English Dub Review: Tokyo Ghoul: Re “writE: The Absent One”

What did Eto do to Kanae?

Overview (Spoilers)

Shu is in a bind. His family sits out in the open as ghouls, and his father sacrificed himself to get Shu out of the mansion. Now, as the servants of the family act as meat shields until he can get a pickup from a helicopter. In the meantime, the CCG breaks into teams to get up to the top of the skyscraper. After noticing that the Quinx Squad has evolved to a whole new level since their last fight, Sasaki feels confident they can handle things on their own. He jumps out a window and climbs up to the top to confront Shu.

The Quinxes mash up against an enemy we’ve seen briefly throughout the series: Noro. His eyeless mask adds to his creep factor, and that’s already kinda high. His kagune reaches all over the map, manifesting as giant tendrils tipped with a massive maw. On top of that, they simply can’t do enough damage. However, Shirazu pulls out his new quinque, Nutcracker. This weapon appears to be a short sword but pops open its blade into an angled sphere. If stabbed into something when it pops, that thing no longer exists. He uses this on Noro to great effect… except that Noro just regenerates and eats more of their compatriots. This is bad.

Kijima and Ihei take on several low-level ghouls on the ground floor. Their progress halts when they run into Matsumae and the butler Mairo. Without holding back to protect her comrades, Matsumae can really cut loose. She holds her own against Ihei, and even manages to get the upper hand when the investigator slips on some blood. Horribly wounded, Ihei grabs a friend’s quinque, which shoots out a beam that looks like a proton beam from Ghostbusters. Matsumae holds her ground against the shot, but can’t take much more. Mairo jumps over her for an attack, allowing Ihei to attack him and reveal an opening. Kijima attacks, but a flurry of blows from Matsumae leaves Kijima as a plate full of meatballs. Despite her valiant battle, she gets taken by surprise when Nimura uses another investigator as a shield. He blinds her by sticking his fingers in her eyes, then takes off her head with Kijima’s chainsaw.

Back up on the roof, Sasaki takes on Shu, and puts the nobleman on the ropes. However, Sasaki isn’t there to kill Shu. He wants to take him back alive as a prisoner. No dice. Shu now lives because of the sacrifice of his family and servants, and has to live for them! The battle continues for a while until Sasaki is about to truly beat Shu. Then, his arm suddenly decides it doesn’t like being attached to him anymore. Kanae arrives on the scene, sporting a new mask with a multitude of eyes and a familiar, wide-mouth grin. She whups Sasaki, holding him out over the edge of the building, but he kicks her head clean off. She merely reattaches it, just like how Noro reattached his body during his regeneration. She’s far different than she was before, and is more than a little unhinged.

In the meantime, Eto approaches in her form as a monstrous beast…

Our Take

Well, we are definitely at the end of a season. So much death and destruction. This episode has great action all throughout, and it showcases the abilities of the Quinx squad. I like the Nutcracker quinque. It’s a good weapon for Shirazu, since his kagune is all about range. It balances him out with a powerful and fast melee weapon. We also get a better look and Saiko’s kagune, and it is scary! It looks like a giant, fleshy centipede that ends in three long tentacles. We see it hack a ghoul in half, so it’s got a ton of raw power.

What I find more interesting is Kanae’s new regeneration powers. It is implied that she gained them from the torture she received at the hands of Eto. Since she also gets a new mask that resembles Noro’s, it seems that Kanae and Noro may have gone through the same procedure. What this procedure actually is has been left a mystery, but a frightening one. Kanae no longer feels pain and can regenerate from anything, making her the perfect bodyguard for Shu… if she can still hold her sanity long enough to do so.

The animation on the episode was great. I never spotted a single error, but there was a bit of an issue with the direction. There was a couple of places where the drama could have been amped up with different views of the goings-on. For one, the shot where we see Nimura dispatch Matsumae was of his face with blood spraying up on it. I would have thought that it would be more impactful if it was further back, and silhouetted out. We could then see blood spraying, and witness the death of a likable character in all its horrific detail. Second, when Sakaki kicks off Kanae’s head, it felt like just another kick. With a different angle, it could have had gravitas. We could have been misled to think that he actually killed her with that hit, only to have it reattach when it lands.