#centipedemeta

Well, I was grateful for the shoutout that meta gave me and I’ve been a fan of a lot of metas that writer has produced, but this one in particular I very much disagreed with. I think the claim that Touka loves the idea of Kaneki while not really understanding the person ignores the fact that every time she’s made a serious observation about Kaneki she’s been bang on the money.

If she idolises Kaneki so, why has she made such a damning assessment about him? And it’s not just an assessment of the changed Shironeki that she resents, it extends to the Kuroneki she supposedly idolises as well. And what’s more, she’s completely right. This is even acknowledged by Kaneki himself.

Touka doesn’t idolise an image of Kaneki. Far from it. The chapter on the bridge is titled “Penetration” because Touka sees past the roles Kaneki plays to the scared kid inside. At this point, she probably has the best understanding of Kaneki than anyone in the series - maybe even more than Hide. For further proof, Touka knows at a FREAKING GLANCE just what Kaneki intends to do to himself when they meet up at Cochlea.

If this was just a casual “Seeya”, do you think it would be all Touka would say to him after all this time? She can tell Kaneki has no intention of making it out alive, so the first thing she does is to remind him that his death won’t affect him alone, and it very clearly shakes him up; setting him on the path to choose to live. Just like how their confrontation on the bridge convinced Kaneki to go back to Anteiku, if not quite in time.

Touka’s not being unreasonable because the Kaneki she idolised has changed. She’s mad because Kaneki’s going down a path of self-destruction, and it does destroy him. In the last quarter of the first manga the narrative breaks its back pointing out that Kaneki’s gone too far down the Shironeki path - it’s not just Touka, it’s also Yoshimura, Nishiki, even resident devil on Kaneki’s shoulder Shuu, not to mention events like Kaneki stabbing Banjou, seeing Rize crazed and helpless, and all the foreshadowing packed into ‘The Hanged Man’s McGuffin’. Touka is trying to help Kaneki because she genuinely does know what’s best for him because she genuinely understands him. I don’t think anyone would try to claim that convincing Kaneki to live at Cochlea was a bad thing either.

Now if Touka is ‘obsessed’ with Kaneki, if it can’t possibly be love because they only knew each other for two months, then it would stand to reason that Kaneki would be far, far more important to Touka than she would be for him.

Then why is it that in Kaneki’s mind, after only knowing Touka for two months and Hide for all his life, Touka is on equal footing with Hide? He includes the whole of Anteiku in the above panel, but Touka gets special mention with Hide in the next. 

And here, in his dying moments, Touka gets the biggest panel, placed on the next page for the biggest effect. Touka is just as important to Kaneki as vice-versa. 

But neither is ‘obsessed’ with the other.

Touka broke into Cochlea to save Hinami, not Kaneki. She didn’t even know he was there. She most definitely has a life outside Kaneki and her love for him is far from all-consuming. While he had lost his memories, she was fully willing to accept the possibility she might never talk to him again. She might love him, but if she was obsessed and didn’t have a life outside of him, there’s no way she could make a sacrifice like that even if her aim was selflessness. Yoshimura loved his daughter, and set up Anteiku anticipating her return, but he had a life outside of her too. It’s the same with Touka.

The original post tries to dismiss Touka’s feelings being a healthy form of love by comparing it to spending three years dedicating yourself to a co-worker who you knew for two months, but dumbing it down to their official relationship and a span of time removes an enormous amount of context to explain why she feels this way. In real life, you wouldn’t have fought side-by-side with your co-worker in life-threatening situations time and time again. These kind of high-pressure environments cause bonds and trust to become much much thicker much more quickly. “Summer friends will melt away like summer snows, but winter friends are friends forever”.

Sure Touka sees Arata in Kaneki. That’s not a bad thing at all. Arata was a great dude. Having an Arata in your life is a real positive thing, and there’s absolutely no reason why Touka shouldn’t chase it. People are hardwired to get with people who remind them of their parents - it’s in our genetic programming, it doesn’t diminish the love they feel for that person or make them love them less for who they are in the slightest. Trying to heal the wounds of old losses by emotionally investing yourself in new people is totally healthy - the unhealthy thing would be to shut yourself off from the world, just like Touka was doing at the start of the manga - a rut Kaneki helped her out of. It would be bad if she were just pretending that Kaneki was Arata, but she isn’t - she behaves totally differently around him and she has demonstrated many times an understanding of those personality traits Kaneki possesses that are completely different from Arata’s. It would be problematic if Kaneki got with someone who reminded him of his mother (read: Rize) because his mother was a horrible person; but Touka, even if she occasionally throws a hit at him (a product of her upbringing which is very rare nowadays - also Kaneki is nowhere near as vulnerable in this situation as he was a child, he’s the OEK for crying out loud), constantly gives Kaneki both the emotional attention and the hard truths that he needs.

