English Dub Review: Tokyo Ghoul Re “proof: Bonds”

Creating and severing.

Overview:

Following an attack on the cafe, Kaneki and Touka flee.

Our Take:

Mutsuki shows up at the cafe, realizing that Kaneki has left the CCG and the Quinxes behind, and turns violent. This destroys the cafe as a safe haven, but also makes the fight more personal. Mutsuki rightfully does feel abandoned by Kaneki, because the family unit made up by the Quinxes has now been broken. Kaneki has chosen the ghouls over CCG, and hasn’t approached the rest of the Quinxes at all. He left them behind, and that’s a painful thing to process.

Mutsuki’s role in re is always a messy one, because to put things lightly, Mutsuki’s issues were not handled well at all. When I was reading the manga, it personally felt very tone-deaf to me, and at times, extremely uncomfortable. As such, I’m really glad that the anime cut a lot of these portions out, but we still have Mutsuki’s very messy personality to work with in the meantime. At the same time, they cut out the conversation between Mutsuki and Urie post-wedding, and that sheds a lot of light on Mutsuki before things get messy, which is a shame. Analyzing yanderes is always an interesting time, so we’ll see how that plays out on my end…

As for Kaneki and Touka, they finally reach the peak of their relationship, and have sex. What’s shown on screen is of course, a pretty sanitized version of what happened, but you can still tell. I was actually surprised that they decided to go through with animating that instead of just fading to black or leaving it offscreen to be implied, but they did. I’m glad that they went through with that, because as messy of a series as re is, this was one of, if not the emotional highlight of the series. It’s something that’s been long in the works, as Kaneki and Touka have always had a lowkey attraction to each other that they finally acted on. I do kind of wish that there wasn’t an awkward vocal soundtrack playing in the background during this scene, as it was very distracting. It’s also Kaneki definitively choosing a side, one that he will carry through.

Following their sexual encounter, Touka gets pregnant, and Kaneki is hilariously awkward at the news. He doesn’t really know how to broach the subject, but she is indeed pregnant. This will be hard on the fighting, but is also something important- now there’s a practical reason to fight for the future, for people instead of just ideals.

A calm before the storm, very much so.