and hefts up the vase, fearful yet determined. She watches him with a blurry vision, inwardly cursing herself for her foolishness.
She could have avoided his attack easily - she is an ukaku ghoul after all - and speed is her major strength. But the idea of considering Kaneki a threat to her doesn't sit well with her so she had stood bolted to the floor as he approached.
He is walking towards her again, another vase in his hands.
"Kaneki, I'm Touka, god damnit. Fucking remember who am I already, you shithead! KANEKI!" She cannot help the anger in her voice despite knowing that a cornered animal does not react well to violence. Instead, cornered animals need to be soothed with soft words and gentle hands but Touka isn't known for that. She deals with loss and pain in her own way.
She forgets then, that Kaneki isn't the only cornered animal here.
The vase shatters on the floor with a crash, razor sharp edges glinting in the light.
A shaky finger is pointing to something behind her back and Kaneki's eyes are wide open and unmistakably, filled with terror.
"Ghoul," he breathes.
Her kagune is out, a black and red swathe that cuts through the air and emits a low crackling sound. It is hardening against a threat, brought forth by the anger and desperation surging through her bloodstream.
Touka has to forcibly calm herself down. Kaneki is not a threat. Look at the way he holds himself, hesitant and unsure, stick-thin limbs that she can easily snap. He is no threat to her (none indeed, but her heart is thudding a tortuous rhythm and she finds her fists clenching. Some threats are not physical, after all, and Kaneki is always more than that.)
Her kagune has no place here and she stamps it down, retracts it back through sheer force of her will. The black flames waver and lose their wing-like shape, reluctantly melting back into nothingness and she's just a girl again, sprawled on the floor and her head pounding out a nasty beat.
"Please don't kill me," Kaneki whispers.
Throughout her life, she has always been met with scorn and fear whenever her kagune materialises. It's a perfect reaction to a monster. That's what she is anyway and she can't deny it. But to see it on the face on Kaneki - who's a ghoul himself and who has never flinched at her - now that sends a whole new level of pain spiking in her chest.
Because you're a monster and nothing can change that…monster, monster, monster, a sibilant voice hisses in her head, sounding exactly like her own.
For a moment, she has to look away.
In that instance when she takes he eyes off him, he does an unexpected thing: he grabs a fragment of the ceramic vase.
"That can't hurt me,' she says tiredly.
"No, it can't," he lifts his chin defiantly and points the sharp edges to himself. "But it can hurt me."
She's almost tempted to smile. Leave it to Kaneki's intelligence to figure out that he himself means something to her even if he doesn't know who she is.
The truth is that Kaneki was initially scared by the stranger in his own house who is a ghoul, of all things. But judging from the way she could have killed him with her kagune and how she had tried to persuade him to remember her, something in him is telling him that she will never willingly injure him. Not him. And the look of desperation on her face, well, it's sending his head into a chaotic mess.
So he picked up the shard and aimed it at himself and hoped it would somehow sort out the confusing jumble in his head.
In such a short amount of time, Kaneki has her weakness deduced and Touka can't help but feel a begrudging respect.
It doesn't last long.
Because Kaneki is a half-ghoul and aiming that ceramic shard at himself won't work. His skin is too tough. Nice try, Kaneki.
True enough, he presses the shards against his throat and when it doesn't cut a thin red line on his throat, realization flashes through his eyes.
Before he can freak out, Touka rushes in. "Listen, Kaneki. I know you're scared but you have to listen to me, you're a – "
"What am I?" He whispers, eyes filled with horror, clutching the shards tighter. When the ceramic crumbles in his grasp, the powdery sand slips between his fingers to the floor.
She can lie to him but the haunted expression on his face tells her that deceit is not the way. Not here. Not now.
She swallows. "You're a ghoul."
"No, no, no, no, no." He shakes his head vehemently to and fro.
"You're actually a half-ghoul and you work at Anteiku. You know me…" The look she gives him is desperate and pleading, but there is still no recognition in his eyes.
"That's not true!" He spits, and two honest–to–god tears make their way down both sides of his face. "There's no way I would eat people! I'm human! I'm human, you hear me? I'm not a monster who would kill people. There must be a mistake, I'm sure of it! You must have gotten the wrong person, you don't know me at all! I can't be a monster like you, I'm just – "
A fist slams into his stomach, effectively cutting off his words. He gurgles, a string of saliva dribbling down a corner of his mouth as he lays gasping and twitching on the floor.
