Tokyo Ghoul √A

(This has been adapted from my reddit thread. Spoilers ahead!)

Something that is inherent in all people is the need to protect the things you love. Doing whatever it takes to keep the stuff around you safe. Either by fighting or sacrificing, as long as what truly matters to you is unharmed, the rest doesn't matter. It might be family, friends, or your dearest of objects; it's not so much what it is but the act of protecting it that matters. But there are those times when, despite how hard one tries, such protection just isn't possible. Such is the idea that Tokyo Ghoul Root A ... works with. But without being kept safe itself, it merely implodes.

STORY

Root A (the name to be used from here on out) takes place immediately after the conclusion of the first season. Kaneki has become quite strong and through his own volition, has decided to join the "bad" ghoul group known as Aogiri.

...And that's as logical of a plot as Root A offers. From then on, the show adopts a completely nonsensical and disjointed front that, even upon closer inspection, follows no semblance of thought. Kaneki's underlying problems? Sorry, those aren't looked at in depth because it's much more important to have a terribly choreographed fight scene. What about that guy during said fight? Nope, ignored completely for some asinine reason. How about the encompassing battle that was occurring around them? Nuh-uh, nothing is revealed there either. Where were the girls who have only one ghoul eye like Kaneki? What became of Yoshimura, aka "Baby Owl"? What was Aogiri's true motive? Why did Touka literally do nothing for twelve straight episodes? There are no answers to these questions because the show doesn't bother to talk about any of them. And it's not as if they bring them up themselves to elaborate on; they sort of lazily occur, with the narrative progressing from one instance to the next without contributing even an ounce of credible evidence as to why anything that is happening is going down.

Since Root A cannot support itself on the events that really matter, then it falls onto the fights themselves to attempt to salvage anything that remains. But even those cannot escape the downward spiral that is happening. Not counting the lackluster animation, there is an inadequate look at both sides -- the humans and the ghouls -- which causes zero emotional resonance with any of the cast. Thus making the outcomes of the fights a moot point. Touka's "presence" has already been brought up, but the entirety of the cast falls into the same unimportant boat as she does. Yoshimura is given an inconsequential flashback with Koma ("Devil Ape") and Irimi ("Black Dog") receiving the absolute bare minimum of background to constitute some form of morality. Takizawa complains about being second-best, Amon can't understand Kaneki, and Shinohara is a super-nice guy to Juzo; all three men, more or less, die at some point in the anime, but their deaths hold no value because, like the plot, they are given no attention or purpose. The same goes for Hide -- his death is supposed to be somber, but it's awkwardly placed and means nothing to the audience who's only interaction with Hide was him stalking around the Dove headquarters. This all says nothing of the fights in which neither side seems to be able to kill off primary characters after receiving the wallop of a lifetime.

Hearkening back to the introduction and the established inability for the anime to craft relatable characters, one of Kaneki's supposed drives is to protect the people he loves dearly -- those at Anteiku. And to this end, he joins Aogiri, believing that by aiding them he can eradicate the people going after the only friends he has. Obviously, this notion sounds completely insane, but it at least makes sense for Root A. But (perhaps obviously again) it doesn't work: Anteiku burns and his friends are decimated. This is acceptable; as has already been discussed, sometimes protecting the things you love isn't possible. Yet Kaneki seems to just give up. So instead of continuing to try to protect his loved ones -- the whole reason the show began in the first place -- he stops, making his actions up to that moment mean as much as if he never parted ways in the first place.

ANIMATION

The art style for Tokyo Ghoul isn't that engaging. Many dark grays, browns, and greens are used all over the place, making the anime feel more depressing than beautiful. Granted, this may be what the show was going for, but it only makes everything seem muddy. Even worse, the fight choreography and direction is lackluster, where the duels seem like an amalgamation of blobs maybe striking at one another here and there.

The character designs for Root A can be good at times, but are nothing too impressive. The Owl is quite intimidating, Kouma's ape mask, and many of the other ghouls are definitely unique and give the necessary feeling of being alien.

Yet, actual animation pulls it all back down, being below average in most cases. The earlier episodes are the most egregious, with a loss in flow in movements, static characters, and simple facial expressions. The later episodes at times can go against these notions, but having to fight through the censoring, the bad camera work, and obstructing debris makes it hard to see much movement even when it is supposedly going on.

CHARACTERS

The problems continue for Root A when it comes to its characters. Besides being completely distant to the audience, their independent development is severely lacking. It's also difficult to pick any character to initially focus on. Not just because they are all incredibly weak, but because none of them are given enough spotlight to constitute a "main" status.

Nevertheless, Kaneki is around once more this season. After his previous trauma at the hands of Jason, Kaneki is no longer the scared, helpless kid but instead a confident, strong ghoul. But following his beginning speeches and departure, his vocabulary is reduced to a lot of screaming and the occasional "Hide..." here and there. He has some kind of metamorphosis that essentially enwraps his mind but -- like most everything within Root A -- why this happens to him isn't clearly looked at. He manages to go around, attacking random human buildings and groups until "finally" realizing that he should have been there to protect Anteiku personally instead of indirectly. His character is supposedly killed (the ending is obscenely convoluted), and since his actions have been relatively unknown, his growth is nearly nonexistent.

Somehow worse than Kaneki is Touka, the semi-in-love-but-not-really girl who is doing what she can to be by Kaneki's side. After fighting to save him and him suddenly leaving her and the coffee shop, Touka is somewhat crestfallen. In order to take her mind off of the situation, she opts to go to a college while simultaneously getting nearer to Kaneki. Her inner turmoil about fitting in and the struggles she faced against her brother and society are replaced with quasi-romance feelings, effectively killing any development she may have had. Which would have been at least tolerable, had they done something with such a turn of events. Instead, after working rather hard to be with him, the two times she comes "face-to-face" with him, what occurs is: her attacking him and her letting him go. The former can make sense in context; she is simply letting out her frustration against the boy who won't look her way. The latter goes against what Root A had started in her. By the end, the only thing she gained was a few facts from a college textbook.

The rest of the cast, from both the human side and the ghoul side, are not even worth mentioning. Nearly all of the Doves are given one-note personalities, with their respective persons being more foreign than the ghouls that inhabit the show. Amon does nothing but fight and complain, Akira laments about her dead relatives, and Takizawa has some forced melodrama. Other members exist, but a passing show of their messed-up face or a single line from the enemy about their power doesn't tell the audience anything about their character, let alone what kind of experiences they might have had. And the same can be said for the ghouls. All of Aogiri is filled with characters that somehow seem to have pasts with their Dove counterparts, but such revelations are never given and subsequently their characters mean nothing. Names like Noro, Tatara, and Eto are just that; names without any fraction of message behind them besides that they are "really cool looking." The only character that maybe earns any sort of credibility is Juzo. He is a known psychopath working under Shinohara, with his background being explained in an exchange between the two. And after all of the time he spent with his pseudo-father, he shows some form of compassion and sadness for the only person who cared for him. Unfortunately, not even Juzo's markings are enough to keep the cast stitched together.

SOUND

The OP is extremely grating on the ears. The instruments are a mishmash of sound that doesn't seem to follow any kind of order, the singing is all over the place, and it isn't catchy at all. It's as mangled as the rest of what Root A gives.

The only good thing about the anime is the ED. The drums and singing in the first half work nicely in tandem, rising and falling in power as it works its way to the halfway point. At that moment, the background singers kick in and the piano takes on a more prominent role, giving the whole a piece a presence that overtakes the whole anime. On top of all that, the various ending art for each of them is quite beautiful, too; more so than anything that the actual art for Root A used.

The rest of the soundtrack often uses rather loud sounds and more pounding instruments for a higher feeling of creepiness and awe. But it can also tone down that feeling, incorporating a soft piano for those more heartfelt moments. The tracks fit the mood of the anime but aren't worth listening to outside of the anime itself.

As for voice-acting, the cast performs generally around average. There are no special shout-outs to be had.

ENJOYMENT

This show prioritized the fighting and the "drama" before anything else, and it was not something that I could effectively get behind. All of the fights were boring, predictable, or honestly dumb. Akira getting bit on the leg while Amon just stands around for no apparent reason makes no sense. Arima being able to take on the Giant Owl by himself wasn't fun to watch, it made me question why in the world he wasn't doing anything before. And the Kaneki versus Amon fight had so much smoke billowing through the area, I barely got to see any of it.

It has been mentioned briefly, and it has to be brought up at some point, but the ending to Root A is probably the worst ending to an anime that I've ever witnessed. At the minimum, it comes very close. Lots of hair, walking, and intentionally confusing camera work make the ending so painful to see that when it concluded I was happy that I wouldn't have to be watching this show any more.

Tokyo Ghoul Root A didn't just fail at being an anime. It failed at being anything even remotely worthwhile. The story is abysmal, the characters are atrocious, and the rest is forgetful. Honestly speaking, this is one of the worst shows I have ever seen.

