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.

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.

Some stories are just too much fun to see. Tokyo ghoul has a thriller type awesome story. Art style is really great too. Don't look at those who gave it a bad review. Season 1 was great.

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.

First season has the one of the best writing i have ever seen. After that they diverged from tha manga and.. lets just say Tokyo ghoul has only one season