Tokyo Ghoul

A sinister threat is invading Tokyo: flesh-eating "ghouls" who appear identical to humans and blend into their population. Reserved college student Ken Kaneki buries his nose in books and avoids the news of the growing crisis. However, the appearance of an attractive woman named Rize Kamishiro shatters his solitude when she forwardly asks him on a date.

While walking Rize home, Kaneki discovers she isn't as kind as she first appeared, and she has led him on with sinister intent. After a tragic struggle, he later awakens in a hospital to learn his life was saved by transplanting the now deceased Rize's organs into his own body.

Kaneki's body begins to change in horrifying ways, and he transforms into a human-ghoul hybrid. As he embarks on his new dreadful journey, Kaneki clings to his humanity in the evolving bloody conflict between society's new monsters and the government agents who hunt them.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Edit

Background

No background information has been added to this title. Help improve our database by adding background information here.

Episode Videos

Edit

Related Anime

Adaptation:	Tokyo Ghoul
Sequel:	Tokyo Ghoul √A
Spin-off:	Tokyo Ghoul: "Jack", Tokyo Ghoul: "Pinto"

More characters

Characters & Voice Actors

Kaneki, Ken

Main

Kobori, Yurie
Japanese

Kirishima, Touka

Main

Amamiya, Sora
Japanese

Suzuya, Juuzou

Supporting

Kugimiya, Rie
Japanese

Uta

Supporting

Sakurai, Takahiro
Japanese

Tsukiyama, Shuu

Supporting

Miyano, Mamoru
Japanese

Nagachika, Hideyoshi

Supporting

Toyonaga, Toshiyuki
Japanese

Eto

Supporting

Sakamoto, Maaya
Japanese

Kamishiro, Rize

Supporting

Hanazawa, Kana
Japanese

Kirishima, Ayato

Supporting

Kaji, Yuuki
Japanese

Arima, Kishou

Supporting

Namikawa, Daisuke
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Cook, Justin

Producer

Maruyama, Hajime

Producer

Morita, Shuuhei

Director, Episode Director, Storyboard

Haraguchi, Noboru

Sound Director

Edit

Opening Theme

"unravel" by TK from Ling Tosite Sigure (eps 2-11)

Edit

Ending Theme

	1: "unravel" by TK from Ling Tosite Sigure (eps 1, 12)
	2: "Seijatachi (聖者たち)" by People In The Box (eps 2-11)

More reviews

Reviews

Sep 24, 2014

bladeangel

Mixed Feelings

Remember when you were little and you tried to bake that really awesome cake following the instructions on a cooking-book and ended up forgetting half the ingredients or using the wrong ones and the cake looked like complete shit and shit was all over the kitchen and then your mother walked in and slapped you across the face? Whether or not you remember, if you can picture that scenario then you can picture how Studio Pierrot's attempt at adapting Tokyo Ghoul into an anime unfolded.

Lets actually start off with the "good" in Tokyo Ghoul. Why? Because it's one sentence long so lets get it ... out of the way shall we.

The soundtrack is decent. The opening theme is good, and the ending theme is pretty catchy. Ok so that was two sentences.

I'm going to fess up now and admit that I have not read the manga although I'm aware that it's a lot better and that they crammed 60 chapters into 12 episodes. This review will be based on the anime alone, which I believe is more correct then the people giving this adaption a break solely for their admiration of the manga.

The worst aspect of Tokyo Ghoul are the characters and their development. Frankly I'm not going to talk about any of the characters aside from Kaneki because there is nothing to say about them after 12 episodes.
Kaneki is worth talking about because he is a boy born with a vagina..oh and he is a also a half-ghoul, almost forgot about that. As the MC of Tokyo Ghoul, Kaneki's main role is to disappoint us to death, cry a lot, and bitch a lot about how much he sucks.

With the characters being so dreadful, the anime relied heavily on the plot and the violence. The plot is very broad in the anime: Humans vs Ghouls and Ghouls vs Ghouls. At least that's what I got from 12 episodes adapted from 60 chapters. The violence is censored so that sucks, but apparently the DVD versions will be uncensored..cool, anyways moving on. The most pretentious thing about Tokyo Ghoul are the attempts at emotionally moving the audience by having some characters we know nothing about die and seeing other characters feel sad while the soundtrack playing assures us that this is indeed meant to be an emotional scene...awkward.