SUMMARY

Story: Terrible, nonsensical, pointless, and meaningless

Animation: Bad, boring art style, okay character designs, below-average actual animation

Characters: Terrible, Kaneki and Touka are awful while the rest of the cast means absolutely nothing

Sound: Bad, lame OP, good ED, okay soundtrack, average VA work

Enjoyment: Terrible, lame fights, unnecessarily confusing ending, and contains no value

Final Score: 1/10

“I laughed...
I cried...
I experienced something that changed my life...”
- LemonLyme about Tokyo Ghoul √A, 2015

Tokyo Ghoul √A is one of the most brilliant and intriguing anime I’ve ever had the pleasure to watch. With a breathtaking plot, well-developed characters and wonderful animation that leaves me speechless beyond measure it is definitely one of the greatest, if not THE greatest, anime that has been, and will ever be, made.

The story centers around all of the many wonderful characters that appear in Tokyo Ghoul; Ken Kaneki (his hair is completely white now by the way. That’s badass!), the Anteiku ghouls and the not-so-evil police force that tries ... to eliminate the poor ghouls from the surface of the Earth. But does having an unnecessary gigantic amount of characters make the anime, in any way, messy and more than often really hard to follow? No! Not at all! I actually think it would have been harder to follow the story if they hadn’t decided that switching between mindless action scenes, yummy slice of life sequences and awkward gay sexual innuendos all the time was the best way to tell the story of Tokyo Ghoul √A. I mean, who wants to watch an anime with a well-paced, comprehensible and, Io and behold, well-written story? Not me at least, and I don’t see why anybody would like to watch something like that.

Now, let’s move on to the best part of Tokyo Ghoul √A: the characters. Oh, how I love them! How I love all those unrealistic ghouls and police men who keep making moronic and unjustified decisions, those deep and multidimensional villains that pop up from nowhere and we don’t get to know anything about, those poor victims that also pop up from nowhere and die a tragic death ten seconds after their first appearance! I never knew such fantastic characters existed until I watched this anime. The best character is, without a doubt, our dear protagonist Ken Kaneki. He only gets around two minutes of screen time in the first nine-ten episodes or so, and yet he gets so much character development. When he rolls around on the floor while screaming we understand that he’s really sad. When he fights the good guys for the lulz we understand that he does that because he has to do it. When he joins the Aogiri organization we understand that he does that because he has to protect his friends (because the evil guys also want to protect his friends – that’s what enemies are for!). The other characters are also wonderfully fleshed out and get some brilliant development; some of them are so realistic that I even tried talking to them once and touched my computer screen to see if the characters weren’t real people after all.

The art and animation are, likewise, absolutely fantastic. Especially the clumsily animated action sequences, the dialogue scenes where nothing but the mouths are moving and the derpy faces that appear in each and every scene - I can really feel that the animators put a lot of love in their work while animating this and that they definitely didn’t do it just because they needed the money. I'd even go as far as say that Tokyo Ghoul √A has changed my view on what ''good animation quality'' is; this anime's animation makes stuff like Suzumiya Haruhi no Shoushitsu and Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works (TV) look like complete garbage.

Last but not least: the sound. The voice acting is absolutely superb; whenever Kaneki or any of the other characters open their mouth and talk/whine/scream overdramatically I could hear angels chant somewhere far away. I can’t praise the voice actors enough (especially Natsuki Hanae who voiced Kaneki and Yuki Kaji who voiced Ayato. Such dramatic! Such sensitivity! Much feels!) – Or well, almost all of them. I simply can’t understand why they hired that unprofessional bastard Mamro Moyano to voice Tsukiyama. Seriously, why didn’t they hire a bad voice actor instead, like the dude who voiced Kiri-gay-a in Sword Art Online?

The soundtrack is, of course, also great. Especially the opening theme; the lyrics are simply amazing. They are so deep that they are almost 2deep4me - “We gave our love to toys (…) The prostitute spat fire”. I believe that whoever wrote the song is the Japanese songwriter version of Shakespeare and that s/he will receive a Grammy for “Best Songwriter” in five-six years, and I will definitely try to support her/him and her/his songs about the terrible porn industry all the way.

Conclusion? Tokyo Ghoul √A is, without a doubt, one of the best anime ever created. It will make you laugh, it will make you cry, it will scare the heck out of you, it will make you upset, it will change your life. Before I watched this anime I was nothing but an edgy emo teen that enjoyed watching mindless horror movies and being envious of the popular girls in my class. But Tokyo Ghoul √A made me see The Light. It made me understand that my current way of life was shameful and wrong, and that I should start living like a good person instead. This anime is the very reason why I am who I am today. God knows what would have happened to me if I hadn’t watched this show.
Once again: this show will change your way of thinking, your way of life. I simply can't recommend this anime enough. Go watch this masterpiece immediately!

To save you the trouble, Short Review: Wasted potential

Now if you'll like to get more insight into where this show could of excelled and what it ultimately opt out for instead then continue on, as we place Tokyo Ghoul √A under a analytical microscope for closer inspection. A show that had the opportunity to be more but ultimately became yet another "schlock" level blood bath.

Social discrimination and persecution is an issue that has plagued mankind for as long as we know it, dating back to the oldest historical texts and manuscripts. Whenever a societal group feels threatened or simply don't comprehend another group's social ... norms, hostility becomes ever present. And despite our advancements and technical prowess, this primitive reaction to the unknown is still an issue today. One just simply need to watch the news and current events to see that unfold on a daily basis. Because of this constant conflict there are many stories that try to shine light on the issue with social commentary in one form or another. May that come in the form of a song like what John Lennon, Bob Dylan and similar artists produce or familiar written works like 'To Kill a Mockingbird' and 'Animal Farm' that many of us read at school. Every storytelling medium have tackled this issue in one way or another. Anime is no exception, with every year giving rise to at least one title that takes this route.

Tokyo Ghoul √A became that title for 2014/15, with the story of a sub-species known as Ghouls and the tug of war relationship they have with humans. A very similar setup to other anime titles like Shiki, Parasyte, Shinsekai Yori and others. TG had the option to further examine and explore themes such as existentialism, the human condition, Social Darwinism and human ethics. But the common problem that most shows like Ghoul face is not being able to properly convey them. Instead it was simply an idea that took a backseat so we can get yet another action/gore fest, no different from other shows such as Gantz, Deadman Wonderland, Terra Formars etc. None of the themes are explored pass the surface level and were simply there to try to add depth to a show that clearly lacked it.

You can tell that they were trying to portray an air of maturity but the way it was executed was just juvenile. While the 1st season suffered from rushed pacing this season suffered from the exact opposite. Everything came to abrupt stop when viewed side by side with the prequel and even as a stand alone work. Several episodes will go by with obvious stagnation due to unneeded padding and an unfocused narrative. Instead of following our protagonist Kaneki and using him as a proxy to explore all these multifaceted themes they hinted at, we are instead just teased every now and then as to his metamorphosis as a character. This is a cheap way to not properly go through the correct steps of providing layered characterization. So when he is present we get a personality switch instead of a character that gets any form of development. He's simply a 2 dimensional character that moves from one side of the gradient to another. Like how bad guys can become good at the drop of a hat, this change from 'Shinji Ikari' to 'Char Aznable' is no different.

All the other characters are handled superficially. Instead of focusing on molding the already sizable cast they introduce a plethora of new ones and less than a handful get fleshed out to basic standards. The rest feels like "read the manga" territory since they're suppose to play an important role to the plot but we never get any screentime with them to even care or remember their names. This heavy dependence on the source material just reflects on the subpar script and a lack of proper execution. Instead you remember them for their outlandish presence or caricature-like personality.

The story is standard fare but the way it goes about presenting it is deplorable. The world setting remains underdeveloped as we never see the large scale public concern that should come with such a big dilemma or even the themes common with such a setup, such as social discrimination. The closest we get to that comes in the form of the law enforcing authorities but they are made out to be a overblown sinister group, so you never feel the weigh behind their actions. They express no real empathy and only use 2 law enforcers to represent mutual camaraderie. This could of worked if those 2 characters were properly written but they never got the proper screentime due to the ever growing cast. The only time ever dedicated to world building came from the 1st handful of episodes of season 1 and even that wasn't given enough time to settle in due to the erratic pacing. Everything just felt like a giant stage play with surface deep grey morality and silly cock fights. They want you to question who's right and who's wrong but when it actually plays out it just seems laughable and childish.

If there was ever an area where TG deserved credit it will be in the sound department. With well timed music cues that delivers a certain 'punch' to every accompanying scene and well composed vocal tracks that brought emphasis to moments that would normally not carry any weigh on their own.
Also I may be in the minority here given the general consensus regarding the opening but I personally like it. The avant garde imagery accompanied by unique time signature instrumentals worked beautifully in unison. Add in the bittersweet vocals and it becomes even better. It's reminiscent to that of The Mars Volta and Portishead (if anyone's even familiar with those bands) . It maybe a little too deserving for the show its attached to but it's an opening I never skipped and one I often find myself coming back to.

The art and animation however leaves little to be desired. There are many instances where it becomes choppy and even had entire episodes where the quality dipped from beginning to end. Even for scenes where you think they would go all out like the Ghoul fights still contained noticeable hiccups, even to the untrained eye. This inconsistent fluidity greatly hindered one's immersion.

