Tokyo Ghoul vs Literature: The Metamorphisis

I read that story in eighth grade. At the time I thought ‘what would I do if I turned into an insect…’ It was something of a dark musing of mine.



Kaneki uses literature as a way of expressing feelings he cannot normally express in one way or another. However, because of his emotional shortcomings he can tend to come off as naive and romanticize, or fail to understand the deeper meanings of the works he’s reading and instead just relate to the dark surface feelings. For example, despite most agreeing ‘The Metamorphosis’ is actually a metaphor and the real horror of the story is how his family treats him when the main character becomes unable to provide for them, Kaneki considers the implications of literally turning into an insect.

So the same way Kaneki misses the subtleties of the metamorphosis, for the broader more emotional element, Tokyo Ghoul in it’s almost whole plot reference of the metamorphosis, disguises deeper themes. This same kind of deception is even apparent in Kaneki’s character development, where we learn his issues were present well before the ghoul surgery aggravated them.

All of these combine into the many references to Kafka’s most famous novel ‘The Metamorphosis’ that are present in Tokyo Ghoul, and the themes shared between the two works.

As stated above, Tokyo Ghoul on the surface is a whole plot reference to Metamorphosis. A young man finds himself inexplicably transformed one day into something inhuman.

In the process of his transformation, he discovers the food he previously enjoys now tastes revolting and vice versa, what should revolt him is now what sustains him.

Eventually, he sinks into a deep depression because of his transformation.

And waits passively for his own death. Which he eventually succeeds in.

Besides the plot, there are also several motifs taken from Kafka’s work. Motifs are different from themes, as Motifs are simply reccurent imagery and do not require any meaning beyond that whereas a theme is more of an idea that ties the whole work together.

Above Kaneki refers to his mother as a maggot, in some transations it’s a more general ‘insect’, both are insectoid though. Kaneki envisions his death as being squashed like a bug, There’s a recurrent theme of insect imagery around him to reinforce this connection to Kafka.

Even before the centipede is placed in his ear, it appears in a panel as foreshadowing.

One of the most significant torture scenes Yamori puts Kaneki through is inserting a centipede into his ear. The centipede comes back, when Kaneki accepts his ghoul nature. Albeit, a bit hidden in the gorey details of this panel.

This centipede was so important that even though the high detail of this scene was not recreated for the anime, a similar scene of Kaneki showing his acceptance to ghoul-hood featured him puling a centipede out of his ear.

The first time we see Kaneki after the Aogiri arc, he’s now wearing a centipede pattern printed eyepatch as well in the place of the medical one he had on before.

There are also several idea motifes that repeat between the two novels. One of the ideas in Metamorphosis is examining the individual relationships between Gregor and each of his family members.

Gregor and his father, share a relationship that is defined by it’s physical abuse.

Gregor’s appeals to his father were of no hep, his appeals were simply not understood, however much he humbly turned his head his father merely stamped his foot all the hader. 17-18

And when not physical, it is Gregor’s father who placed the expectation of paying for his debts onto Gregor in the first place.All the while hiding away money and makng Gregor’s debt worse, while lazing around the house and acting as if he were incapable of working for himself. Which is a more passive form of abuse.

But still was that really his father? The same tired man as used to be to be laying there entombed in his bed when Gregor came back from his business trips, who would receive him sitting in the armchair in his nightgown when he came back in the evenings… 30

Kaneki’s main father is absent, and in his place he has several consecutive father figures, and each of them mirrors this abuse Gregor endured under his father.

Yamori is physically abusive, and serves as his ghoul father.

And often appears with the same centipede imagery for acting as a catalyst, or reason behind his metamorphosis.

Yoshimura is exploitative. Remember, while he did offer Kaneki kind advice and acceptance with the best of intentions, he also pushes jobs that are way above Kaneki’s current capabilities onto his freshly traumatized self. Which further reinforced the same martyr complex that later got him into trouble.

And Finally in Arima, who is both physically abusive and controlling.

Abusive or otherwise disapproving father’s is another recurring theme in Kafka’s work.

He chronicled his relationship with his father in his Brief an den Vater (Letter of his Father) which is a collection of more than 100 pages of letters in which he complains about, among other things his father disapproving of his choice of lifestyle and authoritarian parenting profoundly affecting his character.

Though, we only have Kafka’s account and the recurring motifes of his writings to see Kafka’s father, therefore much like Arima he hangs over the story less like a real person and more like a ghost of a symbol. We only remember him by the impression he left behind.