So about right now you're probably thinking to yourself that I don't have much to say about this anime. I just felt like reviewing this anime cause I wanted to write down that whole baking a cake comparison after which my passion ran out. This is much like the folks at Studio Pierrot. They had no passion whatsoever in the making of this anime, taking advantage of the fact that the manga is extremely popular and doing the most minimalist job possible.

With all this I thought I would take joy in witnessing how badly this train-wreck could end, and to my surprise they actually took that pleasure from me as well. The last 10 minutes of the last episode were legitimately entertaining. Right at the end, the show introduced moral ideas worthy of involving the audience and I found myself enjoying Tokyo Ghoul for the first time. What a bunch of trolls eh.

Open

Gift

Jan 30, 2015

JKinky88

Not Recommended

1) This is a rewriting of one of the first reviews I ever made, I deleted it because I did not know what the hell I was talking about.
2) There will be some minor spoilers, you've been warned ye little b-

You know those stories that have these special entities that live in a world and pretty much kind of like x-men? Well recently that idea has been done a lot, out of most of the things that have done this idea recently, Parasyte is the only one that succeeds in doing it well, Beside it is this mess. Tokyo Ghoul, when I saw this show ... I thought it was gonna be some generic mystery show and when I started watching it......it was a generic x-men idea show, how wonderful? And guess what?It became popular and people praised it, now I'm currently taking my time reading the manga (which is better than this) so I won't be mentioning it.

Story: 3.7/10
So in this world there are entities known as 'Ghouls' who feed off human corpses and drink coffee. Yes, coffee. So one day a freshman college student goes out with some girl and it turns out, SHE'S A GHOUL! DUN DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUN!!!! So after an accident before getting eaten, doctors thought it was such a smart idea (not) to take the ghoul's organs and stuff them into our MC. What happens? The MC is know a half ghoul, half human and struggles to maintain each side.

Cool idea right? Well you're wrong, the show fails to make the plot understandable, its such a mess, the reason why is that it never explains jackshit. For example, how do people turn into ghouls? What the hell is a ward? How do ghouls drink coffee but nothing else except water? What is this world? and so on. The show does the thing were it tries to solve everything in just 12 episodes, and this show fails it miserably, this show needs 24 episodes to space everything out, everything feels so rushed, cause of this it leads to the plotholes and cause of the plotholes its more confusing. I'll give it points for its idea but thats it.

Characters: 4/10
Our MC is Kaneki, I talked about him in my story segment, here I'll say whats good about him and whats bad. Now the good is we find out his life is pretty tragic, his mom dies as a kid, he can't eat normal anymore, it really makes you feel for him. The way he tries to keep his humanity and ghoulness is so well done and I give prontos to that. The bad side, the show hardly focuses on him, it tries to focus more on the world around him, this is really the main sector of why everything is messy. Cause of this Kaneki feels more like a plot-device more than anything.

Now the other characters, there isn't really much to say about them, there's Touka, there is meant to be some development between her and Kaneki but there isn't, its like the show is saying, hey look developme- NOPE FUCK YOU! As soon as the development can happen its just vanishes. This leads to so much under-development.

The other characters, there isn't really much to them and usually don't matter to the plot at all, there's so many chances for some good development and the show fucks that up too.

Sound: 9/10
Ok now the music, is just....epic. Its really well done and is so memroble. The OP, I don't know what to say. It is amazing and it looks at how ghouls and humans are equal and makes you question yourself and humanity? Are monsters really created by humans? The ED, is pretty meh. And thats really it for sound.

Art: 6/10
The art is pretty OK with some really well done backgrounds that shine, I'd give it a 7, but I won't cause of something in the animation which actually made me want to drop the show and its.....Censoring. There's a lot of blood in this show and it tries to censor it, but it does it so poorly, it uses black bars to censor things, it literally blackens nearly the whole screen and you wonder what the fuck is going on?

