I’ve been busy with work recently, but I’ve wanted to mention Uta’s mon for some time, and I think we should be getting some Uta soon-ish? Maybe. Maybe it’s my wishful thinking because I’m bored out of my mind with Kaneki’s lack of character growth.

Ishida let us know Uta’s tattoos follow a theme (”I thought of a theme and just drew from there”) and that they are somehow important or at least related to understanding Uta as a character (”What’s on his back? I’m not telling you yet”).

So, one of his tattoos is a mon. Mons are family crests that were first only used by the wealthy and the samurai, but as the use of family names spread, the mon spread too. Your formal kimono would be decorated with a mon, for example, for your wedding (in the TG calendar, Matsuri’s kimono has an (unidentifiable) mon on his wedding day). Their history is fascinating but most people nowadays wouldn’t be able to tell you what their mon is off the top of their head.

Here’s Uta’s tattoo side by side with a mon it represents:

This is the 「虎杖」(itadori) mon. Otherwise known as Japanese knotweed (fallopia japonica). The japanese flower language assigns it with the meaning “Not what it seems” (figures, right?). “Itadori” means “taking pain”, and supposedly when you rub a stem or leaves over a scrape or bruise it’ll heal faster.

The itadori mon is easily recognizable because there are literally only two variations of it. To provide some scale, there’s some 6000 mons in total, and something like a 1000 different wisteria variations among them. So itadori is somewhat special. Itadori iirc is supposed to be one of the original mons - the ones used by those weathy families and samurais.

Fun fact! Itadori is so invasive that it can grow through concrete and asphalt. It can grow basically in any conditions. It just… survives.

So there you have it, a ghoul without a family but with a family crest and some more floral imagery in Tokyo Ghoul.