(This is a collaboration between myself and @linkspooky and is as much her work as mine, both in ideas and in making them flow together into a cohesive whole.)



In the latest chapter of Tokyo Ghoul, you could easily be mistaken into thinking things are setting up for the final arc. However, there are a few discrepancies people have been noticing. Characters seem to be letting go of old grudges too easily, Kaneki might have returned to Anteiku far too soon for what was, the final objective of the last series. While these might set some readers at ease who expect Tokyo Ghoul to be a much tighter written series, these flaws within the current group structure might be intentional.

As we are in the arc of the moon. With the arc just beginning, tensions and unease on the surface is an essential part of the moon card. Moreover, this arc seeming like it’s final, but in truth only being penultimate, as well as the conflicts that might show up in this arc, have been set up in the manga before this.

What the moon Tarot card depicts is a lunar eclipse. The revelations of the star allow the fool to grow too confident in his journey and be lost in the illusion. Just as Kaneki right now seems to be ready to embark on an idealistic end to Arima’s request for him. Finally, always lost and ever confused Kaneki seems to have found his ultimate purpose. However, the moon depicts a lunar eclipse, the light which you see has been blocked out by the moon in front of it. An eclipse not only focuses on an overlying of opposites, light and dark, moon and sun, but the ultimate result of an eclipse is a shadow cast down on those below. The moon card plays heavily with this jungian idea of the ‘shadow’ or repressed desires that exist beneath the surface.

The symbolism of the eclipse has already been invoked before. The Tsukiyama building was known as “Lunar Eclipse” and Tsuki itself is a character which stands for moon. [x]

The phrase White Rainbow, which was used on the same chapter that depicted Kaneki’s mental world finally clearing also carries the Idiom ‘White Rainbow’ which considers White Rainbows as a bad omen, that something bad will happen to the king or a rebellion will occur. [x]

Now this could be all well and good with Kaneki’s new rebellion against the CCG’s order, but rebellions tend to run in circles.

Even without the invoking of the moon card, eclipses and white rainbows are both bad omens to be following Kaneki around.

Then look to the imagery even used in this chapter alone. An organization led by a white king is going to be named black goat, while alternatively they fight an organization led by a black king, consisting of white doves. White overlaid on black is an eclipse.



Kaneki names his team “the Black Goats” after “the Black Goat’s Egg,” following the metaphor of the world as an egg that Eto uses during the flashback in Cochlea. The plot of the book, and it’s primary conflict are of a son who has these deep, subconscious urges that mirror those of his violent serial killer mother. And he tries to deny them, but he cannot. As the novel goes on, he can no longer repress the parts of him until he, too, becomes a killer.

The novel is fundamentally a Moon Arc conflict, of the subconscious asserting itself - surfacing and refusing to stay buried no matter how hard the ego, the conscious mind, desires not to act on it.

These characters repressing their true urges and secret or not so secret desires in order to work together, while they simmer under the surface - that’s the plot of the Black Goat’s Egg. And in the book, like its set up in the chapter, like it should happen in the Moon arc, these repressed desires break free spectacularly and violently.

Therefore what exists between these characters right now is not true cooperation brought about by Kaneki having the kind of discussions he wishes to have, addressing his true feelings, but rather the appearance of cooperation. Stragglers with a vague common goal all trying to unite under the banner of the One Eyed King, but almost every single named character has an as of yet unresolved conflict.

This group consists of:

Yomo - Uta told Kaneki Yomo’s story the last time Kaneki went soul searching, and painted Yomo as somebody who changed and calm down, but also stayed the same in a way as well. The entire last arc was a refresher on Yomo’s wants and desires, and also a tearing open again of old scars as he was forced to face down Arima again to protect Touka and Ayato, only to realize how powerless he was in the face of such a man a second time. And here, he is watching Kaneki, the person he explicitly told to “choose his own path” not only living now for for somebody else’s legacy, Arima’s.

Touka - Whose last arc ended on this note ‘I’ve had enough” whose only solace was found in waiting. Touka might have gotten some resolution by telling Ayato to put faith in her now that she can stand alongside him as his big sister, but the original Tokyo Ghoul was all about how simply waiting for your loved ones to return, the path of Yoshimura, was not enough. Touka has been dealing with feelings of abandonment all of her life, and has framed :re, her new plan for living all on waiting for Kaneki to come back to her. There’s so much more to be said between the two of them, of Touka watching Kaneki come back to the safe haven she created specifically for him, And now he’s a revolutionary again. Even setting aside that he’s Arima and Eto’s revolutionary - the two people who tore her family apart over and over again. The two however, have not even begun to talk about that, or the years Touka spent alone, or the pain that Kaneki still hides from her. Perhaps it’s even purposeful on Touka’s part, a way to provide Kaneki with a sense of security, however false it is, that he will still be accepted back.