This panel:

Is unambiguously a good thing. Touka’s development was never about growing into herself without the need for others, because she was already like that at the start of the manga. Touka’s development was about rediscovering the humanity she cast aside to protect herself from pain, and then balancing that with the strength she found with being a Ghoul. The first stage was greatly aided by Kaneki - whom she indeed admired, but never idolised - and the second stage she completed herself. 

Mutsuki’s love is a different beast entirely than Touka’s love. Mutsuki’s focus on Touka was precisely to emphasise Mutsuki’s jealousy, because Mutsuki recognises the bond Kaneki and Touka share. Mutsuki’s feelings are not meant to parallel Touka’s, but tie in with the other complicated entanglements of this arc, showcasing different kinds of love. I do strongly believe we’ll get both Touken and Akiramon resolutions soon, and positive ones too; the negativity around love this arc has displayed to us so far is set up to make those two relationships shine brighter.

So don’t worry anon, just because a meta says Touka is different from how you think about her doesn’t mean it’s right - it’s all a matter of interpretation. No one person’s opinion is automatically more important than another (except in this case maybe Sui Ishida - and maybe not even then, if you adhere to Death Of The Author literary theory), your analysis is just as valid as anyone else’s if you can argue it with evidence.

But even so, I am very much of the opinion in this fandom that if you see any meta that tries to claim that none of the main characters have developed at all since the start of the manga, take it with approximately this much salt:

Link to First Part here.

Link to Second Part here.

Touka’s Self-Reconciliation

When we meet Touka again, 3 years later, she practically glows with human kindness.

Thankfully, her feelings of impotence have not convinced her to erase the admirable human side she had been developing, because she has had the support of the remainders of Anteiku and their hybrid viewpoint. And since that is a hybrid viewpoint, the Ghoul side of her has resurfaced as well, as we find out at the end of the Tsukiyama Family Extermination arc.

Her re-acceptance of her Ghoul self is reflected through the regrowth of her kakuhou and being able to use her kagune again. But while she has brought herself to kill people again, it is not a revenge killing, as it was with Kusaba, but a commitment to violence in order to save a friend. Like Yoshimura before her, she is peaceful when she can be, but when a friend is endangered, she’s willing to fight. A true spiritual Half-Ghoul; something she proves again when she helps rescue Hinami from Cochlea.

And the symbol of this reconciliation is her creation of :re. As Tsukiyama points out, it is a second Anteiku; a second symbol of human nature and Ghoul nature co-existing. And just as Yoshimura created Anteiku as a home for the prodigal Half-Ghoul close to his heart, Touka created :re as a home for the prodigal Half-Ghoul close to hers.

Kaneki’s Self-Reconciliation

Kaneki’s struggle to reconcile his two selves, however, is still ongoing. At the end of the first series, in Kaneki’s mind his Ghoul self comes into direct contact with his Human self, and the Ghoul realises what a great mistake he’s made in abandoning the Human. But the Human sees the virtue in the Ghoul self as well. 

They embrace, and they fade away together, to merge into one.

To merge into Haise, whose hair is both black and white to symbolise the co-existence of the two selves. As Haise, he seems, like Touka, to have mastered this balance. Simultaneously, a kind and gentle soul...

...And someone who is willing to fight when it’s called for, especially when it’s to protect his loved ones.

However, the transformation is not yet complete. Haise still fears sliding back full-swing into the Ghoul World, reluctant to use his kagune. Rather than his two selves being in union, they are fighting for dominance. He sees his past self as the demonic figure in Yamori’s chamber, and it frightens him.

The reason that he has adapted so badly compared to Touka is that the pain the Ghoul side of himself brought him was so extreme, he tried to shove it away entirely, locking away his memories. Being raised in the CCG with its strong prejudice against Ghouls only made his self-denial worse, to the point of crying when Urie calls him a Ghoul.

