Tokyo Ghoul
Tokyo Ghoul just ended, so I took it upon myself to pick up the popular anime series. With its hardcore gore, punk character design and dark themes, how could I not get into it?
I’ve seen plenty about the series on social networks, but I knew almost nothing about the series. Here’s what I knew about Tokyo Ghoul before I started watching:
– Tokyo Ghoul is about a boy with an eye patch and a bowl cut.
– There are creepy people, including one character with large eyes that looks like Rin Kagamine, the Vocaloid. There’s also a guy with a mask that shows fake teeth.
– People are dying in, presumably, Tokyo, and Bowl Cut is going to get to the bottom of it.
– There is a girl who wears a rabbit mask.
– At one point, Rin Kagamine rides a motorcycle and laughs hysterically.
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD.
I was wrong about a lot of things. I was really wrong.
For one, Bowl Cut and Mask Teeth are the same person, and his name is Kaneki Ken. He’s a human who, in a turn of events, was given the organs of a ghoul.
Ghouls are creatures that look like humans but have strong organs that can extend from their bodies called “kagunes.” Functioning like a muscle, kagunes come in different type with varying levels of strength. Some are heavier, some are sharper, and pretty much every ghoul as a different kagune.
Feeding off humans, ghouls must kill to survive. After the organ transplant, Kaneki is forced to live his life as a ghoul. Struggling at first, he’s unable to eat and adapt, but with the help of a ghoul-run coffee shop, he learns how to live both as a human and a ghoul. Luckily for him, he was transplanted the organs of a highly ranked ghoul and gained the ability to use her kagune.
Rin Kagamine is not a ghoul. He’s actually a ghoul investigator named Juuzou Suzuya. He works for the Commission of Counter Ghoul. I did get one thing right, though: He did ride a motorcycle while laughing hysterically one time.
Tokyo Ghoul was particularly interesting to me because I grew so attached to Kaneki and the other ghouls. I didn’t care as much for the CCG, which are the “heroes” of the story. For the entirety of Ghoul, you’re rooting for the bad guys to win.
Most shounen manga include some kind of event that gives the protagonist new abilities. One Piece and Naruto featured a time skip. Haikyuu!! and Blue Exorcist had training camps and exercises. The change is normally gradual and takes time for the character to learn how to use their new power.
Kaneki’s transformation was sudden and almost unexplained. After being tortured, he suddenly had a complete shift in mentality and ability. Suddenly able to take down a highly ranked ghoul and actually eat a part of him, Kaneki’s burst of character remained relatively unexplained.
The ending was a major disappointment, though. The author, Sui Ishida, left tons of questions unanswered and abruptly cut off the series. What happens to Touka and her friend? Did Hide die by the hand of his best friend? Is Tsukiyama mentally stable or is he done for?
Hopefully these questions will be answered, as Ishida recently released the sequel to the series: Tokyo Ghoul: Re. The sequel features a new cast, but familiar faces have already made appearances in the first chapter. Currently publishing, the manga will be updated every week and is readable here.
Season two of the show will start this winter, continuing from Kaneki’s white-haired transformation.
