Anime Review: Tokyo Ghoul

Welcome to the second review of Horror Month! Enjoy.

I feel like adaptations get a bad rap for not being nearly as good as its source material. For example, people harp on the original Fullmetal Alchemist for deviating from the manga, and don’t judge it on its own merits. I don’t view the criticism that an adaptation is “worse than” the source material to be a legitimate analysis as to what’s wrong with the show, unless this complaint is elaborated upon. Unfortunately, because most anime are adaptations of light novels, visual novels, manga, card games (apparently), movies, books, meeting fans of the original source material is unavoidable, and these complaints are abundant. This ideology towards adaptations bared its teeth and chomped down on the recent adaptation of the widely loved manga Tokyo Ghoul, and I believe that people are being way too harsh on this anime when simply comparing it to the manga. Sure, I’m a huge fan of the Tokyo Ghoul manga and believe it to be a masterpiece (except for the ending), but I don’t despise the show like most manga fans apparently do. But, just because an anime can hold up on its own without referring to the manga doesn’t necessarily make the show good. Persona 4: The Animation was a video game adaptation where I understood the plot and characters pretty well, but the show has its own problems that prevented it from being great. Was Tokyo Ghoul’s anime adaptation a success? Sit back, relax, and read on as I review Tokyo Ghoul, with a couple comparisons to its source material.

The Setup:

The anime takes place in a version of Tokyo (who would’ve guessed?) where creatures called ghouls (wow, so unpredictable) exist. Ghouls are monsters who live by eating human flesh, resulting in a society being constantly afraid of ghoul attacks. Ken Kaneki is a taciturn bookworm college student who somehow manages to get a date with the beautiful Rize, a girl he’s had a crush on ever since he saw her in the coffee shop he frequents, Anteiku. Unfortunately for Kaneki, Rize leads him to a back alley and attempts to eat him, as she is the notorious “binge eater” ghoul. Suddenly, something (or someone) crashed into a building, causing debris to fall on Rize and kill her. A terribly injured Kaneki is rushed to the hospital and undergoes an organ transplant, with the donor being Rize herself. As a consequence, Kaneki becomes half ghoul and half human, and the struggle to balance these two halves begins. What more could you have asked for from a dark fantasy story? Every aspect of this setup is incredibly intriguing, and made it impossible for me to turn away from it. In fact, I was so interested in it that I checked out the manga before the anime, which is something that I never do! (The only other time was Attack on Titan, but that’s because the anime kind of ended on a cliffhanger and I wanted to know what happened next). However, this did lead to some disappointment, especially when compared to the excellent manga. Just so you don't call me a hypocrite, I'll try my best to minimize the comparisons to the manga, but in this case the comparisons help explain a couple of my points. So, in this case, it's unavoidable. 

Tokyo Ghoul follows Kaneki, who gets his organs replaced with a ghouls'

The Characters:

One of the aspects that I think that the Tokyo Ghoul anime did pretty well were the characters. For the short run-time of 12 episodes, the characters did develop and remain consistent without feeling forced, even if the development was kind of weak. Kaneki was one of my favorite characters in the manga, and the anime is no exception. He kind of falls into the “Shinji” archetype of being physically and mentally weak, which is an archetype that I’m quite fond of because they’re sympathetic and understandable (unlike most people). Sure, you can mess this character up (looking at you, Yukiteru from Future Diary), but for the most part they’re the most relatable and almost always go through fantastic development into a much stronger person. Without spoiling too much, this does happen to Kaneki, but his development comes from a much darker place and therefore he becomes more of an anti-hero than a stronger hero (yeah, I’m cheating by including this observation from the manga, but I think this could be inferred from the final moments of episode 12). I also happen to like how he loves books, just like me, but that’s due to a personal bias. Next, there’s Touka, who’s basically Mikasa from Attack on Titan if you subtract the undying devotion to the main character. She’s fine, but not the best, as her development was curtailed pretty badly. Nishiki, who was my second favorite character in the manga, was fortunately spared, as his character has just enough depth to be sympathetic and understandable, and (kind of spoiler) his character arc showcases a really powerful symbol that ghouls and humans can get along, which is a major part of the overall story (more on that later). The other side characters and the villains, however, got sidelined. Admittedly, the side characters such as Hinami, Amon, Mado, Usa, Hide, Eto, and so on were so underdeveloped that I barely remember their names, and I probably missed quite a few of them. The villains (mainly Jason, who shall remain nameless due to spoilers, and Tsukiyama) are neglected and their developments are incredibly rushed. They were both still scary and did their jobs, but they weren’t as good as they could’ve been. Overall, while the development is there, the rushed story really prevented any of the characters to really leave an impact on me except for Kaneki (unlike the manga), which was pretty disappointing to me. Nevertheless, I still enjoyed their presence, and weren’t awful characters by any stretch.