Touka equally fears Kaneki slipping back in the Ghoul World after seeing what it has done to him (and the own pain she felt because of it), and it’s her principal reason for not trying to bring back Haise’s memories. She believes him to be better off in this not-quite-there state, lest he regress dramatically (as indeed he later does).

(And of course Tsukiyama wants Kaneki back in the Ghoul World, because that’s where he is.)

But to Haise’s surprise, the mental image of the devil within changes into that of a child.

A white-haired child. The Ghoul self he was hiding from was as vulnerable as the human side he treasured. Haise re-examines his perspective, and seeks to understand the part of him he was suppressing. Beginning to understand the Ghoul inside of him is an important part of Kaneki’s development, but it takes him to darker places before brighter.

The confrontation with Eto, the reflection of himself - the Half-Ghoul who strayed from Anteiku into the Ghoul World to fix the world herself - brings Kaneki to a crucial revelation about himself.

Kaneki had always believed that the Ghoulish side within him was something that came about with the implantation of Ghoul organs into his body; indeed he initially tried to carve them out in the hope it would make him human again. However, with the flood of recaptured memories, Kaneki remembers that his life characterised by violence had begun long before that. He had been in the ‘Ghoul World’ even when he was human. The stream was poisoned from the source, and there was no escaping what he saw as his tragic fate - so he embraces it, seeking to at least do something positive with his Ghoul abilities before he can destroy the violent monster he so detests for good.

The white-haired child had represented the major memory Kaneki had been suppressing all along, an ability he possessed that was foreshadowed by the existence of Haise. It represented that he had his Ghoul nature even when he was a child - as foreshadowed by the ‘Black Goat’s Egg’, suitably written by his doppelganger - and so, though it is red in actuality, in the monochrome style of manga, his hair turns black as he accepts the Ghoul as an irremovable part of himself. Black hair was the colour of his human self, but the Black Reaper is the most Ghoulish of Kaneki’s personas - it represents how the distinction in Kaneki’s mind has been utterly obliterated, and he can no longer see where the Ghoul ends and the human begins. 

This destruction of the boundaries could be a positive thing for his character, if he didn’t despise himself for it. His hatred for himself is symbolised by slicing his doppelganger in two - although, of course, she survives, and reforms, because the Ghoul within Kaneki cannot be destroyed so easily.

Another thing about doppelgangers; according to legend, when one first meets their doppelganger, death will soon follow. And that is exactly what Kaneki believes. But this is a conviction that is thrown off balance when Kaneki comes to interact with someone who has been a Ghoul since their birth, and who has dived into the human world as well. Someone who has managed to demolish the boundaries between her Ghoul and Human sides in a far healthier manner.

Though Kaneki believed himself to have been part of the Human World, his past was characterised by the Ghoul World in his mother’s abuse long before the attack by Rize. And although Touka believed herself to have been part of the Ghoul World, her past was characterised by the Human World in her father’s kindness long before she went to school. Seeing Touka again is what triggers Kaneki’s self-doubt over his initial goal. Seeing such a healthy specimen of Half-Ghoulness - having now seen her both kindly serving customers in :re and breaking into Cochlea to save Hinami - makes him start to question his self-hatred.

Then, in his mind he speaks with Hide, and recognises that the Hide he is talking to, urging him to live on and demonstrating Human kindness to the highest degree, is a mental conjuration. Which makes that Hide part of Kaneki’s own mind. And if that’s true, then Kaneki can be Human too, after all. Human and Ghoul - he’s always been both. So he doesn’t have to hate himself anymore.

His hair turns white once more to represent the new peace he has found with his Ghoul self, and to call back to the self-confidence and determination to change the world that the first Shironeki possessed. With Ghoulish hair and a Ghoulish eye, his face is lit up by a Human smile. He’s finally mastered the way of the Half-Ghoul.

And that is precisely what makes him the One-Eyed King.

And where does Kaneki wake up after all of this?

In :re, the home of the half-Ghoul.

Kaneki has finally returned to Anteiku.

…Or so we can hope ;)

But in all seriousness, Kaneki did promise to talk with Touka after the Lab Raid, and I get the feeling this is going to happen in Chapter 120, with 118 and 119 dealing with events in the CCG and Akiramon. Why 120? Well, we just had a parallel to the original series’ Kanou’s Lab arc, and a second Anteiku raid has been set up with Takeomi - what major moment between Kaneki and Touka happened between those two arcs in the first manga? 

