Tokyo Ghoul:re Episode 23 Review: ACT: Encounters

Tokyo Ghoul:re is about to end and I have to say, I feel an immense sadness… but for the wrong reasons. The voice acting in this anime is so bloody great but the series was wasted in its inconsistency and lack of quality as a production. It honestly pains me to see what-seems-to-be a great storyline being butchered up like that. *sighs*

Japanese Original Episode Title: 邂逅　ACT

Plot

So the dragon has another core despite Kaneki and if everyone wants to survive the Ghoul apocalypse, they need to take care of it in less than 12 hours, otherwise everyone will be poisoned and turned into a ghoul. Kaneki seems to be the only one who is resistant to the poison, so he decides to go to the underground core of the dragon and destroy it along with Ayato who insists on helping out. The rest of them fight off the Clowns and when it seems like they are winning, a ghoul that looks like the Owl appears once more breaking havoc. Hinami locates that the Owl is being controlled by Donato and Kotaro goes to confront him. Uta and Itori meet Yomo where Uta starts fighting him but Yomo doesn’t kill him because he values their friendship. Amon manages to finish off Donato where he confesses that he always loved him as a father and couldn’t bring himself to hate him for what he has done. Meanwhile, Ayato and Kaneki are getting closer to the underground core of the dragon: Ayato stays behind to stall and face off the monsters while Kaneki moves ahead and finds Furuta guarding the core.

Episode Highlights

Uta and Yomo: It’s amazing how deep and well-thought the relationships between the ‘minor characters’ are in this show. It was blowing my mind as to why the Clowns were fighting along with Furuta and tried to kill everyone and now I finally got my answer: it was because they sought power and because they were lonely… (I am joking). Nevertheless, Uta’s and Yomo’s story was very touching and made me rather emotional. If they have added a bit more about their past, it would have been a wonderful scene.

Donato and Amon: And since we are talking about emotional: Am I the only one that actually cried when Amon said to Donato that he loved him as his father? Such a heartwarming moment in the middle of all chaos. It was so unexpected that my poor feels were not ready for this. God damn it, who put these tears in my eyes?

Nishio and Tsukiyama: Shuu: ‘I need more couper, couper, COUPER for Kaneki’, Nishio: ‘Shut up already.’ I love the dynamic between these two.

The final boss fight is here: Finally Furuta, you are going down and I can’t wait for Kaneki to kick your butt. The final dialogue of these two made me so excited for the next episode: ‘You know I am actually pretty strong’ *Kaneki cracks his fingers Jason-style* Boy, oh BOY!

Themes & Trivia

A little more on Uta as a character: He has been my favorite character in the show, so that’s why I feel like there should be more information on his background in order to make his fight with Yomo more impactful. First of all, yes, Uta as a teen used to have his hair color much lighter, swept back, and at times kept down with a hairband (as you saw in the flashback when Yomo was carrying him). Uta mentioned that he was lonely because they couldn’t spend time together with Yomo after he joined the Anteiku and shit got real with Kaneki.

What happened in the past? Uta used to be the leader of the 4th ward, as he was the strongest ghoul there. Sometime during his reign, he was informed of a strong ghoul roaming in his territory. After fighting this ghoul numerous times and feeling their strengths were on par, he later learned he was named Renji Yomo and they formed a friendship.

At an unspecified time period after Renji began living with Uta’s gang, ghoul investigators, led by Kishou Arima, entered the area on an extermination mission. With his gang, they surrounded a group of investigators, including Take Hirako. The two groups fought to the ghouls’ advantage until Arima appeared. Watching Yomo being enraged and easily overpowered by the CCG’s Reaper, Uta instructed his gang to retreat after Yoshimura appeared to save Yomo. And that’s when he joined the Anteiku.

Why Yomo didn’t killed him? After falling to the ground, Uta sorrowfully reminisced about the past, expressing a strong desire to be with Yomo all the time like the days of old, before he joined Anteiku. Renji arrived and reasoned with Uta, and the two revived their friendship. Renji began to carry Uta to safety as the two shared childhood memories.

What does he tattoo say? The tattoo on his neck is a Latin quote written in Greek letters which read, ‘I can live neither with you, nor without you’.

Comments

The overall animation for this episode was quite okay so I am getting my hopes up for the final one! I can’t wait to see why and how Rize is going to come up during Kaneki’s battle (judging from the preview) and I honestly can’t wait to see Furuta dead.

Here comes round two!

Not just round two, the final round if I may say so. The epic final episode is coming up next week and hopefully the animation budget was kept for making the final action scenes bloody amazing. Stay tuned!