Final verdict: 4/10

If the show had maintained the same level of care and effort that was found in the 1st and last episode throughout its entire runtime, then maybe, just maybe it would of had a fighting chance to be called decent. But unfortunately it didn't and what we got was the same issues found in season 1. If you have nothing to watch then go for it but as it stands its nothing that should take high priority on your radar.

Tokyo Ghoul has an interesting concept, humans kills ghouls as they eat humans, ghouls kills humans to eat them as it i their primary food source. The question of who is right and wrong is not easy to answer as they have their reasons on what they do.
Interesting? For me, this was what pulled me into watching this series. So as I finished season 1, I started to read the manga and it was great.

I liked the manga (so I'm writing in the perspective of a manga reader), so when Studio Pierrot announced a season 2 (root A) I was kinda excited and looked ... forward to it. Turns out that my hype was for naught.

Since you're here, you've probably watched season 1 and kind of have an interest in this series (right?). Tokyo Ghoul Root A continues from where it left off in season 1, but Ishida Sui decided to write an original story for the anime. This isn't rare and isn't bad if the story is nice. But here comes the problem, it's supposed to be an anime original story, yet majority of the scenes are just taken from the original manga. If you're thinking it's not too bad, try thinking how is the anime going to be good if you adapt almost a 100 chapters of manga into a 12 episode anime. Original scenes are present, but really, only a few minutes throughout the whole anime can be called "anime original".

The story is all over the place, you won't know what are the characters thinking at all, especially kaneki. Kaneki is the main character and yet the amount of words he speak are so few, you'd probably remember him only because of his white hair or his trademark finger cracking. His character development ended the moment root A started.

The only notable character development goes to Suzuya Juuzou. That's it.

Animation wise, mediocre? (or worse) The fight scenes are so good, people call them dancing. Sure there are some nice scenes, the close up look on kaneki, and...a really nice keyboard?

Sound wise on the other hand, are pretty well done, OST's are fitting the anime quite nicely. As for the OP, I wouldn't say it's bad, but the OP from season 1 just outclassed it. ED on the other hand, is really nice.

I wouldn't recommend to watch this. If you liked season 1, read the manga instead. Root A can be a real disappointment for you (as for me) if you're looking for the character developments and story continuation from season 1.

**SPOILER FREE REVIEW**

The first season of Tokyo Ghoul had three major problems: A plot that went absolutely nowhere, a lack of any real character development, and a plethora of impossible-to-take-seriously, one-dimmensional characters that completely ruined the tone and broke any immersion that might have been occurring. When it was announced that season two was going to break away from the inevitable dead-end that is the fate of an incomplete manga adaptation in favor of being based around an original story, there was widespread hope that the show would be able to correct these issues. Well, now season two is complete, and not only were the ... preexisting problems from season 1 still omnipresent, they were ten times worse. They quite literally took the show in the worst possible direction. MORE focus on absurd characters that are comically flamboyant and impossible to take seriously, MORE edgy bullshit for young teenagers, LESS focus on fleshing out the character’s thoughts and motivations, and LESS time spent embellishing a barebones, uninteresting plot. Oh, and did I mention that the animation went WAY downhill as well? In almost every single way, Tokyo Ghoul √A is absolutely fucking terrible.

Synopsis: Directly continues right from where season 1 left off. Not much else to say.

The only thing worse than a horrible anime is a horrible anime that is comically oblivious to how horrible it truly is. I struggle to find the words to describe just how explicitly stupid, functionally retarded, and logistically nonsensical this anime’s plot really is, especially considering that it is so straightforward on paper; there are humans and there are ghouls. They don’t like each other. Fighting ensues. Now, the real strength of season 1 of the show was how it tried to focus on the idea that not all ghouls have lost their humanity and how there are significant similarities between the ghouls and those hunting the ghouls. This plot point dabbles in the concept of grey morality, which is always a major plus. However, season two does away with this entirely. As I mentioned already, the amount of screentime given to the ridiculous “I’M CRAAAAAZY!” type characters who are completely unrealistic and asinine has been upped, making the show downright hammy.

Even if you can get passed that, season two’s plot would still be ridiculous because NOTHING makes sense; nothing is justified or has any kind of logical consistency what so ever. Why did Kaneki suddenly turn into a super-badass with white hair after being tortured? I dunno. Why did he suddenly decide to join the bad guys if his only motivations are to protect his friends? I dunno. Why does he completely maintain his attachment to his friends if his morality has been altered to the point that he can now kill indiscriminately? I dunno. The anime has simply never takes the time to slow down and explain to us WHY all of these things are happening. That’s not to say that the show doesn't slow down though, because it certainly does. There is NO shortage of exposition, and when I say exposition, I mean the worst possible kind of exposition. There’s talking and talking and talking and yet it never feels like you are actually learning anything. It’s hard to follow what all the factions are, what they are doing, and why, partially because most of it is nonsensical and partially because there’s no reason to care. The storyline is an absolute trainwreck and a pain to sit through.

The characters are even MORE of a trainwreck. Kaneki was a mediocre at best character in season one, but now he’s just unbearably boring and inconsistent. His motivations make no sense what so ever and neither does the fact that he is suddenly a completely different person. Since the show refuses to explain what is going on with him, we have to decipher it for ourselves, but such a task is impossible because his behavior is so inconsistent. As previously mentioned, if his motivation for joining his new “evil” group of ghouls is to protect his friends (I don’t even understand how that would protect his friends…), why does he kill people with no remorse now? Did he lose his sense of humanity or not? We have no idea, and the show never tells us.

As for Touka, the detective, and all the other minor characters from season one, they are either mostly cut out of the main narrative and given a fraction of the screen time (Touka) or they simply make no progress from where they already were in the first season (detective). Tokyo Ghoul refuses to even attempt to build upon any of its characters, EXCEPT FOR THE WORST ONES! I know I’ve brought this up twice already, but I can’t get over that the characters they chose to focus on are the one-dimmensional looney toons who you couldn’t pay me to take seriously. The Gourmet, the scarred guy (I think he’s a guy…) working for the detectives, and the guy who’s insanely obsessed with his boss for god knows what reason? THOSE are the characters who you thought needed more screen time?! They are among the stupidest characters I’ve ever seen in anime! They are crazy just for the sake of being crazy! Oh, and I haven't even mentioned the absolutely deplorable attempts to make the audience be attached to new characters who have gotten virtually no screen time, that are completely unlikable, or both. It’s honestly stunning how laugh-out-loud hilariously idiotic the cast is. Tokyo Ghoul √A fails in a lot of ways, but none more so than in the character department.

There is one aspect in which Tokyo Ghoul’s second season does not fail and one aspect alone: The sound design. The use of sound is very effective, seamless, and well executed. It greatly enhances the piss poor action scenes and it provides some standout tracks that are worth listening to in your spare time (Glassy Sky, anyone?). The OP got a lot of flak for, well, not being the first season’s OP, but I think it’s quite good. Unfortunately, the sound design does not make up for the awful animation. At least season 1 had effort put into its cinematography and action scenes (albeit they were obnoxiously censored…), but this time, they look like complete garbage. The frame skips are extremely distracting, the choreography is uninspired, and the dialogue scenes have no attention to detail. It’s always an issue when the second season of a show has noticeably inferior effort put into it than its predecessor.

To sum it all up, this is the definition of an uninspired, rushed, low-quality product. Tokyo Ghoul √A takes everything that was wrong with the first season and amplifies it simply because that’s what’s easiest. This show feels like a cash grab to milk an overhyped series as it is quite evident that its production was virtually passionless. If you watched the first season of this show and aren’t sure whether it’s worth continuing, the answer is a definitive “No.”

Recently watched the latest episode "5" Firstly: Censoring, it´s insulting to the ones that even remotley liked the show, GORE is that animes biggest forte and censoring it takes away from enjoyment, this isn´t watched by 10yearold to begin with. I can´t speak for what time of day TG airs in Japan though so that´s enough said about that.

Slow story, usually i don´t have a problem with that but already 5episodes in and i have no idéa what the hell is going on, the focus on the maincharacter is at a bare minium and that wouldn´t be a problem if the sidecharacters didn´t have cliffhanger ... flashbacks giving in to even more confusion. This all will ofcourse make sense later storywise but as far as keeping me intrested, not so much.
(I also found the side-character very mainstream)

I would recommend this to someone who doesn´t have a standard and don´t have a problem with colourful pictures. Feels like making this "ROUTE" A a side story is only about milking money from whom ever get their paychecks filled.


I may get bashed for this but i stand for what i´ve said. Instant drop. Although from what i know the manga is 100% better so i suggest reading if you want to be stimulated and happy in your storytelling

While I really like Tokyo Ghoul as a manga, saying its anime counterpart is a letdown is a huge understatement. The ridiculous censoring for a series that has so much gore in it makes little sense. The first season sucked because they cut out a bunch of character development to squeeze around the first 60 chapters into 12 episodes. While I'm not gonna bitch about it being an alternate ending from the manga, it still sucks. If I hadn't read the manga before watching it, I would have no understanding of it whatsoever. There are random flashbacks all over the place, and there hasn't really ... been any legitimate justification as to why Kaneki joined Aogiri. In fact, Kaneki really hasn't had that much time on screen at all. The pacing is just horrible.

