#karao

Me turning 15:

Aw thanks anon! I have many thoughts on Mutsuki; maybe too manythoughts on Mutsuki, so do you mind if I go overboard and extend this questioninto a mega Mutsuki analysis post? I figure now’s as good a time as any.

(NOTE: Basedon Mutsuki’s internal monologues here, here and most definitively here, Ithink it’s clear that Mutsuki considers herself to be a woman and merelymasquerades as a man due to her fear of male sexual attention stemming from herchildhood trauma. Thus I will be addressing her with ‘she’ and ‘her’ pronounsaccordingly. Discussion below about ‘gender confusion’ and the like is entirely unrelated to transgender issues, and solely applies to these characters’ individual psyches.)

As soon as we see Mutsuki, we are instantly reminded of Kaneki - specifically Kaneki as he was at the start of the series, the persona we call Kuroneki. She has the same wide, innocent eyes and a similarly prim and proper haircut, with her head stuck in a book. And of course, if you were left with any doubts, the eyepatch vanquishes them immediately. As we get to know her better, we find out she is polite and kind but meek and easily frightened, without a great deal of faith in her own abilities. It’s not exactly subtle paralleling, but then, it’s not meant to be. 

Because while in :re, Kaneki is slipping out of the mould of his tragedy, there needs to be someone to take up the mantle of the tragic hero. The gift of a sequel series spared Kaneki from his death at the end of the original, but the author must maintain a balance - tragedy must have its tribute, and here is a person as ideally suited to the role as Kaneki once was.

In fact, Kaneki in his amnesiac ignorance ends up symbolically helping Mutsuki down the path he once walked. In the Christmas chapter - the same chapter where Kaneki’s own self-discovery takes a new turn with the gift of his mask - Kaneki offers Mutsuki a new eyepatch, without having a real reason other than instinct. He feels as though Mutsuki ought to have a new eyepatch because he subconsciously remembers how he changed in the past.

Mutsuki is pushed along little by little towards her ultimate revelation on Rushima Island throughout her time in the Quinx Squad, with snippets of the truth slowly revealing themselves to her. This evolution is sped along by several encounters with various characters representing different aspects of herself - the true self that she has been suppressing. Kaneki was the first, but the second of her doppelgangers was Torso.

Even before his torture irrevocably changed her, the two were already alike in their abusive backgrounds and, most importantly, their mental confusion between love and violence. Seeing one’s doppelganger is traditionally a harbinger of death, and in Tokyo Ghoul, an encounter with your doppelganger escalates your character’s tragic arc, often to that very final point. It is Torso who first begins to unravel the relative security she had felt living as a man, together with the web of lies Mutsuki had spun around herself to protect her. We learn more about Mutsuki as her own safeguards are torn down around her, much like with Kaneki before her. Our initial assumption that Mutsuki is transgender is disproved when we get deep inside Mutsuki’s head and it becomes clear that she considers herself to be a woman. 

It establishes that Mutsuki is comfortable with living a lie in order to protect herself - and if she’s willing and able to hide her gender from the rest of society, who’s to say she’s not hiding something from herself? But already, ever since Torso lands that first crucial blow against the safeguard of her false gender, she finds it quickly crumbling as she is compelled into situations like the Auction that require her to dress (and therefore be treated) as female, and it isn’t long before Urie finds out her gender and eventually Saiko too. Because it’s not just Torso that finds out, it’s also the reader. And once the reader knows, the author can begin gradually undermining her defences to fit her into the tragedy she was written for.

I’ll be talking a little more about Torso later, but for now I’d like to get to Mutsuki’s third doppelganger: Juuzou Suzuya. 

The two bond very quickly out of an unspoken connection to each other. Indeed, they share much in common: their sadistic tendencies, their reliance on gentle paternal figures to make up for their lack of a real childhood, and  the ambiguity of their genders stemming from their sexual abuse as children. The latter connection in particular is highlighted by the inclusion of Big Madam (also of confused gender) in the arc, reminding us of Suzuya’s past and making us suspect similar activity in Mutsuki’s, and by the two of them dressing up as women for the Auction. While Suzuya believes them both to be pretending to be women - both to be lying - the truth is that Mutsuki is actually being honest, suggesting a misunderstanding in Suzuya’s connection with Mutsuki. 

Although they’ve never discussed their pasts to each other in any great detail, Suzuya senses their similarity, and tries to help Mutsuki along by training her in the same lethal artwork that allowed him to cope and find purpose in this brutal world - until Mutsuki eventually even joins Suzuya’s squad. But again, Suzuya misunderstands how they are similar and how they differ. Suzuya’s trauma left him numb to feelings of empathy and love, and so he used his bladework, and the strength it gives him, as a distraction from that hole. Mutsuki is still connected to those feelings, only in a very twisted way. She instead starts filling that hole with knives, mingling violence hopelessly with her notion of love. There’s no better proof of that fundamental difference between the two than their individual reactions to Uta’s masks.

