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superryunosukeyuki · 3 years

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Rize’s Rebirth

In the final arc of Tokyo Ghoul :re, a number of plot points were left unanswered. The most prominent and mysterious of these points was Rize Kamishiro, who was the driving plot point of the arc. After Kaneki (who became a one-eyed ghoul by having Rize’s Kakuhou implanted into him) ingested the Oggai (who each had a Kakuhou of Rize’s as well) and a “core” from Furuta’s body, he transformed into an enormous Kakuja called “Dragon.”

After Kaneki was extracted the Kakuja dissolved, but it left behind a number of oviducts that continued to function. The core of the 19th ward oviduct turned out to be Rize herself.

However, if you look closely at the egg membrane in the first panel, you’ll notice that there doesn’t appear to be a body inside. There are merely tentacles writhing around, but these tentacles consolidate and then Rize herself burst out of the egg. This suggests Rize was formed from the egg rather than already being present in it. But how could Rize have been “formed” if she already existed? Also, why did she later form strange, animalistic features when she was confronted by Kaneki?

“The core”

As shown in the first image above, Kanou stated the final step towards creating Dragon was a “core” placed in Furuta’s body. @littlemissymonster once speculated that this core could have been Rize’s main Kakuhou. In the series, it’s confirmed that severely damaging or destroying the kakuhou is a death sentence for a ghoul.

During Nishiki and Kurona’s fight with Roma on Rushima Island, Kurona tries to pierce the latter’s Kakuko because it would presumably be fatal. In the original series, Nashiro is unable to recover after having most of her Kakuko destroyed. Also, in one of the Tokyo Ghoul novels (Void), a ghoul named Noyama dies after Kaneki eats his Kakuho. However, there are also references in the series to ghouls that have multiple Kakuho sacs.

Eto (and later Yoshimura who posed as her) was determined to have 6-8 kakuho during her initial battles with the CCG. Later, during Kaneki’s battle with Shinohara in Kanou’s lab, Shinohara suspects Kaneki has multiple kakuho after he unveiled a new kagune form.

For six months prior to the battle in Kanou’s lab, Kaneki engaged in several acts of cannibalism to increase his ghoul abilities. This consumption of excess rc cells is likely what caused the formation of new kakuhou beyond the original one he received from Rize. The same is likely for Eto as she grew up in the 24th ward where it’s said cannibalism is common place.

However, this creates some confusion. In several places it’s mentioned that damaging the kakuho can be fatal. In addition to the above examples, it’s mentioned that in Yoshimura’s first fight with Arima his kakuhou received “lethal” damage. However, Shinohara managed to destroy a few of Kaneki’s kakuhou during their fight, but he continued fighting just fine. It seems that only if a ghoul’s original kakuhou (not those formed by excess consumption) is damaged then it is lethal.

This would explain why Rize was able to survive multiple Kakuhou extractions. After Furuta dropped steel beams on Rize in the first chapter, she was handed over to Kanou to extract her kakuho to create one-eyed ghouls. While Rize was never stated to be a cannibal, she did eat several times the number of humans a normal ghoul typically eats (hence her title “Binge Eater”). This could lead to the formation of extra kakuho, and so for Kanou’s experiments he would extract these extra kakuho to implant into humans. By leaving Rize’s original, or main, kakuho alone he could keep her alive and wait for these extra kakuho to grow back for further extraction.

So, the “core” that Kanou implanted into Furuta was likely Rize’s main kakuho. Extracting this would lead to her death, and this was necessary for Furuta’s plan to resurrect her (will explain below).

RC Cells as Memory Cells

In a ghoul biology post by @coromoor, it’s hypothesized that rc cells are a type of blood stem cell. This is evidenced by their presence in the bloodstream, their appearance being similar to blood cells affected by sickle-cell anemia, and their ability to regenerate multiple types of tissue.

Stem cells are able to differentiate into any type of cell. This includes memory cells, and if rc cells are a type of stem cells than this explains why Kaneki (who has Yamori’s rc cells as he ate his kakuhou) is able to replicate Yamori’s kagune.

This would also explain Kaneki’s visions of Rize. In part 1, whenever Kaneki was in a mentally low state, a vision of Rize would appear and speak with him. If rc cells also double as memory cells, then this could explain these visions. As Kaneki had Rize’s kakuhou (and therefore her rc cells) he also had her memories inside of him.

Later, when Kaneki is inside the Dragon in part 2, he has another vision of Rize. She refers to the Oggai as “small coffins.” A coffin is a container for dead remains, and this further supports the idea that she died after her her “core” (main kakuhou) was extracted from her body to be implanted into Furuta. However, her core and dozens of her other kakuhou have now been reunited inside of Dragon.

One of the panels shown at the beginning of this post showed Rize’s body forming inside of an egg. If rc cells are stem cells, then they can differentiate into any cell or tissue type (skeletal, muscle, blood, brain, etc.). By bringing together so many of Rize’s rc cells, it’s essentially created her a new body. It created a new Rize.

When this new body is formed, it’s still lacking its lower half. However, when Kaneki encounters it in :re 178 it appears more developed. It seems the purpose of Dragon was to gain energy (by eating humans) so Rize could be fully reformed.

Purpose of the Resurrection

All of this begs the question: why would Furuta go to all this trouble of resurrecting her when he could have avoided killing her in the first place?

It’s implied that continually extracting kakuho on a ghoul has negative impacts on their mental health. In a flashback in :re 65, Shachi mentions that Yoshimura’s kakuho is constantly being extracted by the Aogiri Tree (for One-Eyed Ghoul experiments). He says this has left him incognizant (lacking knowledge or awareness). This suggests the extractions have left him in a vegetative state.

This seems to be the same case for Rize (who also suffered from multiple extractions). While Furuta is talking to her in :re 119, she doesn’t acknowledge him or any of her surroundings.

Furuta’s goal from the beginning was to overthrow the Washu clan and to destroy the system they created, and to do this he needed Rize’s kakuho. However, he was also in love with Rize (having helped her escape the Sunlit Garden) and wanted to marry her. So, he used her to destroy the “cage” created by the Washu and V by unleashing the Dragon. Then, he planned to use the same Dragon to resurrect her so he could be with her.

In the end, all Furuta really wanted was a normal life.

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