A review of *Tokyo Ghoul √A*, a disappointing second season to an already disappointing anime.

From the beginning, Tokyo Ghoul √A was advertised as an anime original story by the of Tokyo Ghoul manga, Sui Ishida, and this idea is an exciting one to me as an anime-only-watcher. With so many fans complaining about how the anime butchered the manga, creating an alternate story by the mangaka himself should be an interesting way to appeal to both the manga and anime fans, right? Well, not if the story itself is more disjointed than Kaneki’s fingers at the end of the first season....

Just like the first ... season, Tokyo Ghoul √A kicked off with three strong and interesting episodes that made me interested in Tokyo Ghoul for the first time since the beginning of the first season. Unfortunately, Tokyo Ghoul √A's plot turns into an absolute mess. Various events are taking place without any impact or explanation, thus leaving the viewer confused and aloof. Manga readers might know what is happening, but for everyone else, the plot is all over the place.

Ken Kaneki is effectively sidelined throughout the majority of the series with only the action sequences focusing on his character until the final episodes, thus wasting all of his character development from the first season. The majority of the screen-time goes to first season's antagonists, the CCG, specifically Investigators Kōtarō Amon and Akira Mado. Thankfully, Amon continues to be the only worthwhile character in the entire anime, and his relationship with Akira, as rushed as it may be, is the best aspect of the series.

Sloppily written and just plain dull, Tokyo Ghoul √A is an absolute narrative disaster that lacks any semblance of cohesion. With that said, it is not entirely irredeemable thanks to a few minor aspects being executed surprisingly well amidst the gory mess of a plot.
_Watch if you like:_ Tokyo Ghoul's first season,
*-3.5/10*

This season was such a huge disappoint. I would not recommend this anime to anyone. I kept waiting for it to get good, but that just did not happen. This season was like a prime rib...without any of the seasoning: fell way below my expectations. I am throughly sad I wasted my time on this piece of trash.

Story: This plot was so flawed I'm not even sure where to start. I have not read the manga so this is me speaking from watching the series only perspective. After every episode I wanted an analysis for what happened. None of it made much sense. The ... main plot was not even developed. It just kept skipping around to characters and as a whole was just not cohesive. I found myself constantly waiting for explanations or for it to all make sense, but the series severely failed at delivering. I realized halfway through that this plot was just full of holes and the anime tried way too hard on making emotional character connections.

Character: This brings me to my second point of flaw in season 2. None of the characters were well developed. At scenes where it is supposed to be emotional and gut wrenching for the viewers, I found myself feeling "meh". Part of this is because the series is so short...but part of is due to bad planning. I was unable to understand any of the characters, much less connect.

Sound/Art: Sound and Art stayed consistent with season 1, so nothing to complain there. Although the opening theme was no where as great as season 1s.

Enjoyment: BORING. There were spurs of exciting moments but a lot of the "gore" was cut out. However the spurs of exciting moments made no sense again. The way that events occurred made it seem like the anime just needed to throw in exciting moments so captivate the viewers. Yet, the exciting moments also fell short. Kaneki is supposed to be super awesome butt kicking machine but we probably got like 5 mins of action throughout the whole series. The season finale is supposed to be a good closer but 2 mins were wasted on a part that could have been shortened to 5 secs. I get the idea of building up drama, but it was so unnecessary consider 2mins/20 mins is 1/10 of the anime.

Overall: Poor planning is all I have to say. Events, characters.....everything was like a train wreck...as if 10 different writers came together and wrote a season and then it was collaged together. That is the best way to summarize season 2. An absolute mess. Please just stick to season 1 or read the anime. Season 2 will leave you craving for an anime that is incapable of delivering. Fingers crossed that in the future another director will take over and give the anime a needed reboot of way longer episodes.

Since this is my first time writing a review, i would keep this as simple as possible. Another reason i decided to write a review for this Tokyo Ghoul is because i felt the need to point out the problems in this season. Also, this whole review is written entirely in an anime viewers perspective only.

Story:3

In the first season, the story pacing was quite well as we see new characters being introduced gradually and given enough screen time to actually give viewers the idea of their backstory. I was expecting somewhat the same thing for season 2 but i was wrong. More and more new ... characters were being introduced in a ridiculously short 12 episodes, heck even in the last episode. These characters' backstory are unknown, because they never get enough screen time except to appear in meetings and in the last few episodes to make it look epic. The story pacing failed so much it's so obvious they rushed it and ruined it.

Art:7

The art is good but i would say that the fighting scenes are actually a bit off and not as good as the first season. Other than that, nothing spectacular.

Sound:2

The OP suck so hard i actually gave it 2 because i believe no OP should have the MC to stand in the center for one and a half minutes while waiting for the song to finish. The song itself... is not good. So much disappointment compared to its prequel.

Character:3

In this second season, there is barely character development. As mentioned earlier, too many new characters are being thrown into this season and its only 12 episodes long. What development can you expect when the whole story pacing is so fucked up? The part that confuses me is that 10 minutes long walk kaneki did in the last episode... 10 minutes long with minimal dialogue and nothing else.

Enjoyment:3

If you watched the first season , you probably would finish the second. If you are planning to watch the second season, i wouldn't recommend it but if you like leaving a bad taste in your mouth, go ahead. Since so many said that tokyo ghoul was so popular, i was hyped for the second season but unfortunately it was better if this sequel was never created. Perhaps it might be Pierrot's bad adaptation. I would love to rate this higher but 3 is already too much.

Overall:3

I can feel the anime has good potential ever since i watched the first season although i never read the original manga. But Season 2 is just completely garbage. What a waste...

While the first season of Tokyo Ghoul wasn’t perfect, with underdeveloped villains, censoring, and leaving things about the setting unexplained, it still had entertaining elements and an ending that delivered some hard hitting truths. I had high hopes for what was to come, considering how much more interesting the main character and his conflict had become. You’ll find that the second season doesn’t deliver on the promises that were set up. Instead it leaves you disconnected from the main character, making him barely even appear on screen for most of the show. Instead we focus on the minor characters, something that I did appreciate, yet ... I wished it would have been secondary to the actual main character’s story.

Some positives would include the great animation and the diligent use of atmosphere, the direction definitely improved in terms of giving the show more personality and flavor. However, saying it has a great style doesn’t equal having much substance. We are left with a finale that introduces completely new characters that we know nothing about, fighting each other with spectacle rather than with compelling motivations. This would have worked had this season been the build-up for a third season, but sadly it decided to blow its entire load in one go.

I have left the most important part for last, which is the context that I watched the series in. This has technically nothing to do with the actual show, but it definitely affected how I viewed the story. For one I could not escape hearing how this season was supposed to go its own path, away from the manga. From what I understand the story just ended up being a condensed version of the manga with a few tweaks here and there, which means it is still not different enough to warrant being called an alternative story-line. This means it still cannot escape being compared to the manga. It seems to me that only manga-readers could actually fully enjoy this season, since it would show them several of the best parts of the story animated. For the rest of us though, it is just a mess of a commercial telling us to buy the manga. Because of this I will call this season out for what it is, a cash-grab, designed to be confusing and just barely enjoyable so that the audience will feel compelled to read the manga instead. So as a cautionary tale, if you haven’t watched the series yet, skip it and read the source-material.

A continuation of the first season of Tokyo Ghoul.

STORY (4):

The story continues where season 1 left off. Kaneki Ken became more badass when his hair turns white and he has his mask in place. And now he has to fight evil.

The story at least explored about how ghouls were originated and this season they made Kaneki become more badass. However, does that excuse the rest of this season with problems, of course not. The story was boring. Although there were few sad moments, there are more boring moments than sad moments.

The final fight scene where Ken Kaneki fights Amon was so intense, however, the ... problem is they just cut to another scene and Kaneki defeats Amon. I was looking forward to the fight scene between Kaneki & Amon, C'mon. The fight scenes are boring and rushed.

ART (6):

The animation is good and the fight scenes are tense just like the first season.

SOUND (6):

The opening and ending are ok.

CHARACTER (4):

Unfortunately, Ken Kaneki is the only badass in the show. The rest of the cast are more boring cardboard cutouts than in the last season. Like for example Touka Kirishima, she was a badass in the first season, however in this season, she became more useless. She rarely participate in the fight.

I did like the way how this season handled Kaneki's character. As a ghoul, he also has to sacrifice what he has cherished and has to do what is right.

In the first season, there was an excellent build-up. However, in the second season, all that build-up was gone.

CONCLUSION (4):

I was extremely disappointed with the second season of Tokyo Ghoul. Maybe because I expected too much.

The 2nd season at least rectified some problems that I had with the 1st season. However, the 2nd season has more problems than compared to the 1st season.

I have to give Tokyo Ghoul 2nd Season a 4/10.

English is not my native language so please excuse my grammatical errors.

