Tokyo Ghoul

A sinister threat is invading Tokyo: flesh-eating "ghouls" who appear identical to humans and blend into their population. Reserved college student Ken Kaneki buries his nose in books and avoids the news of the growing crisis. However, the appearance of an attractive woman named Rize Kamishiro shatters his solitude when she forwardly asks him on a date.

While walking Rize home, Kaneki discovers she isn't as kind as she first appeared, and she has led him on with sinister intent. After a tragic struggle, he later awakens in a hospital to learn his life was saved by transplanting the now deceased Rize's organs into his own body.

Kaneki's body begins to change in horrifying ways, and he transforms into a human-ghoul hybrid. As he embarks on his new dreadful journey, Kaneki clings to his humanity in the evolving bloody conflict between society's new monsters and the government agents who hunt them.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Related Anime

Adaptation:	Tokyo Ghoul
Sequel:	Tokyo Ghoul √A
Spin-off:	Tokyo Ghoul: "Jack", Tokyo Ghoul: "Pinto"

More characters

Characters & Voice Actors

Kaneki, Ken

Main

Hanae, Natsuki
Japanese

Kirishima, Touka

Main

Amamiya, Sora
Japanese

Suzuya, Juuzou

Supporting

Kugimiya, Rie
Japanese

Uta

Supporting

Sakurai, Takahiro
Japanese

Tsukiyama, Shuu

Supporting

Miyano, Mamoru
Japanese

Nagachika, Hideyoshi

Supporting

Toyonaga, Toshiyuki
Japanese

Eto

Supporting

Sakamoto, Maaya
Japanese

Arima, Kishou

Supporting

Namikawa, Daisuke
Japanese

Kamishiro, Rize

Supporting

Hanazawa, Kana
Japanese

Kirishima, Ayato

Supporting

Kaji, Yuuki
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Cook, Justin

Producer

Maruyama, Hajime

Producer

Morita, Shuuhei

Director, Episode Director, Storyboard

Haraguchi, Noboru

Sound Director

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Opening Theme

"unravel" by TK from Ling Tosite Sigure (eps 2-11)

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Ending Theme

	1: "unravel" by TK from Ling Tosite Sigure (eps 1, 12)
	2: "Seijatachi (聖者たち)" by People In The Box (eps 2-11)

Reviews

Jul 24, 2023

_Exotic_Gaming_

Recommended

Tokyo Ghoul is a story about a young man named Ken Kaneki who becomes a half-human, half-ghoul after a tragic accident. The series explores themes of prejudice, identity, and the consequences of power in a fascinating and unique way. The animation and artwork are extremely detailed and atmospheric, and the story will keep you engaged from start to finish. Additionally, the series includes a diverse cast of characters, all with their own unique motivations and personalities, making it a pleasure to watch. I highly recommend Tokyo Ghoul to fans of action, mystery, and psychological thrillers.

The supporting cast of investigators and other ghouls are equally well-written ...

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Mar 28, 2023

EvilXo

Mixed Feelings

TOKYO GHOUL~ Honest Review:
I acknowledge the fact that Tokyo ghoul has a good story line and a massive start i.e a date leading to being a ghoul is nothing but an exceptional start in my opinion. And the fact that it has many best openings and endings like Unravel and remembering are close to my Heart But now addressing the major issue in this scenerio is that its animation could be made alot better keeping in mind the story it could easily have surpassed many shows but unluckily that amazing story was lacking a decent animation especially in the final season.

Now ...

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Aug 8, 2023

ThatAnimeSnobRE

Not Recommended

Funny

Notice: This review covers both seasons of this anime.

Tokyo Ghoul was one of the most hyped titles of summer 2014 but it quickly proved to be far weaker than what its first episode promises. It starts off as a psychological thriller about the main character suddenly turning to a man eating monster. His freak out was done masterfully and you were made to think the rest of the show would be a constant internal struggle between his human and monster sides. Maybe he will accept it and go on a murder spree or maybe he will find a way to control it.

But nope, turns out ... the whole thing was just an excuse to have a lobotomized main character entering a world where everything needs to be explained to him. He is just used as a plot device for lazy infodumping, a guide for the viewer to explore the society of these man eating monsters. Basically the show is not a thriller about his internal struggles at all; it is about a poorly conceived world inside a fighting shonen and the whole thing falls apart early on.

Just like it happens with all shonen stories, this one too takes its material way too light in terms of exposition and way too silly in terms of unnecessarily violent scenes. You are mostly busy watching flat characters cutting people to pieces while throwing in some very simple and yet over the top reasoning for whatever is going on. Thus, not only the ghoul society is cartoonishly simplistic, but it is also presented in such an extreme way that it’s impossible to take it seriously.

These ghouls are supposed to be hiding amongst humanity and praying upon it since forever, yet humanity isn’t living or acting any differently because of that. Ok, they have anti-ghoul squads but everyday people behave as they would in our world. All they do is have a few posters as warning to kids not to be going in dark alleys alone. That makes it seem like these monsters that constantly kill and eat them, are as worrisome as teaching children how to cross the street. If this show was trying to be remotely realistic, the world would be a completely different place, since humans are not at the top of the food chain and are hunted all the time as if it’s still the prehistoric times instead of a civilized modern world. It is especially laughable when they keep saying it is very hard to find the ghouls hiding amongst them because they look like people, when they know their skin is very hard. All they have to do is sting someone with a needle. If that person doesn’t bleed, voila, it’s a ghoul.

