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tg-headcanons · 11 months

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Heyo!! I recently watched tokyo ghoul pinto and wanted to know what you thought of it (if you've watched it)!

I DID AND I LOVE IT BUCKLE UP BECAUSE IM RANTING ABOUT HOW GOOD IT WAS

Tokyo ghoul pinto has it all. Ghouls doing average things, a glimpse into Shuu’s past, how humans view ghouls, HORI, and most of all, possibly the best and most important part of Shuu’s lore

So it comes as no surprise that I love Tsukiyama. He is my chew toy, my purse dog, a bug in a jar, my rotten soldier, my good time boy who I am putting in a dog crate and kicking down the stairs, because he is so interesting and bitchy. And in pinto I think we see the biggest, core arc of why Shuu is the way he is and what forces him to change

Shuu Tsukiyama has never faced consequences

We already know what he’s like. He’s grand, he’s fruity, he has access to social circles and hobbies that are both revolting to most and highly sought by few, but are, most importantly, a rich man’s game. Shuu may be a ghoul, but he has so much money and power that he’s never faced most of the struggles ghouls normally do. Sure he’s still as illegal to exist as the others, but no government agent is going to go after a family so well funded. When he hunts, it’s recreationally. When he’s at his lowest, he has a safety net. When he wants something, he gets it. He has all the time and resources in the world to devote to doing whatever he wants and what he wants is decadence that can not exist without harming people. Decadence that is generally understood to be sadistic and unnecessary, but he doesn’t view it that way because he simply doesn’t consider that there are consequences.

In the opening, we see him doing this. He attacks and kills a runner who he has apparently been tracking for a long time. He’s wearing nice clothes, he’s in a nice neighborhood where people with time feel safe out at night, and he’s doing this not out of hunger, but because he wants this specific meat that’s been toned to perfection. Much in the way someone would prefer a cut of veal over ground beef, he prefers a human body with the perfect taste

Here he’s caught by beloved ratgirl Hori, who gets a picture of him hunting. Now, any other ghoul would have killed her. It’s well established that when a ghoul is seen by a human, they need to kill that human because no matter who they are, it’s a risk to have someone know who they are. However Shuu doesn’t even seem to consider it. He doesn’t have that instinctive bolt of life or death terror like we see in touka or Hinami, because he isn’t like other ghouls. He has money and power and men like him don’t get investigated. So rather than immediately killing her, he treats her as he would a business acquaintance. He takes her out to eat, looks at her ID, and just… let’s her live. Of course he keeps tabs on her, but its very abnormal for a ghoul to let a human who has seen their face, let alone has photographic proof of what they are, just walk away

He trusts that he will see her at school. He trusts that she won’t report him. He thinks that this is a safe bet because, well, why wouldn’t he?

He does keep tabs on her, but he doesn’t even seem to realize how much power he has to do so. Shuu isn’t the one investigating her, his servants are. His servants watch her. Matsumae, his family’s personal school plant that his family can personally afford to train and hire, is the one who gets her information. She offers to kill her for him because this is such a routine, and is surprised when Shuu insists on handling it himself, citing his need to learn how to care for his own issues. This is a surprise because this hasn’t happened before. There’s been plenty of threats that have needed to be neutralized to keep him safe, but it’s not like the great and powerful Tsukiyama has ever had to do the work. Why would he? That’s what servants are for

He is solely at fault for being caught, but nothing bad is going to happen to him. He’s rich and he’s charismatic. Every girl in the school swoons over him because he’s beautiful and says the right words. Every jealous boy in school can’t touch him because can you imagine what his lawyers would do? Not a single person would dare speak badly about him because they know how powerful he is. The only time anyone ever tells him this is a bad idea is when he tells seemingly the only other ghoul student what’s going on. A girl who doesn’t have his money and power. And she tells him exactly what he’s doing

“I can’t believe you allowed this to happen, and yet at the same time I’m not surprised. This is just like you, or rather like your family. They’re so powerful they have influence over politics and business, as their distinguished son you get to live a charmed life. If you’d been brought up in a normal household, you wouldn’t dream of going into the world and making a spectacle of yourself. I’m amazed you’ve gone this long without getting found out”

And she’s right. She is issuing him the only warning that anyone has been willing to tell him. She tells him that the reason he’s alive, the way he lives, isn’t because he’s special, or clever, or beloved by all. It’s because his family is powerful and that’s it. It’s because his family has influence and money, enough to prevent people from looking too close, or digging too deep, or finding all the bodies in his wake. He is immensely privileged to be as cocky as he is and he needs to be careful

He is warned, but he doesn’t listen. Because in his mind, he is the main event, and it’s not only his right, but his duty, to put on a show

