Tokyo Ghoul √A

As a Tokyo Ghoul manga fan, is disappointment and desmotivating to see this.

Don´t get me wrong, i am not a hater but if you´re a manga reader you´ll be angry while you´re watching this. Tokyo Ghoul season 1 was already a poor adaptation and they removed IMPORTANT content that they didn´t realise in the moment that was important. lol. so, tokyo ghoul season 2, was IMPOSSIBLE to perform after that season 1 adaptation, but they forced it just beucase the SALES, and they decided to make a 80-70% anime original (with ishida´s help) with just 20-30% manga content and it made this Tokyo Ghoul √A.
Root ... A, is trash from an anime-viewer-only perspective and worse than trash if you've read the manga. It is a mess of unexplained plot points that insult the complexity of the source material it was adapted from.

It only proves that Studio Pierrot is UNABLE to adapat high level series and Tokyo Ghoul is a good example of it, so they should focus more on shonen and simple stories and giving up trying to addapt decent stuff.

I hope SOMEDAY, Tokyo Ghoul has an anime remake, because it´s an epic story and with an amazing tragic MC, that anime only watchers don´t even imagine about.

For anime only watchers, just read the manga.

Story:2/10
Art:5/10
Sound:7/10
Character:3/10
Enjoyment:5/10
Overall:5/10

After the end of season 1, many people were wondering about its sequel and how it would be executed especially because Ishida Sui, the mangaka, was involved on it since he decided to write the draft of the second season, and that looked like a sign of hope and possibly an improvement in the middle of a controversial first season with so many mixed opinions.

I must say, even when there were announcements of an "anime original route" for Tokyo Ghoul, I was looking forward to it and I wanted to see what Ishida would bring to us, especially when it was revealed the name ... of it: Tokyo Ghoul √A, also known as Tokyo Ghoul Root A, or you could interpret it as Route Aogiri (don't confuse it as Route Alternate or something similar).

When it started and episode 1 showed Kaneki moving to Aogiri, I was actually fine with it and especially okay without the 103 bones/half-killing scenes that so many manga readers were disappointed.
The first episode looked nice even though it felt a bit anticlimatic in certain moments like the end of Aogiri's arc, it had a promising start again though. There were some interesting ideas and Root A had a slower pacing to actually explain the story and important elements as the Owl along with the introduction of new characters, and it was expected to be shown more about Aogiri Tree, their members, Kaneki interacting with them, maybe even the story and the origin of the organization along with that anime original route (I mean, who would not expect that after Kaneki joining the organization?), however...

Unfortunately, Tokyo Ghoul Root A does not deliver when it comes to the hype and potential, just like season 1 didn't do it too, but now it just got worse and sometimes even confusing, since there wasn't enough screen time to know what was going on through Kaneki's head, why he decided to move to Aogiri (it was eventually revealed later, but... moving to the bad side so Kaneki can "get stronger and protect the people that he loves", that's kinda understandable, although it does feel strange to see him deciding to go to Aogiri and then the story isn't even resolving around him, but the worst thing is that Kaneki moving to Aogiri DID NOT have any relevance neither impact in the end of the anime), and it reached to a point where it felt awkward or ridiculous to watch him almost not talking a single word or barely showing up on the anime's first half.

Not to mention that, despite the Root A title, we did not find out more information about Aogiri and their characters, which is a big letdown. Another problem regarding the show is the whole deal about that "anime original": Studio Pierrot did not learn from their mistakes and they basically rushed through the story AGAIN, but guess what else they did? They were still adapting important scenes/events of the manga, however there wasn't development neither a nice and detailed setup like Ishida does in the manga, except for probably the last arc, which is actually an upgrade over the first half but it wasn't enough to cover up their mistakes and flaws from the whole anime, some moments (for an example, Kaneki fighting Shachi on episode 4, especially when he SAVED this guy from CCG's prison and yet no proper explanation on why they were fighting) made the story go all over the place and it started to be so confusing with the unexplained events and many plot holes after the last episode.

Now that I mentioned the fights, I must also mention that the animation/art is so inconsistent, it can have some nice visually appealing scenery along with the important scenes too, but the characters were distorted during some moments, the movements were not really fluid and the animation had its sloppy moments too. Also, some fights were poorly animated and you could clearly notice which scenes had more investment and budget... well, if there was ever a lot of budget for Studio Pierrot though. And let's not forget Arima looking like a yaoi character along with his weird chin, it was impossible to take seriously every scene with him... once he showed up on episode 11.
I must mention another positive aspect when it came to the art: the ED sequences (each episode got a different one) with Ishida's drawings are amazing to look at.