When I realized than Sui Ishida wrote part of the story as an alternate route to show us the story he couldn't put in the manga where Kaneki goes with Aogiri I had hopes than this season could be great. But sadly, Pierrot decided to make some "changes" to the story of Sui Ishida and in the end we only had a bastardized version of Pierrot.

Story: 3
Let's start with the most important thing: The story promised, with the participation of self Sui Ishida the first episodes could see some improvement as we saw the ... last season. But as always we had the bad way by Pierrot who took things his way altering things like [insert here] wished, and finally we had a story more than loose ends left us even more holes in the plot. The arcs ends abruptly and immediately they jump to another place without telling us when did it begin the new arc. It's like Pierrot had said "Sui Ishida just give us a great idea, but we'll read his story shortly after starting it because after all when we start reading know where it leads and then we well do the rest with a few changes to his idea". Changes that eventually became the greatest of all the problems in this season leaving plot holes everywhere:

-Kaneki left Aogiri after some time, but why? That's not explained.

-What happened to Matasaka Kamishiro after the attack of Aogiri to the Ghoul Detention Center? That's not explained.

-What's about Irimi and Koma after the Anteiku Raid? That's not explained. If you want to know what happened to them read the manga.

The Anteiku's Raid Arc was one of the most important arcs in the story and Pierrot ruined each of the aspects about it. The entire arc was used by Pierrot as an excuse to throw us various fights with weird movements and you don't even know who is fighting against who. In the manga, this arc shows up more dialogues and story than fights. Kaneki's encounter with Hide and the mind corruption because of his kagune was one of the key factors that triggered his final transformation which led him to his final destination to meet Arima. Pierrot destroyed each of this factors and "softened" them becoming this part of the arc incoherent with the manga story. I think I need not say that the meeting between Kaneki and Arima was part of that, right?.

Characters: 2
The poorest part of this season were the characters. Almost all of them were overshadowed. Kaneki who last season had developed and evolved, here he don't showed no change at all. It seemed that he makes things just because and didn't have any specific target to meet. Well, let us suppose Sui Ishida had really planned to fulfill objectives had Kaneki, but we know that Pierrot always do things their way, and they put aside that part of the plot. Touka was the only character saved from being overshadowed, she showed up more emotions, frustrations and changes in her personality, this can be because she had enough time on screen. However, characters like Tsukiyama, Uta, Renji, Hinami, etc. appears just thrice in this season and almost all of them with three or four dialogues that last after a few seconds. The backstory of them was explained in the manga, here their past is completely unknown.

Sound: 8
Leaving aside the already often mentioned Opening and Ending Theme discussions, I will talk about the background music and from what I see here is noticeable that almost nobody has talked about anything other than the Opening and Ending theme. The background music is simply amazing, it has hints of suspense in certain scenes and other orchestral touches that will amaze you.

Art: 6
The colorization and backgrounds are well made, the atmosphere of each of them is perfect. But one thing that annoyed me is that censorship is still present, although he no longer was well as in the first season, on the few occasions I saw censorship was most annoying than ever: The censorship when the Yasuhisa sisters are stabbed with the knifes of Suzuya it's the most ridiculous censorship I've seen through the series.

Enjoyment: 4
Personally, I expected a good alternate history and more with Ishida writing it, but you can never expect anything good from Pierrot because they always want to do everything his way. In the end we only had a plot full of holes and a story that is unrelated to the manga.

Overall: 3
I don't recommend to the TG fans to watch this. If well the first episodes are some good, later the story turns drastically into a different thing making it impossible to take it seriously.

(These are my impressions of the 9 episodes i've watched of this show, not a full review, pls take a note of that also there are gonna be some spoilers from S1, but it dosent matter cause this is shit anyway.)

Are you fucking kidding me Studio Pierret? After seeing Yona of the Dawn from Fall and how well done it was, I thought this not might be a fuckup. Well the first episode was good, like seriously, it was really good. And with a new director on board, hell the author of the damn manga and being an anime original. I thought this show was ... finally gonna be respected, well my hopes were brought down after the first episode. What went from such a great beggining turned into a sloppy mess of a sequel, its somehow worse than Season 1, Season 1 was shit whereas this is shit and piss. How do you top off what was a mess of the first season? Lets find out shall we?

So the story left off S1's cliffhanger ending, after Kaneki goes coocoo mode and is now 'Badass Kaneki" he decides to join the enemy and take revenge on the people who tortured him. Sounds like a story of sorrow and revenge. From the sounds of it how is this gonna be bad? This sounds like a great plot! Well no, from there on, the story evolves around so many new and old characters that you feel like your watching Durarara on LCD. You're wondering whats going on, Its not even doing what shows with big casts do best, it connects. Here it dosen't connect, one second we're looking at the goverment and their plans, the other we see these new characters, the other we see these old characters thats do stuff. Like compared to the first season, what the fuck is going on?

The art here at first, there was no censoring.....yes you heard me.....no.....cen- wait, on Ep. 5 they brought it back, and its as terrible as ever.............FFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU- well other than that, the animation is as average as the first season with beautiful backgrounds as usual, not much to say.

The music here is pretty good, I found myself in love with the OP, it shows how dark and tragic Kaneki,'s past is, only problem about it is that the animation is choppy. The ED is really damn good, a improvement over the previous ending, its catchy and enjoyable. The background music is OK for the most part, and the acting is goddamn well done, Kaneki's voice shines like it has before as well as the other characters.

The characters, good grief, what have they done? Not gonna say much on this, first off we have the 'MC' which is Kaneki, well last season the show didn't focus on him, but here, he hardly gets any screentime and is hardly even focused, how do you take a problem and make it worser? The other characters, Touka has went from a meh character to a somehow weak bitch. The other characters arent worth mentioning except for two. Amon and Akira, these two actual have some developement and feel like the real MCs, these 2 feel like a real duo and get the job done. Other than that, the under-devolpment returns and is much worser, hell there isn't even any this time around.

Now the enjoyment, the only actual episodes I enjoyed were Ep 5 & 6, these 2 eps actually were enjoyable, they were engaging and fun. Other than that, the show will bore you with dialouge that half of the time dosen't matter and boring ass characters. There are a couple of innuendos here and there that are worth a chuckle but thats really it.

Story: 4
Art: 4.7
Sound: 7
Character: 1.5
Enjoyment: 2.5
Overall: 3

This show was a damn dissapointment, the fact I was actually kind of hyped for this makes me feel bad, SP, you had a chance to show us what you can do but fell off your ass, gave up and gave us this atrocity. If you want something which is much better, Parasyte, which is nearly done airing is TG done right. Overall, leave this and the the first season like they're the plague.

Oh boy, where should i begin whit this one.
It has become a known fact that there is always that one anime that marks the year, in 2012 we had Sword Art Online, in 2013 we had SNK and now in 2014-2015 we have Tokyo Ghoul.
So if you are reading this review, it is very more likely that you have already finished the first season so i don't really need to talk about TG story here, however if you didn't leave now, because obviously there is going to be some spoilers for the first season.
So after i finished season 1 of TG i was actually well, ... preety excited for season 2, even though the first season didn't follow the manga very well and the pacing was horrible, the last episode really got me excited whit the amazing final battle between Jason and Kaneki, one of the things that got me excited was the fact that they decided they would go for a completely diferent route from the Manga, i personally liked this ideia, could it be that the people at Studio Pierrot realized that it was time for them to get their head's working on something new and fresh that WOULD ACTUALLY WORK this time? It turns out that no, they didn´t and its even worse than the first season.

Story 3/10
So the first episode begins whit alot of promissing stuff, good animation, fast paced fight's and Kaneki joining the evil side, yes he does join the evil side, but why? Well we never do get this explained, and that's what is wrong whit the plot in this season, there is SO MUCH stuff going on that isn't explained, and dont even mention the false hype they create at the end of every episode, like the Centipede.....Which didn't work out very well...But seriously i feel so...Uncomfortable whit this plot...Events are all over the place, some character's and plot points get completelly forgotten and thrown away, the way they make thing's try to look complicated and mysterious, it's just a completelly disconected mess, whit alot of wasted potential, it is a gold mine that they are just NOT using well, unlike the manga.

Art 4/10
So the first 2 episode's showed some really amazing art,it was GORGEOUS, everything was working so well, every character looked so good and uh.....Then comes episode 4.....The episode that stopped me from continuing and expecting something out of this season, i didn't felt ANY excitement on this episode, the animation was horrible, the fight scene's were slow and the character's just looked weird, everybody technically spended the whole episode in complete silence,just saying some useless stuff and well, building more hype to nothing whit an episode ending that just made me go *NOPE*

Sound 9/10
The only good aspect in here, the opening and ending's are still awesome and the soundtrack is still beautiful.

