ghouls?

“murderer…”

I’m so sorry it took so long anons… 

Likewise, it also isn’t Mutsuki’s fault that he started to fall for a person who for the first time didn’t leer at him over his body.

He’s so unused to decency and respect that he can only relate it to himself by perceiving it negatively as lying, and then takes that “lying” and deeming Haise the same has him– that they are deserving of each other and only each other.

However…. Mustuki is not right. He does not understand Kaneki. 

He cannot *currently* understand how a person would want to protect others other than for self-preservation. He is only familiar with being pushed passed his limits by his family to the point of violence. Mutsuki handles pain and confusion by lashing out at others because he did not have the foundation that Kaneki is slowly trying to free himself of, that “it is better to be the one getting hurt rather than the one to hurt others.

While I was petsitting a couple of weeks ago, I picked up one of my clients magazines (The Atlantic) and read an interesting article about children and psychopathy. Most of it revolved around “callous” children– those who are born lacking empathy– but it also covered people in Mutsuki’s position and how they can be helped: 

“Researchers believe that two paths can lead to psychopathy: one dominated by nature, the other by nurture. For some children, their environment—growing up in poverty, living with abusive parents, fending for themselves in dangerous neighborhoods—can turn them violent and coldhearted.”

…

Many of the teenagers at [the treatment center for violent youths] grew up on the streets, without parents, and were beaten up or sexually abused. Violence became a defense mechanism. 

The second hallmark of a psychopathic brain is an overactive reward system especially primed for drugs, sex, or anything else that delivers a ping of excitement*. In one study, children played a computer gambling game programmed to allow them to win early on and then slowly begin to lose. Most people will cut their losses at some point, Kent Kiehl notes, “whereas the psychopathic, callous unemotional kids keep going until they lose everything.” Their brakes don’t work, he says. 

“If you have less concern about the negative consequences of your actions, then you’ll be more likely to continue engaging in these behaviors. And when you get caught, you’ll be less likely to learn from your mistakes.” 

In the end, the recovery facility believed in taking a violent youth “who has been living in a state of chaos to slowly rise to the surface and acclimate to the world without resorting to violence.” They didn’t aim to “cure” psychopathy, but they saw a 100% success rate in that none of the boys in their program have since committed crimes or returned to jail.

Now, I doubt Ishida will write Mutsuki in a way that reflections those of the murderers  from juvenile hall, for one because Mutsuki is an adult now, and for two this is science fiction and I’m betting on Mutsuki being rehabilitated despite how concrete his ways currently are as a person in their 20′s.

When I think about characters such as Mutsuki and Juuzou, I tend to think back to one famous case from England: 

In 1968, 11 year old Mary Bell were convicted of the deaths of two younger boys. 

During the media circus surrounding her case, it was learned that Mary was raised by an abusive mother, a prostitute that had repeatedly attempted to kill her and allegedly pimped her own child out to her clients. Mary demonstrated the classic signs of Psychopathy, being calculating and callous but also sadistic in lashing out at her victims.

Because of her young age and history of abuse, Mary was a classic case of Diminished Capacity and would spend the next 12 years in various Juvenile facilities. During this time, she was able to begin rebuilding her life and received psychiatric care. After her release in 1980, Mary was given a new identity and went on to live a normal life. What little is known about her since her release is that Mary started a family, and has worked very hard to shield her daughter from being associated with her mother’ crimes. 

Looking towards the Japanese model of criminal justice, someone like Mutsuki would have probably had a similar outcome. The intervention of the CCG is where things really went south, because the Japanese Juvenile system is heavily focused on psychological care and reintegration. Under that system, Mutsuki would have been given professional care with a focus on addressing the trauma and violence, with the hope of producing a stable adult that could rejoin society as a normal person. 

Anonymous said : Could you draw Tsukiyama with a pretty smile? I need more happy Tsukiyama in my life.

me too anon, me too…sobs

Sasaki

I am sure in this moment Furuta has dropped his charismatic-mastermind loudmouth act to speak to Ui sincerely.

Ui demands whether Furuta really could bring Hairu and Arima back, to which he responds with “… possibilities…”. That quote is to say that if Dragon is possible, anything is. Kaneki was laying on the floor on the brink of death, but eating the Oggai sprung him into a life-force thousands of times more powerful than either of them combined. 

But by saying “essentially zero [chance of them coming back]”, he pushes Ui back at arms-length. We already know it’s possible. We’ve seen Okahira and the V agents reanimated. “Zero” is a lie.

Ui then says to Furuta that he’s wrong about finding hope in Dragon. All he can see is destruction, and that he wishes he could really have believed in him, having known all along that the fairytales about the OEK couldn’t have been all that beautiful– “… he probably stole a lot more lives than he shared.”

Furuta says it was the plan along along, but offers this:

and actually apologizes for not being able to give Ui what he really wanted. I think he really means it, and even turns to ask him about Hirako– a genuinely thoughtful change of subject. Then after Ui describes them naturally joining forces to protect each other, Furuta tells him “I see, that’s nice” before tranquilly parting ways.

He doesn’t drag Ui along. He has no quip or smart-alack retort. He doesn’t want to continue fighting or killing, and in his peacefulness almost feels like a ship without a sail. 

This, to me, oddly feels like the “real” Furuta Nimura– like the little boy in the Garden.

But that aside, I do think that he was fibbing about Hairu coming back, at least. It’s been so heavily foreshadowed in the past, and I still think the hooded figure watching over the wreckage at Goat’s headquarters looked like the cracked-wall calendar page of her.

Again, I think if Furuta said, “yes, I can bring them back”, Ui would have undoubtedly gotten up to follow him. But Furuta can’t be the director anymore, and Ui would have become an accomplice to someone who he now knows is clearly a ghoul. It would be an interested look into his character to see that Furuta wound up bringing Hairu back, if nothing but to make peace with himself for using Ui as a stepping stool in his plan.