Tokyo Ghoul:re Episode 15 Review: Union: Cross Game

Wait… what? In this episode we get to see that apparently everyone is a half-ghoul now. Is Kaneki not special anymore? What is going on?

Japanese Original Episode Title: クロスゲーム　union

Plot

Let’s try to write down all the events that happened in this episode.

First of all, we go back to seeing CCG on their mission of destroying the Aogiri Tree. Torso beats Mutsuki and takes her in a cave, Takizawa fights Hachikawa, Shikorae fights the ‘freckles girl’ and both ghouls win the fights. Hanbee then attacks Three Blades and beats her, but soon he is attacked by Kurona who seeks revenge on Juuzou for killing her sister Nashiro. She almost defeats him but then Juuzou appears and saves him. Kurona reveals to him that she keeps her injured sister inside her abdomen as a parasitic humanoid face in order to make Dr.Kanou bring her back to life. Juuzou tells her that Nashiro is already dead and defeats her but she manages to escape. Meanwhile, Akira and Houji face Tatara, who apparently lost his brother to Houji and wants to kill him ever since, but Tatara is betrayed by Takizawa who wanted revenge on him for mutilating and capturing him during the Anteiku raid as well as allowing Kanou to torture him in order to create the ‘perfect’ Kaneki. He kills Tatara and Houji and before he is able to finish off Akira, Amon stops him and saves her. Apparently, he has also been turned into a ghoul by Kanou after his capture. Back to Kurona, she finds Dr. Kanou asking him to save her sister, but he mocks her and unleashes his Quinx experiments (from Shirazu’s corpse) to defend himself, then suddenly Nishio arrives and captures him. Takizawa defeats Amon but the Quinx Squad led by Urie arrive in order to fight him. Meanwhile, as Naki and the White Suits are surrounded by the CCG, Tsukiyama appears offering help.

Episode Highlights

Hachikawa is such a good guy: When we see the flashback of him talking with the ‘freckles girl’, whose name is apparently Ayumu Hogi, he says to her: ‘You don’t like your freckles, is that why your head looks like a broom?’ And then shows her his face and tells her, ‘Look at this, it’s like having shit smeared on my face’. Aww, such a good guy, trying to make her feel better in such a cute and subtle way…

Kurona and Nashiro: Alright, this was actually quite a disturbing concept but lost its impact because of the episode’s pace and directing. I mean it is horrifying and probably disgusting to look at, so at least try to convey those feelings to the viewers, not just present it and be like: ‘Yes this is my sister, now bye’. Jeez. Plus when she was having a conversation with Dr. Kanou and showed him her sister’s voice, I died laughing saying to myself that it sounds like a fart and then he says it as well and I am like welp… at least I was on point.

Takizawa and Amon: So these guys were taken and experimented on by Dr. Kanou, the same doctor that transformed Kaneki into a ghoul and make Kurona and Nashiro the way they were. It seems like Takizawa was the test that was successful, but what is the deal about the ‘perfect’ Kaneki and all those Owl cages? Give us some more information god damn it! Also, Amon is a ghoul as well now but why does this feel like it doesn’t even matter anymore? Whoever pops in the screen and whatever his situations is, it just doesn’t make any difference to me at this point.

Themes & Trivia

Tatara’s name: Although his name is written like this in Japanese (タタラ), the kanji for tatara (鑪) is the traditional Japanese furnace used for smelting iron and steel. The word later also came to mean the entire building housing the furnace. The traditional steel in Japan comes from ironsand processed in a special way, the tatara system.

Comments

Uhm, who are all these people and just how much information has not been given to us? At this point nothing makes sense unless you research it and characters like Shikorae, Three Blades, Naki’s subordinates aka the White Suits, Dr. Kanou etc. are presented to us with a nameplate and we are expected to know who they are and what their deal is? What the hell Tokyo Ghoul, WHAT THE HELL?

At this point, I am sorry to say this, but the only thing that is worth it about Tokyo Ghoul is the amazing voice acting.

I hope you turn into space sushi.

Who was that guy and what the hell was that quote? Space sushi? Are we in elementary school? How low is this anime going to get? It saddens me to see it deteriorate week by week.

Episode 15 Preview