Ayato - It could be said Ayato’s entire arc was about gaining perspective. He had a very fixed way of viewing the world, that the only way he could live would be to live the antithesis of how his father did, to kill others and grow as strong as possible. His version of Aogiri’s world where ghouls could exist freely, was one where ghouls triumphed over humans. However he was young, and had this vision purposefully broken for him by Kaneki. I think it’s important that Ayato sees Kaneki as an analogue for his father, because in a way at the start of his arc, even doing the exact opposite of what his father would have wanted his mindset was still being dominated by his father in a way. (This is classical Freudian growth psychology, a boy is subservient to their father, then they compete with him, then they destroy the image of him in their own mind and develop as themselves).

Ayato does that exact same thing, after his shattering defeat by Kaneki we don’t see his insight for awhile. When we finally do see him again in :re, he’s begun thinking in the bigger picture of things, and even challenging another father figure of his, Tatara, who he used to be absolutely obedient too.

He sees through the auction, and he sees the flaw of Aogiri, they claim to fight for ghouls but treat their very members like disposable pieces. The point being that Ayato is a character of perspective now, and one that he’s earned. It makes little sense that a character as well thought out as Ayato would find nothing wrong at all (especially with his history of avoidance of doves) with something as naive sounding and lacking in finer details as Kaneki’s plan is. He barely even seems to get his input in, rather just looking to Kaneki to lead him.

Naki and the White Suits - Naki still hates Kaneki for what Kaneki did to Yamori and his boys see Kaneki as a human lover. They at least say so explicitly. None of them ever even believed in Eto’s OEK stuff. They were a gang that followed Yamori, who wasn’t in Aogiri for any kind of Revolution either. There is no loyalty or love from the White Suits. Hell, they aren’t even repressing anything at this point. Not only that, but the White Suits don’t foresee a world in which they live. Their loyalty is only to Naki, and in that case because Naki is somebody who will remember them when they die.

Naki himself, his only condition on his death is that he wants to die in a way he can brag about to big bro in heaven.

The point being these ghouls aren’t the forward thinking ones you would want for breaking the old world and building a new one in it’s place. Perhaps just like most ghouls the White Suits are stuck in survival mode from having spent their entire lives fighting to survive. Nothing has been done to resolve this, Miza has not even confessed to Naki that she might want to share a future with him.

Ayato just tells Naki “not now.” What, is later a better time for him to kill Kaneki? And clearly they are uncomfortable with Squad Zero in the room. And they have every right to be.

Squad Zero - That one kid walks in the room and their first impression is to count targets and calculate rank. Whatever Arima meant to these kids, he clearly wasn’t imparting whatever message Kaneki thinks he got from Arima. Their minds are at least in part still in CCG mode. And even Hirako says - they are only here for Kaneki. Only here for Kishou. Do they even know how many of those ghouls Arima hurt? They are in a room full of enemies and they are acting accordingly. They are here to defend Kaneki because Arima wanted it. But working towards a better world? And how well are they going to get along with Yomo and the Kirishima’s if they keep it up talking about Arima like that?

Not only that but we know little of Take’s motivation in this. What Arima meant to him, what the kids themselves are to him. Take has always been the person to hide his more complex motivations under an excuse. When petitioning for Irimi’s freedom after seeing her defend a human, he tried to argue for her value as a source of information. When Irimi observed him she said he deceptively looked like “Villager #2”. Take himself claims he’s ‘Merely a subordinate’.

Tsukiyama - Hello repression. Water under the bridge is the perfect invoking of the moon card though, as the physical card itself depicts water as a metaphor for the entryway into deeper surfaces of thought. Remember the lens here is that everybody is currently repressing in order to get along, therefore Tsukiyama likely wants to forgive Kaneki. Even if he understands that in that moment Kaneki could have just killed him, and in an indirect way acted to save his life.

However, can things like that be shrugged off so easily. Even Eto herself observes the way Kaneki treated Kanae before her death, was cruel.

Shuu’s great moment of character development on top of the tower was letting go of the idea of Kaneki and finding something else to stand up for. After all, Kaneki is something he agonized over into a three year long near catatonic state of depression. The foiling point between Kanae and Shuu that even Chie pointed out was that they were both unsatisfied and chose to chase after things they could never have, Kanae with Shuu and Shuu with Kaneki, however Shuu learned from his mistake and let go of his idea of Kaneki.

Would it not be a complete reversal of his character arc now, to simply just set all of his issues aside. Kaneki’s participation in three years of ghoul extermination with the doves, that ended with the extermination of his own family and their place in the world. Kaneki’s failure to apologize yet, or even show regret for it. Kaneki’s decision to save Shuu in the most ironic way possible, by forcing Shuu to watch yet another of his family members die in front of him to save him (something Shuu loudly begged screaming at the top of his lungs for Kanae not to do). To push all those issues down, so he can simply go back to being what he once was to Kaneki. A right hand man that he maintains an awkward relationship with.