The sound was one of the few positive points about the anime. The opening (Munou by österreich) isn't as bad like many people say, also it does fit well into the series and what's going on or what is going to happen, but it does not compare to Unravel at all when it comes to quality and meaning. The ending (Kisetsu wa Tsugitsugi Shindeiku by Amazarashi) is pretty good though, and the ost got nice songs too (a great example is Glass Sky).

Probably the biggest disappoiment on season 2 were the characters and their development throughout the story mainly Kaneki, who got butchered again in his development and his characterization even more since he got less screen time than last season neither had monologues or an idea/insight of what he was thinking or what was going on inside his own mind. The same should be said for some supporting characters, and how they portrayed Tsukiyama only as a maniac/psycho who is obsessed to eat Kaneki. I must admit that he was still funny and enjoyable to watch on his moments, but he is still another character heavily butchered by Pierrot. I mean, how are we supposed to care or feel something for him like on episode 9 in the rooftop scene when he had a conversation with Kaneki while asking him to not go into a big fight happening during that moment? In the manga, it felt impactful and sad due to his development, but in the anime it felt awkward or even funny...

However, CCG and their members had some focus on the plot, and they did get a bit of development like Akira, Amon and Suzuya... actually, they were the characters who did receive more devopment on season 2, but thats not enough when the main character and the group that he joined don't even get enough time to be developed, and let's not forget that there were only 12 episodes, so even their development wasn't that great or amazing to watch. It's kind of ironic watching how CCG got some sweet screen time on Root A, it makes me wonder why the title is even this one.

Did it have differences? Well, it did have like obviously Kaneki going to Aogiri, but the whole original concept felt like a poor excuse to make season 2 and STILL adapting some manga scenes while cutting out development and rushing through the source. What a "brilliant" decision to take the story made on 143 chapters and do a half-assed version of that with a few differences into 24 episodes.

In the end, Tokyo Ghoul Root A was disappointing and it did not really fix the issues previously shown on the first season, and it makes many anime watchers who were reading the manga wonder why Pierrot decided to animate many manga scenes despite that promise of an anime original story. After all, read the manga and pray that there will be a remake someday.

Okay, so literally almost everyone on MAL already wrote a review for Tokyo Ghoul √A, but for some reason I wanted to write one as well. And a very short one as that, simply because of the fact that most things have already been said a lot of times.

A friend of mine and I were talking about overrated anime, as Tokyo Ghoul came into discussion and she asked "But don't you think the hype surrounding it is kind of justified?" No, I don't think it is. At that point I have to say that said friend did only watch the anime adaptation, she did never ... read the manga. Which already brings me to my main questions: Was it enough for an anime like Tokyo Ghoul to have two seasons with only 12 episodes each? No. Did they at least make good use of the limited screen time given? Not exactly.
Could a person who has only seen the anime walk out of this without any questions left unanswered? Not at all. Is it possible for anyone who read the manga to not detect possible plot holes, because they are small enough to forget about? Hardly so.

Needless to say, I was a little bit more than disappointed. The people who produced both series made great use of the hype that already clung to Tokyo Ghoul, not to mention how EVERYONE was looking forward to the second season, that none of the producers broke out in a cold sweat: fatality at its finest.

People really tend to fall in love with the main concept of a show, where i have to say that the underlying idea of a world where ghouls and humans coexist is rather neat. BUT you also have to take into account what they actually made out of it.

To sum it up with that, Tokyo Ghoul √A is NOTHING but a great basic idea, any potential was simply wasted. If this really is one of your favorite anime, I assume you have never read the manga and you must be okay with all the flaws, maybe because you have not seen enough anime yet. If that's the case, I'd like for you to stop by in 6 months again, reading through the reviews of this show once more, maybe understanding why most of the ratings above literally scream "mediocre" right into my face.

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.

So mutch hate for this one, i dont get it.
I havn't read the manga so I can't really tell.
The only thing i can say is that i found this one a lot better than the first season.
It's not only about blood and torture anymore, The psychologie of the char is a lot more interesting and the ending is wonderfull, i'm sure lots of people don't like that kind of ending, but i found i wonderfull.

W/e great anime to watch !

¡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.

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

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.

Throughout the whole first season Kaneki was a crybaby little wimp. Second season, Root A gave me hope for him evolving into somewhat of a badass.