The ghoul society ain’t that better either as there is no way to tell what these monsters really think or want as a whole. Some are complete maniacs who slaughter and arrange arena death duels for pure entertainment, and others behave like normal humans who coexist peacefully with them. The fact that they can have normal humans as lovers or can successfully transplant their organs to them, further proves that they are simply humans themselves who for no given reason can only eat human flesh and have superpowers. Oh, and just for the heck of it, they also drink coffee without a problem. Whatever.

Thus all attempts to flesh out their society are crock; they are just people themselves, not a different species. They have so much diversity in mannerisms amongst them to the point they have no identity as a whole. They even lack reason in having their own secret society. Heck, the very fact that they can feed on corpses they find in morgues or cemeteries further proves they don’t even need to kill people; they do it for fun, and not because their instinct compels them to do it. This trashes the interesting concepts the show was setting up in the early episodes, such as the internal struggle of the protagonist, or the need to murder people in general.

And the problems don’t even end there. As far as storytelling goes the pacing is extremely fast, as the anime attempts to cover a hundred manga chapters in only a dozen episodes. Nothing lasts long enough for you to care about. Even in terms of aesthetics there is very little to hook you besides a few cinematics here and there. And even those are ruined because of the ridiculous amount of censorship. All action scenes consist mostly of white beams, black beams, and color swaps, which hide everything that is going on.

The protagonist is another issue. He is a complete pussy, screaming at everything, being worthless in battle and oblivious to common knowledge. I mean, it is normal for him to be terrified when thrown in such a situation out of nowhere, but this doesn’t make him a good protagonist. Why do you think so many people dislike the protagonists of Tokyo Revengers or My Hero Academia? Such leads are always the least interesting. The fact that they constantly survive in every battle with crappy plot armor further damages the appeal of the show.

Speaking of which, there is no consistency when it comes to who can survive what. Anyone the scriptwriter deems plot relevant ia plot armored with 10 inches of titanium walls. He constantly tries to make it seem like anyone can die in this show and yet several times per episode people will be jumping in out of nowhere to save plot related characters, or the characters themselves will have superpowers activating exactly when they are about to die. For a show that is constantly trying to excite you with gore or to make you think nobody in it is safe, this saps away all the tension from the battles. You know right away some characters will always be conveniently surviving in the lamest way imaginable. There is literally a scene where a super elite ghoul hunter has overpowered the good guys and out of nowhere a little defenseless girl sprouts super tentacles and wipes the floor with him. And all of that, while she was crying, had zero experience in combat, and didn’t even want to harm him. Power levels mean absolutely nothing; even if you can blow up mountains you are still going to get killed by a little defenseless girl if you are not plot relevant.

Even death is meaningless in this show since people who are dead will be magically coming back to life or will be replaced by others who have the exact same character. A ghoul gets chopped to pieces? No worries, it can eat itself and heal completely. A little girl lost its parents? Nothing was lost, she gets to use their superpowers as if they are still around. There is no finality to anything; death is as meaningless as it is in Dragonball or Bleach.

The biggest troll of them all is how they constantly try to make you think the protagonist is slowly learning and becomes less of a pussy. But that is a lie since every time his superpowers activate and gets ll angry, leads to nothing after the battle is over. Furthermore any so-called character development he gets is basically mimicking others instead of having a personality of his own. His fighting powers are not his; they are a copy of the ghoul whose organs got transplanted to him. His behavior in battle is again not his; it’s a copy of how his attackers behave, meaning he heads for childish poetic justice by treating the bad guys exactly as they treat him. Oh, hi Jason, I am going to be like you now! That is what a spoiled 10 year old would do, not a mature character.

Tokyo Ghoul is pretty much the same thing as Deadman Wonderland. Promises excitement, mystery, and internal conflicts but all it delivers after a few episodes is a gorefest regarding poorly conceived superpower battles, shallow world building, and characters that come and go as the plot demands for it. There is literally a war going on in the last episodes and you have no idea who are these people, why do they kill each other like it matters, or why would you even care if there weren’t more than 2 minutes worth of screentime dedicated on making us care about them.

But wait, maybe the manga will be better. Everybody who reads it will tell you it is a masterpiece. Yeah, don’t believe them, it is still crap. It’s so poorly thought out it can’t even explain why don’t the ghouls simply camp outside morgues and be done with it. You will be reading hundreds of chapters and you will be getting zero progress or meaning out of them. It will be just nonsense about flower symbolisms and people fighting each other with inconsistent power levels. The very creator eventually got bored and ended it all in a hurry.

With shows such as Guyver from the 80s and Parasyte airing along with it, Tokyo Ghoul comes off as a complete trainwreck that a lot of people liked because of the premise and not its execution. It’s basically another Elfen Lied or an Akame ga Kill.

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Tokyo Ghoul

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Kirishima, Touka

Suzuya, Juuzou

Uta

Tsukiyama, Shuu

Nagachika, Hideyoshi

Eto

Arima, Kishou

Kamishiro, Rize

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Tokyo Ghoul

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Synopsis

Background

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