Tokyo Ghoul Re Kaneki and Touka Talk Again

"What the hell do you know?! It's all because I can't eat, because I could be a target at any time, all because I'm a ghoul! No matter how much I try, there's a wall I can never jump over, and there's happiness that I can never have. But I'm still hanging on to life. Despite it all."— Touka Kirishima, Tokyo Ghoul: Days Chapter 2

Touka Kirishima (霧嶋董香 Kirishima Touka) is a ghoul who is an ex-waitress at Anteiku. She is the daughter of Arata Kirishima and Hikari Kirishima, the older sister of Ayato Kirishima, the wife of Ken Kaneki and the mother of Ichika Kaneki.

Touka wears a rabbit mask while hunting, earning her the alias Rabbit (ラビット, Rabitto). In Tokyo Ghoul, she was a second-year student at Kiyomi High School and later a third-year after the post-Aogiri timeskip.

Two years after the Owl Suppression Operation, she returns as the Manager (店長, Tenchō) of the coffee shop :re. Following its destruction she joins the newly formed organization Goat, thus relocating to the 24th ward along with its other members. After the Defense of Tokyo, Kaneki and Touka currently live happily married (which now makes her Touka Kaneki) with a daughter and another child coming, with humans and ghouls finally united together

Appearance

Touka is a slender and attractive teenage girl with bob-length dark blue hair that has long bangs that reach her chin covering the right side of her face and blue eyes. She appears to be a cute, normal girl that one would not suspect to be a ghoul. Her facial features and hairstyle bear a strong resemblance to Hikari Kirishima (Touka's mother) and Ayato Kirishima (Touka's younger brother). She wears her waitress or high school uniform for work and school respectively, whereas her casual clothes are tomboyish streetwear.

Her waitress uniform is a white shirt rolled up to her elbows, a black vest, a red tie, and a black skirt down to her lower thighs. On top of that skirt, she also wears a brown skirt that reaches her upper thighs. She also wears tight red leggings.

As "Rabbit", she wears a long coat jacket, rabbit mask, and a blonde, or sometimes a pink, wig to conceal her identity. After the Aogiri arc, her hair reaches her shoulders, but her signature bangs remain the same. As a child, she wore dresses and bunny hair-clip on the left side of her bangs, and her hairstyle was much the same. However, her bangs at first were brushed to the side revealing her whole face.

After the timeskip, Touka became a beautiful woman that many characters including Ken Kaneki have been left speechless by her attractive appearance. During a negotiation between the CCG and Goat, a ghoul investigator was stunned by Touka's beauty. She has reverted back to her short bob cut. Her bangs are shorter as it reaches her nose instead of her chin and it is considerably bouncier than her previous bob haircut, in addition, she has dyed her hair a much lighter shade of blue. Touka switched to a more feminine style of clothing. She wears a white wide neck blouse with a black apron over the top for her waitress outfit. When Touka's moving around as a "ghoul", she wears a trench coat, pants and boots.

After the Clown Siege, Touka dyed her hair back to its original dark blue color.

Manga Depiction

Anime Depiction

Tokyo Ghoul

Personality

Touka's personality is initially defined by her duality between rage and kindness, with her character arc centred around that rage fading as well as her kindness coming to the fore. She is inherently kind, but this was repressed due to her losing her father and thus having to survive in the ghoul world from an early age, which required her to be ruthless. As Shuu Tsukiyama notes, she had previously looked more dangerous and cold but has somewhat softened up because of her human life, and continued to do so due to Ken Kaneki's influence, who allowed her to be the kind person she is deep down.