The confrontation on the bridge in Chapter 120. So mark the 8th April on your calendars, everyone.

Now that they’re both roughly in the same place on the Ghoul/Human spectrum, effective communication between the two of them is looking more and more likely. Kaneki has never been a very open person - Hide was about the only person he opened up to, and that stopped completely when he became a Ghoul. But that’s a trait he and Touka share. She hated for people to see her insecurities and weaknesses, so she covered it up with aggression in an overt display of strength. 

But given how they’ve both matured, I think this conversation will go very differently from the last one. The Amon/Touka conversation we had last chapter hints through Amon at the reason for Kaneki’s own reluctance to talk, but when the talk happens he might be finally convinced to open up about all of the fear, guilt and self-doubt he’s been harbouring. As for Touka, she’ll talk about being left behind by Arata and Ayato and express her will to fight alongside him instead of being protected all the time. Romantic or not, (and given all the sudden canonisations of ships in the latest arc, I’m actually pretty confident in the former), Kaneki and Touka will leave the encounter closer and with clearer consciences. The last encounter ended dramatically with a fight - to mirror that, I think this time around we might get a hug at the very least.

But themes and characters aside, how does this tie into the main plot? Because in the upcoming CCG raid on :re, Touka will be placed in severe danger. Kaneki failed to save the old manager, but will he be able to save the new one? Having finally reached a mutual understanding with her, just like he did with Yoshimura by hearing his story, the stakes will be all the higher. Kaneki and Touka themselves make a nice little parallel for Kuzen and Ukina too - a ghoul and a human who met at a coffee shop and became entangled in each other’s worlds.

Well, she wasn’t saying that exactly; she was just saying that Kaneki would be better off in the Human World rather than the Ghoul one, and she felt the need to distance herself from him because she considers herself part of that Ghoul World (which is exactly, as it happens, how Kaneki felt in the second half of the first manga). Kaneki himself believed that to be the truth, but he was lying to himself.

The notorious lying chin-touch. Truth was that Haise could never suppress the existence of his Ghoul self in his mind, and so long as he kept on uselessly fighting it he could never be truly happy. Like the legendary king Damocles, his happy lifestyle was constantly undermined by the sword hanging by a single horse hair over his head at all times. He is a Half-Ghoul, and he can never find peace of mind without accepting both sides of himself. So both Touka and Haise were mistaken - Kaneki’s life needs to encompass both worlds, and Touka must definitely be in it. Even when he was trying to shut off his past, it was Touka who made him first want to remember it - an angelic face compared to the demonic one of the Ghoul in his head.

Also, now that we’ve seen Kaneki’s secret motivation (which was far healthier than I was expecting, way to go Ken!) it’s pretty clear that Kaneki’s current goal in life requires Touka’s presence.

As for what Touka’s waiting for, she’s waiting for the same thing we are! The Touken talk she was promised 15 chapters ago! But she’s got lots to do in the meantime wiping up the emotional mess from the Kureo Mado arc that has been festering for two whole mangas.

It all comes back to the apple from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Eto is the serpent who offers knowledge that brings suffering. This is seen principally with Kanae and Haise, who are severely tormented by the epiphanies Eto leads them to, but it also includes the Japanese (and even world) populace after her press conference and ‘Bileygr the King’. Their suffering in the conflict that erupts from the truth has already begun in the Clown Siege. Adam and Eve are seduced by the serpent, take the fruit, and them and all their kind suffer eternally because of it.

Furuta (*cough* FRUIT *cough*) is like if Adam had not only eaten the apple, but then used his newfound knowledge to topple God and take Eden for himself. He comes from the Sunlit Garden (of Eden), he knows how the system truly works, and now he’s using it for his own advantage. But although he hides it behind the mask of a clown, he’s suffering too, and he has a lot more to suffer before the series is through.

In her birthday art back in 2015, Touka was guarding the apple of knowledge for Haise. She had the power to unlock his memories, but chose not to, because (just like Haise’s memories), the apple does not only enlighten but brings immense torment to follow. Yet despite being aware of its dangers, Touka is still fond of the apple as deep down she does want Haise’s memories to return.

But in the end, having no reservations when it comes to causing pain, Eto is the one to indirectly grant the apple to Haise.

