Tokyo Ghoul: Root A

Disclaimer; I have never read the manga, so any deviation of this anime adaption from the manga does not affect my opinion, as it seems to be a gripe with many people who have reviewed this part of the TG franchise.

Tokyo Ghoul RootA is... a mess, to put it kindly. There are things that I liked about this series over the last one, such as more time devoted to The Doves, who I think are interesting as a balance to the world of Antique and the ghouls. I also thought the music, like the last series, remained consistent with the mood of the story. I liked a particular scene where they talk about coffee, and I enjoyed hearing about Yoshimura's backstory. However, the series did become slightly as I had imagined before watching the first series, with not much justification to the violent storyline for our characters. And the pacing is just all over the place, and I feel that so many of the new characters that were introduced had absolutely no impact on the story. It never becomes unentertaining enough to be called "bad", per-se, but it still feels like a disappointment after the first series.

Dubbed: Taking place shortly after the first miniseries, this sequel shows the now transformed Kaneki working for the Agori tree, which is an organization of ghouls that some would say are not very nice. It's up to his friends to try and figure out what his deal is. Idk to me it just felt like Kaneki was turning evil for no reason I guess until toward the end where they reveal what they reveal. I definitely enjoyed this miniseries, but not quite as top notch as the first series. Nonetheless still just as relentless, and plenty of cool characters arcs.

If I would not have read the manga, I would probably have rated it 2 stars. It's that bad. Mind you, the first season was a 9 for me.

Let's start with the flaws. Side stories that don't go anywhere. Characters without any purpose. Characters suddenly appearing in the middle of action scenes from nowhere. The main character (is he even main character anymore?) missing from lots of important parts of the story. And I could go on. Long story short, it's a very confusing show that makes little sense.

Does it have cool action scenes? Yeah but... I don't think you can be invested in them if you don't care about the characters.

In spite of all this, the show can be enjoyable if you read the manga first. As I already read the manga, I could fill up plotholes and understand the reasons for the existence of action scenes and some secondary characters. The anime diverges from the manga a lot but some scenes are picked directly from the manga without any thought if they fit here or not.

The last few episodes are especially interesting (if you read the manga, again I repeat myself)

I've not read the manga's but after watching the second season / follow up series and feeling like it was missing something critical it appears this chapter in the anime failed to do "Tokyo Ghoul" justice.

Tokyo Ghoul is a overall overwhelmingly positive story, IF YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT THE MANGA. The whole story aspect has been thrown out of the window as if the TV screen was on fire. All the story aspect is messed up and ruined and there are too many plot holes. It feels like what a five year thought this was about and then wrote the story briefly. I made a mistake of watching the anime first then the manga because I didn't like the story this much but my friend kept recommending the manga so I gave it a try and oh gosh... It was great. Most of the plot holes were covered and important story aspects were covered in the manga rather than this unfinished anime. Overall, I would not recommend this anime at all UNLESS you read the manga first and want to watch a animated version of the ACTION SCENES. But at least they got one thing right. The awesome soundtrack. So please watch after you had read the manga.