Oh how badly mistaken I was...

Now, do note, that I did not read the manga, my opinion is based entirely on what I saw in anime.

The visual side was decent, sounds did not make my ears bleed, nothing exceptional, but nothing bad. Let's get to the main topic, though - the content.

Kaneki is a misunderstood, irrational emo kid. We know nothing about his motivations, why he joins who he joins, why he does what he does, nothing. He never shares ... anything with anybody, because they would not understand. He pushes away tohka and everybody else, because... Beats me. I have no idea why.

Kaneki is a downright bad character in my opinion. He evolves from a sad crybaby, to misunderstood emo, there's no progress if you ask me.

Side characters are much more enjoyable. I can't remember their names, but I remember, that I enjoyed them. Some were mysterious, some were funny, but all of them were defined in one way or another. Unlike Kaneki.

Besides characters, there's one more thing that irks me - the way fights were done.

The standard formula for a fight in Tokyo Ghoul Root A seems to look like "two hits, 30 seconds flashback, three hits, 20 seconds flashback, four hits, existential discussion about very nature of humanity, one hit...", you get the idea.

There was so much potential for interesting, enjoyable fights, yet they were wasted. I know, that the creators probably intended to show us that both sides have their reasons and all, but... Is every two or so hits during a fight really the best place for that?

It wouldn't be pushing it, if I said, that episodes 10 and 11 had more action in them, that the rest of both seasons together. And these episodes were actually quite fun, they were enjoyable, because we saw a fight, then during a brief break we had some exposition, it was not chopped up and mixed together.

Another thing is cheap drama, the thing I absolutely loathe. People who didn't have to die - died. Buildings burned for no reason at all. Kaneki acted irrational just to show how "dramatic" a situation is. Many, many events occured solely to introduce some drama, nothing besides that.

Oh, and the ending. The absolutely dreadful ending, that did not close any of the plotlines, explained nothing, and suggested, that there was some thime skip. I am afraid, that it may lead to another season. Or fifteen. With such vast fanbase it's a good source of money for people who created it, why kill the goose that lays golden eggs?

Well first of all many may wonder why my score is so high when almost everyone trashed this anime.
With all due respect I don't read mangas and I don't give a f*** if the anime is not as good as the manga. So for all of the ones that are asking (this happened with me as well), if this anime is worth watching or not, well go and watch it, I was very surprised when I watched it and I applaud to the studio that made this anime.
This is all my opinion many may bash it, others will take the position of a professional ... reviewer, some may criticize the art, story and all that stuff, but we are forgetting something and that's the most important one of all things; the overall enjoyment.
Ok, so first of all this may be directed to people who are only watching the anime or who doesn't care about being as great as the manga. Of course it is not as great, because the images the dialogue you are reading them. So even if you don't imagine the characters or the settings because they are drawn in the chapter, you are still using your imagination and what's going to beat your imagination, nothing because you imagine things that you like that's why nothing will be greater than what you've imagined.
Well enough of philosophical stuff the ones that understand it fine, the ones that don't just live with it.
Story: 9 I think it was a great story. I said before episode 12 of s1 almost made me drop this anime second season was a redeemer.
Art: 7 same as s1, was going to give a 8 but I've seen better art.
Sound: 8 same as s1 and I liked the opening of s1 for me s2's opening sucks.
Character: Not well developed but I understood some more about Kaneki, don't care that much about side characters and I often think that giving them some back story is a waste of time. This may be a pretty high score since many characters needed back-story, but I focused mainly on Kaneki's.
Enjoyment:9 I must say I enjoyed this anime so much. A little bit of a bummer was the ending, so that's the thing I didn't liked from this anime, both endings (the first one sucked), this one was kind of dull, but not that boring.
Overall: 9 I give it this score because for me it was a good anime. I'm not a professional reviewer nor do I care to pretend being one, because I'm not. So if you liked this show(s1), you'll surely enjoy this season. Don't care about what others say, I don't know what's wrong with them they seem to be taking a roll that doesn't fit them. But just go watch it, dare yourselves to watch it, I must say it is not a bummer at least for me. I'm a pretty mainstream anime watcher, of course I have my favorites and let's face it mainstream are mainstream for a reason that's because they are big and almost everyone likes them, people talking about some minor details are just some petty lil b**, jk, but go watch this anime surprise yourselves with it, its a pretty good show, what others say its of no matter to you if you liked the first season.