She is also rash and reckless mainly due to her abandonment issues, causing her to lose control of her emotions when losing someone close to her, and her insecurities over her ghoulhood, given the dangers associated over simply existing as a ghoul, as well as the necessity to eat humans to survive. She longs to be human and desires to integrate into their society, as shown by her strong connection with the human world. This comes from her father, who taught her to reject her ghoulhood and to live with humans in order to survive, as well as a desire to simply live happily and in peace with her loved ones. She hates her ghoulhood and has low esteem as a result, as shown by her reaction when called beautiful by Kimi Nishino, despite seeing her as a ghoul with a kagune. However these insecurities also cause her to lash out at the world when there's injustice done towards ghouls, particularly when it's done ghouls close to her.

This low self esteem is further diminished due to her abandonment issues, saying herself she felt "useless" for being unable to stop her father from getting killed, which she viewed as him prioritizing revenge for her mother over taking care of her and Ayato Kirishima. These issues become worse when Ayato and then Kaneki abandon her, creating and reinforcing a mentality that she's not good enough for the people she loves to stay with her. This low self esteem as well as her abandonment issues results her willing to recklessly throw her life away multiple times before the timeskip, such as during the Anteiku Raid, when she cannot bear the pain of losing someone close to her.

Due to her fathers teachings she attempts to conform to the world, having been compared to a bird trapped in a cage within the story itself, but she also cannot accept injustice done towards ghouls due to her insecurities, nor can she bear the pain of losing someone close to her due to her abandonment issues, and lashes out when she cannot suppress this anger, such as during the Doves Emergence arc. She is full of hatred for ghoul investigators, stemming from the fact that her family was torn apart by the CCG and she had to live life as a fugitive. This hatred and rage subsides over time, especially after she kills Kureo Mado out of revenge, realizing he was married afterwards. This lead to her realizing she was only contributing to the cycle of hate and revenge, having likely inflicted the same trauma on someone as the ghoul investigators did on her.

After the timeskip, Touka is more openly gentle and warm, following on from her development from before. She has matured during this time, as a consequence of the Anteiku Raid. This can be seen by her being able to better accept loss, due to Renji Yomo teaching her before the timeskip to live while losing things. After continually experiencing loss she adopts a more healthy "live while losing" mentality, in order to come to terms with such a harsh and dangerous world for ghouls, which results in her being far less reckless. She is also less confrontational, having lost Kaneki for years following their confrontation and her losing control of her emotions in the way that she did, which she later regretted. This has also lead to her being more repressive of her emotions, in order to process potential losses in a healthier way, as evident in the 24th Ward where she had to ignore Yoriko Kuroiwa's execution letter, as well the potential deaths of Yomo and Hinami Fueguchi.

She has also become accepting of the fact that she loves Kaneki, unlike before where she denies it in embarrassment, which led to her being happy when he gave her the look he used to give Rize Kamishiro and over time after Kaneki regained his memories and lead Goat, she became outright bold and openly professed her feelings for him by revealing how she felt over him isolating her and even going as far as to ask if he was a virgin and in fact even noting she wants to do the deed with him, with her indeed making the move that caused them to consummate their relationship and showing an openly soft and tender side with him. It is her relationship and marriage to Kaneki that provides her with the happiness she always yearned for and helped show that her belief that she wasn't good enough for her loved ones to stay and confide in her was wrong.

Plot

Main article: Touka Kirishima/Synopsis

Relationships

Ken Kaneki

Touka initially had a neutral relationship with Kaneki being that of waitress and customer until he transformed into a ghoul. Touka was confused to see a half-ghoul and became hateful to Kaneki, especially after he stated that he is different from "monsters" like her and other ghouls. She refused to show any compassion to him as he is a former human. During his early days at Anteiku, Touka would often boss him around and chide him for the slightest mistakes. She considered many of the things he did irritating and bothersome. However, she still agrees to train Kaneki when he wants to become stronger and learn how to use his kagune. After he helps her avenge Ryouko, Touka's attitude towards Kaneki improves and she treats him in a more friendly manner, though she maintains her rough attitude. Touka is one of the closest people to Kaneki in Anteiku, helping him adapt to ghoul life. According to herself, she had fell for Kaneki when he confessed he would be sad if she died. She often worried for his safety due to his inexperience in the ghoul world and in more than one occasion risked her own life to save him. After Kaneki's rescue and departure from Anteiku, which Touka was willing to follow him into, even giving up her collageship just for him, only to be rejected by Kaneki, which caused her to run away in dismay, Touka would often wonder of his whereabouts and wanted to meet him again. However, she hated the person he had become after the torture and when they finally met, Touka found Kaneki's reasons to be inadequate and violently lashed out, yelling at and beating Kaneki and even saying he should never return to Anteiku before leaving him beaten on the ground after questioning why he became so different, which left Kaneki remorseful and with the realization what he was doing was wrong. She felt regret over this and this intensified after Kaneki was declared dead, crying, but she still believed he was alive.

