Kaneki Ken accidentally and unknowingly gets acquainted with a ghoul, he finds himself in a desperate situation that will change his life forever. Perhaps his life as a human is about to end and he'll live as a half-human/half-ghoul after his unfortunate encounter. From then on, he has to live as circumstances allow as the messy world of humans and ghouls builds to a climatic point. Here are some amazing facts about Tokyo Ghoul.
1. Kaneki shares the same birthday with Arima Kishou.
He has actually two birthdays, one as Kaneki, which is on December 20th, and one as Sasaki, which is on April 2nd. The one he shares with Arima is actually the one in December.
2. Beginning with the Aogiri arc, Kaneki has been repeatedly associated with the number "12" in panels. This is a reference to the tarot card The Hanged Man (XII).
The Hanged Man is a card that deals with surrender and sacrifice, as well as many other interpretations. Ishida is well known for his references to the tarot cards and he has used this to foreshadow some of the scenes, future happening, and character developments many times. This lead many fans to believe the theory that Kaneki follows the path of the Fool (0), encountering other tarot cards which were used for other characters.
3. The relationship between Sasaki and his mental projection of "Kaneki" is akin to his relationship with his projections of "Rize" and "Jason" in the past as Kaneki.
"Rize" and "Jason" would often tempt Kaneki to give in to his ghoul self, while "Kaneki" tried to have Sasaki accept him. Both projections represent the ghoul side of himself. This also means that Kaneki's talk with Hide during his fight with Arima was a projection as well.
4. The sudden whitening of Kaneki's hair caused by torture is a condition known as Marie Antoinette Syndrome.
This syndrome is a sudden whitening of the hair, caused by extreme stress or emotional trauma. It was named after the last queen of France, Marie Antoinette, whose hair turned white during the imprisonment prior to her execution by the guillotine. This same thing happened to Mutsuki Tooru as well after she was tortured by Torso.
5. Kaneki has 16 different names/nicknames.
We are already aware that he has two different names, but beside that, he has 14 different nicknames or aliases: Eyepatch, Centipede, One-Eyed Ghoul, Kakuja's Egg, Shironeki, Kuroneki, Akaneki, Number 240, Black Reaper, Sassan, Maman, Sasako, Sasaki the Sasarious, and The One-Eyed King.
6. In Tokyo Ghoul:re it was revealed that Kaneki was physically abused by his mother.
This is where Kaneki's habit of holding his left hand on the chin played a big role. While talking about his mother at the end of Tokyo Ghoul, Kaneki was shown doing exactly this while saying that he loves his mother. We can see that he was suppressing the fact that he may hate his mother, and is trying to find an excuse for her behavior by saying that she was overworked.
7. Kaneki was tortured by Jason on his 19th birthdays. He was held in Jason's hobby room and abused for 10 days.
This is one of the most disturbing facts I've read about Kaneki so far. His live surely is a tragedy. He experienced such cruel things, especially being abused on his birthday, for 10 days straight, enduring unimaginable amounts of pain, and being responsible for the death of a mother and child. No wonder his hair turned white. But, regardless, this the favourite scene of many fans.
8. As a ghoul, Kaneki can survive for a month on one human body.
I believe that Kaneki can last even longer, or at least he used to do when he was refusing to eat humans, and was using little cubes which he put in his coffee to satisfy his hunger.
9. The reason why Sasaki's hair was half-black and later turned completely black was due to Sasaki suppressing his RC cell activity which temporarily increased his melanin production.
While under the name of Sasaki, he tried to suppress his ghoul side, which is also the reason why he imagined the projection of "Kaneki", who asked him not to forget "him". That continued until his hair was completely black again, but after he accepted his ghoul side once more during his fight with Arima, his hair turned white again, just like when he was tortured by Jason and accepted his ghoul side.
10. Both Kaneki and Yamori/Jason went through similar torture methods and were both completely changed from their previous selves. Yamori turned into psychotic killer who killed more for fun than to eat, while Kaneki became cold and ruthless, but retained his desire to protect his friends.
That is also why Kaneki picked up the habit of cracking his fingers. He got this from Jason, who started this habit after being tortured himself in Cochlea. They were both forced to count backwards from 1000 always subtracting 7 in order to keep their sanity during torture. One more thing they have in common is that they both became incomplete Kakuja after their torture. Jason started devouring ghouls after driving them insane, while Kaneki ate Jason's Kagune and later from other ghouls as well, like Eto's.