As a huge fan of the manga and the incredible story crafting skills of Ishida Sui, it's hard not to loathe the anime. Any comparison has the manga undoubtedly favored. It is a beautiful tale of a young boy, the life of a city buzzing with ghouls (and their vengeful counterparts, the CCG), and the internal struggle of the human mind. It uses symbolism, beautiful art, and is told in a fast-paced yet in-depth and understandable way.

But, this is a review on the anime. And as much as us manga lovers like to complain about the hideous transition from page to screen, season two is ... quick to dismiss the blame by taking on the title, "root a", claiming that this is a different route than the manga. With that in mind, I will try to contain my bias opinion and comment on both the pleasing sides and horrendous sides of the anime (with little comments of the manga here and there, which isn't really preventable. sorry in advance).

Story: 6/10

Truthfully speaking, when Tokyo Ghoul comes to plot, it has SO much potential. What the manga gives the writers to work with is an endless amount of detailed story and well-structured dialogue. But Root A continues down the path of it's precursor, becoming the same sad tale of season one. While it is undeniably entertaining, it leaves out an extreme amount of potential. It becomes a flat surface of one-dimensional arcs and stories that are being forcefully told.

Also, it's important to question WHY Ishida and the creators of season two decided to go out of their way to change the "route" of this season, yet still kept the main story and plot lines? Events and conversations all occur exactly the same as told in the manga, while small details are changed. Kaneki's position changes and he becomes a member Aogiri, but they do NOTHING with this plot. It doesn't contribute to the main outcome of the anime. The route is still essentially following the manga, so why claim otherwise? Unless the last episode ends differently than the manga, this can become a debatable topic. Nevertheless, all other scenes from Root A were still the same, so I personally think it was unnecessary to claim this was an alternative route (though, like I said, if the last episode is different than the manga, then my argument can be changed. STILL, a much better word for it would be alternate-ending, not 'route').

Art: 5/10

I've heard a lot of people say the art is incredibly visually appealing, and while I can agree at certain parts of the anime, it's mostly disappointing and cringe-worthy. Every fight scene seems half-assed, characters faces are distorted, and everything seems much too rushed. There are few moments that are actually pleasant to look at. I won't comment on the censorship problem because that's not the fault of the show's creators, but even without the censorship, there's nothing special about the art/gore.

I maybe would have rated this at a six if Arima's face wasn't the way it looked in episode 11 (and possibly 12). How is a REAPER, a god of death (as described by Kaneki), supposed to be terrifying yet cool when he has a triangular shaped chin and a flat, boring appearance/aura? There is nothing special about him, which is sadly disappointing. And when you compare the manga, where the art gives signs to an INCREDIBLE amount of symbolism (including The Hanged Man (XII), Death (XIII), little details of foreshadowing and more), it's hard not to be unimpressed with what the anime has to offer.

Sound: 8/10

The soundtrack is, as always, pretty amazing. The op/ed are pretty good, though not extraordinary. The voice acting is usually on-point. Kaneki, Juuzou, and a few more have pretty amazing vocals and they do a good job at screaming with the same type of insanity you feel from the manga. I would also have rated this section higher if they had not BUTCHERED Tsukiyama's voice, making him a babbling idiot who shouts non-sense in broken French. It's really cringe-worthy, so I knocked it down a bit.

Character: 5/10

Again, wasted potential and the same problem that occurs in season one. Tokyo Ghoul is known for its incredible story telling and plot/character development. It is a beautiful climb of making mistakes, learning, and growing into characters with new insights and points of view. But every single character falls flat in the anime. There is not a single character that we have followed long enough to actually FEEL the growth of his character. For 11 episodes, we have been at a single standpoint. Barely anything has changed. By taking out an important arc (the lab/doctor arc), we steal Tsukiyama's incredible development, which originally had proven how good Ishida is at telling the story of a character. The anime is all over the place, trying to tell so many points of view in such a short span of time, and everything only manages to fall flat.

Kaneki fails to impress the anime-watchers, and that's very understandable. Without much dialogue, he becomes a protagonist that is hard to connect with. While stoic and mysterious, we lose the idea that he is our main character, making the audience confused in their ability to grow empathetic to who we're watching. Something really important to note is that, in the anime he is seen as a stoic, quiet, unfriendly figure, most likely due to the post-traumatic stress of his torture. But in the manga, he still has the ability to act friendly. He is still kind-hearted and able to SPEAK, though still holding a visible inner pain. He de-humanizes himself by becoming a cannibal, but that doesn't suddenly change his personality, which again is an admirable ability of Ishida's continuity within his characters. But the anime fails to make this connection, making him into a character who he is not.