She later met Kaneki as he visits :re as Sasaki and she identified him. He seems to somewhat remember her, as he tears up when he smells her coffee and thinks it reminds him of someone and he developed an infatuation for Touka, often visiting and looking at her the same way he did with Rize, showing romantic interest, which Touka recognized and made her happy due to how it was a sign of Kaneki returning her feelings. Nevertheless, she appeared to be resigned to the fact that at that point, they couldn't be together as Kaneki was now a Ghoul Investigator and put her feelings aside in favor for him being happy in his new life, which made her reject Tsukiyama's desire to make Kaneki regain his memories, as she believed it would be best if Sasaki does not remember who he was, but she agreed that if his memories come back, he would be welcome in :re.

Touka later met Kaneki after he fully regained his memories in Cochlea when he shields them from Arima's onslaught and, knowing Kaneki may intend to "die" again, inspired him to leave, sadly smiling and asking to see him later, which he deemed a cruel thing to the point of crying. They converse in a friendly manner in :re after the Third Cochlea Raid, before smacking Kaneki onto the tabletop counter. Later, in a private conversation with him, Touka asks if he is a virgin and in the anime, even says she wouldn't mind doing the deed with him, much to his embarrassment. She reveals how she feels; how their roles have been reversed and that Kaneki repeatedly leaves her out of danger, the first time being four years ago when he left Anteiku. She then told him that he often visited :re as Sasaki and looked at her the same way he used to look at Rize. She confesses that she liked it, thus finally admitting to her romantic feelings for him.

After escaping from the ambush by Mutsuki, Aura and one of the Oggai Squads, Touka and Kaneki take shelter in an abandoned building and when Kaneki couldn't offer any comfort to her on Yoriko and asked they sleep instead, Touka pins down Kaneki and kisses him, which results in them both consummating their relationship and officially becoming lovers, which results in her becoming pregnant with his child. She gives Kaneki Hikari's wedding band, which she says has been a source of strength for her during difficult times, as a memento of her. As they become more and more intimate, Touka eventually revealed her pregnancy and Kaneki asked her to marry him, which she accepted.

When Kaneki seemingly died upon the emergence of the Dragon, Touka displayed how important he has become to her by displaying an uncharacteristic breakdown when desperately trying to save him. She was first left distraught, solemnly lamenting the apparent loss of Kaneki, and frustrated by GOAT's belief that they should let Kaneki rampage, to soon being driven to tears when reminded of their unborn child but gathered the strength to say that she needs to find Kaneki and get him to name their child. Touka was even willing to work with CCG to get Kaneki back and openly acknowledged their marital status by saying her husband was waiting for her when Mitsuki attacked her. She was left frantic when she saw his ring on a severed limb and frantically dug through Dragon while risking self-harm until she finally found him but was left concerned with how difficult it was to treat Kaneki and continued to force herself to stay awake when Kaneki was unconscious. After he woke up, she cried tears of relief and immediately hugged him. When Kaneki went to stop Dragon, Touka only reluctantly let him go and was left deeply concerned to the point of being unable to sleep.

After everything is finally over, Touka and Kaneki continue their marriage, with Touka starting a new coffee shop while taking care of her daughter with her husband.