Enjoyment: 5/10
Welp really, the only reason I didn't drop this was cause of its action scenes and litlle cliffhangers at the end of each episode. The action scenes are really well done and put you on the edge of your seat. The cliffhangers, man these cliffhangers are a reason to continue the show, they usually leave big ones making you what to see what happens next.

Overall: 4.5/10
This show is a mess, it has some well done music and thats the best thing it has to offer, the rest is just either poorly done or rushed. This show could have been something really good but it falls on its ass everytime it has a chance. The ending is a cliffhanger which is just a cheap move and a reason to watch Season 2. I don't really reccomend this, shows that have done a better job of this are Parasyte which is STILL ONGOING (by the time this review is posted) and Tokyo Esp which is an OK show, its more light-hearted but it does a much better job than this. Tokyo Ghoul is meh. I'm out.

Open

Gift

Sep 18, 2014

Stark700

Mixed Feelings

Horror movies are amusing at times to watch. Sure, their intent is to strike fear into viewers but most times, they are so predictable and saturated with tropes that it almost seems like a cruel joke. Tokyo Ghoul doesn’t derive far from that. Despite being much longer than a typical horror movie, the series plays around with itself so much that it almost becomes a laughter stock. Don’t get me wrong though. The intriguing idea of supernatural creatures known as ‘ghouls’ living among human communities is quite well-built when it comes with premise. However, the show ultimately kills itself with its execution. Based off of ... the manga of the same name, I can say that they are almost like two different worlds.

The brainchild of Tokyo Ghoul is Sui Ishida as his first original work. Like the title implies, the series follows the idea of ghouls living among human population in Tokyo. They are regarded as savages and killers of injustice. News reports often sends the message that all ghouls must be eradicated in order for the world to be at peace. It becomes a near totalitarian-like state as the ghouls finds themselves at constant struggle for survival. If you don’t believe me, just ask Ken Kaneki. The young boy has a dark secret after one day as he comes face to face with the horror of reality.

Ask yourself first though: is Tokyo Ghoul a good adaptation of a horror story? At first, it does seem so with the premise. The first episode crafts the image well with the innocent Kaneki and his puppy crush on another woman named Rize. What comes next is a big surprise for him as his life spins out of control. This might be a surprise for him but is far too predictable for the viewers’ eyes to see. The beautiful girl with the mysterious aura, dark alley, and morbid news near Kaneki’s community should have all been hints that something terrible would happen to the boy soon. And exactly like that, Kaneki’s life is no longer human as he becomes part ghoul in Tokyo.

Despite being part ghoul, the show sends the message that Kaneki wishes to live as a human instead. His love for literature and struggle to contain his appetite are proof of this. Emphasizing on his human traits, Kaneki fights against his gluttonous desire to consume human flesh. No matter how great the temptation is, we see how determined the kid to retain his humanity. This conventional idea isn’t uncommon at all though. Other series such as Claymore and Shiki also have similar ideas. Unfortunately, Tokyo Ghoul doesn’t develop this idea all too well. For instance, can we really sympathize with Kaneki? While he is a good role model for others, some of his roles in this adaptation are questionable. Furthermore, we don’t really know much about the young boy such as his backstory. Taking a closer glance at his character, Kaneki is more like a plot device himself to steer the engine of the premise. In retrospect, Kaneki is an underdeveloped character with minimal characterization and lack of focus. The mask he wear is a motif to his character but the anime adaptation neglects its value.

Some focus are put together with the other characters throughout the show such as Toka Kirishima, a young girl and also a ghoul dubbed as “The Rabbit”. Other ghouls entering the story includes Nishiki NIshio, Hinami Fuegushi, Yoshimura, Gourmet, and among others. The funny thing about them is that despite being the ghouls, most of them are presented as protagonists while fighting for survival. It’s clear that society misunderstands them because of their gluttonous appetite for meat. Then, there’s also the Aogiri Tree that fits the profile that society that describes them as – brutal, violent, and craving to satisfy themselves. On the other hand, there’s the CCG, a Ghoul Investigation agency dedicated to battle against ghouls. I wouldn’t necessarily call them antagonists since their purpose is to secure the safety of the public. However, they do come head and head against Kaneki and the others. The consequence includes grief on both sides as they lose important people. It pinpoints the fact that lives are very fragile that can be taken away so easily whether you are a human or a ghoul.