I have to say, while we've seen little of the clowns, I'm hoping they make an appearance in episode 12, as they play as incredibly important role to the plot (which, if told correctly, can be a pleasurable thing for the 'character' section).

Enjoyment: 6/10

In the genres of the anime listed on MAL, we have "horror, psychological, and mystery". But the anime is none of those things. Yes, anime-watchers have questions. "Who is the owl?", "How powerful is Arima?", "Does Hide know about Kaneki?", etc. But these things do not make a mystery. Yes, there are monsters. But they don't linger under the beds of children nor do they lurk in closets. There's no creepy factor, no intensity, and no suspension. So it's not a horror. And honestly, the anime LOST its right to call itself psychological when it ruined the plots and characters. So, for one, the enjoyment becomes one solely based on action, seinen, and drama. While these things don't make a good anime if they only have each other, they DO prove to be enjoyable. Even if you dislike the anime, most still decide to watch it to the end. Manga readers watch it to figure out what 'route' it will take. We all want to know what happens next. And I think that is important in the idea that Tokyo Ghoul Root A is a surface anime. It takes things as it sees it, all for entertainment. There are no deeper meanings, no symbolism, no beautiful whisks or originality in the writing and portrayal of its origin. It is something that we watch, we partially enjoy, and then we move on. It slips our minds and instead, we think of the manga or a new show. So while it's not memorable in the least, we do still have those moments of short enjoyment. There's nothing remarkable about it, but it's something to watch to pass the time. If I was flicking the channels (and I had never watched anime) and TG was an option, I would watch out of boredom, and maybe I'd even thoroughly enjoy an episode.

Also, a little side note: It's really, really entertaining when we get to see Kaneki's mental weaknesses and the true insanity that plagues his mind due to the consumption of other ghouls and his horrid torture. But there was a lack of these beautiful scenes in the anime, which again leaves us less entertained than we could have been.

Overall: 5/10

And that's what it is. Not remarkable, not horrible. Mediocre, but not yet poor or dreadful. And while writing this review, trust me. I had a lot of fan girl in me that had originally rated a lot of these sections higher than what they are now. But as I wrote, realization dawned on me, and I came to acknowledge the failed second season of Tokyo Ghoul. It had an abundance of opportunities for potential, but it never grasped at those opportunities, making the show something that can never compare to its original story-telling form. As a writer, it's disappointing to see something so beautiful reduced to something like this, and while the art and sound were not at the fault of the writers, the room left for story and character could have easily made up for it. But alas, the anime fell too short, not reaching the high expectations of fans all around. Whether these faults lay on Ishida (who helped with the anime), or the other creators of the show, it doesn't matter. It just does not live up to anything special.

Prior to this review, the anime was rated at a 6. But the ending was just awful. Wasted space, shock-value for no reason, too much walking/music, nothing happening. Again, things that just weren't necessary and could have been used for other plot devices and entertainment, such as the fight between Arima and Kaneki.

Hopefully, we never get a season three nor an adaption of Re... leave this untouched, at least.

(Note: This review contains some spoilers. Read at your own risk.)

*Sigh*. Where do I even begin? You know, I really like Tokyo Ghoul, well the manga at least. The first season contained a lot of flaws, however, I ultimately thought of it as an entertaining action/horror anime nonetheless. And now, we have this uninspiring sequel that proves how weak an adaptation of a manga can be. So fasten your seatbelts, this is gonna be a bumpy, fuckin’ ride…

Now it’s time to get to the point. Tokyo Ghoul Root A is garbage, plain and simple. It is a sequel that promised ... so much but does so little with every bit of its twelve-episode run, causing you to question why the hell you watched it in the first place. The reason why I’m saying that you will question why you watched it at all is because of the fact that it is almost EXACTLY the same as the point in the manga that it takes place in. Of course, it isn’t anyone’s fault if they haven’t read the manga and so, naturally, the story would be a brand new ride for them. But even then, the story of Root A is completely muddled with weak characters and a very unorganized and lazy story structure that feels like it was written overnight without any thought. Tokyo Ghoul Root A is a mess that needs to be criticized in order to show to people how an anime shouldn’t be made.

