Talk:Ken Kaneki/@comment-26974774-20151119114853/@comment-26967758-20151119174859

What Harostar said is accurate. The foundation of whether a side is good or bad cannot be argued, the series itself has gone to extreme lengths to show that it doesn't vouch for a black and white theme, and in fact deconstructs that with the personality that Sasaki is. His hair is grey, I think that says enough about the grey morality that Ishida has been using all along. Kuroneki was untrue to himself in a self-denying way, Shironeki was untrue to himself in a self-destructive way, and Sasaki was, although still untrue to who he really is, it is the personality that tried to balanced both self-destruction and self-denying, yet tried to live up to his ideals, his "dream" version of himself, even if that's not who he really is.

I understand the people who argue that Anteiku and the people in it are "right" for him. They have been by far the group that would most likely be considered as "friends". But in a sense, vouching for them against his acquintances at CCG is in a sense biased, only because of the way we were told the story by chronological order. We got to know the people at Anteiku first, so we're bound to like them more.

What if Kaneki wasn't the one-eyed ghoul and a CCG investigator in training at the start and Amon the one who had been the victim of Kanou's experimentation? I imagine we'd see something along the lines of Kiritsugu (Kaneki) VS Kariya (Amon) from Fate/Zero. See, when you think of it that way, if CCG had been the ones we saw first that befriended Kaneki, we'd appreciate them as much as we appreciate the people at Anteiku. So this constant phrasing of him as "CCG's attack dog" really falls apart pretty quick, mainly because you can't compare an organisation that is trying to uphold the stability of human lives against a small minority of ghouls who are trying to live normal human lives. Their foundations are entirely different. CCG is an official unit recognised by the government, and Anteiku is a shady coffee shop secretly helping out Ghouls. Yet we were introduced to Anteiku as a heart-warming second family like place, while CCG has been portrayed as having secret agenda or one of those "evil organisation-main antagonist" trope. But that's not all there is to them.

Assosciating all investigators to CCG doesn't hold up. Seidou, Kureo, Shinohara, Iwao, Amon, Kuramoto, Fura, Juuzou, Arima, Akira, Ihei. All of them have different ideals yet work for the same organisation. All ghouls don't have the same ideals, yet the ones that do reside in Anteiku, and even then there's the ones loyal to the Tsukiyama Group that are also good people but aren't assosciated with Anteiku like Matsumae and Mirumo. It's not fair to say all CCG Investigators are evil or "planted" there to be around Kaneki, and then side with the Ghouls just because their lives have all been awful due to being hunted by CCG. There are bad ghouls as we've constantly seen just as there are moral-less and sadistic investigators, but even the most hateful characters have a tragic past which sometimes makes one more human than the other, even if they aren't humans.

Ishida does a perfect job of portraying everyone in different lights. Just look at Yomo and Uta's relationship as friends. They have such contrasting personalities yet somehow get along. Just because Uta is mischevious, that doesn't mean Yomo stopped being around him. I'm pretty in real life, we all have people we don't like but somehow are friends with our friends.

The easiest way I can put this is, Ishida is basically saying "You might the hero of your life story, but in someone else's life story, you might be a secondary character or even a villain." This is why perspective is really important when reading this story in particular, or any other story that is as well written as Tokyo Ghoul is. The reason a lot of people are against CCG is nothing else but the fact that they've closely identified and related with Kaneki as a person because he is the main protagonist, which isn't wrong. When watching a series, obviously you'd want to be able to relate to the main character, which is the catch into getting in a series in the first place.

I'm also sure the reason the hype with the whole "Shironeki = badass Centipede Mode" is because of his sudden change in character as in a way of getting even with the people that have wronged him and also, it's in a sense, a catharsis of sorts. There's satisfaction in venting out your anger, and to see a character finally doing so after letting things go bad for him is really satisfying. But you can't expect the story to have that form of catharsis effect again if you aren't invested in other characters too. Relating to Kaneki alone isn't the point this series is trying to make. It goes into other character's problems, sometimes on a deeper and more personal level than Kaneki's own development, but they're resolved in arcs which is why there isn't the incentive to be invested in them as much as our main character, whilst Kaneki's is resolved throughout the series.