A prominent character in CCG is Amon. Despite not being the main focus of the show, we find out about him more than almost any other character. These include his partnership with professional ghoul hunter Mado, his past, and how he became who he is today. Serving as a determined man, he has some similarities and differences with Kaneki. They both fight for what they believe in but with very different motivations. But taking for granted, Amon can be considered a breakout character compared to others. The sad part is that he is perhaps one of the only character that some of us can relate to. Others such as Touka just lacks any distinctive traits or characterization for us to get to know well. Oh and don’t bother asking about Rize. Despite her being the main reason of Kaneki’s change, the show neglects to focus on her as a character at all and only shows her influence through the show in ridiculous diehard ways.

Several consideration should also be considered as the show explores prejudice, morality, and identity. Apparently, the public shows fear of the ghouls so the show wastes no time to label them as pure monsters. But ask yourself this: should all ghouls be considered as monsters? This can be controversial as some ghouls truly are unredeemable while others such as Kaneki and Nishiki have human values. Then, there’s the identity issue with various characters. Kaneki struggles to battle this the hardest out of any other character as he adapts to his new life. He must hide his ghoul tendencies from his neighbors, teachers, and even his best friend Hide. While all this seems to strike keen interest, it just feels repetitive and quickly grows old. The show just tries far too had when attempting to get viewers to realize what Kaneki strives to be.

Now comes perhaps the worst part of the show: the adaptation of the story. The craftsmanship had the right source material but it didn’t know what to do with it. Studio Pierrot failed to deliver a faithful adaptation with both the characters and the story. There’s little development with any of the characters and fails to achieve adequate accuracy with the main story. The main story cuts off important parts that were hugely influential to certain outcomes. It lacks credible built-up, has a poor execution, and is ultimately beyond salvage at a certain point. For the characters, most of them suffer from development and characterization. While we can feel sympathetic at times, it’s hard to relate to them at all. Most of them aren’t good role models besides Kaneki. Furthermore, the relationship he builds with others is vaguely expressed. Touka often gets into arguments with Kaneki while Nishiki picks on him as a weakling. Hinami’s relationship with Kaneki has some innocence to it but really lacks compatibility. There’s also a sense of hate between some ghouls but most of this is degenerated to weak expression because of its pacing. In retrospect, this adaptation lies in the ruins.

Despite all this, Tokyo Ghoul is a horror fest when it comes to action. The artwork of the series is done well visually to capture the gruesome moments in the ghoul world. Speaking of which, the ghouls themselves are designed with monstrous traits such as their razor sharp teeth, scarlet eyes, and body structure. The ghoul’s predatory organ known as the Kagune is designed to look artistically endearing with blood-like muscles. Although the show doesn’t focus too much on the mechanics, it’s easy to tell that they are a race to be feared. Likewise, most of the other character designs are designed with accuracy. I say this because of their ability to blend in with human society despite being ghouls. Just take a good look at Nishiki. The background and dark chilling atmosphere also has noir-like feeling to provoke power. Overall action coordination remains top notch with cinematic battles scenes from start to finish. I just hope the BDs will remove the horrid censorship from the TV series.

On the soundtrack front, the show’s delivery is effective. It shows enough ways to get most of the job done. In fact, the very first minutes of the series wastes little time with its high volume of violence. The haunting tones strikes fear with both wish-fulfillment brutality and chaos. Voice expressions too crafts the imagery of our characters’ struggles. I also give credit to Kana Hanazawa who is able to play the character Rize. She was able to convey the character as a graceful beauty until her true visage is revealed. Others such as Toka and Gourmet have distinctive ways of speaking similar to those of a tomboy and aristocrat respectfully. Finally, the OP and ED songs are beautiful and well decorated.

