Tokyo Ghoul

OK, so it's not often an anime this dark comes around, and so I just had to check it out. I haven't read the manga (if there is one), so I'm not sure if this follows closely or not. And without dropping any spoilers, it would appear a second season may be coming. Hopefully it will wrap things up.

Tokyo has two types of inhabitants, humans and ghouls. Ghouls look like humans, but can transform into monsters, have special blood-type weapons and other powers and have to feed on human flesh. All other food is repulsive to them. One day, Kaneki, a normal high school boy, has an accident and is given an organ transplant from a ghoul and becomes a half-human, half-ghoul hybrid. He learns that not all ghouls are horrible, man-eating monsters and some just want to live normal lives. He also learns that isn't easy for his kind.

This show had great character depth and animation and was pretty hectic with the violence and despair. But it was also censored to pieces and the ending was vague. The second season may clarify some things. Watch it...without your kids haha.

I started watching the anime, and shortly after, a friend of mine told me that I should have read the manga instead. So I made it a point to read the manga after finishing the anime and here I am now.

The main problem seems to be the omission of certain scenes leading to a nonsense season 3.

The first season is great; it is similar to the manga, although it seems like a lot of important information has been lost, if you animate such a popular manga I don't get why you don't do it properly and maybe give it a couple more episodes and more time to refine it.

Personally, I really enjoyed the second season; it lacked structure, but I preferred the anime to the manga, at least in the beginning. It made more sense to me, and I could relate more to the decisions made following what occurred to Kaneki at the end of Season 1, then again they didn't get anywhere with the deviation and just returned to the manga storyline. The issue is the ending; The fact that they chose to deviate from the manga to then return to it as if nothing changed was so infuriating. They avoided many critical storyline elements at the end of the season in order to continue the story in the third season, assuming that everyone is aware of those elements. As I watched it I still hadn't read the manga and I remember being extremely confused.

It's all downhill from there. To be honest, I didn't like Re manga (as much as Tokyo ghoul) , but the anime is unwatchable. It's as if they've given up making sense of the plot.

Finally the fourth season was similar to the manga.

Overall, I'm not sure if I would recommend watching it; it's up to you, I guess. Think about an awesome plot but poorly executed. The manga would provide you with greater enjoyment, but for me there are some parts of the anime that I prefer. If you don't want to read the manga but you really want to watch it then don't expect too much after the first season.

This is a story about a boy who is changed into something he fears. He then has to learn how to live on the border between what he is used to and what he fears.

The show is tremendously violent and gory, but not extraordinarily so in it's genre. It kind of falls into the Supersayan-problem of ever more powerful enemies that can only be defeated by the main character after becoming stronger, but it varies enough (more so in the second season than the first). Despite the characters feeling all over the place in the first few episodes, there is a point to that and after two seasons I actually quite like how the character arcs turned out.

What makes this story for me is it's underlying themes. It's about the big subjects of life and death and love and hate, but it does so in a different way than I am used to. The show seems to ask by showing murder after murder, battle after battle, slaughter after slaughter: isn't this pointless? Every time it sets a character up to be violently taken apart it makes a point to say that that character had value and now he or she is no more. It makes the point of the show, despite it's extreme violence one of pacifism.

It is a tremendously depressing watch, but definitely something I haven't seen before and something I don't know if I should recommend. Watch this if: a. you like violent anime and just want to see the pictures, because it is well made and not focus on the plot or b. you like feeling like crap after binging on short episode after short episode.

PS I don't like the title songs, but I am sure many people disagree.

Initially I thought the first half of season one was too slow paced and kind of boring because I just couldn't figure out the direction of the plot and the main point to the whole story. What happens to the main character just wasn't enough to drive the plot forward in my mind; the "now what? so what?" question kept nagging at me. But I was patient and kept watching and realized how wrong my initial impression was. I realized that the slow pacing and lack of a central purpose/goal of the early episodes actually works to improve character development so that the finale hits us that much harder. From the midpoint on Tokyo Ghoul turns into an absolute masterpiece; I began to see depth to the whole story and the shows profound take on ethics and psychology.

This series has potential to become one of the best anime's in recent memory if it gets a few more seasons. In fact, I think that the plot is thick enough here to warrant many more seasons. Season 1 does a excellent job setting the context and introducing us to the characters. It would be a shame if Tokyo Ghoul ended after just 24 episodes. I want more than that. If you fail to reach the midpoint of the first season, you will judge this series inaccurately based on limited data. If you make it to the midpoint, however, you will have that epiphany you've been searching for and the show will appear before you in a new light, as it has to me.

Don't judge this series based on the manga; they're totally different artforms and should be judged separately. It seems to me that a lot of people who negatively judge this series are extremely biased in favor of the manga, and that's just unreasonable.

If judged by the first half alone: 7.0-8.0/10.

If judged by the second half alone: 10/10.

If judged in hindsight taking into consideration everything I mentioned: 10/10.

I really enjoyed the first season of this series, but after that it went kinda downhill - I also watched second season and I didn't think it really lived up to the hype of the first season. The ending of second season got to me, and I actually thought it was quite okay anyways - but as soon as :re came out I was out the door. "What the heck is wrong with this" I thought to myself multiple before finally dropping it around the third episode of the latest season.