Tokyo Ghoul :re Ch. 125 Thoughts
A little bit late but here are my scattered thoughts:
1) I’m super mad at myself for not noticing that the entire “are you a virgin” talk was foreshadowing for this chapter.
2) Never in my wildest dreams would I have EVER thought we would get such explicit content from Ishida-sensei. Honestly, this chapter seemed like a doujinshi I would have loved to read, but to think this is canon! For crying out loud this is the same man that censored a kiss twice, let alone make an entire chapter dedicated to Touka and Kaneki having sex.
3) Contrary to some beliefs, I do not believe this chapter was in any way fan-service nor useless use of sex; I solemnly believe every single detail Ishida-sensei puts into his work has a deeper meaning whether it appears to us instantly or a few chapters later. It seems like Ishida-sensei has been intending on bringing Touka and Kaneki together for quite some time now, but if his sole purpose was to tie the knot between them, he would have done it at the very end just like any other cliche anime/manga with different gendered protagonists. And we know that TG as a whole is not coming to an end anytime soon seeing as we have so many things left unanswered. And not to mention, Tokyo Ghoul is NOT a shoujo, so romance would not be thrown around meaninglessly. So why would he choose to do this now? Here are some of the reasons I have thought of:
A) Maybe, just as many of us have theorized, Touka would end up falling pregnant; seeing as how they had sex and all; and this would definitely have an enormous impact on the story’s plot.
B) This chapter is so extremely important for the development of Kaneki and Touka’s relationship. Firstly, it was extremely satisfying to see Kaneki going for kisses and being on top for once; since every other romantic gesture between them has been initiated by Touka. This just proves that Kankei wanted Touka just as bad as she had wanted him, but he buried those feelings deep within him, and I would say he did it for many reasons: fear of rejection, his personal insecurities, his shyness and his denial as to protect himself from vulnerability. He simply does not want to expose his obvious pain and suffering and share it to others. However, this is exactly what Touka was trying to do. In a sense, she wanted to tell him “Hey, it’s okay to let people in sometimes, you don’t need to bottle everything up anymore, I know you’ve been through a lot, but you’re not alone okay? I’m here with you” -And she did accomplish getting her message across, but maybe sex might not have been the way I’ve wanted it to happen, but hey, at least it worked. And this leads us to the part where Kaneki starts crying mid-sex. This poor boy has been deprived of happiness for so long that when he felt it once again he couldnt help but cry. It was the first time in a while that anyone reciprocated his feeling of love. This is exactly why Touka is perfect for Kaneki. These two go way back and practically grew together. They witnessed each other’s pain and suffering and were always there for each other when they needed.Touka knows how broken Kaneki is and she wants to be there for him, to comfort him and to ease his pain. This chapter all in all isn’t some vulgar sex scene, it withholds so much importance and depicts the love these two have for each other.
C) Could tragedy be following Kaneki even more strongly after this experience? Kaneki finally realizes how much Touka really means to him and it would shatter him to pieces if anything were to happen to her. Seeing all the Touka death flags this is not unlikely. Whoops.
D) The road to happiness???? Could this experience begin regaining Kaneki’s confidence? Could this experience shape up Kaneki once again and make him hold his head up high and create his own path?? In the very first page of this chapter we see a butterfly and at the very end it seemed as if Kaneki had grown wings. Maybe all this time when Kaneki was engulfed in darkness he was just in his cocoon. Maybe after this chapter he’s come out of his cocoon and can finally spread his wings and fly.
4) I love how the past few chapters were filled with TouKen moments showing that even if it was a tiny bit, development was occurring between them. Therefore people can’t say that the sex scene came out of nowhere. I also love the fact that they took time to fall in love with each other. I also love how Ishida makes them canon when they become adults; as they become capable of handling these sorts of steady relationships and enough character development occurred. You see, they didn’t just happen to fall in love, they grew to love each other. (Un-related but this is one reason I don’t expect AyaHina to become canon, *or as canon as TouKen anyway* is because even though they deeply care about each other, they’re still children and need more time to grown before actually getting together.
