Discussion
Understanding the Core of Violence through Kaneki Ken in Tokyo Ghoul
Violence in Tokyo Ghoul is generally represented through violent confrontations between ghouls and humans, as well as among ghouls themselves. Specifically speaking, for almost all instances of the said violence, be it humans deploying ghoul investigators to the district Kaneki is in and Kaneki’s community of ghouls retaliating in self-defence, or ghouls themselves attempting to wipe out Kaneki and his friends because they do not share the same ideology, Kaneki is to a large extent a determining factor. It can therefore be deduced that Kaneki is at the centre of violence in Tokyo Ghoul, because he has been a constant motivation, however big or small, for humans and ghouls who engage in violence.
Crucially, the root of Kaneki’s sense of self lies in abjection. To Kristeva, the Abject “disturbs identity, system, order.” Kaneki Ken is therefore an embodiment of such “disturbance” of a seamless identity, because he is patched together by organs from a dead ghoul and after consuming Jason subsequently fuelled by his carnal desires to prey on ghouls to augment his prowess and humans for continued survival. Violence causes him to come into being. The premise of his existence is the destruction of lives.
Furthermore, Kristeva argues, “Any crime, because it draws attention to the fragility of the law, is abject.” The law in this case can be interpreted as both the acting legal system that prohibits killing, and the established moral order which rejects killing. The crime therefore refers to any attempt to contravene this code. In other words, violence, and Kaneki Ken who is presumably going against the law and the prevalent moral order by engaging in such predatory behaviours, are existing in one unison, as the abject.
In fact, Kristeva claims the following:
“There, I (as the Abject) am at the border of my condition as a living being. My body extricates itself, as being alive, from that border. Such wastes drop so that I might live, until, from loss to loss, nothing remains in me and my entire body falls beyond the limit—cadere, cadaver.”
Kaneki Ken’s existence is an affront to Kristeva’s conception of selfhood, is a border that has been encroached upon; a border between the human and the nonhuman which is the ghoul. Kaneki Ken’s status as a half-human half-ghoul parallels the “border of [her] condition as a living being”, as Kaneki Ken is on the verge of dying before the ghoul organs implant and performs excruciatingly impossible tasks such as sitting through all of Jason’s torture procedures and forcing himself not to eat his best friend Hide despite intense, burning hunger.
Kaneki Ken, at the core of violence, is the abject. The centre of violence thus lies in abjection.
Understanding Abjection in Tokyo Ghoul
Kristeva posits abjection as the subjective feeling of horror when an individual meets what Kristeva coins "corporeal reality", or a breakdown in the distinction between what is self and what is other. Abjection is a process by which one separates one's sense of self – be it physical and biological, social or cultural – from that which one considers intolerable and infringes upon this sense of self, otherwise known as the abject, the "me that is not me” (Kristeva, 1982).
Biologically, in the case of Kaneki Ken, his sense of self is irreversibly blended with the intrusion of the ghoul organs. There exists no biologically meaningful way for him to differentiate his self-conception as a human being from a ghoul, as the very basis of his existence and survival fundamentally rests in the realm of the ghouls. Despite this, socialisation and enculturation (Kristeva, 1982) have ingrained in him an irremovable sense of humanity that often comes at odds with his ghoul self.
Importantly, this struggle is not unique to Kaneki Ken, as the pervasiveness of abjection in the centre conflict of ghouls vs human beings means that all the characters involved in the series will have to, to different extents, come to a point of distinguishing what is the self and what is not (Kristeva, 1982), before separating one violently from the other through physical or psychological violence. This struggle can be broken down into the simultaneous seeking and denial of self-assertion, escape and transcendence.
Violence as Simultaneous Seeking and Denial of Self-assertion
Self-assertion, with regards to the abjection theory, can be interpreted as continuous tensions between the subject and the abject, and the need of each to ensure its own existence and triumph over the other (Kristeva, 1982). In Tokyo Ghoul, Mado embraces the use of violence for reason no other than the destruction of all ghouls, whom he considers his abject because his subject self resents them in their entirety.
Fig. 1. Mado, often ostracised for his eccentricity and obsession over killing ghouls
Mado’s hate towards ghouls is not completely unfounded, as his wife was killed after encountering a ghoul herself. His wife was dear to him, and her death became his instrumental driving force for the extermination of ghouls, the belief that all ghouls are inherently evil and inferior creatures, and the hyper-responsibility that compels him to kill every single ghoul to defend his version of humanity’s values, to a point of eccentricity that often alienates him from the rest of his colleagues.
Later on, because of the sudden disappearance of Rize whose organs have been transplanted into Kaneki, Mado is deployed to Kaneki’s district to investigate, and along the way, kill any ghouls he sees. His overly exaggerated conviction in the unchallenged superiority of humans, the repugnant nature of ghouls, and the need to kill each and every one of them at any cost, was exemplified when Mado impaled Touka, a ghoul, to a wall.
