The Tokyo Ghoul franchise undoubtedly holds the record for the most long-suffering characters, starting with protagonist Ken Kaneki. Kaneki's torture and ultimate acceptance of his new life as a Ghoul is a turning point for the story, as it sees an all-new Kaneki completely shift priorities and personalities. However, what happened to Kaneki, seismic shift though it was, didn't just happen to Kaneki.
In Tokyo Ghoul: re, the same scenario of torture, mental break and Ghoul acceptance happens to two other characters. Ghoul Investigator Seidou Takizawa and the Quinx Squad's Tooru Mutuski both suffer nearly the exact same fate as Ken Kaneki - their hair even turns white. While the appearance of more unstable, white-haired Ghouls definitely brought the drama, it came at the cost of cheapening Kaneki's own experience.
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Seidou Takizawa
Seidou Takizawa started out the series as a Rank 2 Ghoul Investigator for the CCG. During the Owl Suppression Operation, Takizawa battled Tatara of Aogiri Tree but was injured and captured by Aogiri Tree after they severed his arm. When the CCG could not find his body, they declared him dead. However, Takizawa was actually imprisoned by the Ghoul sect and became a Specimen for the ghoulification experiments of Dr. Akihiro Kanou, the man responsible for Kaneki’s own ghoulification.
With Anteiku owner Yoshimura's kakuhou transplanted into Takizawa, Dr. Kanou aimed to create another Kaneki. To that end, he literally dehumanized Takizawa by torturing him for over a year - much longer than Kaneki’s one week with Jason. Takizawa's time with the doctor cost him his sense of humanity and, rather than deciding to live as Ghoul, the once upbeat and idealistic Takizawa simply became a psychotic monster. Takizawa's hair turned white and, after he escaped, he became a One-Eyed Ghoul known as The Owl.
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Tooru Mutsuki
Tooru Mutsuki was a Special Class Ghoul Investigator, as well as a former member of Haise Sasaki's Quinx Squad. The squad was made of humans with weaponized kagune implants and Mutusuki was apparently the weakest, unable to summon his own. A young Mutsuki suffered abuse from his family to the point where his blind rage led to their wholesale slaughter. This resulted in Mutsuki living and feeling like an outcast, which only got worse as he was labeled the weakling of the Quinx Squad.
After the Rose Extermination, Mutsuki was captured by a Ghoul known as Torso - named as such for his penchant for detaching his victims' body parts and leaving only the torso. Mutsuki’s limbs were severed, but his Half-Ghoul biology kept him alive and awake in the cave Torso kept him in. He was repeatedly tortured and abused and the Ghoul even married him in there. Just like Kaneki, when the stress became too much, Mutsuki's hair turned white and he snapped.
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There Can (Or Should ) Only Be One
While Kaneki went on to become a major force fighting for the sake of his new Ghoul friends, Takizawa and especially Mutsuki became threats to everyone around them -- friend or otherwise. Their transformations into white-haired Ghouls weren't spurred by any internal realizations or tragic acceptances of their fates, Mutsuki and Takizawa simply broke, and broke hard. The rest of their time in the series is spent lashing out violently or serving groups -- the CCG and Aogiri Tree, respectively -- that need them to.
This emphasis on violence is the heart of the reason that Mutsuki and Takizawa shouldn't have become white-haired Ghouls. Kaneki's transformation happened for thematic reasons, to further the idea that his life is one of constant tragedy, but one that he wants to do the right things with. Takizawa and Mutsuki, on the other hand, seem like their were only put through their torture for an easy reaction from fans. After Ken's change, white hair became synonymous with power in the series as Kaneki became much, much stronger after his mental break. With Takizawa and Mutsuki's torture, series creator Sui Ishida was able to, in effect, create two more Kanekis and fill their time with much more bombastic fights. It's just too bad this came at the cost of his most effective narrative tool.
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