Tokyo Ghoul 2

*This is season 2 of Tokyo Ghoul

Positives are Ken Kaneki's character development from stereotypical crybaby to an emotionless monster that leads battles.

Fights are still great, but the huge downside is brutal, especially visible for fans who read the manga. Notoriously known as the worst anime adaptation in terms of pacing.

This is where the majority of people drop the anime and convert to the manga instead. Even the biggest fans of the first season are disappointed.

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.

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)

Ok maybe the rating doesn't match the title but there were good moments in my opinion, very enjoyable at times and at least it was a coherent overall story. But so many storylines went nowhere and had no explanation. Characters weren't developed at all when introduced which is a huge shame. A lot of the end was unexplained aswell. Overall very disappointing with some very good, enjoyable moments.

Tokyo Ghoul is a special series. It differs from season to season very much, so rating the entire series with a single rating feels wrong, and unfair to this season, season 2.

I'm not a manga reader, and I think that some animes with a manga that differs much from the anime often becomes an unfair situation in rating. If I understand correctly, this whole season is not in the manga, and therefore it became a situation when manga readers don't like this season just because they love how the manga was original made and if the anime then differs, (even if it's good, which in this case it is), they don't like it and poison their view of the whole series. Because I'll be honest, and anyone who hasn't read the manga will probably agree with this. This season is by far the best in the entire series. Those who say otherwise have either read the manga and therefore underrate this season, or that they simply like simpler, more childish series. Because if you are to compare seasons 1 and 2 in TG, it is like day and night, where night is all well and good. Season 1 is fairly light, where the characters feel simpler and easier to understand, and then it takes a turn in season 2 where everything gets dark, and there is a mysterious feeling throughout the series, where the characters, especially the main character, feel much more complex and more likeable.

Season one is in the manga, and season two is not. And still for season 2 to have almost the same rating as season one, with all the manga-readers hating it, is a good job. I've seen a lot of series, many animes too. And I can easily say, without the manga making any role in this, season 2 is objectivly much better than season 1, and 7,5 on this second season is way too low. I loved this season, and would say it is one of the better seasons in anime in the new-gens.

Just wanted to talk about this, because I've heard that the manga is super good in TG, and now that s1 was in the manga, and s2 wasn't, makes the rating very unfair, wrong. I would personally rate this season around 8,3 to 8,5 (compared to other animes, I think animes usually have a too high rating in general, because the audience is one-sided, but thats not importnant here).