Tokyo Ghoul - Reviews

I've heard of Tokyo Ghoul through streaming sites, and interested in the synopsis I decided to peek at a few episodes. It turned out to be an enjoyable thriller that left me interested for more. It starts off with a calm interaction between two characters that later leads to a spark of danger and realization. After, an organ transplantation takes place in protagonist Kaneki; causing psychogenic opposition that nauseates him.

As he struggles between moral intuition and compulsion he’s introduced to an exclusive culture surrounded with elements of danger; which he innocently gets tangled within.

The negative reviews on this anime sound extremely literalistic without a sense of fictional placement. I believe one that can’t appreciate units of fictitious material shouldn’t be able to make such heavy statements in the first place, but that’s just my opinion. Most of the complaining was by dogmatic users obsessed with realism when they’re supposed to be covering a fictive anime, but let’s discard that key component and try to correspond the standards of their society with ours. Completely sensible. I’m also positive if clearly informed that the director’s plan was never to integrate realistic elements within this anime. So I’m having a bit of a hard time connecting the dots, but like I said it's simply my opinion.

The majority of the first season revolved around him as a lost puppy ineffective to the ghouls around him; being nothing more than a hindrance that causes or becomes victim to dangerous situations. He follows other ghouls throughout their personal conflicts all while learning about their culture and his strength.

This all happens within a human society that calmly goes about their days as if the deaths of humans by ghouls were just another unfortunate happening. It’s presented to be a normal occurring that humans have simply had to get used to; the same way we handle rapists and robbers in our reality.

Ghouls vary in radically different personalities; some are sadistic while others are calm. Others appear to have unhealthy compulsions while the other portion can effortlessly enjoy human interaction. I will add slight criticism since the flow of character development lacked significantly. Many of the characters had one mood throughout the entire anime. While bursts of emotion where sprinkled now and then, it felt like most if not all characters had singular mindsets that they’d always sphere around; desensitizing the power the anime could’ve had. It also made a handful of scenes unpleasantly predictable and left you stressing for a breakthrough in development that only happened towards the last few episodes. If you’re not too bothered by that, you’ll be able to make it through all the cringe worthy scenes that’ll annoy the heck out of you without much complaint. Ghouls are scattered in mannerisms similar to humans, so their identity jumbles as a species; making them extremely symmetrical to us. (Which doesn’t bother me personally.)

The action scenes were okay, but the heavy censorship made me wanting more. While all of the anime is speedy, the epic thoughts and adrenaline that run through your veins once you get hooked into that one scene is lessened due to the censorship. They’re not utterly horrendous, but they’ll definitely piss off you manga fans that are expecting similarity. If you’re looking for an anime with action scenes all throughout that contain detail or similarity to the manga, you’ll be pretty disappointed.

I enjoyed the protagonist; along with the other wimpy characters that contained a well amount of strength. While negative reviewers continue to point out how horrid and cowardly it is, they fail to see any reason behind the directors concepts. They’re going on about how the ones with power and determination should of had the upperhand in battles, yet fail to comprehend the bursts of strength that bloom from pure emotion. The director played a game of the weak at their weakest and the strong inches from their goal, and in this case the weak won a majority of the battles. Which is also another element I enjoyed. It ranged from a little girl critically injuring an expert in his field to Kaneki avoiding death several times in the story. It displayed that emotion overthrows even the strongest of individuals, and while of course not always true I enjoyed the concept he was portraying. In doubtful moments, there is at times strength among the weak.

The deaths in the anime were unnecessarily quick, and it completely ruined the potential for some heart wrenching scenes. They were not meaningless, but they weren’t near as memorable as some of the deaths in Attack On Titan. You ended up depressed or shocked for a mere moment, and moved on.

Kaneki later becomes a stronger character of his own form of maturity. As we all aren’t in agreement on what is and isn’t mature, I for one personally thinks he develops not only more maturely through time but develops a high form of individuality. Being infused with organs previously not related to him; it’s inevitable that traits of personality from the ghoul fused in him show through, but they are the makings of him. They dissolved within his body, his brain, his bones. It’s deductive reasoning that he’d develop a personality similar to the ghoul transplanted in him. It can’t be replaced or eliminated. He has became one with the ghoul organs transplanted in him. It is apart of him, and while influence to actions and mentality are definitely noticeable he still becomes his own individual.