Fig. 2 & 3. Touka being impaled by Mado on a wall while defending her identity as a ghoul.
Low angle frame is used to create an atmosphere of superiority and pride when Mado spoke. Mado’s subject asserts itself as the embodiment of hate towards ghouls. To Mado’s subject conception of humanity, the ghoul is the abject, because it has taken everyone and everything he loves. Therefore, when Touka as a ghoul similarly tries to assert herself, by claiming that merely being a ghoul does not mean she should be killed, Mado’s subject is forced into direct contact with the abject, inducing tremendous horror as the subject’s self-assertion is threatened (Kristeva, 1982). The violence of forcibly impaling Touka, is enacted not only because it is Mado’s job to kill a ghoul, but also a manifestation of the necessity for the subject to vanquish the abject. In attempting to destroy Touka, Mado reasserts his subject by attempting to kill ghouls that challenges his subject conception of human morality, that they should be exterminated and killed because not doing so may give them a chance to rob humans of whatever that is dear to them. This, in turn, also disallows and denies Touka from asserting her identity and belief that ghouls deserve treatment no less than human beings, as she is defeated and her belief is humiliated, when her claim that she did not “choose to live like this” is dismissed by Mado as “a scum’s comedic screeching”.
Thus, it can be seen the violence is represented as simultaneous seeking and denial of self-assertion in Tokyo Ghoul.
Violence as Simultaneous Seeking and Denial of Escape
Violence is often a means to escape ideas, notions or conditions imposed onto one by resisting them. It captures the essence of an individual’s hatred and anger and manifests these emotions as tangible actions (Carroll, 2014) that grant the individual liberation from his past. Conversely, this escape may not always succeed, and could enslave one to the very elements he finds undesirable when he becomes the one to execute and enact violence onto other people so as to erase his history as a victim of the torture associated with the violence used. In essence, while violence is often employed with the objective to escape, it can deny one true escape, as it masks perpetual torment and oppression under the guise of liberation and power (Carroll, 2012).
In Tokyo Ghoul, Jason is a ghoul who has been captured before by ghoul investigators and tortured both physically and emotionally during his time being locked up until he has escaped. After acquiring a position of power within a ghoul organisation aimed at terrorising both human beings and ghouls who do not share their ideology of ghoul supremacy, he begins adopting the very violence that traumatised him inside out and torturing anyone whom he captures in the exact same way of which he used to be a victim.
The Mise-en-scene (Yale Film Studies, 2002) captures this side of his character excellently as the props and costumes used such as his executioner’s mask and formal three piece suit have all been the attire of his tormentor, while the acting of the character employs significant use of typage, in which Jason completely embodies and re-enacts every stereotypically violent move of his tormentor, such as inserting Chinese centipede into his victims’ ears, using a pair of pliers to maim his victims and sharing the same catchphrase, “all sufferings in this world are born from an individual’s incompetence”, so as to psychologically manipulate his victims.
Fig. 4, 5 & 6. Jason re-enacting the torture to which he was once subjected.
Beyond mere torture and brutality, the real jail that Jason was imprisoned in is that of powerlessness, subservience and victimhood. Violence was used as a means to dominate and manipulate (Carroll, 2012) Jason’s self-conception, to make him feel utterly weak and incapable of fighting back. Jason is brainwashed by his tormentor into believing that “all sufferings in this world are born from an individual’s incompetence”, and once he gets into a position of power, seeks to escape victimisation by actively victimising other people. He reduces his victims into submissive and powerless abjects in relation to him through torture, which grants him the power and dominance that has once been robbed from him, at the expense of reducing his victims into submissive and powerless abjects in relation to him.
However, this escape is futile, because in violently internalising and obeying a victim-victimiser dichotomy, he has also been enslaved to it. His original motivation has been to free himself from this dichotomy. Yet, the violence that supposedly releases him from a position of powerlessness is nothing different from his past tormentors would do. This means that, ultimately, he is but a shadow of his history of abuse, dictated by the need to constantly conform to the dichotomy that one is either weak or strong, victim or victimiser. He is still haunted by the restrictions latent in an oppressor-oppressed relationship: in the same way the oppressor bends the oppressed to his will, the oppressed forces the oppressor to oppress him, and inhibits him from doing anything else that is meaningful because it does not sufficiently justify the oppressor’s sense of selfhood as the oppressor. From this it can be deduced that, while on one hand Jason seeks escape by using violence on other people, his violence only indicates his refusal to abandon a worldview that bases his purpose to exist on the misery he causes, and the eventual failure of his escape.