No, Kaneki, but you are the protagonist of a manga.

From the very first chapter Kaneki displays semi-awareness of the fact that he’s fictional, and boy, is that rough for him. Because he’s been landed in the worst possible genre to be the protagonist in - a tragedy. 

Kaneki loves to read, and it’s this hobby that makes him halfway savvy to the way his world is written. He draws parallels between his story and other stories that he’s read; the meta-writer is spared the effort, because we have a meta-thinker for our protagonist (Thanks Kaneki!).

He uses stories as his lens to understand the world, and because he himself is in a story, that’s really not a bad approach.

And 98 chapters later...

However, his self-awareness is still limited (even if someone notices thematic trends in their life, no sane person is going to seriously reach the conclusion that they’re made-up), and so despite correctly recognising his story’s genre and predicting his future, when tragedy happens, it’s still unexpected to him...which is all the more tragic. Kaneki and the people close to him undergo a string of harrowing events completely at the mercy of the author. The world he inhabits is dead set against him - for him, the world itself is wrong.

He is both unable and unwilling to do anything to stop his misfortunes because he’s already accepted that his life is a tragedy, and so tries to nobly accept that burden for the sake of others in imitation of his mother. But everyone has their breaking point, and Chapter 63 is when Kaneki says “Fuck you” to the tragedy, symbolically turning the tables on his torturer and using his own methods against him to render him utterly helpless.

This is Kaneki’s revolution against the story. He knows he lives in a tragedy; he knows the world is ‘wrong’ and out to harm him and the people he cares about; but he’s not going to take it lying down anymore. He will revolt against the narrative itself to keep his loved ones safe, and, looking through literary glasses again, become the kind of person Dazai Osamu could believe in.

But little does he know he’s just stepping into the role the author had set out for him from the start.

As a meta character, Kaneki’s fatal flaw is not that he doesn’t understand that he is in a story but that he misunderstands it. True tragedy relies on complicity; the tragic hero must dig their own grave - it doesn’t count if someone else digs it for them - due to their own sins and deficiencies. For Kaneki, his sins would be his mass cannibalisation, and his deficiencies would be his fear of loneliness and his hubris in his belief that he could fix the world alone - and in the metasphere, his hubris in trying to rebel against the story he was written for. These are all pivotal after Kaneki’s change of heart, not before. Because the ‘tragedy’ of Tokyo Ghoul only starts when Kaneki begins actively rebelling against it - what Kaneki conceived as ‘tragedy’ beforehand was really just horrible misfortune. Kaneki choosing to pursue a darker path in an attempt to escape the confines of his story only leads to him to stumble blindly right into their vicious grasp.

But who is Kaneki really fighting here? Who is the author of the tragedy that he finds himself in? Obviously Kaneki can’t lash out against Ishida Sui - he has to find the author responsible in his own sphere of existence. Kaneki has always been eager to know anything he can about Rize since the tragedy seemed to start with her, and though he believes her dead, that’s the lead he takes at first. The scent of Rize eventually leads him to Kanou, who he then marks as the creator of his misfortune, but his conviction is quickly shaken when Kanou mentions Yoshimura’s connection to Aogiri, presenting another lead to follow to find the source. And where will this lead take him? Who does he discover to be the author of his tragedy?

‘The Black Goat’s Egg’, a clear parallel to Kaneki’s story, was written by the hand of Takatsuki Sen. She is a writer of horror tragedy, and that is exactly the kind of story she has written for Kaneki.

 If Kaneki’s tragedy (beginning proper after Yamori’s torture) stems back to the Aogiri Tree, you’ll find Takatsuki - or as we better know her, Eto - at its roots. Even before then; after all, it was Takatsuki’s writings that caused Kaneki to become interested in Rize in the first place.

Eto is the only one to draw a connection between Kaneki and Dazai Osamu other than Kaneki himself, through Kaneki’s name and Osamu’s place of origin.

As she should, since Kaneki it’s her story Kaneki is trying to rebel against. The reason Kaneki connects so deeply with her works is due to their shared life experiences - a half-Ghoul abandoned by their parents who lashes out against a world that seems stacked against them - but while Kaneki is still experiencing that story, Eto is now writing it for him - something that will be expanded upon in :re.

And just as her first book, ‘The Black Goat’s Egg’, symbolises the first half of the manga, Takatsuki’s latest book, ‘The Hanged Man’s McGuffin’ symbolises the second half.