Overall I’m quite pleased with the anime. I didn’t shed tears or have a moment of strong emotion, but I was highly entertained. If you dislike slowish censored animes with wimpy characters you’re likely to dislike it, you’re also likely to dislike it if you expect a large amount of action scenes to be similar to the ones in the manga. This anime is a well done anime that requires an open mind and a bit of thought. The worst thing you can do is apply this anime (like most fictive animes) to the standards of realism or physical existence, but if you’re good at underlining fictional concepts and comprehending different forms of work you might enjoy it. 

After waiting patiently (sort of/not really) for the full 12 episodes to be released, I started Tokyo Ghoul due to a lot of hype that my friends gave it. Truth be told I've always loved the Horror genre, one of my first animes was Elfen Lied. I quickly found that Tokyo Ghoul was something that I should have taken up sooner. To say I love (still haven't finished watching it) it would be an understatement. The character development, the realism that Kaneki displays upon learning he's become part ghoul, really resonated with me. The only reason I'm not giving this a 10/10 is because I beleive it's too short. There must be more, I see so much in the intro that I just can't help but to think that some of the stuff get's left out between where I'm at (episode 8 upon writing this review) and the end of episode 12. I patiently await 2015 when we get what appears to be an extension on this awesome anime. Cheers~

Intro

Horror Anime are rarely well done.  They tend to be either ridiculously gory, the character’s reactions way to unrealistic, or overly dramatic, or they spend too much on animation and the story suffers as a result.

Tokyo Ghoul broke this tradition and brought us a well-rounded, supremely disturbing look at a world where creatures that eat mankind have become commonplace.  This anime is truly a gem.

Story

Each story is unique and different, so one can’t objectively say one story is generally better than another, but one can say a story is better executed, more rounded or more flushed out than another.  In these arenas, Tokyo Ghoul delivered buckets full.

Horror

Horror is a genre that can be generally split into two categories.  The first is physical, or gory, horror, and the other is psychological horror.  While Tokyo Ghoul does have a few elements of physical horror, it falls firmly within the realm of psychological horror with a strong focus on how our protagonist deals with learning that he is no longer human. 

In this season we follow the protagonist, Kaneki as he learns that he is no longer human, tries to come over it, and tries to adjust to living as one of the most feared beings on the planet: a human-flesh eating Ghoul. 

The mangaka who wrote the story, and the creators of the anime who subsequently built on his story, have gone above and beyond what anyone could have expected.  The story is well thought out, realistic (well, as realistic as one could expect from a premise such as this), and truly skin-crawlingly horrific.

Balance

Tokyo Ghoul’s story is ABOUT balance.  It juxtaposes the violence that Ghouls can perpetrate with the tranquil life in Anteiku beautifully.  We frequently jump from gut wrenching violence and gore to slowly pouring coffee in a second.  It excellently portrays how the species known as Ghoul has split into two factions, and how these two differ.  It also very well balances the telling of the story from both the side of the Ghouls and that of the CCG investigators - or humans, though one can’t be sure how human these investigators really are - with Kaneki right in the middle as a half-half.  His unique perspective endears one to the Ghouls, and alienates one from your own human side, whilst at the same time showing us the moral dilemmas each faces and the crimes each side perpetrates.

Surprise

There isn’t much in the way of surprise within this story, but that’s not bad, as it makes the ending of the season so much more shocking (I won’t spoil it by telling you what it is).  The story is very much character driven, as it explores Kaneki’s development and his relationships with both human and ghoul friends.

Animation

Animation is what makes an anime, well, an anime.  It is the visualisation media of the story.  I have never placed a great emphasis on animation, not that it isn’t important, but a story with bad animation is still much better than a beautifully animated series with absolutely no story.

Colour

Colour, Tokyo Ghoul is THE anime when it comes to colour.  The general theme is dark and foreboding, but there are flashes of colour when the ghouls take out their weapons.  This I find to be an interesting paradox that is created using the colour of their weapons.  I don’t know if it’s intentional or not, but it’s just brilliant. 

Looking at their weapons, they are simply breathtaking.  I’ve never seen such beautiful and artistic use of colours in my entire life.  It is ironic then, that one should be so captivated by something evolved simply to kill and dismember.  It is this juxtaposition that also plays out in the story itself.  The danger of the ghouls, versus the their beauty as beings.

Now I don’t know if I’m seeing more than there really is, but it’s just such a nice touch, or a marvellous coincidence, whichever it is.

Animation Style

The look and feel of Tokyo Ghoul is quite unique.  It’s touches to the individuals refreshing and captivating.  I haven’t seen something this beautifully done since Code Geass.

Motion

I don’t think much more is needed than to say that the climactic fight between Kaneki and his adversary in the final episode won the award for best fight sequence of 2014, and that it appears in all the “Top fights” lists made since, and almost always either in first or second place. 