Similarly, the father daughter relationship of another Kafka like figure in Eto is just as left up for speculation. But Eto does name drop Kafka in her first ever work written at fourteen ‘Dear Kafka’, which from the little avaiable information on it includes some kind of father figure.

Eto may share the same Kafka-esque complete negative view of the world around her, the same kind of situation Kaneki struggles through, but the story is not told from her perspective.

Eto is still a player though, who manipulates events. Such as the above picture of Arima has more significance in recurring Kafka motifes.

The title of this chapter is Eve, because of the garden of Eden symbolism used in Kanae’s arc. Eto offers them an apple as a symbol of power. After eating the apple, Kanae is able to injure Kaneki severely and permanently by severing his hand.

If eating Eto’s kagune is an ‘apple’ and has been implied to be harmful before (x), then the apple eventually passes to Kaneki when he devours her Kagune.

Which results in his new hand appearing deformed, almost like it’s covered in snake skin and with hooked claws like an owls, something that most assume to be his new kagune acting in the place of his arm.

So in short apple=debilitating injury. In the Metamorphosis, the beginning of Gregor’s decline is marked by his father throwing apples at him, one which lodges itself in his thorax as a permanent injury.

No-one dared to remove the apple lodged in Gregor’s flesh, so it remained there as a visible reminder of his injury. 32

When Gregor is hit by an apple, the collision brings forth the realization within Gregor and his family, as told in the Bible, “by the apple :4 their eyes are opened. Gregor is now reminded by the pain in his thorax that his life has changed, he no longer holds the position as the son, he is not useful because he cannot earn money anymore, he is just a giant cockroach burdening the family with his face. Realizing the truth, the Samsa family also realize they cannot depend on their son anymore, they have to leave their house to go to work. To them, earning money is similiar to exile from paradise. Especially in the case of Gregor’s sister, who beforehand had Gregor jjust lived a little longer as a human until December would have achieved a paradise by being able to study her violin at a school Gregor paid for, which would mean further not having to work for her family.

Kanae went through a similar loss of paradise when they chose to accept the apple. To them, the Tsukiyama household like a garden of roses was their paradise. Once they sided with Eto, they could never go back.

Kanae similarly played Violin.

Gregor only remained close to his sister now. Unlike him she was very fond of music and a gifted and expressive violinist, it was his secret plan to send her to a conservatory next year even though it was some great expense that would have to be made up for some other way. 23



The family has depended on Gregor for for a long time, treating him like a bank account, thus to leave the house which he provided for them, paradise, and be exposed to the harsh reality outside is a tragedy on par with Genesis.

As soon as Kaneki accepts the apple Eto, manipulated him to eat. Which we learn a few chapters later was her intent indeed.

He can no longer go back to the previous paradise he had created from within the CCG. As he describes himself, it was nothing but a happy dream and all dreams are destined to end when you awake.

What’s important about this, in Kanae and Kaneki’s case, and Gregor’s as well is despite being coerced slightly the choice was ultimately up to them. Choosing to eat the fruit and lose paradise is a thousand times more compelling than being force fed it. Because it adds a layer of ambiguity to the situation, and allows the character to retain their flaws and agency. Gregor was exploited by his family in the first place yet, but he also chose to be the one who took up their debts for them.

Actually, Gregor has never been Gregor, he was changing all along. However, the famiy failed to notice when his role changed from the son to the bank account. They only take notice when it’s too late, and he’s become an inset which does not resemble their son at all.

This is where the individual motife references start to tie together for Kaneki as well, because the insect motife, the apples shunning from Eden, the father figures they all add up to make Kaneki a character of transformation. His hair changes from black, to white, to black and white, back to black again.

It’s why Kaneki’s secondary animal symbol after insects is snakes. Because while insects often metamorphisize, snakes shed their skin and are born anew again and again.

Kaneki’s response, in the face of tragedy is to continually change and try to adapt. His refusal to give up is what makes him so compelling of a character, as summarized by Roma. Kaneki continually transforms, and also continually chooses not to lose to tragedy. The same way that Gregor’s work ethic despite his situation endears him onto the reader and makes him seem human despite his transformation.

Kaneki also, like Gregor carried the same deception about his transformation. Also like Gregor, Kaneki’s transformation began long ago.

His first transformation began after the Kafka-esque death of his mother from overwork, which caused Kaneki to adopt the same tendencies. The true horror he faced when he considered the Black Goat’s Egg, as he had already begun to repeat his mother long before he turned into a ghoul.

He drives himself towards tragedy just by inheriting from his mother the same idea that Gregor had, that love is something to be earned, and his place was as the earner.

Kaneki up until this point has been a character of continuous transformation as Gregor was, but it obviously cannot last forever. The apple is a symbol of mortality, as well, as the mortal sin it carried destined man to one day die.

