Touka’s suicidal ideation in TG

While one of the most important plot points in TG/TG:RE revolve around Kaneki’s suicidal desires and his depression – We have never seen anyone discuss Touka’s. In this fandom, Touka’s motivations are often under-analyzed, and quite a bit about her nature and personality is missed because of this.

While Touka is a character who is quite strong and decisive, she is also a character who is deathly afraid of being alone.

From a young age, Touka has lost most of the people in her life who she cared about. First her mother, then her father, who left home and never returned. From that point, she was forced to grow up quickly in order to care of both herself and her brother. Then, after finding a new family in anteiku, Touka loses her brother after he abandons her to join aogiri.

Losing loved ones – either to death or abandonment creates an intense pain within Touka, to the point that she is willing to throw her life away in order to quell it. We see our first glimpse of this after Ryouko is killed by the CCG. When she first learns of her death, Touka immediately wants revenge, even at the risk of her own life and the others at anteiku.

At this time, the pain of losing a loved one is so much that she can’t move on. She can’t move past this without trying to get revenge for Ryouko, even after being forbidden, she still makes her move. Later, in her conversation with Kaneki, we learn more about her motivation to put herself at such great risk.

Touka explains that she can’t stand the idea of kind ghouls like Ryouko or Hinami are killed without remorse or hesitation, but she also says something interesting here. “It’d be a better for a murderer like me to die.” While Touka is not actively trying to get herself killed, she also doesn’t seem to mind if she dies. She has a negative view of herself, calling herself a murderer and putting herself down. If it’s for the sake of protecting loved ones or avenging murdered loved ones, she would gladly die.

We next see this reckless nature when Kaneki is taken by aogiri.

Touka is willing to go into aogiri alone to try to get Kaneki back. Doing so would effectively be a suicide mission, but she doesn’t care – getting Kaneki back is more important than her own life. Not losing another person is more important to her, even if getting him back is nearly impossible on her own.

Next time, we see her attempt to do this again during the anteiku raid. Yomo has to stop Touka from going to anteiku, as she claims that while she doesn’t want to die – she also doesn’t want to be alone. She can’t stand the idea of losing her new family, and argues with Yomo, saying that she deserves to be punished, just like the other members of anteiku. Her fear of being alone outweighs hers desire to live.

She can’t stand the idea of going through that pain again.

She has a breakdown in this chapter, asking why everyone around her has just randomly died or left – and thinks back to all of the people in her life who she has lost, or is about to lose. She still wants to go save them, and she still want to die with them.

Luckily, Touka seems to have been able to move past this way of thinking over the years thanks to Yomo’s influence – and is later able to leave him behind in the underground, remembering the words that he told her during the anteiku raid. But, this aspect of Touka’s character is so important, tragic, and often overlooked.