English Dub Review: Tokyo Ghoul: Re “mind: Days of Recollections”

In battle, it is those that have tamed their weaknesses that win.

Overview (Spoilers)

In the aftermath of the auction raid, CCG forces surround Hinami. As the brass steps forward, she consigns herself to the grave. Sasaki… or is it Kaneki now… step forward. He notes her surrender and asks that he take her into custody, instead of killing her. Arima relents. Could it be that Sasaki remembers her? While all of the action of the last episode went down, a second operation took place. CCG learned that Aogiri tree planned to steal a shipment of Quinque Steel. Rather than let this operation go to waste, they assigned Marude and S3 Squad to trap them, then join up at the auction house as reinforcement. This sent Aogiri into retreat. The operations a success, everyone involved gets a fat round of promotions.

Not wanting to rest on their laurels, the team continues to train and improve. Urie lifts weights, Mutsuki trains with Juuzou in knife skills, and Shirazu converts Nutcracker’s kagune into a quinque. In the meantime, Sasaki lectures at the academy. They have a celebratory dinner at the chateau, inviting Akira and Arima to eat spicy curry, in the style of Akira’s family. The whole gang enjoy the evening, with a warmth that feels like family. Sasaki even passes out presents for everyone. The present he gets in the mail is even more interesting, though. It’s a black gimp mask with a patch over the right eye, and a book addressed to Ken Kaneki. He ponders the meaning of this at the: re coffee shop. Man, that place looks familiar to him.

In a dark corner of the city, two men meet a bad end at the hands of one of Shu’s servants. She brings them back to her master, and he chews straight through them. He’s still hungry. So very hungry. We get a peek at what has become of him. Cocooned in Matsumae’s kagune wall, he looks starved and crazed. What happened to the once proud Shu?

Our Take

A calmer, more subtle episode after the action of the last, but plenty of story arcs weave around each other in small scenes. Despite the fact that Sasaki accepted Kaneki as a part of his consciousness, the full database of memories looks to be locked away for now. He continues to hallucinate people from Kaneki’s past, but can’t figure out who they are. He doesn’t seem to connect the Kaneki in his head with the Eyepatch Ghoul or the Ken Kaneki of the past.

We also run into a few characters, just so you remember they exist. For one, we see Shirazu’s sister, who sleeps in a coma as a massive kagune-like growth erupts from her right eye. Shirazu and Mutsuki talk about the new Nutcracker Quinque, but are unaware that Eto (aka Seto Takatsuki, who wrote the book Sasaki received) is listening in. Finally, we get to see the gradual changes in Urie from Mutsuki’s act of sacrificial kindness. He’s beginning to accept that he’s a part of a team, even if he’s training like a solo fighter. None of these scenes mean much on their own, but this show’s cast of characters is so vast that the connections slowly weave a plot web. Nothing wasted in this show.

I felt a genuine warmth throughout this episode, mostly in how the characters physically related to each other. It’s a tough thing to put my finger on, but the animators did a good job with that. Even though this was a character-heavy episode, that didn’t mean that the director just sat around with his hands on his thumbs. They did attempt some interesting shots, even if one of them was a bit out of the animator’s abilities under a deadline. The scene where Juuzou throws the paper airplane from the roof of the hospital is a beautiful shot as far as the cinematography goes, but the animation of him throwing the plane is a bit jerky and is off on its perspective a bit. It doesn’t look like a horrific mutation, but it’s noticeable.

The voice acting is also enjoyable. I can hear subtle shifts in the emotions of Adam Gibbs’ Urie and Mikaela Krantz’s Mutsuki. Softening of Urie’s edges appears as he thinks about Mutsuki, while the latter’s overall voice sounds more confident and less frightened. While they are all together, the warmth present in the animation is present in their voices. I can’t help but smile a bit. It’s good work.