The animation is fluid, captivating and consistent.

Sound

Tokyo Ghoul’s music, both the opening and ending themes, and the in-episode music used throughout the season is just gorgeous. 

I found the opening themes of the series to be severely unsettling and disturbing.  It aligned perfectly with the theme of the story, and always had me coming back to listen to it again at the end of the episode.  I haven’t seen a more apt set of music since Attack on Titan (which I will be reviewing soon).

Characters

Now we come to the other major part of any anime.  You simply just don’t have a story, no matter what the genre, without characters.  Tokyo Ghoul has some of the best, and most well thought out characters I have seen to date.

Motivation

Yes, I must have hammered this through your skull a couple of times by now, but I’ll say it again.  Motivation is everything.  That’s it.  If I don’t know or can’t figure out why a character is doing something, then it’s not worth watching.  Of course the exception is when you are meant to wonder why a character is acting a way he does, but it’s easy to see when you are wondering because it is intended, or because the character isn’t well thought out or explored. 

Motivation is one of the major features of the anime.  It looks very deeply at especially Kaneki, but also to an extent at the various other characters that feature.  Each has his history, and each has his reasons for doing what he does (except for a few that are just plain idiots and obviously crazy, but insanity works in those instances).

Breaking from Archetypes

Here I felt the anime could have done a little more.  Kaneki certainly is a very unique character, I don’t think there is an archetype that he could be fit into. (Please note that I’m not talking about roles, because he does fit into the role of the person stuck between worlds, but not into the archetype of a person stuck between worlds)  His friend does, however fall into the archetype of a best friend, and his love interest seems bland and unexplored.  Beyond that we have the owner of Anteiku who falls into the archetype of the blindingly good man with an obviously dark history that eventually catches up with him in the second season.

Main Characters and Supporting Characters

I should have these apart, but there’s only a little to say here, so they are together for this review 

The protagonist in this series, Kaneki, is one of the most well-rounded, most flushed-out and dynamic characters I have seen since Code Geass(Yes, I measure almost everything against Code Geass, it’s just that good).  His motivation, his development and his character are all well-done and supremely thought out.

But I think this is both the series strength and its weakness.  It focuses so much on Kaneki that I feel the other characters fall short.  They don’t get the same level of exploration, nor are as dynamic as they could be.  Many of them appear somewhat one dimensional and almost none of them undergo any development, both main and support.

Importance to Story

Tokyo Ghoul did excellent in this regard.  Each of the characters have some specific role in the story, and not just the role of filler or object, but a role in shaping Kaneki on his journey.  Well,with the exception - so far - of Juuzou Suzuya.  Juuzou I find hard to place.  He seems to be all over the place without ever being in the right place.  But over-all, Tokyo Ghoul has placed each character in such a way that they make a crucial contribution to the story.

Conclusion

Tokyo Ghoul is a marvellous piece of art.  It explores the changes in the protagonist and his world very well.  At every turn and every opportunity it stuns and horrifies you without it becoming repetitive or boring.  It is a story that I can’t wait to watch more of, and will definitely revisit in the future.  I recommend this to anyone looking for a thought provoking, entertaining, and unsettling story.

(My opinion everyone) 

I was kind of scared to start this series as I knew it had gore and it was horror... And those two put together isn't normally my cup of tea, but I heard loads of good things about this Anime, so I thought I would venture into the unknown. 

The storyline took a while to get into because of those two things that I said, but I got used to it, it's strange to say but this Anime has most certainly helped me expand my horizons on Anime and what I can and cannot stand. 

The Animation was really good although there was times when I was a little confused... on why they were animating it this way. The Sound was amazing, and the opening OP although I didnt like at first, grew on me... damn you Tokyo Ghoul. 

The characters were nearly perfect, even the evil ones. I really loved how they were placed and used in this Anime, although one character should have had more screen time. I have to admit that I felt really sorry for Ken Kaneki  and the situation that was dumped onto him. 

Overall I really loved this season and can’t wait for the second season that is to come out, really soon. 

This is my all time top favorite anime⁉️ I know people are kind of iffy about it, but I liked it🤷🏾‍♀️ I love the story like I was super into it. I definitely liked first season better than second season honestly🤨 But, second season is still great💁🏾‍♀️ I love how Kaneki comes out of his shell and shows the ghouls what’s up. He was super bad ass and his kagune is always evolving to become better. I heard it’s a little different from the manga though. Many kind of say a lot different, but oh well I liked it☺️