Ken Kaneki and his multiple personalities

"I'm not the protagonist of a novel or anything. I'm just a college student who likes to read, like you could find anywhere. But... if, for argument's sake, you were to write a story with me in the lead role, it would certainly be... a tragedy."

- Ken Kaneki

The life of Kaneki Ken is nothing short of a tragedy.

He starts off as an ordinary teenager who was very excited to be on a date with a beautiful lady named Rize. However, it was this date that ultimately changed the trajectory of his life. Kaneki had no idea that the person in front of him is a ghoul who can hardly control her lust for his human blood.

And by the time he realizes, it was already too late. He survived but the price of living was that he himself turned into a ghoul.

From there on out, his life was never the same.

The hunger he never experienced before, the distaste he couldn’t comprehend, the desires he never knew. All of this became a part of Kaneki Ken as he ventured deeper and deeper into the world of ghouls.

One can only imagine what it must’ve been like for him to have his life turned upside down, literally overnight.

Throughout the entire duration of the story, Kaneki’s personality goes through multiple shifts, and this change is reflected in his physical appearance as well. He starts off as a young boy with black hair in the first season. He has quite a troublesome past, but he is still a kind and compassionate person nonetheless, he sometimes tends to act naïve and yet there are also times when he can act mature. Not to mention, his admirable yet realistic bravery. He is the type of person who would rather get hurt than hurt others.

"It's better to be hurt than to hurt others. Nice people can be happy with just that."

But after turning into a ghoul, he went through a severe identity crisis. There was a part of him that he couldn’t accept, and so he often referred to his actions as “we” or “us.”

However, while he was getting tortured by Yamori, both his physical and psychological well being was severely damaged. He experienced an insane, almost ridiculous amount of physical and psychological pain.

Rize continued to haunt him by showing him his past, and at one point, Kaneki hit a boiling point. He realized that he must abandon his naïve view of the world and accept the ghoul inside of him.

This was another turning point in his life. Kaneki changed, and this change was depicted in his appearance: the color of his hair changed from black to white. And then he proceeded to torture the person who was torturing him, without holding back.

This Kaneki became a cold and ruthless person, but he still cared about the people that are important to him.

You see, the essence of Kaneki’s character is that of a flawed person. He is an astonishingly complex character. He is flawed, and he is well aware of that.

To quote Kaneki himself:

"Black and blue, turning and over-turning the things I'd chosen countless times, forever repeating the same actions... Ungainly. Awkward. Indecisive. Weak. Endlessly useless. That is what I am."

Which means that just because Kaneki accepted the ghoul inside of him, it doesn’t make him a completely self-conscious human.

Next time, his psychological dilemma takes things ever further beyond, after he gets wounded by Arima, he comes across an innocent version of himself in his psyche, this dilemma turns Kaneki into another innocent version of him, while the part of him that accepted the ghoul, goes to sleep.

This led to the emergence of Haise Sasaki, his hair is still white with a few strands of black hair, but as for his personality, it sort of seems as if he has reverted back to the Kaneki he was before turning into a ghoul.

He is a self-sacrificing person, but since the emergence of this Kaneki wasn’t fueled by something as grave as the torture he experienced in the first season, most of the things about Haise felt fake, it was like an artificial façade that hinted at the idea that there is a graver more complex Kaneki lying dormant inside of him.

Haise’s or rather, Kaneki’s daily life in and of itself became an identity crisis, he had to figure out who he was before and who is he now, and more importantly, which one of them is the real him.

It was like a dream - he tried to forget his past believing that it’ll ultimate lead to his salvation, but after he became aware of it all, he turned back to reality. And gradually, his hair color also continued to change. Only this time, Kaneki was aware of his past, his childlike self, as well as the ghoul inside of him.

Or to put it more simply, Kaneki has been the type of person who always has “someone” else living inside his head, and that became the foundation of his intrinsically complex personality and ever-changing attitude.

Eventually, there came a point when his multiple personalities or psychological personas came to a mutual understanding that even if they aren’t on the same wavelength, the fact that they all want to save Touka was more than enough reason to act.

So his multiple personalities ask Kaneki if he is willing to cross the moral bounds, to which he realizes that he will.

This unexpected overlap of his personalities later leads to another meeting with Rize, but this time, Kaneki has learned to accept the fact that there have been many victims because of him, but he had become content with the idea of bearing the weight of his sins.

All of these points aren’t just a sequence of how his personality has changed throughout the series, but an idea of how complex his character is. Most of his exceptionally traits were born because of his intrinsic desire to escape the unusual personas living inside his head. Which perfectly makes sense considering his unprecedented circumstances. But the way his character continued to evolve is fascinating.

It goes like this, ever since he was born till the moment he turned 4. Kaneki was Kaneki, but after he lost his father, he was subjected to both physical and mental abuse by his mother, so he constructs his first personality, the black haired Kaneki, and he stays that way until he is 18 years old.

After he becomes a ghoul, this personality doesn’t disappear, however after getting tortured, he constructs another one, the white haired Kaneki.

From there on out, it’s the chemical reactions between these three personalities and their counterparts, not to mention, the personality of Kaneki as a child since before he was four years old.

There were multiple times when he wished to die in a heroic way, but the circumstances never let him follow through.

Be that as it may, just because there are multiple versions of Kaneki doesn’t mean one of them is correct, all of them are a distinct part of Kaneki and it is only by accepting them that Kaneki managed to move forward. On the contrary, whenever he denies them, he is forced to go through a period of stagnation.

When you think about it, this makes Kaneki’s life a tragedy, but if you consider how at one point, he becomes able to accept all of this, this tragedy turns into something bittersweet.

So, there you go guys, this was an analysis on Kaneki Ken. A tragedy indeed, but a bittersweet one.

That is all from Animechu for today!