Anonymous: Hey, is it just me or is there a curious reflection of the previous chapter's panel where Kaneki says 'I fight for those close to me' and Touko's 'I just wanted us to be together' where both's eyes are covered with hair? We know from your meta that Kaneki's statement is a half-truth, in that he is avoiding his relations with the Q's and others in CCG, but what do you think Touko is concealing with her words to Akira?

Well, I’m a little bit suspicious about Touka’s view on Arata. Arata being the type of person who actually went around starting fights with investigators, kind of negates the point of the whole corpse collector thing. He might as well have been called the Corpse Maker or the Undertaker OOOOOOHhhhh!

There’s also the fact that if Arata was going around killing random investigators, then what exactly was Ayato’s objection to him?

Ayato and Touka’s entire conflict in part one is based around the fact that Arata was the kind of person who tried to just live in peace by scavenging and even cannibalizing other ghouls, because he only cared about protecting his family. Ayato’s objection was that trying to get along with humans is what made father weak and eventually led to his downfall. Except, Arata seeking revenge by killing investigators and even killing random humans… what exactly did Ayato object to in that? At least teenage Ayato would have agreed with him. Unless Ayato didn’t know, but then why does only Touka know and not Ayato?

See it’s weird and confusing, as a revelation it doesn’t sit well with me. I don’t think Touka’s revelation about Arata is wrong exactly, but I don’t think we’ve totally learned everything we can about Arata and this is the last final revelation. I think we could be building to something more considering the implications that Arata is still alive and being harvested present in the manga. Onto your question though that’s a good observation that Touka’s face is covered the same way Kaneki’s is while she’s supposedly being completely honest about her deepest desires.

They’re even facing entirely opposite directions. It’s almost like they’re trying to accomplish the same thing ‘a want to be close to people’ but they’re going about it in entirely different ways. Kaneki’s path has always been gaining strength and trying to protect people, Touka’s path has always been waiting for others to return to her. I don’t think either of them are completely happy with the path they’ve chosen because it hasn’t truly gotten them the closeness they desire.

As to what they’re lying about or obfuscating, they key in the moon arc is that “repressed desire =/= true desire”, your shadow is something that should be accounted for yes but you do not what to become your shadow. Kaneki in this panel treats his selfishness like it’s some unchangeable fact about himself.

“There were few humans that were important to me, I didn’t care about the majority of them. I don’t care about taking the side of those I cannot see. I fight for those close to me, and it just so happens to be that they’re mostly ghouls.”



In that statement Kaneki is pretty blatantly ignoring not only the Quinx, but Hide, Suzuya, Kuramoto, all the people he had really close attachments too. All of the people I care about are ghouls, but he also went to great expense and personal risk to try to save Akira, a human, and is now devoting a lot of attention to trying to rehabilitate her. Akira pretty much sums up as straight text the way I think the characters are presenting themselves in these chapters.

“I didn’t lie, but why do I feel like I didn’t tell him any truths either?” Kaneki’s simplifying his situation and not really facing himself. He’s saying he’s chosen to fight for ghoul kind because all of his friends are ghouls, when that’s objectively not true.



He doesn’t want to say “This is the current group of people I’ve chosen to tie myself down to, to give myself a reason to live” because that sounds a lot more selfish than his way.

At the same time we have Touka, I think @bloodycarnations did a good job of summarizing what her thoughts are this chapter.

Sure, she may be telling Akira that violence for the sake of revenge is wrong, but not because she realizes that violence is inherently wrong in itself, but because she doesn’t want to be left alone again as a consequence. The act of wating for Kaneki itself is the biggest giveaway that she, despite her words of wisdom, is still living in the past, too. She’s still that scared little child that was left with nothing else to do than watch other people walk away from her.

Touka’s also not lying, but not telling the truth either. She’s looking at a bunch of orphans left as a part of this great conflict between humans and ghouls, herself one of them, Hinami one of them, but she can’t herself come to the conclusion that she was in some way wronged by society or they were. Nor can she say in front of them that the primary reason she cared about her father’s activities against the CCG was because it resulted in him leaving her, not because it was morally wrong, violence is wrong, or revenge is empty.

Touka still sees things in terms of the people who have left her, and she who was left behind by them. That’s why she can relate to Akira at this moment, who has been trapped for three years due to Amon and Takizawa leaving her suddenly, right after her father left her too.

That’s the motivation that’s at the heart of her words, but that’s not what she says directly either. She’s not lying, but she’s not telling the whole truth.