Talk:Touka Kirishima/@comment-24.74.64.155-20160801000929/@comment-104.244.231.184-20160801080552

Even with their limited interaction Kaneki still really cared about what Touka’s opinion of him was. Yoshimura asked Kaneki to come back to Anteiku, but even so in chapter 121 Kaneki cared a lot if Touka would accept him or not after he disband his group. He sub-consciously asked her if it was okay for him to return even though Yoshimura already gave him the go ahead. Touka does not own the 20th ward or Anteiku, she has no say in whether he returns or not but again he still felt like he needed some type of acceptance from her before he could return. Or at least that is how I saw it.

And I do agree with Lilymul, Touka was probably Kaneki’s second friend after Hide and he even treats them in a similar manner. Now I’m not trying to start a “who is more important to Kaneki than the other” argument here, but like I said Kaneki begins to treat them similarly after certain events. They are the first ones he thinks about when he has to remind himself about the people he has to protect, he even interchanges on who he thinks about first and then mentions everyone else has a group or “the others”. He specifically avoided both Touka and Hide after the Aogiri arc, he goes to the 20th ward a few times after his torture. The first time when he went to the hospital for the good doctor he does not seek Hide out while making sure to get someone else to give Touka a gift for her birthday. When he returned again to talk to Yoshimura he goes during Touka’s school hours and leaves before she returns.

This is something we see happening again in :re. After he regains his memories he avoids the Qs and Hinami and in an omake as Sasaki it is hinted that he avoids Arima, for when Arima tries to return his book Sasaki is always too busy to see him, though clearly Arima does want to see him as he is shown to be constantly asking Akira about Sasaki. He knows where :re is but keeps his distance and he doesn’t even check (even if secretly) to see if Tsukiyama is ok after he made that gamble on his survival and threw him off a roof. Seriously he really needs to stop this. But I’m rambling my point is not to say "it’s not about the time they spent together, it’s the bond created within that time" but I think there has been enough times that Ishida has shown in the manga for people to think that she is the second most important character to him, at least in the old series. I do think that things have changed now and while I believe Touka may not hold that title anymore she still is important to him. I mean even if her words did not get through to him when he was about to fight Arima, Kaneki’s demeanor clearly showed how her presence affected him. He avoids looking at her while he talks with both Hinami and Ayato, and when she calls his name he twitches or tensed up, no other character had brought that reaction out of him even though he had not seeing her for several years.

But I suppose it is how the fans interpret what they see. Despite Touka being my favorite character I do not ship her and most of her interactions with Kaneki to me were plutonic or well just how friend interact but other fans will say it was romantic. So some events take place and you might not see it has having meaning or Kaneki not seeing Touka has one of his most important friends but others might see it in a different way.