Shuu instead continues his game, because to him that’s all this is. To him, this is just a story, and he is the narrator. He invited Chie to the hospital to see the show he’s put on. He tells her about his observations with the aloof certainty only seen in particularly annoying grad students and men who don’t have people in their life kind enough to humble them before their inevitable social philosophy phase. He tells her about one particular interaction between a patient who is so rich that he gets away with all the harassment he wants, and the nurse who is trapped there by social necessities, but takes every opportunity she can to hurt the old man back. He sees this as a particularly human story that he is viewing from the outside, and takes it as an opportunity to show Chie how So Very Enlightened he is about how he sees it. He doesn’t once consider that he has something in common with that old man

Chie, ever the pawn in his game, goes along with it. She goes up with him to the old man’s hospital room. It’s opulent and nicer than anything she could afford, but inside there’s only rotten fruit and a dark, quiet place where the nurse can attack the old man where no one can see. Shuu narrates it like one would a nature documentary. Waxing poetic about how they’re both hiding their awful deeds and both victim and perpetrator, until he decides to step in.

He wants to show her that he is above them. That no matter who is in the right, or who they are, or how strong they are, he by right of power can do whatever he wants to them. He pins the nurse and makes her shut up, he rips the skin off of the old man’s leg and eats it, he makes quite a show of what he’s done and looks back at Chie for her reaction

And gets nothing

Pinto is a story about Shuu. This is what we see as an audience, it’s all from his perspective. This is what Shuu believes as part of the story, he too sees himself as the protagonist here. He’s always the protagonist, he’s always the coolest most interesting person in any room. Everyone loves him, everyone wants him and wants to be him. Shuu is gods specialist boy in every way so why, oh why, is Chie not impressed?

How dare Chie not be impressed?

This entire performance was for himself. She was a prop for him just as these other people were props for her, but he doesn’t seem to understand that. He’s enraged that all this time, no matter what he does, she’s just snapping pictures and listening, but not understanding that he is supposed to be better than her. Something she’s doing for herself. He yells at her, he threatens her, he even leans her out the window to show her that he is capable of killing her. He is asking her, demanding to know, who she thinks she is

She just takes a picture

He drops her, and only as he sees that she is continuing her work in the face of death does he save her. She’s happy to be alive, but even now, she doesn’t seem impressed with him. He makes a comment on keeping her like a pet because she’s amusing, but Chie refuses

Mind you, this entire time Chie has not been impressed. She does not idolize him. She does not hate him either. He simply isn’t important to her and it drives him insane. Shuu is so used to being the object of everyone’s adoration or hatred, he is used to people caring so much about what he does with no consequences when he does it, so when Hori, someone so below him doesn’t look up to him, he sort of loses it. He does everything he knows how from gracing her with his presence, to feeding her, to putting on a morbid show, and none of it works

And then she drops the bombshell that she has the picture of him eating ready to upload in the case of her death

For what is likely the first time ever, Shuu realizes he is in tangible danger. Everyone is a pawn in his game, but this time he’s not just an outside observer chuckling and commenting on how poorly everyone else is doing, he’s a player. He’s involved. He’s part of this story and not on his own terms. For the first time ever, someone is on his level and their world does not revolve around him. He is not the mastermind, he is no different than that old man waking up to someone who is ready to strike back at him, and now he’s painfully aware of just how capable he is of bruising

And he. Is. Afraid.

He plays it cool and quickly tries to get Chie to cancel it, and she does, but she also teases him. She toys with him in good fun but now, he’s in the place he wanted her to be in. He is as aware of her ability to kill him as he wanted her to be aware of his, and he is uncomfortable. His whole life he has gotten away with literal murder. His father sees no problem with it because he’s rich and sheltered too. His servants see no problem with it because the job pays and they care about him. His peers don’t even suspect it because he knows how to smile pretty and throw money around

But Chie never cared

This story is not about Shuu. This story is about Shuu and Chie, and he’s never had to share a title screen before. Chie had her own motives and desires that had nothing to do with him, only with her hobby and how she could better it. She was interested in him as a morbid curiosity and eventually a friend. She chose to be a part of his world not on his terms, but on her own. She was always capable of destroying him, but chose not to. Shuu was always capable of destroying her, and chose not too while not taking it very seriously, and didn’t realize until that decision that he didn’t really think much about had passed that he is in real, serous danger

Now, Shuu has two paths here. He could either kill hori like any other ghoul would, like his own servants usually do, or he can let her live as an equal, knowing everything she knows. And he lets her live. He lets her live because, in some small, almost unnoticeable way, he has grown. He sees her as her own person and, as much as it pains him, her life has value outside of him

They remain friends, friends who for the first time in Shuu’s life, are equals. Because for the first time in Shuu’s life, he is aware of what it means to have your fate in someone’s uncaring hands, and has to learn how to live with it. It is an amazing arc that continues in the main story, but I always come back to pinto to watch Shuu realize in real time that he is not untouchable, and one day someone will get the better of him

#tokyo ghoul #shuu tsukiyama #tokyo ghoul pinto #chie hori #still losing my mind over this #tokyo ghoul meta

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