Tokyo Ghoul:re Episode 9 Review: play: Departed Spirit

I just love Tsukiyama. Seriously, this guy is the reason why Tokyo Ghoul is so great. This episode was quite fun: we had plot progress, a lot of Tsukiyama, good humor, and an okay amount of action.

Japanese Original Episode Title: 亡霊 play

Plot

Tsukiyama is up and running again and wants to make Sasaki regain his memories as Kaneki. Sasaki and the Quinx squad go to Uta’s shop in order to create masks for the whole squad since Sasaki wants to impersonate ghouls to assist the upcoming Rose investigation. Despite his efforts to assist the team, Sasaki’s plan is rejected by Kori. Kijima releases a video on the CCG website where he is brutally torturing Yuuma and provokes Rose to come and kill him, but he gets into trouble for doing so. Tsukiyama decides to go save Yuuma and tries to make Sasaki help him out. Unfortunately, he fails to talk to Sasaki so Kanae decides to bribe Aogiri Tree members to attack the squad. The Yamori’s old gang confuses the members and ends up fighting Sakaki who kills everyone without breaking a sweat. The rest of the members fight Kanae and Grave Robber, while Saiko has gone into hiding but she is attacked by a weird looking ghoul. She is saved by a man wearing a black robe and by the end we see Eto watching the whole scene from a distance.

Episode Highlights

Tsukiyama is just the best: Seriously, I felt so happy seeing him back to his old self. Tsukiyama is charming and funny in his own way and really cares about Kaneki, which makes him the ultimate bro. And not only that, he really cherishes the people around him, and even though he is absolutely crazy, he is such an emotional and dramatic character. I really loved the scene when he was talking to Sasaki about literature. Oh, and of course, his French accent is just the best.

Uta has so much swag: His character design has been my favorite since the first time I saw him, with all these tattoos and edginess. His outfit was great in this episode and I love how he chit-chats with his customers when he takes their measurements in order to understand them more. To this day, I still don’t know if he is just a jolly-like hairdresser or a dangerous serial killer. Probably both. The rest of the Quinx squad members are questioning if he is a ghoul or not and are not blind like Sasaki (even if he probably does it intentionally).

Torso & Mitsuki: I am still quite upset that the anime hasn’t fully addressed the reason why Toru is obsessed with Mitsuki that much. Anyways, when they were fighting and Mitsuki was slicing him, were the blood and his face a metaphor for his ejaculation? He looked overly excited for a moment. Gross.

Themes & Trivia

Saiko’s nicknames: In this episod,e poor Saiko is being called a lot of things:

First, Uta called her a koro-pok-guru. Koro-pok-guru (コロポックル) are a race of small people in the folklore of the Ainu people of the northern Japanese islands. The name is traditionally analyzed as a compound of kor or koro (butterbur plant), pok (under, below), and kur or kuru (person) and interpreted to mean ‘people below the leaves of the butterbur plant’ in the Ainu language. The Ainu believe that the koro-pok-guru were short of stature, agile, and skilled at fishing. They lived in pits with roofs made from butterbur leaves.

Later in the episode when she is attacked by the weird ghoul guy, he calls her manju. Manju (饅頭, まんじゅう) is a popular traditional Japanese confection. There are many varieties of manju, but most have an outside made from flour, rice powder, and buckwheat and a filling of anko (red bean paste), made from boiled adzuki beans and sugar.

Epicureanism: In a flashback, Tsukiyama asks Chie what Epicureanism is. Well, Epicureanism is a system of philosophy based upon the teachings of the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus, founded around 307 BC. Epicurus believed that what he called ‘pleasure’ was the greatest good, but that the way to attain such pleasure was to live modestly, to gain knowledge of the workings of the world, and to limit one’s desires. This would lead one to attain a state of tranquility and freedom from fear as well as an absence of bodily pain. The combination of these two states constitutes happiness in its highest form.

Comments

Kanae’s German is just awful… It is hilarious to hear him talk and I don’t even speak German myself. When he said ‘His wish is my gebot’ I thought he either had a stroke in between or that a translating bot took over for a second. Also, the ghoul guy that attacked Saiko in the end (apparently his name is Shikorae) is the creepiest thing that we have seen on the show so far. He gave me the chills. And what was the deal with the way he said ‘Wow’ and ‘Ouch’? He made me giggle.

Hey? Hey why? Be cool boku.

Tsukiyama cracks me up so much. All his scenes were great. Loved it when Saiko saw him and just said: ‘Crazy suit’. The humor in this episode was really good. Hope to see more of it in the future episodes to come.

NEXT TIME: Sway