Character 2/10
This is where Tokyo Ghoul fails dreadfully, 12 episode's won't do it whit all this foreshadowing they give to every character and its *Mysterious dialogue*, but if they run out of creativity they can always give the *Kill4Fun* motive, which is preety much what happens here seriously, i CANNOT find myself liking any of these character or villains, because of their shitty reasons that can't go behond a Kill4Fun or Yandere motive's, the show now spends more screen time whit the CCG, WHICH IS THE MOST BORING ORGANIZATION IN ANY ANIME, and the way they try to make them look like they are talking about complicated stuff by using formal words is hillarious, i would like to see Kanek's inside struggles and how he is feeling towards the situation he is in, not fighting law suits living their everyday life.

Overall 3/10
Do not watch tokyo ghoul Root A, if you did indeed finish the first season, keep reading the manga, it is alot more rewarding, if you are looking for some good anime in this season watch something Like Ansatsu Kyoushitsu

This review will cover both seasons of Tokyo Ghoul.
If you haven't seen either series yet then stop reading this review because am going to spoil everything.


Have you ever had an anime adaptation that made you cry? Not in a good way where you were perfectly satisfied with the adaption but in a way where the anime competently threw your expectations out of the window in favour of having a shallow anime adaptation that not only removes all the charm of set manga but also competently destroys everything that made set manga awesome in the part. Well, you’re not alone. As a person who is not ... much of a manga pursuit, I was gravely disappointed with the Negima/UQ Holder animes because while they were fun adaptations that I enjoyed, for the most part, they don’t really up well as an adaptation as both series skipped a lot of important contents that made this series special to me. Every time I watch Negima and UQ Holder anime I always to tear mainly because these will never reach the heights of the manga. I don’t hate them, but they kinda left with a bad taste in my mouth. What does this have to do with Tokyo Ghoul put to straightforward? Tokyo Ghoul is not only a terrible anime that cannot even hold up on it, but it’s also a horrendous adaptation that completely everything that the manga has going for. I honestly cannot believe how freaking terribly this adaptation. Let's get started.

Story.
The story follows an average bookworm namedKen Kaneki, has desired an attractive woman. On their first date, said woman reveals herself to be a monster known as a "ghoul", a creature in human form that feeds on human flesh. Having taken the time to trap him, she prepares to eat him when a falling girder smashes her to bits and leaves Kaneki horribly injured. Saved through a transplant of organs from the dead girl woman, Kaneki is left with the inability to eat normal food and hunger that just won't go away. It doesn't take long before Kaneki realizes what's happened to him, and the broad implications of being a person who belongs to both the human and the ghoul world.

Now before I tragically talk about the things that I hated about the story am going to quickly talk about the things that I liked about the story of Tokyo Ghoul.

The first thing that I liked about Tokyo Ghoul was how the show established the world in the beginning. We see that, despite people living normal life’s they had to fear the presence of ghouls where at any moment in the night the people in Tokyo can potently become prey for the ghouls. On the other side, the ghouls would not only have to take people dead or alive to the ghouls feasting grounds but they also have to try not caught by the CCG who be trying to put down the ghouls. These two things along really like the world of Tokyo Ghoul alive. Two races trying living they peaceful lives in Tokyo but the confidence that happens inevitably seem to have these races clash with each other in a negative light. This aspect was the thing that drove me into the world of Tokyo Ghoul and while the manga did this far better the anime least the first season did a pretty solid job at establishing its world.

The second and final thing that I liked about Tokyo Ghoul was episodes 1, 12, 22 and 23 because not only these episodes perfectly captured the tone of the series but they were the episodes that had the most effort throughout its 24 episode run. Not to mention there were actually enjoyable to watch unlike the rest of the episodes from this subpar series which I will get in a bit.
So those are the two things that I liked about Tokyo Ghoul. Now let's get into the stuff that I didn't like/hated about the story and I have 5 big problems with Tokyo Ghoul that completely killed the series.

1: Identity crisis.
One of the first things that you will notice about Tokyo Ghoul it has an identity crisis. On one hand this show can a gritty psychology seinen that stays true to manga counterpart for the most while in the other it can be this out of place dark shounen series that has no business being their thanks to how the show was set up in the beginning. The dark shounen elements really start to over the show once you get to Root A where most of the psychology seinen elements of Tokyo Ghoul were either heavily watered down or non-existent.

2: Pacing.
Tokyo Ghoul in general moves at a very fast phase as the shows tires to mostly adapt a 144 chapter manga into 24 episodes, however, the only ended up suffering massive as the show despite being very fast paced it left a lot of plot elements that were important cut. This doesn't end there the show does a shitty job at keeping the viewer interested with the overall plot as the fast pacing completely ruins most of the interesting plot points and as a result of many of the plot points there were done in the manga are no longer interesting to follow. Case in point the Aogiri Tree stuff in the end of season 1.

It gets worse in Root A where not only the show completely goes anime original but many story arcs such as the Raid On Kanous Lab and Anteiku Cafe Invasion feel so rushed and disjointed to a point where character development and the main purpose for these arcs are thrown out the window in favour of showcasing boring shounen tier fights that have no place being in a senien.

Three: Season 2 aka Root A has a whole.
Root A, in general, was just a poorly directed mess that had no idea to focus plus the writing and pacing for that season were in an all-time low to a point where certain scenes and pieces of dialogue were left unfinished. Am not even joking. To add insult to injury Season aka Root A was filler despite the manga finishing Ummm I don't know 4 MONTHS BEFORE THE FIRST EPISODE OF ROOT A STARTED AIRING. Like are you for real Studio Pierrot...

Four: Episode 4 of Root A.
If there was one freaking episode that represents everything wrong with this series it would be episode 4 of Root A. Not only it featured some of the worst animations that I have ever experienced in any anime but that episode narratively was disgusting to a point where every single character in that episode including humans behaved like animals where scream and grunt a lot without much as a thought. Truly one of the worst episodes I have ever experienced as an anime as it really shows how garbage the directing of Root A was.

Five: The final episode aka episode 12 of Root A.
That episode alone was the final nail of the coffin of the series because not only the directing was unbelievably insulting for the viewer but that episode left a lot of unanswered questions and plotholes that were not explained from both season 1 and 2. To add insult to injury instead of seeing the Kaneki vs Arima fight that was hyped up since the beginning of season 2 the show decided to feature the now infamous Kaneki carrying Hide's body for 5 minutes and by the time where we got to the Kaneki vs Arima fight, the show decided to cut off to the ending credits as well skipping the Kaneki vs Arima fight completely. I don’t know about you guys, but I have never seen a show simply self-destruct like that where the show literally gave up and decided to blow up itself splashing its ghoul blood all over our faces. Ghostbusters Tokyo Ghoul Root A you’re now officially the most soulless anime adaption filler nonsense I have ever seen.
Overall the story of Tokyo Ghoul is tragically garbage.

Studio Pierrot took one of the best modern mangas out there and decided to butcher it to oblivion.

Characters.
The characters are not much better and that's the tragic part because the characters can be great but the directing, pacing and the way that they are handled leaves them at best underdeveloped and at worse an empty shell of the manga counterparts.
Let's start with Kankei who is by far the most mishandled protagonist I have seen in season 1 he was a pretty okay character where he was trying to adapt his best to adapt to ghoul life while trying to lose his humanity.
Unfortunately as the series progresses everything that was good/decent Kaneki took a dark path for the worst and when you get to Root A he devolves into empty husk where he barely appears in the show despite being his story. Not to mention his dialogue has reduced to scream and talking every now and then. It doesn’t help the fact that his reasoning of joining the Aogiri Tree in episode 1 was retarded in the previous season they tried to kill him with Jason torturing him. What a mess of a character if I ever think of one.
Next is Touka where do I begin with this waste of space. She was a decent character in the first season the where she was a pretty good monitor for Kaneki where she teaches him to control his kagune. Also after he helps her avenge Ryouko, she starts to treat Kaneki in a more friendly manner. Unfortunately after Kaneki kidnapping incident as well him joining Aogiri Tree everything about her takes a turn for the worse and the second half of Root A she devolves into dismal in distress where she does nothing in the narrative other than to promote teenage angst as well running around in circles looking for her prince Kaneki. Am not kidding.
TOUKA SPENDS 3 EPISODES IN ROOT A RUNNING AROUND FOR KANEKI. What a disgrace.

The rest of the characters in Tokyo Ghoul seemed to appear and disappear on screen for the plot. They are not worth mentioning at all.
The only good characters I liked in Tokyo Ghoul Amon and Juuzou as they are both decent and engaging characters that justify their ideals. Other than that the characters in Tokyo Ghoul are at best shallow and mishandled.

Visuals.
If there’s one thing that the Tokyo Ghoul falls flat it would be the visuals. While at times the series at times can give pretty solid animation and great secretly many times the show just look below average at best that it filled with a lot of hiccups.
The characters designs, for the most part, are nothing home to write about as they mostly feature generic and basic characters models that did an okay job at presenting. The only characters designs that were great were Juuzou and Kaneki when he goes white hair everyone else just feels bad by comparison especially when you compare them to the manga counterparts where they actually look great.
The CGI that was used in Root A was abysmal that rivals Gantz CGI. Seriously what the hell was the character designer was thinking when making theses suit armour…
The background scenery least in the first season was pretty okay. The first and final episode of season 1 seemed to be the highlights for the series as these episodes use of the beautiful urban colour palette that perfectly captures the atmosphere and tone of the series. It’s such a shame that the rest of the first season looks your boring slice of life shounen series. As for Root A background scenery… OH GOD. While the first season tried to decent background scenery Root A doesn’t even try to adequate scenery as season shameless dumps in many greys, black oranges and browns all over it the show backgrounds making the show more depressing and dark than it actually is.

