Kaneki adores children, and children adore him in return. He was equated as the foster mother to the Quinx, and was so happy about that. But do I personally think that (current) Kaneki would want children, offspring of his own flesh and blood? God no
He’s already worried about becoming a person like his mother, and bringing any child into the world, especially a child with ghoulish traits, would be a scary experience for him and his child, even in the future is he manages to sort some things out.
So for now, nope not at all
I gotta say, I’m really surprised at the amount of people who seem to think that Kaneki would be delighted at the idea of having kids. Even as Haise, he was still afraid of giving guidance or taking any form of disciplinary action towards his ‘kids’. After doing so, he would usually choose to meet with/defer to his ‘parents’: Arima and Akira. He’s really afraid of parenting.
Both past and present, Kaneki is clearly spooked by his ‘big brother’ role towards Hinami. Haise was not only shaken by having his identity mistaken, but also by Hinami referring to him as ‘big brother’. In the latest chapters, he’s chosen to use Hinami as an outlet for his suicidal urges, just like his mother did for ‘family’ (ie. her sister).
Most of the parental figures in Kaneki’s life have tried to kill him, are tasked with killing him, or have thoroughly abused him.
As Kaneki, he took the rather extreme action of leaving the Quinx Squad and refusing to contact them directly. It’s likely that his enhanced fear of parenthood played a role in this. He only willingly spoke to Urie, the member who least considered him to be a parental figure. Even then, he wound up reflecting his own abuse onto Urie.
Family frightens him. It’s one of his core traits as a character. One could even argue that it was part of the reason he pursued Rize, somebody so clearly out of his league. It’s just…
No. Kaneki doesn’t want kids. Kaneki will probably never have his own children. It could be argued that, with the possibility of Kaneki being intersex or his ghoul transformation as allegory for being intersex, his infertility is a very intentional thing.
Recently my neighbor above me, who is married to a Japanese woman, told me that sometimes Japanese men tend to take their wife’s last name under certain circumstances. For example, a little back then, if the wife’s family had no male successor, the husband would take his wife’s surname is he is the younger son or the youngest of his family.
In recent days, it is more for practical reasons, usually business-related. If the wife (’s family) runs a business, the husband would often adopt the wife’s name and therefore being “adopted” into her family or sometimes if she is from a prestigious family.
do you think amon could be associated with the moon? since Ishida always draws him as floppy during the night, and has had a moon behind him multiple times, like in chapter 47 of tg there’s a chapter cover of him looking up into the night sky at something (moon?) and his birthday in the calendar page has a moon. plus he is the deuteragonist in tg so I feel like we should see more of him soon
Good observation with Chapter 47, because the quote that accompanies Amon’s entire arc in association with the moon card perfectly.
“Amon’s quest to find himself’ which implies Amon as he is currently lacks a sense of self identity. Which also ties neatly into the mention of Amon as deuteragonist, because Amon’s chief job as a deuteragonist is to play foil to Kaneki. In fiction, a foil is a character who contrasts with another character, in order to highlight particular qualities of the other character. In essence a character who does not exist for their own self determinant purposes but rather to reflect another character. That is not only Amon’s central character trait, it is his entire role in the story.
That is how he represents the moon card, as the moon can provide no light of its own, and can only reflect the sun’s light.
With the large number of Ghouls that the CCG kills, one has to wonder what exactly the specifications are for deciding which ones get turned into a Quinque.
As a side note, it’s also important to mention is that Mado also suggested that better quinque apparently comes from ghouls who have activated their kagune, as opposed from those whose kagune is sealed.
However as mentioned Yamori was turned into a decent quinque even with his kagune gone (read: eaten by kaneki) so the quality of a quinque isn’t just down to the kagune being released. However this does mean that to make better quinque, Investigators like Mado actively try to rile their ghoul foes up to actually using their kagune.
Mado could also tell from sight that Touka’s kagune was of a high enough quality for quinque modification:
He’s either basing this on physical appearance or her strength which he noted during their fight, if indeed RC/kakuhou quality produces stronger ghouls.
Then there are also the knives that Juuzuo and Mutsuki use, which aren’t kept in a quinque case. It’s likely that these are made purely out of the quinque steel, not a kakuhou. Like the Q-bullets!
So, the only way I could try to figure this out was to compare Hirako to another character whose muscles have been confirmed.
Hirako and Uta look around the same size in the manga but according to their wiki bios, Uta is 5 cm taller than Take. And yet Take is 11 whole kg heavier than Uta.
We can safely assume that Hirako is really built (way more than Uta at least), very muscular…possibly also with a nice soft tummy. I mean, unless there’s a way to calculate muscle mass off of only height and weight, I think that’s our best guess. You know, math-wise.
Seeing
Furuta lose a tooth in the last chapter was rather interesting for me. I’ve had
many dreams about falling teeth, so I’ve read a bit about its dream meaning and
have some thoughts about the situation and its interpretation. Of course, as my
base of information is dream interpretation, this might not have much real
value. Rambling, however, hurts no one,
so here I go. ^_^
Overall,
teeth are related to our smile, one of our most prominent features. When you
see someone the mouth always draws attention, as a source of both verbal and
non-verbal information. It’s pretty normal to show someone a “cordial smile”
when you greet them, for example. Things like a smile being truthful or not is
also something vastly used in order to get an understanding of a person, and
decide if we like them or not, even unconsciously.
Teeth and
smiles are related to our image, the way the world sees us, and depending on it
and how we “manipulate it” we’ll get different reactions. Being in control of
your smile, forcing a believable fake smile can really help in many situations.