Arata Kirishima

Touka, as a child, greatly looked up to her father and was supportive of his ideals. For her father's sake, she and her brother would usually eat human food when offered by neighbors, despite knowing it made ghouls sick. After Arata went missing, she believed in her heart that he would return back. Though, it is unknown if she still continues that belief. As proof Arata's ideals passed on to his daughter, Touka always ate the food Yoriko prepared for her, even though it made her sick because of her ghoul heritage. She would react in anger whenever Ayato would speak ill of him.

Despite his absence, she notes every thing that reminds her of her father. Shown during the numerous times others have made her nostalgic, including Kaneki's silhouette while he cooked like her father did in the past^[3] and the age of Shouta's father was close to Arata's.^[4]

Ayato Kirishima

As the last surviving member of her family, Touka is responsible for her younger sibling's well being. After Arata went missing she took the burden of raising him in order to follow in her father's footsteps. However, Ayato is devastated and bitter towards humans for how their prejudice against ghouls had torn apart his family. In turn, he has taken a different stance from his father and sister's view on them. Prior to his separation from Touka, he was her constant companion, they would hunt together and fight as a team. That is before he began to act on his own and go where he pleased without her, causing her to incessantly worry about him. Whether something would happen to him or why he was keeping himself separated from her, both bothered her.^[4] Following her enrollment into school, he left and Touka would receive word about his rampages in other wards, affecting her deeply and developed her fear of losing those she loves. However, she believed her own character and mistakes were what drove him away.^[3]

While he disagrees with her ideas on humanity, he still cares for her safety even despite joining Aogiri shown when he refused to let Yamori and Nico to take her as well as Kaneki. Remembering the emotional hurt Touka felt when he turned against his only family, during their first reunion she was anger at him, both with opposite views and what the right thing was. When they reunite again in :re during the Third Cochlea Raid, Touka supports Ayato in his fight against Arima and tells him to rely on her more instead of trying to handle everything himself.^[5] ^[6]

Yoshimura

During her early teen years, Yoshimura would keep tabs on Touka and her brother. When she would visit Anteiku he would lecture her about being careful and to keep herself aware due to her and Ayato's nightly slaughtering. To this she would often silently drink her coffee and half-ignore him. Occasionally he would irritate her.^[4] However some time before Ayato left, he offered her a chance to live in the human society and live a relatively stable life as a student with the condition she works for him. Reacting in surprise at first as if she did not see the point, she still attended school that Yoshimura paid for, and came to cherish and enjoy it, despite the hard work that accompanied it. She agreed to the condition, as she worked as a part-time waitress at Anteiku and completed errands for him regularly, such as getting coffee beans and collecting "food." Yoshimura would tease her occasionally, and is not bothered by her quick outbursts of anger. She does respect him, learning much of her morals from him alongside those learned from her father, in this he became a father figure to her.

Renji Yomo

Before Touka's employment at Anteiku, Yomo would clean up her and Ayato's messy kills to prevent the CCG from tracking down the two of them. When seeing each other during this time they were silent.^[4] However this changed after joining Anteiku, the two formed a good relationship as they worked, unknown to her and Ayato, Yomo is her maternal uncle, the younger brother to their mother, Hikari. In the past, he trained her in combat and knows the majority of her strengths, noticing instantly that she was not in the best condition when they trained along with Kaneki, since she was eating human food prepared by Yoriko. Together, they would be the ones restocking the "food" that Anteiku would offer to the ghouls who were unable to hunt. He speaks to Touka honestly, and did not sugar-coat his words when she attempted to join the others during the Owl Suppression Operation.

In Tokyo Ghoul:re, two years after Anteiku's destruction, posing as brother and sister, they opened another cafe called :re.