Now here comes the worst part about the visuals the animation.
While the first season mostly had decent animation that had some good fights every now and then it still feels like a low budget production throughout half of its run.
The animation in Root A, on the other hand, ranges from subpar at best, and an abomination at worse. Minus the decently engaging Kaneki vs Amon fight in episode 11 Root A is generally a poorly animated mess that is filled with budget cuts and choppy movement.
The worst case of this was in episode 4 where the animation literally shits itself as not only the fight choreography in that episode was piss poor but the visual directing and character was piss poor.

The final thing that I want to address about is the censorship and like with the animation in Root A it really bad. The show censorship favour is to cover the screen with the use of negative filters and blacks every time something slightly violent happens. When I watch this show on Netflix half of time I had to guess what was happening while the other half I had to literally read the manga to understand the full picture
If the animate is going to animate a fight than let us the viewer watch the fight. Don’t do these cringe-inducing censorships because that can easily annoy the viewer to a point where they will only end dropping set series.
I am aware that the series now has an uncensored version on DVD/Blu Ray from Funimation US and UK Anime Limited but am not going to go out there and by the Blu-Ray just to watch the uncensored version of the same that is from a subpar series such as shit. I eventually watch the uncensored version of Tokyo Ghoul by borrowing my friends Blu-Ray copy where I re-watch the whole series just so I take notes for this review that you’re now currently reading. Also watching this show uncensored did not change my opinion of this show at all as I still think it a shit series regardless of which version that I watched.

Sound. 
The soundtrack of Tokyo Ghoul is by far the best thing about this series.
The music is filled with pretty atmospheric tracks that perfectly captures the urban dark tone of the series.
While the soundtrack of Tokyo Ghoul is pretty good by itself it's how it's show directed the soundtrack that makes it pretty annoying. Tokyo Ghoul Root A contains a lot of amazing emotional tracks such Glass in the Sky, On My Own and Wanderers but the problem is Root A completely abused it interest songs to a point where they no longer have any meaning or purpose as the interest songs at times seem to play at random scenes in Root A
The worst part about the show sound directing happens in the final episode where the show played an Unravel Acoustic. The track by itself is meant to be a heartbreaking emotional piece that was meant to close the series in a sad way. However, for some unknown reason, the song suddenly stops playing while the Kaneki walking scene is still going on in complete silent for another 3 minutes...
Just why!!!

Season 1 opening theme unravel" by TK from Ling Tosite Sigure is a fantastic opening theme that perfectly captures the tone and atmosphere of the series. It's also extremely catchy.
Root A's opening theme on the other hand sucks. While Munou by österreich is a pretty good song on its own the problem with the opening is how it was directed as it featured terribly animated visuals that feel out of place.

Season 1 ending theme Seijatachi by People In The Box is a pretty decent ending that did an alright job at closing off an episode of the first season.
Root A's ending theme Kisetsu wa Tsugitsugi Shindeiku by Amazarashi is one of the best ending themes I ever heard in a long while as it filled with energy and passion that perfectly closes an episode of Root A.

Now for sub vs dub.

The sub is filled with pretty strong performances all across the board as each Seiyuu did a great job bringing these characters to life into the anime. So there is that.

The dub for Tokyo Ghoul is very underwhelming.
Despite having very noticeable dub actors such as Austin Tindle (Kankei), Brina Palencia (Touka) Todd Haberkorn (Ayato) Christopher Sabat (Jason) and John Michael Tatum (Tsukiyama) the overall acting feels so wooden, flat or downright forced at times.
Stick with the sub for this for this one.


Final Thoughts.
Tokyo Ghoul is a perfect example of how to not do an anime adaption.
The story is a poorly written and directed mess that doesn't do the source material justice.
The characters are for the most part are butchered versions of the manga counterparts and visuals range from okay to absolutely horrendous.
The only good things about Tokyo Ghoul is the music and a couple of decent characters that are in it that are in it everything else is at best awful.
If you want to get into Tokyo Ghoul please for the love Sui Ishida heart read the manga.
Start from chapter 1, download the soundtrack for Tokyo Ghoul for background music then read it from there.
Don't waste your time with the anime.

Final Score 2.5/10

¡Oh look! a guy with a red eye! It must be great to see how his life unfolds.
I'm sorry we just want money this series not to tell a story, is for create money based on the large amount of fan who has.

Well let's start this analysis, NOT contains spoilers quiet ;)
This review is written thanks to the translator of Google (again), I'm sorry if it has grammatical errors.

-History: This is a series of 12 chapters that everything could have been perfectly developed in a maximum of 4, the story is painful, nothing new and is entirely predictable that wrote almost believed that a child ... of six years, it limits itself to express only banal for what the main story (Kaneki and development as half human and half ghoul), events present us a new character that does not affect absolutely nothing in history as such, is only there to let us know that there is ( and to create 2 chapters are only because of the more chapters = more money).
... It costs me to focus because it is very bad, sorry, we continue.

Another point is that everything is very artificial and falls into the mistake of putting many cliches when battles (which incidentally is a shame when the animation, but more on that later) show the feelings that the characters they are linear and are more palpable not develop this season but it came from the first season, and this makes it only good thing about this series, when you see the time goes fast because it is like watching a powerpoint. 1/10

-Characters: garbage everyone, I understand that I should write because I find are all garbage, ah ... damn

Kaneki: the cool guy but really knows nothing and suddenly it's the best fighter of the ghouls

Touka: the typical tough girl in the end is the softer

I give up, all are stereotypes already seen, this does not lead to anything. 1/10

-Sound: for lovers of the openings i do not know if they are to find good this, I personally do not look at that, but if the OST and in this anime is almost nil 0/10.
sound effects saved this section 7/10.
I can not say more about it because I do not care so much. 6/10

-Art: Throughout the series is mediocre and you take the time to draw well only cups and a briefcase, but BOOM! In the last episode the drawing more detailed changes to make us believe that the series was so all the time, that's how it makes friends
*clap* *clap* 5/10

Final Note 2/10
Brief review: Fanaticism makes money let's do this!
i recommend?
NO, why?
that's not the right question, the exact is why not?

You think you can come back looking like some brooding, tragic hero?" - Touka

Preface:

Let me start off by saying that this is not a manga review. There's a place for those, and it's the section above the reviews, next to where it's highlighted "Anime Reviews". It's a wholly reductive comparison to make of Tokyo Ghoul to expect the anime to be identical to the source. While a very close to 1:1 adaptation is possible, the majority of titles, particularly ones adapted from non-illustrated sources are created with a great amount of artistic licensHae. While this in no way excuses the immense drop in quality ... of Tokyo Ghoul SqrtA, it is one explanation.
Suffice to say: if all 870 pages of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix were adapted into a film, it would be 8 hours long, prohibitively expensive, and INCREDIBLY BORING!

I rate Tokyo Ghoul SqrtA a 4 because it's half the show that Tokyo Ghoul season one was.


Artwork and Animation: 5

Pierrot definitely had to cut some corners to finish this season out, and it shows. A lot of stillframe with pans, and some really, really horrible character models. I make point of when Tsukiyama attacks Ken on top of the building- it's literally an outline of Tsukiyama with no detail, and his kagune looks like a straight, detail-less stick with a curve at the top. While some of the more major fights look good, on the whole, the animation is average to below average, with the exception of the last two episodes, which I'd give an 8/10 to.


Sound and Voice Acting: 7

Same players as before, except this time Ken has maybe 40 lines in the entire season. Mamoru Miyama (Light, Death Note) is glorious as Tsukiyama, and Rie Kugimiya (Alphonse, FMAB) is fantastic as Juzo. The OP I found kind of annoying, but the ED was a good mood setter for the ending. Overall decent sounding and with a veteran voice cast, can't go wrong here.


Now, for the pain.

Characters: 2

I'm going to be very blunt here. Root A has no main character. Is it Amon? Is it Ken? Is it Touka? (I don't really see watching her running around being emo and crying all the time like a 15 year old Hot Topic mall scenester as much characterization.) Root A is really just a mess on the character front. Characters crop up with none to negative explanation as to who they are, why they're there, or why the hell I should care about whether they live or die. Late in the season, during the "Super ultra mega monster hyper epic battle" between the CCG and the ghouls, there are 6 or 7 different NAMED special investigator characters who appear for the first time on screen in episodes 10, 11, and 12. A few of them spout cliche lines like "Let's finish what we started 10 years ago." or "Now, I can finally get my vengeance!"

Wait, stop. WHAT? This is literally your first scene in the entire show, and two episodes before the end. I don't know who you are, and I've been given no reason to care, please die.

Root A is dotted with moments like this. A sudden influx of new, named, voiced characters that supposedly have backstories that are apparently meaningful to the conflict at hand, yet none of this is ever explained to the viewer in any detail.

