Tokyo Ghoul Season One Review: A Rush to a Killer Finale.

Before watching Tokyo Ghoul, many people suggested I should read the manga first because the anime was a bad adaptation.
In reading Sui ishida’s manga, I found a fantastic story and a solid yet flawed experience in its sequel Re.
Well, after watching the first season of the anime adaptation, produced by Studio Pierrot and directed by Shuhei Morita, I can see what people were talking about.
This is not to say that season one is a bad adaptation but it falls quite far from the successes of the manga.
The reason for this mostly comes down to how rushed the story is and the switching around of arcs.
Take the first episode, for example.
I was pretty surprised by how much was adapted in so little time.
Honestly, I expected the first episode to encompass the first chapter, with it ending when Kaneki wakes up, revealing his ghoul eye and noting that his life is a tragedy.
But the episode went ahead of this moment and adapted much more for the first episode, resulting in scenes going by much too fast to be as impactful as they were in the manga.

tragedy 1 — I feel like the first chapter should have been extended to make a single episode that builds to the final reveal of Kaneki being turned into a ghoul.

This rushed quality persisted right up until the end, and was not helped by the removal of entire scenes.
Season one should have been around twenty episodes instead of twelve.
The second big issue is the switching around of arcs with the Gourmet Arc happening before the Doves Arc, which came first in the manga.
The Doves Arc being moved behind the Gourmet Arc made certain things not make a lot of sense in the anime.
However, despite these problems, I still found the first season of Tokyo Ghoul to be a good adaptation.
Even though much of the story is rushed and some story arcs happen sooner than they are supposed to, certain scenes are adapted fairly well and the characters are all wonderfully brought to screen.
Kaneki (Natsuki Hanae), Touka (Sora Amamiya), Rize (Kana Hanazawa), Amon (Katsuyuki Konishi), Tsukiyama (Mamoru Miyano) Jason (Rintaro Nishi), and many characters are all done justice with their portrayals and voice acting.
The best example of this is Juuzou because both his Japanese voice actor Rie Kugimiya and his English voice actor Maxey Whitehead all do an incredible job as the character.
I remember hearing Juuzou speak for the first time in both sub and dub and thinking both were perfect.

crazy little s we know and love — Juuzou is perfectly adapted into the anime, with both Japanese and English voice actors doing an amazing job.

Along with the great voice work, another quality of the anime that I enjoyed were some of its original scenes.
The anime hyped up Jason a lot sooner and that made the build up to his torture of Kaneki in the finale a lot better.
Speaking of that finale, I was considering this season an overall average adaptation, what with the rushed nature and switched around arcs of the anime but then, “Ghoul” happened.
“Ghoul” is a good season finale that perfectly adapted Jason and Kaneki’s epic fight.
The only problem I had with the episode was its censoring of numerous violent scenes and a couple of changes in Kaneki being immediate, rather than gradual.
Watching Kaneki take on Jason to the spectacular theme of Unravel made the entire season feel worth it and was the best way to end it.

kaneki unravels — The Kaneki vs Jason fight is the highlight of the season.

As for Unravel, it is already one of my favourite anime openings of all time.
Everything from the music, visuals and symbolism is just incredible.
Unfortunately, the few incredible aspects of this anime, like Unravel and the final episode, would not be continued in the follow up season of √A, which has a lot more problems, but we’ll get to that later.
All in all, the first season of Tokyo Ghoul is a solid adaptation.
Sure, it has its problems, like the rushed story, switched arcs, and missing scenes, but the adaptation of certain scenes, voice acting, final episode, and Unravel make up for it.

Tokyo Ghoul: Re Manga Review. Not a Tragedy After All.

Coming into Tokyo Ghoul: Re, Sui Ishida’s sequel manga to the brilliant Tokyo Ghoul, you have to understand that is quite different from the original manga.
Not in terms of tone, no, the story is still as horrifying and brutal as ever (except for the ending but we’ll get to that).
Tokyo Ghoul: Re picks up two years after the first manga, with an amnesiac Ken Kaneki, now under the name Sasaki Haise, who is working at the CCG as a ghoul investigator, while leading his own squad.
Named the Quinx Squad, the group consists of characters that have gained ghoul powers through experimentation, like Kaneki, however, unlike Kaneki they are still mostly human.
These are the characters that take up most of the screen time in Re, while most of the original main cast are relegated to smaller roles in the beginning and this can take some time getting used to.
Not to say that this new cast is bad or anything as, with one exception, I came to like all of them.

saiko — There are plenty of new and interesting characters introduced in Re like Saiko and Urie.

Although, I will say I was not fond of the main antagonist.
Also, it is a shame that many of the original great dynamics of characters, like the one Kaneki had with Amon, are absent for most of the manga.
In comparison, the dynamics of the new cast are good but nowhere near as good as the original.
Credit where it is due though, some characters have been greatly improved and expanded upon from the first manga.
The best examples of this are Takizawa, who became a very tragic character, and, of course, my favourite character Eto, who was given plenty of flashbacks and amazing moments.
A certain scene with her at a press conference was my favourite moment in the entirety of Re.
I just wish that she had been given more screen time because she certainly deserved it.