Yoriko Kosaka

Despite Yoriko being a human, she is Touka's best friend in high school. An aspiring chef, she would give food to Touka, who always accepted the food even though it made her sick. Even after it affected her in a fight. They promised to "always play together" even after they finished school. Years following the Owl Suppression Operation, Yoriko spoke of Touka, as they have not seen each other since. When Tooru Mutsuki attempted to rally Touka up by claiming Yoriko had been arrested under the suspicion of harboring ghouls, she claims to have never heard of Yoriko in an attempt to protect her.

After escaping Tooru and his unit, Touka made her way to the chapel where Yoriko was having her wedding with Takeomi Kuroiwa. Although saddened by being unable to go and congratulate her in person, Touka was nonetheless happy to see her best friend married and stated that she looked beautiful in her wedding dress.

However, despite her close friendship with Yoriko, Touka herself has shown to be willing to abandon her in order to save her unborn child. This is seen where after finding the execution approval letter for Yoriko after she was framed for sheltering a ghoul, Touka with a heavy heart, was willing to to do nothing to save her due to her pregnancy.

Hinami Fueguchi

Hinami sees her like an elder sister and loves her, so the two of them have a close relationship. Seeing that Hinami has also lost her parents to doves, Touka becomes fiercely protective of Hinami, risking her life to protect her and avenging her mother so her life would not be threatened. She is willing to kill for her, shown when a group of human boys attempted to take her, Touka was seconds from killing them in public, despite the risks of her ghoul nature being discovered by the surrounding crowd.

Nishiki Nishio

Originally, he and Touka did not get along very well due to territory disputes. After becoming an employee at Anteiku, they continue to butt heads, but the animosity eventually became friendly reffing. After the timeskip, Nishiki is seen at :re, where he and Touka continue to speak with each other in jabs, though it is apparent it is done in a friendly manner.

Hideyoshi Nagachika

Being a regular customer at Anteiku, Hideyoshi is on good terms with her. He always tries to hit on her which usually leads to comical situations. During Kaneki's employment at Anteiku, Hide would often jokingly lie about his reasons for his frequent visits and would look for her in the shop. This would often startle her and occasionally annoy her, however she was always gracious when handling his orders. After Kaneki had left, their interactions during their conversation were polite, lacking the previous comic relief and Touka was surprised that Kaneki did not even contact Hide and acknowledges him as Kaneki's best friend.

In :re. after he revealed himself once again, Hideyoshi and Touka had a conversation before the operation to dissolve the Dragon. During their talk, Hideyoshi removed his mask, while Touka confessed that she fell for Kaneki after he stated that he'll be sad if she dies, a rare moment which she openly showed and admitted her feeling to another individual.^[7]

Shuu Tsukiyama

Touka held negative feeling towards Tsukiyama, having had many confrontations with him when she and Ayato were younger. She described him to Kaneki as a "nasty one" during the Gourmet Arc. Later in :re, she greets him in a more casual manner, and is more patient with him, shown when she calmly tells him why forcing Kaneki's memories to come back would be a bad idea. It can be assumed her views toward Tsukiyama have improved, as she even went to rescue him when his life was endangered near the end of the Tsukiyama Family Extermination Operation.

Shouta

When Touka first found Shouta, she first approached him since he reminded her of Ayato when he was younger, therefore she decides to help him. He was content and calmed down around her while she maintained her normal brusque personality. However, after their first meeting and his denial of telling her about his mother, she angrily thought of him as a spoiled child. This changed when Shouta's father told her about the boy's deceased mother, she sympathized with him and understood why he acted the way he did. This connection with him later made her help his father since she did not want Shouta to lose both of his parents like she had lost hers. Later, unsure if Shouta's father had lived or died, she assumed Shouta would hate her if it was the latter, and she found herself unconsciously looking for him. Soon after finding out Shouta's father lived, she joined Anteiku as a part of their staff.

Tooru Mutsuki

Before their confrontation after Kaneki regained his memory, Touka had only a very limited waitress-to-customer interaction with Mutsuki, while the latter harbors a grudge against her. This was mainly due to Mutsuki's secret obsession toward her mentor Haise Sasaki.^[8]