Kaneki Ken

Kaneki Ken is a member of Rajani's gang. He is not currently part of a ship, but he has been shipped with a few gang members before, such as Nightingale and Rajani herself. Rajani is considering shipping him with Eto.

## Appearance (Anime only)

As a child, Kaneki had all the same features he has now as an adult with black hair. As a normal university student, Kaneki was a scrawny young man with little to no athletic background who preferred to read books. In his free time, he wore casual clothes.

At work, he wore the standard Anteiku waiter uniform, consisting of black trousers and a grey waistcoat over a white dress shirt and a brown necktie. Because he couldn't properly control his single Kakugan that manifests in his left eye, he wore a medical eye patch to cover it.

His ghoul mask resembles a leather gimp mask with an eye patch. It bears a lipless mouth that shows large, gnashing teeth, much like restrained asylum monster. The bolts sticking out of his neck and the fact that he is an artificial ghoul remind a Frankenstein theme.

After being tortured by Yamori, his appearance changed drastically. His hair became completely white, and his nails were blackened. He began to favor monochrome clothing, and wore a form-fitting black bodysuit with cutouts when going into battle.

## Personality

Kaneki was a shy and reserved person, with Hide being his only close friend. He usually spent most of his time reading books, mostly novels. He is extremely gentle and appears to be optimistic most of the time. Influenced by his mother and a true testament of modesty, he willingly takes blame and punishment from others so that he can be someone who doesn't hurt people, but rather absorb the torment. However, this lack of assertiveness normally gets him bullied and taken advantage of.

After he was turned into a half-ghoul, he clung onto his human side. To keep living in the human world, he began to work at Anteiku and established relationships with the ghouls there. He started to develop an interest in becoming stronger and began reading martial art books so that he could protect the people close to him. However, he was still troubled with the fact that he was a half-ghoul and wanted to search for a place where he could belong. As much as he treasured his life, if people close to him were threatened, he wouldn't hesitate to put his life on the line.

After being held captive and undergoing intense torture by the hands of Yamori; Kaneki’s personality changes drastically. He trashes his previous ideology of ‘being hurt rather than hurting others’, pledging to crush those who dare threaten his place of belonging. He adopts the habit of cracking his fingers from his torturer, Yamori. In his subconscious, Kaneki eats ‘Rize’, the image of his ghoul self. This displays that he now accepts the ‘ghoul’ within him. Instead of being influenced by it, he appears to have become the one to surpass it. Kaneki becomes ruthless and brutal in order to protect his friends, yet he manages to maintain complete composure. He no longer fears his ghoul side and becomes more violent during battles. Kaneki is still capable of showing his gentle nature in front of people he cares about, but can instantly turn merciless against his enemies.

After raiding Kanou’s lab and attacking Banjou, Kaneki begins to revert back to his pre-Aogiri personality. He enters a period of soul-searching. He seeks to reclaim his lost ‘human’ side and becomes uncertain about the path he has taken to become stronger. He starts to question and seek answers from individuals such as Uta, Yomo, and Yoshimura in order to understand the incidents that have happened around him since he turned into a ghoul.