Talk:Touka Kirishima/@comment-22498334-20160608233840/@comment-25047329-20160609024423

The keychain Kaneki gave her was named Kachikachi, which was based on The Legend of Kachi Kachi Mountain. A story about a rabbit who sought revenge on behalf of a family. It came from a brand of keychains popular with teenaged girls called ZACK and Touka's rabbit mask was based on it. That's actually how investigators were able to deduce that Rabbit was probably a teenage girl. Probably also how Hide figured she was was out for revenge. It was never mentioned vocally that the mask was Kachikachi, but since it's based on a Japanese legend, I think it's one of those things a lot of the characters silently understood, but was lost to international readers. The mask in of itself is a symbol of revenge because it's based on a characters that's a symbol of revenge.

As for why Kaneki sent it to Touka, it was to say "I know what you're up to", but in a discrete way. He wasn't sure if Touka really took up the identity of Rabbit again, and telling Hinami would upset her. This might also add another layer to Touka saying that he was being "unfair". Not only was he using her friends to interact indirectly, but he was also passive aggressively reminding Touka of her past on her birthday. Kaneki knows that Touka wears her emotions on her sleeve, so he sent her something that might upset her, then observed from afar and misread Touka's reaction. It seemed too never have clicked with him that Touka might actually really miss him and that she was flustered for other reasons after he sent her the gift.

All things considering, the keychain was actually quite mean.