Tokyo Ghoul - Volume 1 Chapter 1
A blurb before we start...
Okay, so I'll be honest, I sped-read through the entire 8 volumes of TG, until I reached that infamous torture scene, because I think my brain still follows the anime sequence of events. I really enjoy the clean cuts, before we start with a whole new arc. I was just going through some stuff on Pinterest and YouTube, and I saw some really interesting symbolism with Tarot cards, and easter eggs - I mean, Sui Ishida is just so intentional with the characters. And that's something that I wanted to respect and revisit.
So yeah, I'm going back through with everything, to really capture my thoughts and I think this is just how I read things? I don't really vibe with the reading things AND taking notes all in one go.
But yes, the ramble has happened for too long.
ignorance is bliss
I think that Kaneki is kind of, like the blissfully ignorant archetype. Like how many of us feel, before the world comes crashing down at us. I mean, a lot of us know how it feels like to just scroll past the news, but what happens when you are in the news. It's this sense of feeling like - "that could not happen to me". But what about when it does?
Kaneki spends a lot of time, almost distracted from the reality around him, that Hide is tuned into already. Hide is more realistic about what a ghoul is like, to be wary of the attacks around him. Like in the next few chapters, they mention how Hide is actually more observant than he lets on.
But Kaneki has his head in the book, drowning in the gore and twisted nature of a horror book, but disllusioned and distracted from the horrors around him. It's almost a fantasy to him - the struggles in the book, but he doesn't see the political as something personal.
It's also very similar to the manga's readers - something explicitly gory and twisted is what we are reading. Do we approach it with disillusionment, or do we see it in relation to the world around us? Do we see ourselves beyond just the surface similarities and how our lives intertwine with the characters in ways that weren't obvious to us before?
I also really like that, Touka and the other ghouls are introduced as service workers - it's clever because we tend to invisibilize them - running our heads on autopilot, assuming yes, everything is good, they are normal. It's similar to that one scene in BBC Sherlock, about how we trust-on-default the taxi drivers.
Kaneki's just running on autopilot.
humanity
Even the opening sentence
Humans are thought to be at the top of the food chain... but there are beings who hunt them as food.
It's funny, that a lot of the stories that I've been interested in - they all are post-humanistic, they question what it really means to be human, and the idea of being human is also examined here.
What does it mean, when who gets killed? Who gets eaten here? Not always those who are unsuspecting - but what does this mean for Kaneki? To be unsuspecting of danger, to not see it around him, to be blind to it? I guess the question is - why do people want to eat Kaneki?
Not just because he's human - but it's a trend? Even with Tsukiyama later on, and Jason - there is something about Kaneki, maybe thematically, or whatever - that is being targetted here? Maybe it is the humanity still within him - the hybridity that cannot be separated?
I don't know. LOL. Maybe I'm just reaching at straws, but there are many moments where Kaneki feels hunted, similarly with Rize, Tsukiyama and Jason, they parallel each other.
like speaking back in time
There's so much foreshadowing too, I mean - Hide calling Kaneki a ghoul, drawing him as what a ghoul looks like, and suggesting that Kaneki likes Touka.
And the same way, there is so much foreshadowing about what Rize actually is. Her at the coffee shop, not eating food, having the same blood type, living at the Takada Building Street. It's also interesting to consider that Kaneki not only approaches ghouls with an air of fiction - a distance, but he also underestimates Rize. And Rize is playing into how she may be perceived as a helpless, lovelorn, weak girl to secure a meal - or a kill for fun, of course. It's also the hunt - maybe the question should also be - why do these ghouls want to kill and eat Kaneki? Instead of what it is about Kaneki that makes him so tempting?
But it's interesting to me, all the 4th wall breaks in the first chapter, about when you come back to it - it almost speaks back in time. The final panel tells us what the story is - a tragedy.
before goodbye
I really love Tokyo Ghoul. It's a reminiscence to a time in my life, where I found that the story captivated me - because of similarities in my life to events. How does it feel to be transformed without your control, and having to live with being a completely different being - how do you move on? What are the lessons to be learnt?
I like being more intentional with the story when I'm reading it. It's fun.
