As a person who read the manga I understood what was going on in root a however I cant imagine how confused anime only's are at some points when watching Root A. Anime only viewers where probably thinking who are the twins? why is Ken fighting this guy? why does Ken look like a centipede? who is this white haired guy with a electricity firing quinque? This adaption is pretty much if you butchered/removed most of your MCs arcs and character development in the second half of the manga so that you can get to the end faster and have more fights. The only thing different from the manga is Ken joining the bad guys but that did not make much of difference as nothing new was led to it happening. any fight scenes used from the manga where not done to the fights conclusion as all the fights in this anime where just one party running away when things where getting interesting. The only pluses in the story is they did the first 2 and last 4 episodes well enough.
The only thing good with how the story was done was how they adapted particular scenes. This includes mainly scenes in the final battle with Yoshimura, Koma, Irimi and Ken. Even with the battle being epic and all the whole thing was wrecked by skipping some of the most major scenes in the series. There was one anime only scene near the end that really brought out the feels which was the only other high point in the story.
The art was a bit lacking in Root A especially in some of the fight scenes mid way through the season. The fights in the anime only areas where slow and boring. Character designs where good while the setting where done as well as in the first season. The ghoul investigator weapons where however not as great in terms of detail as they where in season one as halve the time they did not look as lethal as they did in the first season. The only time the art shined in the last few episodes which I guess was what the studio wanted to animate above all else.
The OST in this anime is absolutely beautiful. The opening song is the only downside to the sound in this anime as it can't match unravel as an opening. The soundtrack was indeed better than the first season of the anime and was likely the only thing better than the first season.
The only problem with the characters was Ken and new characters introduced. some of the characters like the twins don't get a proper introduction and are only used as for the anime only fight scenes. Kaneki is the biggest problem when it came to characters in this anime. The problem with Kens character in Root A is similar to Godzilla in the 2014 Godzilla film. He has a extremely low presence in Root A where all his scenes and dialog would only cover 30 minutes of the entire season. This mainly due to the fact that he is hardly on screen for the middle section of the show which mostly follows Touka who is trying to live a normal life and Amon who is trying to find Kaneki and other ghouls. He isn't made out to be a main character in Root A but a background character. If anyone is the main character in Root A it is probably Touka or Amon.
The anime was not as good as I hoped it would be. I hope this season gets a reboot in hope of something better. My Main reason for this is that the ending which is bittersweet is way different to the Manga and leaves out any chance of a season 3 for the second Manga Re: . I did however enjoy a few of the episodes but the ones in the middle were extremely rushed and made me wish Root A was 25 instead of 12 episodes.
