I like the ending although I did expect the ending to be a happy one, I knew Ken would live the moment they introduced the romance between Ken and Touka, due to the entire point of :re was to break from the whole "hate cycle", Ken needs to live and his child would need to survive inorder for that to happen to not end up like Touka's parents or anyone else's parents in the story really, what I didn't expect was the amount of characters that survived at the end.
The problem with second half of :re was that it was always going to be hard to write the ending arc for Ken to reunite Ghouls and Mankind, at that point after the Rue Island arc people's questions were always "how's Ken going to do it? what are they going to eat?", I don't know if Ishida came up with the concept of dragon much later on but I think it was introduced way too late, and the Washuu/V stuff weren't too fleshed out as a result, making the whole arc being fights where Ishida throwing out "deathflags" over and over that end up to be nothing at the end. I get what he's going for with the dragon but it was not executed too well.
A few things that are unclear, what was Arima trying to accomplish other than breaking the cage? Did he know Furuta's plan? They seem to imply that he expected the Dragon to show up at some point since he told Hirako "everyone will become ghouls", and that Ken was the hope of the Sunlit garden kids, the only thing that ended up affecting the sunlit garden kids at the end was that the Washuus going extinct so there won't be more of them being born, is that all they want? Just to get rid of the V/Washuu once and for all and use the Dragon for medical researches? None of them used the toxin to extend their lives at the end (Hsiao's health is already deteriorating at 26) and the whole half human thing will still be an issue for mixed parents who want to have kids, just no organization to make them into child soldiers.
Few things interesting at the end:
- Hide's father was an investigator, wonder if he was just an ordinary one killed by random ghoul or if there's anything more, guess at least him being an investigator's child in the "washuu" theory was right, except he wasn't a Washuu, lol. I guess it leaves enough room for a cameo if Ishida decide to write a spinoff about the past.
- Previous Dragon(s) was what caused more Ghouls to appear, I guess it made sense with the underground one because the kids there thought they were humans and didn't know of the concept of "ghouls", but the Washuu existed way before that incident in the middle east so that can't be how Ghouls suddenly appeared either, especially when the Washuus were cannibals, I guess it just has to do with the "Toxins", probably better to leave it at that.
- Ken's daughter is either human or half-human? Since she can eat apples.
- Shirokae is a beast, really too bad after Noro everyone else was kind of a jobber that dies in a few hits.
At last this was on the back of Volume 15:
Translations: (From
http://kenkamishiro.tumblr.com/post/172022520297/text-accompanying-kanekis-illustration-from-vol)
When I'm hiding something, I end up touching my chin.
When Hide is thinking about something, he puts his hand on his cheek.
Haise imitates that and touches his cheek.
Akira-san braids her hair so that she can remember her parents.
Whenever Urie-kun paused, he was thinking about something.
When Mutsuki-kun grabs the hem of his shirt, he shuts away his own feelings.
Saiko-chan often cried when she thought about her mother.
Shirazu-kun said that he wanted to go on a motorcycle trip with his sister.
When I saw Touka-chan's true feelings, she looked straight at me with her right eye.
I'll probably re-read the last arc once I pick up the last 2 volumes when they are out in my region, a lot of the dragon stuff in the last arc just flew right over my head.
Wonder who will be on the cover of vol 16, likely Ken + Touka I guess.