To say the least, Tokyo Ghoul is an adaptation gone wrong when it comes to story and characters. The way it is adapted is a degeneration of its original source. But if you’re coming in as an anime original viewer, then this show might be something to take a keen interest on especially when it comes to the cinematic battles. The first episode will hook you in but the rest of them lacks that sort of development. Although there are some occasional comedy, the majority of the show takes itself seriously, perhaps sometimes for its own good. I wouldn’t call Tokyo Ghoul a hollow shell of what it should be though. Rather, it’s more of an adaptation that should have been handled differently. VERY differently.

Open

Gift

More stacks

Interest Stacks

Cultural References and Memes

by Cestlavie_

50 Entries · 279 Restacks

Beginner's Thriller & Horror Guide

by AnimeGuyBD

34 Entries · 26 Restacks

Suffering

by ateks

12 Entries · 33 Restacks

More recommendations

Recommendations

View All

More news

Recent News

North American Anime & Manga Releases for September

Here are the North American anime & manga releases for September Week 1: September 4 - 10 Anime Releases Bungou Stray Dogs 2nd Season (incl. Hitori Ayumu) Comple...read more

Sep 3, 2018 2:56 PM by Sakana-san | Discuss (2 comments)

North American Anime & Manga Releases for February

Here are the North American anime & manga releases for February Week 1: February 2 - 8 Anime Releases Blade Dance of the Elementalers Complete Collection DVD Bla...read more

Feb 1, 2016 4:37 PM by trebmeg | Discuss (16 comments)

More discussions

Recent Forum Discussion

Is only watching tokyo ghoul and it's rootA worthy ? ( 1 2 ) lightning_angad7 - May 28	59 replies	by Dannyr22 »» 1 hour ago
Tokyo Ghoul Reboot Qunesiss - Mar 13	43 replies	by RobertsahDHDA »» May 28, 9:44 PM
Poll: Tokyo Ghoul Episode 2 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ... Last Page ) dior - Jul 10, 2014	514 replies	by passing_through »» May 15, 8:36 PM
Poll: Tokyo Ghoul Episode 12 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ... Last Page ) Stark700 - Sep 18, 2014	824 replies	by Pinapole »» May 13, 9:11 AM
reboot NotoriousAkh - Sep 19, 2022	34 replies	by jonat193 »» May 5, 9:14 AM

Recent Featured Articles

In Numbers: The Best Anime of the Decade

What's the #1 anime of the 2010s? Which year was the best? What studio had the most hits? We have the answers to all these questions and more!

by Shymander

581,832 views

Can an OP Character Be a Good Main Character?

OP characters are a common trope in anime, if not a loved one. An often repeated criticism of leads, particularly in shounen titles, is that they were too powerful. Distinguishing between the pros and cons of OP heroes is important to be able to understand if an OP lead can be a great character.

by MAL_Articles

59,070 views

Tokyo Ghoul

Alternative Titles

Information

Statistics

Available At

Resources

Streaming Platforms

Synopsis

Background

Episode Videos

Visit MALxJapan
MALxJapan -More than just anime-

Related Anime

Characters & Voice Actors

Kaneki, Ken

Kirishima, Touka

Suzuya, Juuzou

Uta

Tsukiyama, Shuu

Nagachika, Hideyoshi

Eto

Kamishiro, Rize

Kirishima, Ayato

Arima, Kishou

Staff

Opening Theme

Ending Theme

Reviews

Interest Stacks

Recommendations

Recent News

Recent Forum Discussion

Recent Featured Articles

MoreTop Anime

MoreTop Airing Anime

MoreMost Popular Characters

Tokyo Ghoul

Alternative Titles

Information

Statistics

Available At

Resources

Streaming Platforms

Synopsis

Background

Episode Videos

Visit MALxJapan MALxJapan -More than just anime-

Related Anime

Characters & Voice Actors

Staff

Opening Theme

Ending Theme

Reviews

Interest Stacks

Recommendations

Recent News

Recent Forum Discussion

Recent Featured Articles

MoreTop Anime

MoreTop Airing Anime

MoreMost Popular Characters

Visit MALxJapan
MALxJapan -More than just anime-