When Suzuya finally learnt how to love, he learnt to do it in a healthy way, and so he couldn’t bring his knives against the image of Shinohara because violence and love are completely disconnected for him - when he killed Big Madam, it was not out of personal desire for revenge (a reaction to the spurned love he should have been given by his maternal figure), but merely out of duty. Love can never involve violence, and violence can never involve love - those two sides of his personality are entirely cut off from each other. Mutsuki, on the other hand…

…sees the two as the same, having gone down the second of two opposing paths stemming from similar trauma. And so Suzuya’s attempt to aid Mutsuki only escalated her tragedy, just like Kaneki’s gift of the eyepatch, and even Torso’s warped attempts at love.

The last of Mutsuki’s parallels are solely antagonising figures. In the midst of the Auction, three of Mutsuki’s parallels intersect due to their mutual interest in her.

Mutsuki catches Nutcracker’s attention at the nightclub and she is quick to take advantage of her. She embodies the sexual abuse that made Mutsuki who she is today - only in reverse - and where Mutsuki covers up her sexuality, Nuts flaunts it. But like Mutsuki, Nutcracker just wants to be loved, and ends up expressing that desire in violent ways.

But as soon as Mutsuki escapes from Nutcracker, she runs straight into another of her parallels. Karren is another female character who masquerades as male, and whose actions, good and evil, are motivated out of a powerful desire for love. But she quickly finds herself battling for control over Mutsuki with Torso - yet another of Mutsuki’s parallels.

 After the Auction Operation forced her to confront her femininity by dressing up like a girl, she spent the rest of it wandering through a maze of her own mind, running into a grand total of three of her alternate selves all seeking to control her in this space alone. The effect? Mutsuki begins remembering the thoughts that she had locked up, presenting them to the reader for the first time:

But with these memories unlocked, a certain gruesome aspect of Mutsuki’s behaviour does as well, as we learn later on at Rushima.

Being attacked on all sides by agents of her inner psyche externalised, she is slowly pushed to a very dangerous point that requires a very dangerous spark to fully ignite. 

Ken Kaneki underwent his transformation as Aogiri started to gain power. Tooru Mutsuki underwent hers towards the end of it. The Rushima arc serves as an excellent parallel to the original series’ Aogiri arc, as Mutsuki finds herself trapped in the tragic hero’s role that was once Kaneki’s. But where once there was Yamori, now there is Torso. Mutsuki is trapped by Aogiri, all alone, in the hands of a mad torturer. Her hair becomes pale and dishevelled as Kaneki’s once did, and she remembers something vital about her family that kicks her transformation into motion. She adopts the nervous habit of her torturer, accepts her sadistic urges, and gives her torturer a taste of his own medicine.

And right afterwards, she goes on a battle spree, far more confident in her kagune and far more ruthless in its use. Mutsuki’s ability to suppress large parts of her memories lines up with the entire conundrum of Haise’s existence.

Urie functions as the Touka to Mutsuki’s Kaneki; someone initially cold to Mutsuki who warms up to her and becomes the most determined to save her when she’s captured. But even then, at the start of their heartwarming, but sadly doomed, relationship, Mutsuki only thinks to show love towards Urie after being wounded by him. As @linkspooky points out, she is completely accustomed to abuse by male figures at this point. For Mutsuki, love and pain are one and the same.

But where does all this lead? With all these parallels set up, where can we see Mutsuki’s journey finally taking her?

Nutcracker is dead. Karren is dead. Torso is dead. If the original manga is taken as a separate entity, in that world, Kaneki is dead. Is there hope in the precedent set by Suzuya? While I do think Suzuya will survive the series, I’ve already established the great point of difference between the two, and I think it will be what keeps Suzuya alive. You’re right to prepare yourself, anon. I don’t think Mutsuki has much hope of surviving this series.

Will she be redeemed? I think, before the hypothetical raid on :re that I believe will be happening soon (especially since Mutsuki has considered it as Kaneki’s possible hiding place), a confrontation with Urie may lead her to question her actions, but it won’t be enough to stop her. As she hunts for Kaneki in :re, she will find her efforts will come down to nought as members of the CCG begin defecting and her way is blocked by enemies. Her single last thread of hope will lead her to a God of Death, and as his scythe takes her eyes out she will deeply regret ever coming to this place, but all too tragically, all too late.

We’ve been given reason to doubt Suzuya’s loyalty to the CCG for some time now. He asserts his obedience too boldly for me to trust him completely. If he does defect, he would be ideal to fill Arima’s shoes and have Mutsuki meet the tragic fate that originally was meant to be Kaneki’s, especially since they already have the mentor/student relationship Kaneki and Arima would go on to have. To have these two, so similar and yet so different, fight each other to the end would be a fitting end for Mutsuki’s arc. Urie’s attempts at reason, like Touka’s before him, won’t be quite enough to stop her. I’m sure Suzuya would try not to kill Mutsuki…but I’m not sure it will be that easy. 

The tragedy will have its due.

[ ✨ || 2026 ]