From left to right: Tsukiyama, Hinami, Kaneki, Touka, Nishiki

The Story:

The same problems with the characters are present within the problems of the story. The pacing is way too fast, and they left out so many important details from the manga that it’s not even funny. This series should’ve been 24 episodes as opposed to 12, or at the very least less of the manga should have been adapted for this season. When you have 60-70 chapters of story and character compressed into an anime that is barely five hours…that’s going to be horribly rushed. The first two episodes, however, were actually paced rather well, focusing on Kaneki’s very interesting conflict and how he comes to terms with it. Then, episodes 3-11, while entertaining, were so fast that I found it hard to believe that people who never read the manga knew what the heck was going on and why the characters were doing what they did. Granted, the manga’s pacing was sometimes rather slow, but this fast pace just hindered the story even more. The anime also lacks atmosphere, which was probably my favorite part of the manga. The atmosphere of the manga was dark, unsettling, and creepy, while the anime focuses mainly on its story and basically just says, “Hey, ghouls exist! Be scared!” without much buildup. It also didn’t help that the arcs were thrown out of order, which just completely messed up the progression. Then, episode 12 happened. I love Tokyo Ghoul’s final episode. It was dramatic, perfectly executed, well written, and completely engaging. There’s just one problem; it ends in the middle of a fight. WHAT?! I do realize that Tokyo Ghoul √A exists, but that’s a terrible ending to a stand-alone show! What if there wasn’t a second season, huh? What would you do then? Speaking of the second season, I still haven't seen beyond the first episode, so I have no right to judge it. I still think that the first episode was pretty terrible though, and I probably won't continue it anytime soon.

The story is really rushed, but the finale is fantastic

The Animation and Sound:

This is the redeeming factor of Tokyo Ghoul, because both the animation and music are great. The animation looks pretty fantastic when it wants to, and the ghouls’ kagune are truly unique and colorful, and are animated beautifully. The other color choices were kind off odd, like how Tsukiyama and Rize’s hair were both purple, but it’s not terrible. The action scenes are very well choreographed and would be fantastic if not for the BLACK LINES EVERYWHERE. Yeah, Tokyo Ghoul is a gore fest, and the censors are incredibly annoying. I normally dislike gore, but this is ridiculous because you’re constantly being reminded that you’re watching an anime, therefore cutting off any engagement or investment into the actual scene. Once the Blu-Ray comes out I’m going to watch it uncensored, and if I can’t handle the gore, fine. The sound is also quite good. The soundtrack isn’t the most memorable, but it did provide two wonderful song that I grew to love, which will both be featured below. The opening is just phenomenal, with fantastic animation, symbolism, and a song that fits Tokyo Ghoul to a T. The ending’s also not that bad, so check that out too. The Japanese voice acting is great as always, with an exceptional performance from Kaneki’s seiyuu (there’s no English dub yet). My one complaint, however, was Tsukiyama’s French accent. It was laughably abysmal. Take it from someone who’s learning French and has a French friend; that’s not a French accent. At best, it sounded Italian, which is a bad thing.