Shuu and repressed emotions do not have a fond history. He is, after all, also tied to the moon card. And yet here he is, acting like it’s all in the past, that he’s willing to forgive and forget. If these emotions boil over again, who knows what it might look like. Shuu’s position as defacto right hand to Kaneki, and current organizer of these affairs is vital. After all, due to his being the other major moon player besides Furuta, placing him on the side of Kaneki might be foreshadowing of Tsukiyama’s greater importance in the coming events.

Furuta, Tsukiyama, the both of them moons, Furuta even remembered to mention him by name when first showing his more shadowy side.

Akira - Akira isn’t present at the big get together, and we still have no idea what her position is. She’s gone only as far as seeing ghouls who used to be human as people. And now she is expected to work with a team of them? The daughter of Mado Kureo? On a team with Touka and Hinami? Hinami knows she’s been using her parents as weapons. Plus, she and Naki have quite the history, including the death of Gagi and Guge. And she hasn’t interacted with Haise - or rather Kaneki - since he walked out on the Quinx. That’ll be… interesting to see, at the very least.

The Anti-Human task force - woah boy. Did Kaneki even vet these people? Even Ayato calls them rabble. Just a bunch of ghouls out of cochlea, called an anti-human task force. You sure you know what you’re doing here, Ken? Why do any of these ghouls have any interest in peace? In working with the humans who threw them into prison? I mean, sure - call them the anti-human faction now, but are you sure you have control over this?

Kurona - she outright says she doesn’t believe in the plan and is only here to get to Kanou. Her “one ally” in Nishiki is only an ally in so far as killing Kanou doesn’t risk Kimi. She’s not here for Kaneki or his goals. Kurona has also, gone through a lot of changes in just a few chapters. She was madly hallucinating not seventeen chapters ago, and her current lucidity, seems to be only because of her current focus on Kanou.

Eto probably put it best when she called Kurona a lost child. Currently, she looks down on ghouls but can no longer go back to the world of humans. There’s no place for her, and thus no motivation for her to build a new world. She’s yet to find any stability, and nobody except for Amon seems to be interested in trying to communicate it towards her anyway.

Kurona has yet to resolve her one flaw, the same one Eto pointed out. She’s merely looking for things to find artificial stability in, rather than attempting to think fully about her situation. She found complete confidence in Kanou as a father figure, until Kanou abandoned her. She found security in Nashiro, until Nashiro died. She imagined Nashiro to be alive still to retain her sanity, but that was torn away from her too. Now she’s focused on killing Kanou but to what end? What will she do after she kills him? I doubt Kurona knows, nor cares.



(The chapter this occurred in, was called Depths, by the way. After Waning Moon). If the next arc is going to be a true parallel to the Lab arc, then it’s very likely just as Kaneki seems to be at his goal, some new revelation will come to shake him up again and cause him to lose control once more.

Miza - Miza claims she’ll pick based on the merits of the actual arguments. She doesn’t actually come to a conclusion by the end of the chapter, but even still, her ties to Naki might still be stronger than any political faith she might have in this plan. Even if Miza does decide to be loyal to Kaneki, if it comes down to Kaneki or Naki, I don’t know if she’d choose the OEK here.

Kaneki himself is a contradiction here. He claims to be the perfect example of how humans and ghouls can coexist just because he’s standing where he is. But if anything, he’s more fuel for Kurona’s incredulity.

Kaneki has never been able to reconcile the ghoul and human parts of himself. Initially, he clung desperately to his human identity, refused to eat, and even while growing more and more comfortable with ghouls and distancing himself from humans, saw himself as separate from them. After his torture, he began to see himself dualistically. There was the pure, human Kaneki and the twisted ghoul Kaneki. He shoved all the parts of himself he was scared of onto this “other” this “corrupt” ghoul self.

As Haise, he not only tried very hard to live as human, he killed hundreds of ghouls. Even if these were the wishes of others imposed upon him, they were still actions he took. Still the way he lived. Still people he killed. Is this supposed to be his atonement for all those years working with the CCG as one of their top exterminators? The hope for ghouls as their strongest?

But that is a very different goal than seeking coexistence and peace. Even naming his group after Eto and her book, and taking up the title from her hands after she frames it over and over as a leader of ghouls - a hope for ghouls, not of ghouls and humans, pulls him further to one side of the supposed balance he claims to represent. And yet, Kaneki has yet to acknowledge explicitly that ghouls lives - and ghoul life are worth the same as a random human one. He still clings much like Amon to that phrase ‘don’t make me a murderer’.

If anything, Kaneki’s existence, and really the existence of just about every artificial and natural half ghoul, is rather proof of just how difficult coexistence will be.

Thus we reach the perfect summation of the end of the moon, things seem like they will be clear waters on the surface, but the depths hide much more complicated matters that are still yet to be resolved.