Violence as Simultaneous Seeking and Denial of Transcendence
Transcendence is different from escape, in that while both transcendence and escape allow one to be freed from his past, the former goes one step further, in freeing one from his present by rejecting normative judgments imposed on him by his environment. Specifically, in Tokyo Ghoul, this means transcending out of the polarising mentality between humans and ghouls where neither can live while the other survives; where being a ghoul means one should not try to experience the human world; where being a human means that ghouls are always evil. Often, this process is so difficult that violence becomes the only way powerful enough to resist (Carroll, 2012) the crushing force of ideals that are prescribed and circumscribed for decades. Yet, violence does not guarantee transcendence, and as seen in the case of Jason, may even cause one to fail at realising it.
Kaneki has long been a victim of the dichotomy between humans and ghouls, but the oppressive weight of his own subject, which believes in harmony as a result of inaction, is a gargantuan obstacle to him breaking out of this dichotomy. To transcend, therefore, is to first and foremost abandon the subject, and given that his subject is deep-seated and entrenched, violence is the only way to surpass it.
During Kaneki’s torture, a couple is brought before him and he is made to choose who to kill in order to save the other, and failing to do which, both will be killed.
Kaneki has always believed in the principle that “it is better to be hurt than to hurt others”. However, the subject’s desire to save everyone and hurt himself instead eventually begets its own destruction, as the man and woman are both killed right before his eyes due to his inaction, while he remains alive.
Fig. 7 & 8. Kaneki being forced to decide which one between the couple should be killed.
This spells the death for Kaneki’s subject, because the fragile faith in the goodness of the subject which believes in not choosing and being hurt instead has been demolished with neither of the two fulfilled. Kaneki now knows that his core belief is untrue and he is unable to justify it otherwise. This induces the most extreme form of horror (Kristeva, 1982), as Kaneki’s imagined manifestation of the abject, the ghoul named Rize whose organs have been transplanted into him, begins questioning the premise of his philosophy, “it is better to be hurt than to hurt others”. He watches the very person who indoctrinated in him his mom, work herself to death because she was unable to turn people away. Rize conjures an image of familiarity by reminding Kaneki of his mom, which lets his guard down, before showing him one after another the failure of her own philosophy. This crushes the unwavering conviction Kaneki has always maintained in his mother and by extension the way he has been living his own life. From the exchange, Rize, the abject, has triumphed in subduing and overcoming the subject:
Kaneki: Mom! I wish… I wish you could have chosen me! I wish you had lived for my sake!
Rize: Even if it meant forsaking your aunt?
Kaneki: Even if it meant that!
Rize: Even if it meant hurting someone?
Kaneki: Even if it meant that!
Rize: Even if it meant taking her life?
Kaneki: Even if it meant that!
Rize: Good boy. That’s right, Kaneki-Kun. There comes a time when you have to forsake something in order to preserve the other. Your mother couldn’t do that. That’s not kindness. That’s just being weak. She didn’t have the strength – the resolve to turn her back. Will you allow yourself to be hurt any longer? Are you going to let Yamori (Jason) get his way?
Kaneki: No… I won’t!
Fig. 9. Rize manipulating Kaneki into accepting that violence is his only way out.
Rize manipulates Kaneki into believing that violence is his only option. The process of Kaneki discarding his subject and embracing Rize, the abject, is portrayed on screen using an overhead shot of Kaneki eating Rize in his imagination, amidst a sea of red spider lilies, communicating the horror through flower symbols (Yale Film Studies, 2002). Crimson red spider lilies, in the Japanese culture, represent death; these have overshadowed the white carnations which usually form the backdrop of his self-examinations, signifying the purity and innocence of the subject. As viewers, we interpret Kaneki’s violence as the culmination of the reversal from the choice to not kill to the choice to kill, from the subject to the abject.
Fig. 10. Kaneki feeding on Rize amidst a sea of red spider lily.
However, the turning point which differentiates Kaneki’s violence to achieve transcendence out of the oppressive frame of abjection takes place in the following exchanges as Kaneki feasts on Rize:
Kaneki: I will spare no mercy for anyone who tries to take my home from me.
Rize: Do you have that kind of strength?
Kaneki: Yes.
Rize: Are you saying you accept me?
Kaneki: No… I’m not saying that. I can surpass you at any time.
Rize: Are you sure you are not making the wrong choice?
Kaneki: I am not the one who’s wrong. What’s wrong… is this world!
Kaneki has transcended the dichotomous struggle—posited by Jason and Rize—between being a good human being that is too compassionate to ever kill, and a good ghoul that is never capable of professing human emotions such as love and sacrifice. There is no longer a subject and an abject (Kristeva, 1982) for Kaneki to make a choice between them; he has acquired a new code of morality that essentially allows him to do both, which is to simply, kill to love others and help them live.