That idiot.
That fucking idiot.
That absolute fucking idiot. How dare he say all this? How dare he claim that she doesn't know him at all? How dare he can't fucking remember her?
He's wheezing, face pressed to the floor and curled up like a foetus.
"Get up," she says tonelessly.
When he doesn't budge, she walks over and kicks him in the stomach.
He gives a choked gasp, eyes flashing with pain and he grits his teeth, places his hands on the floor and pushes himself up in an effort of will.
She squats in front of him, and levels her best 'don't give a fuck' glare at him, ignoring his flinch when she gets near.
"Your name is Kaneki Ken and you are a half-ghoul. I don't care what your feelings on being a ghoul are, but you will listen to me when I say that I'm on your side. Do you understand?"
He manages a jerky nod.
She almost believes that he has stopped fighting, allowed himself to be talked down by her but no; she was foolish to believe in that.
The moment she stands up and turns her back on him, black and red writhing tendrils burst forth from Kaneki's back.
She dodges just in time when she feels a strange undercurrent of wind.
That sneaky shit. For him to unleash his kagune on her when he realises that he himself is a half-ghoul?
There is an almost begrudging admiration for that. She had simply told him that he was a half-ghoul and he immediately tested out her information by trying to launch an attack on her. She would laugh if she wasn't so pissed.
Another clumsy attack from Kaneki and his kagune crashes into the spot she was at moments before.
He's going to pay for that.
Touka is up and running, weaving between Kaneki's makeshift spears that stab and slash across the air. His control of his kagune isn't good, probably because it's a new experience to this version of Kaneki and she makes use of it by dodging his clumsy attacks and slipping inside his defences. They're face to face and they go down in a tangle of limbs, each trying to pin the other down as they bite and punch and scratch.
A solid punch to her face disorients her for a moment and it's enough for Kaneki to scamper out of her grasp. She grabs the back of his shirt and wrenches him back, slamming him face-first into the wall. Groaning, he slides down to the floor. A twitch in his kagune is the only warning she got before a rush of his kagune roars past her face, barely missing her.
Too late; a stray kagune slithers out and slams into her, the force of it hurling the petite girl to the other side of the room, where she crashes into the pillar.
"Fucking shithead," she winces.
She's up again and launching a barrage of upper cuts and kicks meant to unbalance Kaneki but the forces of desperation, anger and confusion swirls in their veins, and they revert to the timeless dance of combat, every blow and slash either landing or skittering off a well-maintained defence.
The thought strikes Touka just as she blocks his kagune; Kaneki is surprisingly competent in a fight. Her training sessions with him have worked then. Of course, it is barely doing her any good in resolving this fight. She would feel proud if she wasn't trying to avoid getting punched in the face. Kaneki notices an opening in her defense while she is distracted by her thoughts. Before Touka can even blink, Kaneki delivers a vicious upper cut across her arm with the sharp edge of his kagune.
The shock of pain is quickly overridden by the adrenaline in Touka's system, but her sleeves are slowly getting soaked in blood.
Touka knows she has to end this soon and she goes all out in a melee of attacks and Kaneki must sense this too; because he has upped his offensive techniques and is launching solid blows coupled with the wickedly fast whips of his kagune.
So Kaneki slashes wildly and kicks and throws out his fist, while Touka is doing the same thing too, except she's not materialising her kagune. That's one mode of attack that she does not want to consider. Meanwhile, Kaneki's kagune repeatedly slams against the walls, writhing, contorting and scrabbling around for purchase before the two of them interlock in a clash of limbs and fists, one blood red eye to another, and each fighting like their life depended on it.
They are covered in a mixture of sweat and blood, and they've got a whole array of wounds ranging from bruises to lacerations. She ducks under his wild swing but gets a knee in her stomach, causing her hold on his arm to loosen. He reverses the hold so he's grabbing her arms instead and both of them slam to the floor. Kaneki recovers first and he rolls her over, Touka's back hitting the floor with a jarring impact. Her arms are pinned down by Kaneki's kagune and there are only inches separating their faces. They stay there for a moment, both breathing hard as he looks down at her wide eyes.
