Talk:Ken Kaneki/@comment-71.75.134.142-20160917225330/@comment-10733658-20160918114434

Well, I think it depends on whether we're talking about the manga or the anime. The anime really made him seem weak prior to his White Hair Upgrade.

In contrast, the manga kind of provides some indications of his improvement leading up to that final confrontation. We see a few moments that show he spent his entire time at Anteiku (about 2 months) training religiously. He was working out regularly, and sparring with Touka and Yomo on a regular basis. He was also reading about fighting, which we've since learned is where he really shines in terms of learning new skills.

By the Ghoul Restaurant incident, he was getting pretty skilled as demonstrated by him being able to break Taro-chan's arm with a move he learned.

He was also able to take on the Bin Brothers solo, again demonstrating that he'd gotten fairly strong by then. So he had some good foundations already, prior to Yamori torturing him.

And as we've learned in :Re, one special trait of artificial OEGs is that the more you hurt them, the stronger they become. So being tortured for 10 days caused his RC pathways to spread throughout his body, rapidly increasing his physical strength and RC levels.

Then he added in an extra boost by biting Yamori twice, and eating those pieces of flesh.

Even then, he admits that in terms of raw ability, Yamori would win their fight. His own thought process was that he could only win through outsmarting Yamori, who was by that point lapsing into a deranged state.

So Kaneki's victory was brought about by multiple factors:
 * Yomo's harsh training
 * Hybrid Vigor
 * Expanded RC pathways
 * Cannibalism boost
 * Intense studying of techniques and strategies
 * Yamori's loss of control

Basically, he won because of some boosted he'd received....but mostly because he was smarter and calmer than Yamori.