Characters like Naki, Kamishiro, Hoji, the "Devil Ape" and "Black Dog" suddenly gain an inflated and undeserved sense of relevance in Root A... As the viewer, I'm never told why they're important, other than THEY'RE IMPORTANT TO THE STORY BECAUSE THAT'S THIS WEEK'S EPISODE! (Cough, prison break.)

The cast from the original is mostly intact, though with some serious characterization potential lost. The dynamic between Ken and Touka, and heck, even between Ken and himself is long gone, and in its place is a bunch of teen angst. Root A does have some plusses in that the sick and twisted character list grows, with Juzo and Tsukiyama at the top of the list. Juzo, despite having a literal 25 second montage of backstory, does experience some characterization and only grew more awesome as the series went on.
Akira Mado and Eto were also welcome additions to the cast, where they brought in some edge, but didn't make me cringe.

Bottom line: characters go in circles and waste potential like my El Camino 572 wastes gas and tires.


Story: 2

Here's where I really don't understand where Root A went wrong. The Tokyo Ghoul manga had finished by the time of the original's airing, so this is not an 'anime original' ending. While a great amount of artistic licensing was taken with compressing 144 chapters into 24 episodes, the end result is the same.
What my problem is, is that the source material was laid out in front of Pierrot and they failed to cover the appropriate information and characterization, while leaving in a bunch of, frankly, unnecessary plot wheel-spinning and side characters with little bearing on the story.

Where the first season is a fairly intense intrapersonal journey for Ken and his struggle to reconcile his inner turmoil of being both ghoul and human, Root A is a failed attempt at an inTERpersonal conflict between the ghouls of Antique, Aogiri, and the human officers of the CCG. While this nonlinear, multipart narrative has been used successfully in superior shows such as Fate Zero, (even Code Geass,) Pierrot demonstrates a substantive lack of attention to detail and even negligence in creating a cohesive, compelling adaptation. Disjointed plot threads crop up like weeds, but feel more like hangnails.
Entire plot sections dead end, and are just written off- never explained later, or happen for no apparent reason. The beginning of the season is like a series of cliche action movie setpieces that happen for no explained reason... We can *assume* the prison break happens because Aogiri is attempting to raise their numbers. Are we told? NO! Half of them end up being killed by Aogiri members themselves anyway!

There are some moments with Akira and Amon, and also Juzo that were interesting from a sub plot perspective, but as a whole they go nowhere and add nothing meaningful to the story. A shame, because they're probably the best three characters in the show at this point.

Is it bad that I really just wanted everyone to die about halfway through?


Enjoyment: 6

As much as I've bashed on Root A, there were quite a few things I enjoyed. Top of the list is Juzo, the sick little urchin that he is. I love the sick and twisted characters that really just don't give a crap whether they, nor anyone else around them live or die. While everyone is writing their death haikus before the big battle, Juzo takes his and makes a paper airplane. It's not enough to stab a girl in the eye, she's getting skewered 44 more times with throwing knives. Scythe to the head? Cool. Juzo is beyond messed up, and is absolutely unapologetic, and I love it.

Akira Mado was also a nice surprise- a character with a believable background who isn't a totally plot armored Mary Sue, yet remains relevant.


Misc bitchin':

Plot convenience. CCG gas that incapacitates Kagune, and therefore the ghoul's weapons? Nah, we don't need that anymore, because it was too effective.

Anime Biology™: Have you been blown up, skewered, shot, stabbed, had limbs cut off, fallen off 50+ floor skyscrapers, had organ liquefying impacts and accelerations from punches and kicks, impaled, or otherwise had fatal blunt force trauma inflicted upon you?
-~-NEVER FEAR, Anime Biology™ is here!-~-

I know this is anime, but come on. The ghouls are explained to have regenerative powers... but to what extent? Some of them take days to recover from their wounds, and sometimes they are completely unaffected, wholly at the convenience of the plot at the time. If kagune are the only things that can hurt them, why is it that they're shown to be mowed down by the hundreds with MP5s? Why do ghouls not also use firearms themselves? Why limit yourself to close range when the majority of CCG officers only have melee based kagune??

Ghoul powers are played with faster and looser than Geass, holy crap.
Why do ghouls manifest only certain types of kagune? How do they have mutating ones? Does it even matter??


Overall: 4 (Want to give it a 3, because 3 is the closest square root of what I think Tokyo Ghoul season one should be scored, but math tells me I can't do that.)

People hold up examples of bad adaptations like Elfen Lied and Fate Stay Night by Deen as being the "classic case", but let's be honest here. It's different when an adaptation takes the tennis ball, runs to the closest football field and bats it out of the atmosphere, but Tokyo Ghoul Root A is going down as probably one of the roughest adaptations that even attempted to remain faithful to the original.


tl;dr

+ Can't spell slaughter without laughter.

+/- Addition of some new, and improved characters

- Annoying (main and side) characters who serve no purpose
- Main characters' raison d'etre destroyed and become pointless
- Subplots that go nowhere


Recommend?

Tokyo Ghoul :Re is being written as I type, and hopefully with its adaptation (and also a new production studio) it will correct the bad name that Tokyo Ghoul has after a great showing in its first season. It's not as though we can pretend Root A never happened. As the great Mr. Plinkett said: "The unfortunate reality is that (Tokyo Ghoul Root A) will be around...forever. It will never go away. It can never be undone."

If Ergo Proxy is a refined piece of expensive steak, Tokyo Ghoul is junk food. Root A is moldy, stale bread.

As a manga reader (knowing this, I might be harsh on some aspect), I was very impressed at the season one of Tokyo Ghoul and I felt that they have done a good job in only 12 episodes introducing the world of Tokyo Ghoul. What I don't understand is how could they not do the same for the second season?

Story (2)/Characters(4):
What you have to understand is that this season 'supposedly' does not follow the manga and has taken a different route then the manga, hence the √ meaning route. Ishida Sui, the creator of Tokyo Ghoul, has work along with this season of anime ... and has made an original draft to be followed.

Fortunately, unlike the first season of the anime, the second season has a lot more characters to be unraveled (hehehe) and a more complicated story. Unfortunately with only 12 episodes is impossible. And the making of Tokyo Ghoul √a was very short when you think about it. Tokyo Ghoul season ended and then boom, a few months later second season came on by and also not with the budget it deserve most likely too.

And because of all this, the drafts that were supposedly new and takes focus on a certain group in the anime, did not take place and disappointing the fans who knows about this.

Not only it didn't follow the drafts (and I've read some so I know it was going to be good) it also didn't even make sense.

Our main character, Kaneki Ken, did something that was supposed to be big but hardly makes an appearance (this is what I was talking about before, it did not focus on Kaneki and a certain group). We could understood the reasons but we didn't really understood what he was really trying to do, making Kaneki this character that "we just do not understand on what the heck is he really doing in this anime, is he even the main character anymore?". God do not even talk to me about Touka or the horrible horrible anime Tsukiyama. They just butchered this characters' personality and motives making them just like Kaneki and making us feel "What the fudge are you guys even doing in this anime, you have no reason to be here".

Unless you only like the CCG and Hide, then it's alright. BUT everything else was shit.

Art/Animation (5):

Bad. Horrible. What. Could be better. Could be so much better. Did not give its best in the horror and gore of the manga has (yes it has censoring and all but still, STILL)

Remember when I said the making of Tokyo Ghoul √a seems really short and probably was not given the budget is deserves. Yup, it really shows in this anime. Especially since it was also an action anime.

The only this that was really worthy to look at was the first and last episode. The opening and the ending cards that were different each episodes that was drawn by the wonderful Ishida Sui.

Sound(9):

Wonderful. Majestic. Orgasm to my ear.

The music is probably the best thing that ever come out of this anime. It's very ear catching, forcing you to notice it and settles in with the mood in the anime, or more like emphasizing the mood and the feelings in the anime. Deserves a better well written, well drawn and animated Tokyo Ghoul.

Voice acting was also wonderful as ever and makes the what is already tragic and sad even tragicer and sadder. Is that even possible

Overall(4):

Is it worth watching? There are two answer.

For the manga reader: NO. Nu-uh. Don't torture yourself. Please no. The only thing worthy was the last episode for a certain scene and the music and the op/ed. That's it. Nothing else.

For the anime fan: Also a big NO. I implore you to just read the manga because the different route thing did not matter. Still, I understand the love of just watching anime because of the voice acting and all that wonderful things that only comes from anime. I can't stop you from watching it if you still want to. But still. Manga Tokyo Ghoul is worth the read.

This anime feels like it struggles from the first good episode the rest bad and finale alright syndrome is the best way to describe what I watched.
Many details left out, they call it original but rip out many key points of the manga while leaving out tons of detail leaving viewers confused.

The music this show has is simply amazing. Some songs are abit over used but the soundtrack was phenominal.

Many character choices do not make sense, and alot being downright useless.

Art on the ... Ed is amazing.

but alas only the animating studio pirotte could truly butcher such a series in animation, pacing, and story.