Anime Reviews

Tokyo Ghoul

Title: Tokyo Ghoul

Owner: Sui Ishida

Genre: Dark fantasy, action, thriller

Rating: 6.5/10

Summary:

Young college student Ken Kaneki meets a beautiful young woman named Rize Kamishiro at a coffee shop named Anteiku. After finding out that they share an interest in the same author, they arrange a date. All goes well until later that night.

While Kaneki is walking Rize home, she reveals herself to be a ghoul--one of the cannibalistic monsters that integrate themselves into society and live amongst humans in secret. She violently attacks him; but before she can land the final blow a platform from the construction site above them falls and crushes her.

Kaneki is found and is rushed to the hospital in critical condition, having Rize's organs transplanted into him. The doctors, unaware that Rize was a ghoul, tell Kaneki that he will be alright and make a full recovery. As he soon finds out, he will never make a full recovery. Not with his hunger for human flesh, being preyed upon by other ghouls because of his rare breed, or struggle to keep his half-ghoul status a secret from his human friends.

He will always straddle the line between being a human and a ghoul.

Opinion:

You guys... I just...

Okay, let me start fresh. So, due to popular demand and many private messages, I finally decided to watch Tokyo Ghoul. I was super pumped to watch it because so many people loved it and because their fandom is so freaking big, so I got right into it.

I haven't been this disappointed in awhile. This show was gravely overestimated.

I'm not sure if it's just me, but this show seemed to be a little all-over-the-place when it came to the plot. There wasn't any defined plot line, it seemed, but once again maybe it's just me. It wasn't even that great of a story either. Because no plot or goal was ever really assigned to the show, it was almost comprised of nothing but fillers. That's what this series felt like. It was kind of a mess.

While I'm pretty sure that the manga is a lot better, I wasn't really drawn in enough to want to read the manga. I think I'm done with this series.

I'm not trying to say that all of it was bad, because there was some good parts. Nothing can ever be completely bad--or so I'd like to think. I mean, I had some fun times with this show. Like right after Kaneki finds out he's a half-ghoul...

So he goes out in the allies, thirsty for blood and flesh but tries to get past it, right? So I'm sitting there, eating my chocolate mousse and peanut butter brittle cake or whatever the hell it was, sitting back and relaxing. I was sincerely enjoying it, because the first three or four episodes were definitely the best thoroughout the whole series.

So then Kaneki almost gets killed, Touka comes and saves his ass, and starts to force feed him. She starts wondering what it's like to be human. At the time I was watching this, it was a little before 1 a.m., so for a brief second I kinda dazed out because I was tired (even though I was eating really sugary cake). Then Touka says, "I wonder what cake tastes like. Humans love cake, but how can they? To me it tastes like rotten eggs."

Or something along those lines. I'm sure that's not what she said. Because I was kinda half out of it and tired even though I was eating cake, I went crazy for a second because I thought she was speaking to me. So I kinda looked at my cake and whispered, "It's good...'cause it's sweet..."

After that night, I haven't eaten cake past 8.

Anyways, another point I'd like to quickly make is that Nashiki looks (and kind of acts) like Light Yagami. Every single time I saw him I would think it was Light, not Nashiki. That was sort of a good filler we saw, with him and his human girlfriend. Wait, does that mean that Kaneki would be L?

You know what, never mind.

It's just that... I was so disappointed! The whole series seemed like fillers and none of it really made any sense! It made me really sad. It's like the producers tried to jam-pack a bunch of arcs into a 12-episode series, but as a result the show had no plot and was basically made of fillers. The only thing that actually interested me was the last three minutes of the last episode. If they had continued on from that, then I think it would have been better.

I honestly think that if it weren't for the gore of this show, that it wouldn't be popular. People are sick and twisted in unimaginable, subconsious ways (including me, of course), so this is just a theory of mine:

If Tokyo Ghoul wasn't gory or if it was completely censored like Fairy Tail, then it would have no viewers. Even if most people don't want to admit it, I can say that about 75% of the crowd watched it (maybe without even knowing) because it looked horror-ish and suspenseful due to the gore. Hell, that was why I watched it. Because it looked gory and had the possibility of making my skin crawl.

I love shows, characters, books, anything that can get a reaction out of me. It's kind of how I rate things. Like, if something makes me cry, or fangirl, or squeal, or jump back in horror, or feel queasy, then it's a good show in my book. If I'm sitting there without any reaction (like Sword Art Online), not feeling sorry, guilty, or happy even once, then it's probaby not a good show.

Even if it's a bad guy or antagonist of the series, if they can actually get me to hate them (like Orochimaru or Aizen) then it probably is a good show.

The only scene that ever got a reaction out of me was when Kaneki had the centipede put in his ear. That was the only scene--the rest didn't even make me bat an eye.

For warnings, there is lots of blood, tons of it, and gore too. A lot of vomiting, in case you feel uncomfortable about that, some sexual content, and a fair bit of language too.

Vote if the manga actually was better than the anime.