Kaneki’s connection to the Hanged Man is hinted later on with the number 12 on his collar - the number of the Hanged Man’s tarot card.

Kaneki’s demise at the end of the manga is hinted through the perspective of death row prisoners, and indeed, Kaneki is in a prison of his own; the prison of tragedy. He’s been sentenced to death by the author from the start.

He sounds like a ghoul because he is one, Kaneki. That’s you. And of course this is the book that picks him up out of his post-Banjou-stabbing slump and allows him to continue down his tragic path.

A Tragedy can only end with the death of the hero, and that’s just how Tokyo Ghoul ends. In true tragic fashion, Kaneki is warned over and over again about the path he’s walking on - by Yoshimura, by Touka, by Nishiki, even by Shuu - yet he refuses to heed them, sticking to his values to the bitter end. 

And in the final chapter, the world remains wrong. The words are repeated like a death toll for all the characters lost. Kaneki was unable to defeat the tragedy he was written into.

But is this really the end?

The final chapter plants seeds of doubt in our minds. Eto wasn’t the only writer to this story. And the Clowns aren’t satisfied with the story ending just yet. Similarly, Eto’s aim in rewriting her own story with Kaneki has not yet been revealed. And there is a whole other writer to this story still concealed, whose input will change everything.

Kaneki, and his story, has died. But they’re ready for a :rebirth.

My dear anon, Haise is Kaneki! Everything Haise felt, Kaneki also felt. Haise is just a part of Kaneki’s subconscious he’s storing in the back - I elaborate on it more in this post, but basically a happy Kaneki looks very much like Haise. Kaneki’s mental projections are far from valid indicators of the reality - just as Hide wasn’t really speaking to him at Cochlea, his mental image of Kaneki while he was ‘Haise’ was no more ‘the real Kaneki’ than Haise was. Omakes are only semi-canon, but they’re still by Sui Ishida; take a look at this:

It’s Kaneki, but his Haise is showing!

The ‘abusive’ argument only really qualifies if it is has a noticeable negative psychological effect on the recipient. It’s obvious that Mutsuki’s ‘relationship’ with Torso was abusive, for example - as that chapter proved, if Ishida wants us to think a relationship is abusive, he’ll make it very, very clear. Similarly, it was clear from Kaneki’s face and words when he was being abused by his mother that it shook him to the core. When Ishida wants us to think Kaneki is depressed or traumatised, God knows he doesn’t shy away from that.

But the countertop attack had basically no effect on Kaneki beyond minor annoyance.

I know what some of you are thinking: “But dreamofcentipedes, what about this panel?”

 To which I say, look at this panel and compare the two.

Touka is drawn fully detailed to make it clear that she is truly feeling sorrow at being protected by Kaneki again. Meanwhile, in Kaneki’s panel he is drawn undefined, lacking various facial features and with lines dropping over the top of his eyes - characters are drawn like this for the purpose of comedy, not for serious mental trauma. For example, take a look at this Saiko here:

We’re clearly not meant to weep buckets of tears over Urie’s heartless manipulation of Saiko here because she’s making such an obviously comedic face. Some of the confusion over the Kaneki panel probably comes from him looking away from the reader, whereas if he was looking straight at us he would look something like this:

Ishida drawing him with such a non-serious face makes it clear that Kaneki is not really torn up over the countertop attack, he’s more just thinking “Aw man not again” - the quintessential expression of minor annoyance.

Because you know, he’s the freaking ONE-EYED KING. He didn’t flinch when Naki twisted his leg around three chapters later. So I really don’t think it’s so problematic as discourse is making it out to be, as Kaneki clearly doesn’t think so himself, and since he’s the affected party, he really ought to have the final word. 

As for why Touka whacked his head against the countertop - I always read that scene as Touka venting her frustration at Kaneki for selfishly trying to get himself killed and abandon his friends to their fates in the process, especially after Touka had done so much to provide a home for him. Read any battle manga and you’ll see that the protagonist’s friends punching up the protagonist when he’s being an idiot is very common - in Bleach for example this happens all the time, with Rukia, Renji and Chad, three friendships that are portrayed as completely pure and supportive. Things are okay in manga that aren’t okay irl - if they weren’t, I think there would be more concern over the fact that Kaneki is now good friends with the cannibal predator who tried to eat him.