Warnings: body horror, gore, cannibalism, physical violence, dismemberment, major character death, heroic suicide trope, suicidal ideation, mention of child abuse,
This volume delivers some punches and major changes. While Haise is battling Kanae on the roof, Eto makes an appearance. Haise, sent back into his subconscious by traumatic injury, remembers his childhood, and finally gives in to 'Kaneki' and fights back, defeating both Kanae and Eto. Meanwhile, Shiraku is battling Noro, and makes an opening for Urie. After the end of the operation, we are jumped forward six months, where Kaneki, having resigned from his mentorship of the Quinxes, is spearheading the arrest of Sen Takatsuki (and we get her backstory, too), while the CCG is aiming for elimination of the Aogiri Tree. The organizational structure is changed, and we have yet more characters to remember, as Urie (now leader of the Quinxes) works in S3 squad, and Tooru is helping out with an operation to gain intelligence on a suspected Aogiri Tree base. But perhaps the most surprising development is Eto dropping that bombshell near the end of the book, where she comes out as a ghoul while also hinting at the CCG being in league with ghouls in her next book.
There are some major plot advancements here, and that, as well, as the confusing battle scenes, make this a bit chaotic. With the time jump, there are character changes, too, that don't match their actions. Kaneki, in his identity as CCG's Black Reaper, is hunting ghouls down with much more passion, and frankly I expected him to be angry at being manipulated by Arima and Akira (even though that had been developing for a while now, it feels that just went nowhere?); his attack on Tsukiyama, though, seemed to hint that he does some older emotions left in him. Furuta, his second on his squad, seems to be fishy as always (that and Arima discussing watching Kaneki seems to hint that they know about him). One interesting interaction is the one between Matsuri Washuu and Urie - it was a bit shady on the part of the former, and I don't know what it means yet.
I had some frustrations, too, with the plot this time. First of all, I didn't understand what were the conditions of Eto's arrest if she was still able to be out in public? I thought CCG just rounded up ghouls, especially the one ranked (and she's an S, if I remember?). Also, how is Torso still hanging around, ready to torment Tooru at every turn? Does he have a tracker on him? And finally, yeah, the action sequences in the start were so confusing I wasn't sure who was being impaled, who got dismembered, and what was going on.
Overall, though, yeah, it was a game changer of a plot. I am excited to see where it goes from here.
Received an advance reader copy in exchange for a fair review from Viz Media LLC, via Edelweiss.