Tokyo Ghoul:re

Episode 23

Things continue to happen in Tokyo Ghoul:re. I don't know how else to describe this episode, which feels strangely inconsequential for a penultimate installment. We're currently in the middle of what has to be the final confrontation between the Kaneki Friend Squad and Furuta's House of Clowns, but there's no more tension left. It's a big battle for its own sake and little else, justified by the slipshod plot development of “whoops, we found a second core in the centipede!” Kaneki and Ayato run off to take care of that while the rest of the CCG/Goat alliance face off against a bunch of goons who look like vaudeville vampires. According to the wiki, these guys are V, that mysterious organization we've heard mentioned a handful of times. You'd be forgiven for not knowing this, since absolutely nowhere in this episode are they mentioned by name. Then again, it wouldn't be an episode of Tokyo Ghoul:re if I didn't have to go a-googling to make sense of at least one thing.

The biggest strike against the story at this point is that Kaneki's arc is pretty much over. Between marrying Touka, rejecting RIZE, and uniting humans and ghouls together (probably not in the way he intended but whatever gets the job done), he's dealt with all of his major conflicts. Psychologically he's never been better, and to be fair I'm glad to see it! The problem is that Kaneki's character development was my last bastion of investment in this ramshackle mess of a season, so there's not much left for me in the wake of its conclusion. Kaneki still has things to do, but now that only boils down to defeating Furuta because he's the bad guy and Kaneki's the good guy. I don't know what else could possibly come out of this confrontation, because we still know nothing about Furuta. Even the setup for this battle irks me with its series of contrivances stripping Kaneki away from his friends. My favorite detail is that he's the only one unaffected by the heightened ghoul particle toxicity of Furuta's lair, presumably operating along the logic of only being able to get so wet. But seriously, his character arc was all about him learning to love himself by loving and being loved by others, so it doesn't make sense for him to battle the final boss on his own. Maybe the payoff will be worth it, but I can't say I have much faith in Tokyo Ghoul's storytelling at this point.

The horde battle against V doesn't accomplish much beyond soaking up time, which is an especially heinous crime in as such a claustrophobic season. Again, there's nothing to differentiate this group from the dozens of other goon factions in this show. A familiar face does finally show up when our good friend The Owl swoops into the fray, but it turns out it's just Eto's corpse being puppetted by Donato Porpora. This is hardly fair treatment for one of Tokyo Ghoul's more interesting villains, but the shell of a compelling character being jerked around by bunch of clowns is a pretty good metaphor for this back half of Tokyo Ghoul:re. Also apparently Hinami has super-hearing now? I apologize if this has ever come up before, but this is just such a bizarre thing to pull out of the blue in these final moments.

The two confrontations worth discussing are Donato versus Amon and Renji versus Uta. Amon's battle with Donato has been a long time coming, so much so that its impact is sufficiently diluted by how long ago we learned their backstory. Letting a subplot simmer in the background is different from taking it off the stove, shoving it in the refrigerator, and slamming it back in the microwave two minutes before you have to serve it. This is the latter situation. The fight itself makes for a neat visual metaphor where Donato's duplicitous nature manifests as an army of clones attacking Amon from every angle. The resolution is pretty weird though. It's Tokyo Ghoul, so of course Amon must reckon with the knowledge that Donato could be both a malicious serial killer and a kind father figure (and between him and Mado, Amon is two for two with problematic dads). However, the tone doesn't sit right with me. Donato is too unapologetic and Amon is too grief-stricken, and while I might have felt more sympathetic after a more consistent buildup to this moment, that's not what we got. Tokyo Ghoul's morally complex portraits of good and evil only work when they're allowed to evolve organically. I'm over getting them thrown at me in the middle of death scenes. In the end, Donato was just too much of a murderous jerk to care.

If Donato and Amon's story was taken off the burner too long ago, Renji and Uta's relationship hadn't even started cooking until this episode. They're apparently longtime friends, but I can count the number of times I've seen them speaking with each other on one hand. Like Donato, we really don't get any insight into Uta's motivations aside from both of them being caricatures of sensationalist fictional murderers. Uta's deal seems to stem from an arrested development, but I don't follow how not wanting to grow up leads to wanting to eat your best friend. It all ends with the two of them reunited and laughing anyway, which doesn't feel like a redemption for Uta so much as an absurdly convenient way to wrap up his character without doing anything that really matters.

Almost everything in this episode feels inconsequential, and it's no way to drum up anticipation for a finale, but I think everyone involved in Tokyo Ghoul:re can't wait for it to be over at this point. We're going through the motions of a conclusion with all the compelling elements of the story in the rearview mirror as we barely coast across the finish line. I'm hoping for a happy ending for our heroes, but it almost doesn't matter. The damage has been done already. All that's left is to see this through to the end.

Rating: C

Tokyo Ghoul:re is currently streaming on Funimation and Hulu.

Steve is an anime-reviewing zombie who can be found making bad posts about anime on Twitter.