Fig. 11. Kaneki refusing to accept Rize’s definitions of what being a ghoul entails.
Yet, as Kaneki seems to attain transcendence, he activates his predatory organ to defeat Jason in a one-on-one fight, the complexity of his violence following another unexpected trajectory. Kaneki stands over Jason’s body, pinning all four of his limbs onto the ground with his grown spikes, and starts asking him to count backwards from one thousand by sevens, which is the exact same mental torture technique Jason used on him earlier to keep him sane when his toes are cut off and therefore maximise the degree of pain, before muttering the following words:
“You tried to devour me. So you won’t mind, if I eat you, will you?”
By adopting the mentality of revenge by exacting the same actions as Jason when he was in a position of power to torture, Kaneki clearly lapses back to the victim-victimiser mentality (Kristeva, 1982) that has defined Jason’s violence. He has once again been taken prisoner by the restrictive and oppressive dichotomy between power and powerlessness, dominance and subservience (Carroll, 2012). He has again redefined himself by re-entering the realm of imposed definitions of the subject and the abject so as to exist only in relation to others, and in this case, Jason’s misery.
Fig. 12. Kaneki forcing Jason to count backwards from one thousand by sevens as he pins his limbs on the ground
Fig. 13 & 14. Kaneki proceeding to devour Jason
This is because abjection is so omnipotent in Tokyo Ghoul and entrenched in the perception of reality, and it is impossible to undo all the decades of socialisation and enculturation abjection has brought upon him, because he conceptualises it as the basis of any decision making. This means that, even if violence momentarily allows Kaneki to transcend a reality that he clearly detests, it is ultimately a tool rooted in abjection (as previously established in 4.1), and using it only binds him to the mentality of abjection even further.
Conclusion
Violence is but a projection of our innermost desires. At the heart of it is a conflicted soul torn between two mutually exclusive sets of ideals, self-conceptions and realities. The choice to be and belong to one therefore necessarily entails the rejection of the other.
In Tokyo Ghoul, as paradoxical as it sounds, humans would not want to be their ideal versions of themselves without the juxtaposition of ghouls, and ghouls would not question the meaning of their existence had it not been in comparison to humans. As Mado fixates his life upon destroying what seems like the ultimate antithesis to humanity’s existence, little does he realise that, the sole basis for his fervent conviction that humans are superior and deserve to be so, is due to the presence of ghouls in the world he lives in. Perhaps, the real reason as to why he chooses to dismiss and not recognise Touka’s assertion of her identity as a ghoul, in addition to their subject abject confrontation, is his desire to live deluded in a reality where he is free to assert his own righteous self with no opposition, even if it means actively causing the deaths and marginalisation for ghouls who are innocent.
As tensions between humans and ghouls continue to proliferate, the real casualties are both factions who have been conditioned to believe that there must be a winner and a loser at the end of the day, that in order to escape victimhood, one must be a victimiser himself. Jason is no different. Violence becomes the means by which he finds solace and liberation from his history as a victim of torture, but even till death he does not realise that he remains a victim of the system: by robbing his victims of freedom by subjecting them to torture, he ironically sacrifices his own freedom to live a life that is meaningfully different from those he resents. Kaneki realises this, and thus he wants to reach a stage where he no longer has to abide by these rules. But what he has failed to anticipate is the poigant reality in Tokyo Ghoul where, despite his transcendence and ascension, every layer of the social fabric is soaked in violence, and by extension, abjection. Abjection indicates the imperative for a choice to be made, and for Kaneki, there is no abstention. This is all the more potent for Kaneki; it is precisely because of his newly elevated position of power that at his core he once again discerns between weak and strong, inferior and superior.
As Mado, Jason and Kaneki are perpetually locked in a cycle of seeking and denial of self-assertion, escape and transcendence, violence becomes the only way for them to cope in the chilling world of Tokyo Ghoul.
In one sense, just like how ghouls fail to prove themselves to humans, anime has been an industry stigmatised for a lack of quality content even in recent times despite having evolved into a multi-genre industry. While Tokyo Ghoul is only one of many anime series that have been aired, what this paper has done is to give birth to a framework that allows the world, for the first time ever, to have a glimpse into the profound intersectionality of themes and characters that this genre has to offer. The combination of The Extremes of Conflict in Literature: Violence, Homicide, and War (Carroll, 2012), Violence in Literature: An Evolutionary Perspective (Carroll, 2014), and Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (Kristeva, 1982) as literary theories, and the adoption of Yale Film Studies as a tool to investigate the linkage between the literary themes and their portrayal on screen, will in conjunction hopefully inspire newer research and analysis into anime as a result of their success in ascribing academic viability to the genre.
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