Very slowly, Kaneki's breathing becomes less hectic and his grip on her arms loosens fractionally. The tense lines on their bodies progressively loosen as the panicked look in his eyes gradually fades away. Touka can almost see it in his eyes, the way he comes back to himself, the realization of where he is and what he is doing. Even the way he looks at her is changing; his fear and confusion slowly giving way to absolute recognition. There's shock, and what comes next is shame and hatred toward himself. The last thing that she sees is pain, a bright explosion of it, before he releases his hold on her and moves away, turning his head to the side, eyes closed.
His kagune melts away, where previously they were encircling her limbs but now disappearing without a trace. It leaves red marks on her skin that mingles with the splotches of blood where she'd gotten slashed at.
"I'm sorry." It's a quiet thing, and the tone in which Kaneki says it is all sorrow and shame.
"It's fine," she says.
Except that it's not and they both know it.
The air feels thick and charged, as if a swirling tempest looms in the horizon, with all the words left unsaid and adrenaline still running through their system.
"It's been a long day," she says, voice flat and empty, "I'm going back."
His back is still facing her. "Yeah, it is."
It feels like she's running away as she limps out but no one can blame her. Everyone has their own breaking points and thus far, she has managed pretty well. A breakdown is probably what awaits her at the end of the day, after her brain has processed everything that had happened and registered the enormity of his actions. Of how the path from now on is filled with incidents like this, where her identity can be stripped bare in an instance.
Before she steps over the threshold to the outside world, Kaneki appears from behind her.
"Take it."
He holds out his jacket towards her.
"Why?"
His expression turns strained and his smile, a small thing, falters at the edges. His gaze flicks to her injuries, at the blood drying on the numerous slash wounds on her body, most of them not very deep but sure to raise some eyebrows and suspicion on the way back home.
For a moment, she stares at him like a lion, fierce and unrelenting, muscles locked tight in anticipation. For what, she's not even sure herself. Just knows that this is just the beginning of his undoing and already, everything is unravelling out of her grasp and she can't have that, hates having to lose control, hates having to see him lose control while she can only bear witness to it.
She hates it so very much.
Touka's hatred bites and turns inwards, claws deep and festers into bitterness, cuts into her chest with how helpless she was throughout.
"Thanks." She resolutely avoids his touch when he hands it over.
The truth is that she cannot blame Kaneki for what has befallen him. It is the natural progression of unstable things to decay. What grates instead is that she must now bear the consequences of his presence in her heart, knows that she must cut the connection between them lest she ends up hurt.
Not like it makes any difference now.
He's already in her heart.
She's in it too deep.
Kaneki watches the crumbling ruins in her eyes, sees the anguish in them and for a moment, he completely forgets about the past events. Instead, his mind rushes with memories of her; foot tapping impatiently as she watches him make coffee, how she'll saunter towards him when she is clearly late and a look on her face that literally dares him to make a comment on it. Or how some times, her eyes will gleam with satisfaction whenever he perfects a move she taught him and the way she'll cast a sideway glances at him whenever he's working, always making sure that he's handling things fine.
In one smooth motion, he pulls her towards him and wraps his arms around her small figure before he can think twice about it.
There's a single second that stretches into eternity that he has literally made the worst mistake in his life. Where she'll shove him away and knee in him in the balls the same time as her fists will slam into his face. Then Touka takes in a choked breath, pulls him closer and digs her fingers deep into his shirt.
"Fuck," she whispers brokenly, "fuck, fuck, fuck," and he places a hand on her back and tries not to break, even though he desperately wants to.
He wants to tell her, I'm sorry, I never meant for this to happen.
He wants to tell her, I'm thankful that you're still here, still willing to remain despite what has just transpired.
He wants to tell her, everything will be okay, that everything will turn out fine and she wouldn't have to worry about him or his memories and that he will always remember the gentle warmth in her gaze. He wants to tell her that she isn't a monster, that being a ghoul is not equivalent to living a life scorned and hated by the masses. Most of all, he wants to go down on his knees and promise her that he will stay by her side, unbroken, unscarred and undeterred and ensure that their time at Anteiku will be an eternity and a future rolled into one that they will span their whole lifetime.