So teeth are also related to a sense of security, control and self-confidence.
It’s part of our daily mask. In Furuta’s case in particular, it feels like his (fake)
smiles are an important part of his characterisation. We can even see it in Ishida’s
drawing.
But if we
lose a tooth, our image is “cracked”, we are perceived differently. The mouth
draws so much attention that it’s hard not to notice. So losing a tooth means
losing control, a crumbling self-confidence. We no longer can rely in our mask
like we used to, and our smile falters.
One of the
most relevant points in Furuta’s case, however, is probably-
– that he
shoves the tooth back almost immediately. This gives me the feeling of “there’s
a problem and I know it, but I’ll try to act as if there wasn’t”. Furuta is a
character that makes an effort to put on masks depending on the situation, but
has showed in many times that he definitely doesn’t have as much control on the
situation as he’d like. So, under his mask, he ignores his crumbling self-image
and acts as if nothing has happened. He puts on another mask of confidence and
keeps going.
I remember
dreams about losing teeth also had something to do with worries related to age,
either fear of growing old (which I don’t really think applies in this case) or
a feeling of inability like that of a child. In some way, losing a tooth is a
regression to childhood, a time of low agency when we are mostly guided by
others. This could be interpreted again as Furuta knowing how much he lacks
control in his own life but still deciding to ignore it, desperately holding
onto a fake self-image.
This is
already out of dream interpretation, but having a “bad mouth”, a tooth not truly
rooted, could be linked to him not being a truthful character. The same way
what’s in his mouth isn’t genuine, his words are false and manipulative.
Lastly, a
bit more of my own somewhat ramble-y thoughts. Furuta has been shown holding an
apple, which is a symbol of knowledge.
If we interpreted eating the apple as
accepting the knowledge, we can say that Furuta has the apple, but can’t eat
it. Because if he does, his loose tooth will get stuck in it, risking again the
loss of his self-image. He can’t take the knowledge, because then everything he
struggles to preserve, despite being based in lies, might disappear.
Anyway,
that was all I had in mind! As always, I apologize for any mistakes in my
English or poorly worded sentences! The last part was mostly my somewhat baseless speculation but I’d be happy if anyone could get anything out of this.
Thanks for reading, and please do not hesitate
to message me if you’d like to add something or anything! ^^
This is a wonderful post.
First of all, your English is fine.
Second of all, this analysis is super on point for his character. The fact that you got that all out of dream analysis is really interesting for me. Tokyo Ghoul makes heavy reference to both the works of Jung and Freud, which is where the foundational work of most dream analysis comes from.
From Freud we get the psychosexual. In your analysis that’d be losing teeth being regression into childhood. We know Furuta’s childhood is very informative of why he does what he does, given that flashback of him in the Sunlit Garden with Rize. Freud would also suggest that it might imply an oral fixation, which also fits Furuta’s character. In Freudian thought an oral fixation developed from lack of close contact with parents early on – particularly the mother. People with an oral fixation, according to this theory (which is mostly considered BS in the field of psychology) tend to be either anxious and dependent, or controlling and manipulative. (Which kind of would be our two hanged men of Kaneki and Furuta. Huh…)
Furuta has also been associated with the Freudian through his issues with his father.
From Jung, you get symbolism and the idea of universal experiences and the idea of collective meaning in the subconscious.
Jung also gives us the reason I think dream analysis is probably exactly the correct way to interpret this scene, though I never would have thought to do it myself – so lots of kudos for the idea.
Furuta is associated with the Moon Tarot, a card already very tied to the unconscious and the subconscious, and thus the world of dreams. He is further tied to the crayfish on the card, which represents the sort of liminal states of awareness, crawling out from the subconscious to the conscious. Like dreams.
He’s also a shadow archetype, a character type that is very heavily tied to the subconscious fear and desires of the character they foil, in this case, Kaneki. It comes from another Jungian concept – the Shadow, or shadow self, which is all the parts of a person that they repress or refuse to identify as themselves. Thus Furuta’s love of violence, his desire to dominate, and his apparent selfishness.
As for the apple – it’s notably inverted, color-wise, [x] another clue to his role as Kaneki’s inverse.
Which is all to say that he is a character already very heavily linked to dreams, so your choice to use dream analysis to understand his motives was a really brilliant move and seems to have worked out wonderfully. All those observations line up really perfectly with his character.
I wonder if there is any information to glean applying this same idea to his character and actions in the past. It’s definitely something to keep in mind for the future.
While I definitely agree that Kaneki/Sasaki sparing the guards is a good thing, I can’t help but to feel a little annoyed at the hyopcrisy in sparing them, but at the same time slicing ghouls in half like there is no tomorrow like he did in ch. 58 (it was 58 right?).
He has experienced life both as a ghoul and as a human, and seen that both have just as much rights to live, yet he does not really seem to take it to heart. He still seems to have this categorization going on with:
Friends: protect at all costs, wheter human or ghoul.
Human: Only kill if absolutely necessary (we still haven’t seen him kill a human, right?).
Ghoul: Meh, kill them if you want? (What does he truly think about killing ghouls?)
I really would like him to treat ghoul lives with as much respect as he does human lives , but then again I don’t think I can begin to relate to what he have been through and by extention his way of thinking.
Sorry for the rant. This have just been my two scents/vent about the situation. I would love to see what you and anyone else thinks about this, since I am kind of at a loss of what to think.
Mmm.. tbh I have also wondered about this once, and while I can’t say I fully understand how he thinks, I feel that there are a few things we should consider.
Relatable FE Quote or Something 