Eto is definitely my favourite character, appearing to be both insane and completely logical at the same time.

Another aspect of the original Tokyo Ghoul that is expanded upon is the horror and gore. Seriously, the violence of this manga makes the violence of the last one look like an adorable puppy.
I can recall many moments where I audibly yelped or gagged at how disgusting some of the visuals were, which I’m sure was Ishida’s intent.
Not only this, but when the old cast does finally return, we get the interactions and dynamics that had been missing in the first half.
This also comes with the growth of the newly introduced characters, with my feelings about them progressing over time.
For example, I originally extremely disliked Urie but, by the end of the story, he was one my favourite characters.
On the opposite side of the spectrum there was Tooru, who went from one of my favourites of the new cast to one of my personally most despised characters in the entire manga.
I know Tooru has the most traumatic past out of any character, and what happened to him is something that no one deserves, but that does not justify his evil actions.
Speaking of evil actions, this is one of my many problems with the ending to the manga, because horrific crimes committed by characters are seemingly forgotten about and these characters then get happy endings.

evil tooru — It’s hard to feel good about a character getting a happy ending when you remember all of the terrible things they’ve done to innocent people, which has barely been addressed.

The ending of Tokyo Ghoul: Re was rushed.
Things happen too quickly and in the epilogue there are even important characters who were completely forgotten about.
This can probably be chalked up to Ishida being burnt out after writing the manga weekly for so long, which is understandable.
However, I still have more problems with the ending.
For one, it was a bit annoying how so many dead characters came back to life at the end, or Ishida made you think they were dead before bringing them back.
There were quite a few times where I just wished he had kept the characters he brought back dead.
And then there is my big problem with the ending, it does not suit the tone of the story up until this point.
At the beginning of Tokyo Ghoul, Ishida set out that the story would be tragic, through actually telling us this with narration and by showing us this with the extreme violence.
So, with many characters essentially getting a fairy tale story book ending, it feels at odds with everything the story had set up.
Just to be clear, I don’t hate this ending.
It is definitely not the worst ending the story could have got.
I just wish it had played out slower and felt in tone with the rest of the manga.

Overall, Tokyo Ghoul: Re is still a good follow up to Ishida’s original story.
Despite its many faults, the manga constantly delivers on good characterization, horrifying moments, and themes.
Now that I have reviewed the manga, it’s on to the anime and, boy, do I have things to say.

Tokyo Ghoul Manga Review. He Just Wanted a Date!

What’s your idea of the worst kind of date?
Maybe your date talks on their phone to the entire time, talks constantly and never lets you get a word in, or maybe they even try to eat you.
If you picked the last one then you are Ken Kaneki.
The main character of Sui Ishida’s manga, Tokyo Ghoul, Kaneki thinks he has found the perfect girl in Rize; only for her to turn out to be a man eating ghoul that hungers for his flesh.
However, after a freak accident saves Kaneki’s life mere seconds before Rize can end it, he suddenly finds himself on the operating table with her organs being planted inside him.
What seems to be a life saving surgery at first quickly proves to be a curse, as Kaneki quickly begins to transform into the very monster that tried to kill him, a ghoul.

tragedy — Kaneki’s life definitely takes a tragic turn after his encounter with Rize.

Rescued from his torment by a group of peaceful ghouls working at the coffee shop, Anteiku, Kaneki struggles in his placement between two different world and discovers that ghouls are not all that different from us humans.
But with Ghoul investigators, hostile ghouls, and even cannibalistic ones out on the hunt, Kaneki will have to endure many horrors to have a hope of protecting his friends.
And when I say horror, I mean exactly that.
Tokyo Ghoul is not a manga for the faint of heart, with its constant gruesome and gory imagery, amplified by the great art from Ishida.
Amplifying the horror is how great the characters are because we fear for their safety.
In other mangas characters just die but in Tokyo Ghoul they die gruesomely.

Rize — Imagine this eating your face and you have a basic idea of how violent the deaths are in this manga.

Watching these characters fight against their cruel and violent world is a highlight and I will remember them all for a while.
Kaneki, Touka, Amon, Juuzo, Nishki, Hinami, these are all characters that I will remember fondly.
My favourite character though is definitely Eto, but to say why would get into spoilers for both Tokyo Ghoul and the sequel manga Tokyo Ghoul: Re.
Not only are the characters great but their dynamic as well, with my favourite interactions of the cast definitely being between Kaneki and Amon.
Speaking of Kaneki, he goes through some fantastic character development, especially after encountering the psychopathic ghoul Jason, making him easily my second favourite character.
Watching him grow every arc is a horrific joy, and each arc just gets better and better.

brutal kaneki — Kaneki goes from an ordinary guy who wouldn’t hurt a fly, to a guy you wouldn’t want to piss off because you’d be afraid that he’d eat you.

This all builds up to the fantastic final arc of the manga, which sets up the beginning of the sequel nicely, even if I think the sequel is not as good as the first part of the story.
Tokyo Ghoul is a fantastic manga, with its 143 chapters delivering emotion, horror and thrills.
I have already read Tokyo Ghoul: Re and am in the middle of watching the anime, which I have… let’s just say mixed feelings about, so you can expect reviews on those soon.