But the problem with promises is that they cannot hold up in the face of reality or the test of time. Promises can become lies and what they're left with would be worth nothing at all. He is worth nothing, nothing scritch scritch scritch at all.
Kaneki sews his mouth shut and hugs her tight. She bunches her fist into the front of his shirt and neither of them can see the glimmer on each other's cheeks.
They part with bowed heads and clenched fists and he watches her back getting smaller and smaller away from him, both too proud and stubborn to face each other. It's only when he can't see her back anymore does Kaneki close the door and brace his back against it. Already, his fingers are getting cold and he misses her warmth and closeness. From the gloom of his mind, an image of the bewildered hurt and pain in her gaze spreads like a fresh bruise.
Memory cannibalisation.
What has he done? It seems to be a recurring question after every episode of his memory lapses although this time, he didn't slip into the bloodthirsty version. It's something more subtle and simple, just a few memories vanishing into an endless black for awhile. While it may be less destructive than outright killing someone, it is no less devastating. The look in her eyes? That is not something that he will forget so easily. He is sure it will haunt him like a phantom, stalking his nightmares and staining them pitch black.
He has hurt Touka with his words, attacked and harmed her in more ways than one, all because he lost control of his mind.
I'm sorry, Touka, he thinks desperately, digging his fingers into his scalp. The words feel hollow in his head.
I am so fucking sorry.
He considers simply…leaving. Giving up. Find a far flung corner of the world and hide there until his body waste away.
There's one thing that he doesn't tell anyone, barely admits it to himself: for all the memories that he forgets and then remembers… some of them don't come back. Even now, he can remember the day his mother died but he doesn't know what was she doing before she died. And Touka? He knows her but the things they do in Anteiku are a little hazy. Coffee and plates and cleaning and - there are more but his memories are getting fewer and more indistinct.
There's something in his head that's eating away at his memories, crunching them to dust and it goes scritch scritch scritch.
No doubt now; he is truly mad, his sins irredeemable and his mind a lost cause. Soon, he will no longer be able to distinguish between memory and reality, friend and foe, past and future.
He tucks himself into the corner, and shuts his eyes, tensing his body in anticipation of the tremors that soon follow, shivers travelling up his legs and around his hands, his chest shaking, shaking, shaking. No tears come, and a feeling of numbness envelops him like a cocoon.
Things become…distant.
As much as he originally wants to believe it, the thing that is affecting him isn't some sort of tumour growing in his head. It's not a cancer, not a disease of his mind, not a separate monster chewing down on his personality, shovelling memory after memory into its fanged mouth. It's nothing like that.
Because the truth is much worse, hurts more, cuts deeper.
It's him.
It's his own body betraying him. It's his thoughts straining under the weight of being both human and ghoul and surely something must have cracked, snapped and collapsed into an abyss. It's because of the ghoul in him, and the fact that he's a half-ghoul doesn't make a difference. Ghouls and humans, conflicting forces, tearing his mind asunder.
Memory cannibalization is bad but the sole blame still lies in him, with him, within him.
It's him.
It's all his fault.
Entirely.
He does not blank out entirely, but it takes him a long, long time before he finally lifts his head, opens his eyes.
By the time he's aware of his surroundings, it's already night.
He gets up and stumbles into his room, feeling like a drained-out shell, and just as he collapses on his bed, he notices a text message from Touka: Feeling okay?
He hesitates before he texts back, wants to tell her that it's not that okay. Just doing it is terrifying, something that he can't say out loud, is acknowledging that his façade is crumbling to ashes and he can't keep up, that he's stuck in something really bad and has not one single idea on how to move on from here. He's always been acting strong, he doesn't want Touka to worry about him but after today, he knows it doesn't work like that.
Bad things have already happened and things are only going to get worse from here. Pretending hasn't help and what he didn't tell her only served to make it worse when she saw it happening before her very eyes. There's no use for white lies now, given what has happened today. He owes her a bit of the truth so he replies: No, I'm not. Feels like I'm going to break down any moment.
It only takes a few second for his screen to light up with a message. Really?
Yeah.
