So I noticed something about chp 74.
It opens with Arima’s flashback. The flowers (which I believe are daffodils) are identical to the ones found when he’s fighting Kaneki later on. We’re so used to seeing Kaneki’s visions of flowers, like in V14, but this is different.
This time the fight in the flower field is happening from Arima’s perspective, which presents a fascinating inversion of their fight at the end of TG.
For the most part, the flowers are only shown when Arima is in the frame. Long shots show both Kaneki and Arima are standing on empty soil in the field, surrounded by but not touching the flowers. Only once does one of them touch them: when Armia knocks Kaneki backward he lands on them.
Ishida has always been one to use hanakotoba, and traditionally daffodils represent respect. I think the fact that, considering the fight is from Arima’s point of view, he’s using daffodils to represent Arima’s shifting respect towards Kaneki. Last chapter he outright said Kaneki disappointed him, hence why Kaneki is standing on empty soil. Kaneki is no longer deserving of it.
While toying with him, Arima knocks Kaneki backward onto the daffodils. On the same page, he says “The time I spent on you went to waste.” Arima forces Kaneki onto the representation of his respect for him, which serves as an inversion of his status for having turned his back on Arima’s training. Presumably Arima would have impaled him; if this had happened, we would have Kaneki pinned to the ground in the only place he’s been shown directly touching the daffodils. The only time he would influence Arima’s respect would be as he’s bleeding out over it.
Next, Kaneki attacks. In doing so, he tears a path through the daffodils, leaving them destroyed in his wake. Haise has always admired Arima, Ishida explicitly points it out this chapter. So, for Kaneki to actively destroy Arima’s respect for him is a powerful act of defiance, to prove that Arima’s respect is no longer valuable to him and that he is no longer at his mercy. He is owning Arima’s disappointment with him, and in this act regaining power over himself. He is willing to fight to survive, and he is prepared to challenge the Reaper.
On the next page, we see Arima standing with daffodils in the foreground. It’s difficult to tell whether he is facing Kaneki or not. If Arima is facing Kaneki, then his respect rests between them, possibly showing admiration. Arima has been depicted as respecting ghouls power to fight in the face of obliteration (always in a condescending way, but respect none the less I would say). If the daffodils are in front of him with Kaneki to his back, it could be showing his acceptance of Kaneki’s rebellion. The only way for Kaneki to regain Arima’s respect is to face him head-on.
I should turn this into full-fledged meta, but it’s finals week.
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