The apple stays on Gregor’s back, even after his death. The remaining of the fruit illustrates how Gregor carries the truth, his new identity created by his family. Whatever illusions he had before are shattered, and he begins his march towards death. Similiarly, Kaneki after taking the title of black reaper first had to finally accept all of his memories. Just as before from that point onward he was forever marked and changed after deciding to eat the apple, and could not go back to simply being Haise, the provider for the Q’s.

Which is ultimately what he means, when he wishes Haise goodnight. Kaneki may have, with his final transformation to black accepted his fate as Gregor eventually did and entered the final phase of the story.

All of these individual elements reoccurring in both works build up to a theme. In Kafka’s works, the theme is more like, a case study. Kafka is attempting to communicate, but as he’s introverted it’s difficult so he writes in a deceptive way and uses this misdirection of a substitution for communication. The same way Kaneki attaches himself to literature to explain emotions he himself is not capable of putting into words.

Therefore, the case study of the Metamorphosis, shows a case of depersonalization. A character loses his personhood by physically transforming into a bug, but the real twist is he lost it far before that when his family stopped seeing him as a person and instead of a meal ticket. The part the reader is shown in the timeframe of the book, is just the inevitable decline after that fact has already happened.

Like in No Longer Human, there is almost no loneliness worse than the othering force felt when those around you decide to declare you less than human. In Tokyo Ghoul Kaneki deciding to throw his humanity away after Yamori’s abuse leads to his transformation into a half kakuja centipede, metamorphiszing, into somebody who instead of helping his friends as he had wished can only haphazardly harm them as he did to Banjou, but the transformation once again began long before that moment.

It was in the decision that Gregor and Kaneki made to live for others, that they began to lose their personhood.

Being defined by others, makes you lose yourself. Gregor stopped being Gregor and started being his job. It was a thankless thing, and soon beame expected of him. When he no longer could provide, he lost the things that made up his individual identity. Like his furniture that was stripped from the room. When Gregor fought for that last painting, was he really thinking of his family? Or trying to cling to his last bit of humanity?

What eventually kills Gregor is not his father’s abuse, or the apple. But rather his sister’s insistence that the insect “Was not Gregor” and if he was.



Father you’ve got to get ride of the idea that that’s Gregor. We’ve ony harmed ourselves by believing it for so long. How can that be Gregor? If it were Gregor he would have seen long ago that it’s not possible for human beings to live with an animal like that and he would have gone of his own free will. We wouldn’t have a brother anymore, then, but we could carry on with our lives and remember him with respect. 40

Which finally brought to a head that any and all interaction with his family would deny Gregor of even his own identity at this point. He dies the next morning peacefully, wishing for it, just as his sister said he would if he were truly Gregor.

Gregor’s family is exploitative yes, but it’s also not a simple black and white case. Gregor in his actions trained his family to treat him like that. There’s a difference between a tragedy, and characters getting kicked in the teeth repeatedly. A tragedy happens at the behest of the main character’s actions and free will. We see Kaneki training people how to treat him, almost right away after his transformation too.

He sees Banjou’s loud self pity, which really, Banjou should have had a better mind after what Kaneki’s been through to just start screaming out his problems like that directly in front of him, and decides to take on the burden of leader that Banjou had been feeling and take his pain on for him. The chapter itself this takes place in is even called “blame” for the significance of the moment.

Touka points it out to Kaneki succintly, that he’s the one choosing to suffer when nobody asked him too. He’s acting like a ‘brooding novel protagonist’ of his own free will.

Kaneki and Gregor willingly gave up their personhood when they chose to live for others, and that in part is what enabled their transformation. They change easily, because they never had much of a self to begin with.

They define themselves by others, and therefore their personaities are easily influenced and changed by others, which ends up furthering the burden on themselves.

At the same time, it’s not their fault they are exploited. Nothing Kaneki ever did would justify the harm Arima or Yamori put upon him, or the burdens others placed on him. Neither did Kaneki end up wit this fate because he was lazy or weak.

Kaneki and Gregor are both hard workers, who work for the sake of others. Something incredibly virtuous in theory. Just as it was stated in Kafka on the shore, it was this virtue that led to their demise. If the fault is not with the characters, then it must lie with the world around them. The world is wrong, and no good intentions can really come to fruition in a backwards word.

Characters existing in a world where it’s their virtues and strengths that causes their losses, now that is a tragedy worthy of Kafka’s name.

Also, there’s another meta currently analyzing the same topic which I’ve read and highly reccomend.

(x)