There, he has admitted it. Something feels strangely lighter in his chest, a briar of thorns that has retreated to let a bit of sunlight through.
Me too.
He takes a moment to breathe, appreciate what she has done. For Touka to admit it too, well…it makes things seemed better. Less bleak, knowing that he isn't alone in this, that he has someone in his corner all the time and well, it's not much, but he feels like the tide of war may just have turned.
Goodnight Touka.
Goodnight Kaneki.
At the same time, the two ghouls turn over in their beds and drift off into unconsciousness.
As the next day dawns over, Touka doesn't come over. Kaneki doesn't expect her to.
He takes this time to heed her advice, he continues writing down all his memories onto ink and paper, translates light and sounds and noise and ideas into concrete language, sharp and defining. It's not therapeutic, not exactly, but his head is quiet and everything around him stills into peaceful serenity as his hands move across the paper and he relives in his head memory after memory.
Kaneki is a mayfly, living and dying for the span of each memory, getting reborn with every fragment he can record down and dying with every dead end his memories lead to. He exists solely to remember, to recall in perfect clarity the experiences that have shaped his identity and personality that allow him to have faith in the world.
He rises to the pinnacle of joy when his thoughts are in sync, each words resonating through him and within him for what he knows to be a real and solid memory that is his and his alone, untainted by blood or madness. And he falls, plunges, a screeching descent, when the dark thing in his mind flexes, grins, writes down the bloody memories in his own hands while tear drops hit the page. It is still a memory, however twisted it may be, and having a memory is better than the cold and silent void in a corner of his mind, a blank empty patch that resides like a black hole, gaping wide like an ugly slash wound.
As the Sun dips below the buildings, threads of violet and orange clouds slowly turn dark at the edges with the encroaching night. A cold wind picks up speed, snaking its way along the streets of the 20th Ward, causing commuters to huddle in their baggy coats and quicken their pace as they make their way to their homes where they would be safely cocooned in familiar walls that block the wind and erase the cold from their bodies.
All but one.
The cold isn't physical. It's deeper than that, nestling in the corner of his heart, bundled in the nerves where it coils around his blood vessels like a poisonous snake and pumps icy venom into its vein.
Kaneki is shivering, his hands are cramped with the pages of notes he has written for himself, ranging from a small fragment of memory of him getting burnt to a fractured arc on the day his mother had died, where everything had washed out to grayscale and shadows.
Everything, he is, he was, and ever will be, furiously scrawled down on paper in a fit of feverish writing. He writes in big, bold letters that are slightly cramped with the sheer deluge of memories he is trying to pen down on paper.
Remember, the words scream at him and he hopes the words would ping on his radar when he succumbs to the madness one day. Remember, the word echoes and he weaves it into all of Hide's sun-drenched smiles, threads it through every small blossoming of warmth in Touka's eyes and then entwines it through the friendships he has made with the other ghouls, how they feel like a light piercing through the gloom of his loneliness. Remember, he tells himself and locks the resolution in his chest.
He's not done yet, there are things he hasn't yet captured, things like the nightmares he has where everyone he knows leaves him and all he can do is just scream and scream and scream. Other things like how he loses control, sometimes, his kagune seemingly moving of its own accord and spearing through flesh and bone and how excitement bubbles in his chest. And also, things like how he wished that he had never met Rize, never met the ghouls at Anteiku at all and never turned into a half-ghoul so he wouldn't have these complications ruining his life.
When these thoughts enter his mind, he guiltily shoves them aside to a deep corner and slams a lid on them. He scrawls these horrible thoughts at the sides, writing in the most illegible handwriting he can muster that would require some time to discern the exact words.
He pulls on his hair distractedly, and when some strands fall to the floor, he barely notices it, caught up in the fervour of the moment, and loses himself.
Kaneki is a mayfly, he is every single life flaring and dying like tiny embers, and he regains his identity step by painful step, reclaims even the most warped thoughts locked up in a chest which he pens down, redeeming himself in every word that his heart bleeds out on paper, and from the broken wreckage of his mind and the tortured symphony of his soul, he looks deep into himself and finds…peace.
To make it up for the last chapter's horrid ending, I have decided to end this chapter on a more hopeful note.
Have a good day. :)
