I stand here today, together with my past self.

Now that I’ve calmed down, I wanted to add something more to the discussion about the most recent chapter, and how it affected both Kaneki and Touka. 

I will go over both positive and negative reactions, and try to dig deeper and understand what ishida meant to portray with ch 125. So bear with me, and if you can’t be mature about it, please stay clear of my askbox. I don’t need your input. 

So, first of all let me start by saying something that’s surely going to piss off someone: TG isn’t about romance, it’s about the relationships you form with other people that shape you into the person you are. 

This is particularly true for someone like Kaneki, whose most prominent feature is empathy. Once he empathizes with someone, he changes his behaviour accordingly. 

What I mean to say is, if you read the chapter through the lenses of romance, you’ll miss a lot of what Ishida meant to portray here. First of all, it was never a competition between Touka and Hide. It’s not about who Kaneki has feelings for. it’s about how he’s been influenced by these bonds. Let’s start by analising his relationship with Hide. Before Touka confessed her feelings to Kaneki, he only ever had one example of unconditional love, and that came from Hide. Though in Hide’s case it had never been addressed as romantic attraction, Hide’s friendship was very important to Kaneki, who up until he met him had never experienced a form of love which didn’t come with abuse. Hide’s friendship is important to Kaneki because Hide sees value in Kaneki’s life:

And this is important because Kaneki had driven that point home. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. 

this was said by the hallucination of Hide in Kaneki’s mind during the fight in Cochlea. It was all the more powerful because it came from Kaneki’s own mind. As a result, Kaneki subconsciously started putting Hide on a pedestal and his depression and lack of purpose in life made him even go as far as trying to emulate him through seeking an heroic death that would paint him as someone worth loving. Rescuing Hinami from Cochlea was is way to “go out with a bang”. He never meant to get out of it alive. 

Needless to say, this attitude of idolizing someone is, of course, unhealthy.

Now let’s see the relationship with Touka Kaneki has always had a soft spot for Touka. Even before he became Haise and made it explicit, he already had romantic feelings for her. You can see that in how he always treated her differently than the rest of his crew: he always left her behind and encouraged her to keep away from harm’s way. During the recent talk, he confessed that all along he was scared that she would go up and die somewhere without his knowledge, which was something he selfishly couldn’t bear. 

That’s where it becomes interesting: up until Touka confesses the very same thing about him, Kaneki didn’t even realize that his feelings for her were requited. This, paired with the newfound knowledge that his selfish behaviour has only hurt Touka more, culminated with character growth: here he asked Touka to stay at his side. That’s the important shift: for the very first time after he lost Hide, he finally realized that someone else loves him. Here, for the first time in a long while, he can find meaning in life instead of in death.  

Here’s what bothers me, though. Please bear with me a little longer. 

In her haste to keep true to her words to prevent him from pursuing death, imho Touka actually miscommunicated something very important. I personally get the vibe that instead of telling him “you need to live on for yourself because your life has meaning”, which is what you should tell a suicidal person, the message she let through was “you need to live on for me because I love you and I care about you.” Which is codependence on both sides. In other words, this chapter was a step forward because Kaneki got past his suicidal ideation, and two steps back because he went back to putting people on pedestals and living on for other people’s sake. Replacing a bad coping method with another. The good news about this is that he doesn’t seem to be actively seeking suicide yet, but the bad news is that now his happiness resides in Touka’s hands. Which, per se, wouldn’t be a bad thing if they weren’t so codependent. But if Touka (or her possible babies) were to get hurt (which is a given both for her recent cover art and for the birthday poem: see here and here), he would go back to blaming himself. 

Now, I wanted to make clear that, given how they made love before talking at length about their feelings and before a proper character develpment, this chapter wasn’t bad writing per se. It’s nothing different from what Kaneki and Touka did all their life. I even understand why they did it. I cannot blame Touka for trying her best to keep Kaneki from leaving her after she lost a great majority of her family, and I cannot blame Kaneki for not knowing what’s good for him after a lifetime of self-loathing or for not knowing how not to rush into a relationship after he basically had no healthy role models in his formative years. 

What’s really bad is romanticising this kind of dynamic. I’ve seen tons of people saying that this is character and relationship development for both of them when it’s clearly anything but. 

So, if this chapter wasn’t meant to be about a romantic subplot, what was it actually about?

Emotional vulnerability. 

Yes, that’s it. It’s that simple. That’s the real huge step forward. Not admitting their feelings for each other, because we didn’t need a sex scene to know that they loved each other. They already admitted it right before Mutsuki barged in. 

What’s new is these three panels in particular, imho:

First, Kaneki exposing his body, a literal patchwork of his dual nature, something he’s always been very sensitive and insecure about, for someone else to see. 

Secondly, his tears. Not so long ago, Hide described Kaneki as someone not very honest with his feelings. Someone who’s used to acting when he’s around other people. Here, though, he’s not wearing any masks.

Thirdly, just look at the emotional vulnerability he displays in front of Touka. Curled up in a fetal position, he lays with his head on Touka’s lap much like a kid taking a nap on their mother’s belly would. I don’t think that the maternal aura Touka has on in that last page is just a coincidence, and I refer both to a possible hint of Kaneki finally getting past his own issues with his mother figures, and of the possible future implications for the plot that center around Touka’s womb that have been going around lately. 

So, these were my two cents. I hope I won’t prompt another ship war, because as always this is just my opinion, which is personal, and should be respected as such even if you don’t share it.