Tokyo Ghoul ep5: this is getting on the kinky side

 

The psychology of a character that would throw themselves away as food for the person they love. The desire and devotion of someone so in love with their carnal desires that they’d eat their own kind. The heart of a woman who’d poison herself just to have friends. I know there are plenty of people who’d love to strike this show off as boring or in lacking in interesting characters, and that’s fair. but I could not be more interested in seeing where the pieces of this puzzle fall.

Boy, the people in this show sure are wired in an interesting way.  Sure, Ken is a rather boring, and for some people grossly annoying character, but there are some things to think about with the rest of the cast.  The Gourmet for instance, he embodies the passion the ghouls have when it comes to their palettes.  I almost admire that aspect about him.  He has a satisfyingly calm attitude to him – until he gets too close to his passion.  It would be fair to compare him to a snake, a creature that can appear to be calm and collected, until you see it strike with lightning speed and then go about swallowing its prey whole.  That’s what this ghoul is, calm to the point of achieving his goal, then savoring it with all his might.  I think if you were to peek into his brain, you’d just see a a swirl of quiet obsession revolving around Ken and taste.  He’s really not that hard to understand, he just appears to be exponentially more difficult to stop.

In the end, he can’t simply simmer on the fact that such a rare creature as Ken is in his hunting ground.  He just has to have him.  And that’s what sets the events of this episode in motion.

Ken hardly has much time to recover from nearly being mauled and served for a very macabre dinner, when the Gourmet sets his sights on him again.  But he does have a little time to take in a little more of the refreshing monotony of life.  He spends some time visiting Touka, who has taken off from work do to the circumstances of her “meal” at school in the last episode.  And this brings me to how Touka has been interestingly and foolishly trying so hard to fit in at her school setting and to have an actual friend.  Her friend seems to be consistently sharing food with her, and Touka for whatever season continues to try to EAT the food!  It’s insane, because we learned previously that that food will actually make ghouls sick.  Not only that, she’s eating it in surprisingly large quantities.  We learn later in the episode about how she and the Gourmet used to run in the same circles, and how she used to be a very formidable killer.  It would be nice to know what caused such a substantial change.  I got the feeling that she was that kind of person before, but it doesn’t change the fact that I want to hear the story.

The real catalyst for this episode though is Nishio.  Yes, the guy with the glasses that tried to murder Ken and Hideyoshi, but ended up almost being murdered by Ken instead.  Turns out, Ken didn’t kill him as I thought had happened.  Instead, he’s been injured so badly that he can’t heal, and is in desperate need of food to stay alive.  Ken runs into him being bullied by a trio of ghouls who are actually beating him up before trying to eat him.  I guess he was getting tenderized.  Ken does save Nishio, but either I blacked out for a few moments when it showed the fight, or they completely skipped over it.  Regardless, Ken does get the jerk out of hot water and takes him back to his place, where he does have a real girlfriend!  Aaaaand she soon gets kidnapped by the Gourmet because she’s seen as a precious commodity to Ken.  Because they …  well because he talked to her for like five minutes.

This is an enticing turn of events, because when I saw Nishio with a female before, I just assumed it was another part of his way of seeming human.  But no, we learn they really do care about each other!  What the hell?!  I was really looking forward to this scumbag being a scumbag – or at least dead.  I didn’t really care much for him.  And even this little set up doesn’t make me think he’s a terribly interesting or deep character (I know Ken isn’t one either).  Even worse, they do this little shounen-esque flashback where we get the guy’s whole damn backstory.  I wasn’t necessarily moved; it was too predictable.  But I accepted the fact that the story wanted me to give a sh*t about Nishio.

The ending setup for this episode involves a church and the girl being unconscious and laid out on the altar, because this guy is way too into symbolism and his food.  When Ken shows up with Nishio, it’s revealed to them that the Gourmet wants to eat Ken, while he eats Kimi!

Again.  I will repeat this.

He wants to eat Ken, while he eats the girl.  I dare you not to have a dirty thought when you first hear that!  More importantly, the Gourmet is a sick puppy!  He doesn’t seem to care or understand how twisted this is.  All he’s thinking about is the best way to get the best flavor out of his prey.  GEEZ!  When Touka shows up to help out, things don’t really take a turn for the better, as the Gourmet has to put up minimal effort to subdue the three of them.  Ken is being toyed with, Nishio is just succeeding at being annoying and again is almost dead, and Touka doesn’t do much aside from inspire nostalgic monologues from the Gourmet about how awesome she used to be.

Things only start to look up when Ken and Touka get the bright idea to let her take a bite out of him, to power herself up.  It seems the Gourmet is right about some things.  The quality of the food does make all the difference for a ghoul.  Though that won’t necessarily be proven until the next episode.

For me, the biggest part of this episode was at the end when Ken grasped the idea that his especially edible and delectable meat would make good fuel for Touka.  It immediately gives me a strong idea where the bulk of the character development may lie.  People bonding over Ken as a weird food source and rare commodity.  It only gives further credence to the Gourmet’s claims.  What was previously thought to be only the ravings of a crazed lunatic, will soon become common knowledge is this is the default way to get out of violent situations.  It will likely completely changed a lot of the dynamics of his relationships now.  Going forward, I suspect my new nickname for Ken will be “Hamburger.”

Further Reading:

• Tokyo Ghoul ep4: a Mind Full of Lust and Wonder