Just like the first season, Tokyo Ghoul Root A is an anime developed by the infamous Studio Pierrot, known for creating the animation for anime such as Bleach, Naruto, Yuyu Hakusho, and GTO. When Pierrot announced that Root A would be a sequel to the first season and that huge changes were coming to the story that would differ from the manga, fans everywhere went bonkers with excitement and glee. I myself would say that I was pretty hyped to see what changes were coming to the table. The problem about that specific announcement made by Pierrot is the fact that it was nothing but a lie. Tokyo Ghoul Root A’s “changes” to the story are so miniscule and incoherent that you will think to yourself why the changes happened in the first place. In order to explain why these certain “changes” were lousy and nonsensical, I will now briefly explain the story.

Root A takes place immediately after the events of the first season, with Kaneki’s group of comrades coming to rescue the him from Aogiri Tree, the infamously brutal organization of ghouls within the Tokyo Ghoul universe. Everything within the pilot episode of Root A is pretty much exactly the same as how the story up to the point went down in the manga. The “big change”, however, is revealed to the audience at the end of the episode, which reveals that the protagonist Kaneki is going to join Aogiri Tree, instead of forming his own group of rebel-esque ghouls like in the manga. Exciting right? Well guess what? That particular change that happens is neither coherently explained nor developed throughout the rest of the show, causing it to be just one giant waste of time and hype.

Not only is that specific change from the manga disappointing about Root A, but so is the entirety of the story as a whole. What seemed to personally upset me even more than the change from the manga was the fact that Root A never seemed to fix the flaw that I thought was most noticeable within the first season, which were the incredibly unorganized and lackluster subplots between the characters of the show. I’ve always found that the author of Tokyo Ghoul, Ishida Sui, contains the potential to create great, or at very interesting, characters within the complex world that he has created. Sadly, Root A fails even harder than the first season at making the majority of its cast at least somewhat likeable. The characters in Root A hardly seem like actual people in the first place because of the robotic dialogue and the unclear motivations and intentions that most of the characters have. For example, when Kaneki announces at the end of the first episode what his new plan was for the rest of the show, he never truly explains anywhere within each episode what his actual intentions were for joining Aogiri Tree. Instead, the show continuously treats us, the audience, as if we are gullible and easy-going idiots that would never question the basic conventions of character writing.

What was also noticeably disappointing about Root A was the lack of excitement or thrill from the action scenes. Back in my review of the first season, I noted how one of Tokyo Ghoul’s biggest pros was the intense and very entertaining sequences of action that blended well with a good soundtrack and splendid animation. Root A tries desperately to make its action as great and wonderful as the first season’s, but instead, the action is ultimately boring and way too short in order to give at least one compliment about it. Not only is the action dull, but so is the overall animation for most of the episodes. It really just seems to me that the guys over at Pierrot were very lazy when it came to the story-boarding and drawing of Root A.

Aside from its still very well-made soundtrack, the only thing that I can honestly say that I liked about this newest season of Tokyo Ghoul were the dramatic moments, especially within the last episode. Within giving away any spoilers, the last episode, in my opinion, was well done and tragic enough to say that it deserves to be known as one of, if not the only emotionally resonating moment within Root A that was well made. However, the rest of the show’s drama is completely heavy-handed, unbelievable, and somber for the sake of being somber. There’s barely any moments within Root A that contains drama where you can actually “feel something” for the characters, with the exception of Kaneki and The Manager.

Basically what I’m trying to say is that Tokyo Ghoul Root A is a sequel that is not only horrible, but is also a sequel that isn’t really a sequel. The changes made within the anime from the manga are barren and unnecessary because of how undeveloped they are. Watching Root A is also a waste of time on its own because of the fact that it is basically a continuing adaptation of the manga, aside from the beginning and last episodes of the show. If you are a fan of the manga, like myself, and feel compelled enough to check out Root A, I strongly advise against that decision. Tokyo Ghoul Root A is a mess of an anime that rarely shows any intention to improve upon the incredibly noteworthy flaws that you can find scattered throughout the first season. As I side before, I like Tokyo Ghoul enough to say that I am indeed a fan of the series. However, if the potential anime adaptations continue on like this, then Tokyo Ghoul will ultimately become an obscure and dreaded series that won’t eventually be worth anyone’s time.

What is it with Japanese creators coming up with these weird titles. “Root A”? There’s practically nothing in the series that even warrants such a title. Why not call it “Tokyo Ghoul 2” instead? Anyways, I’m getting ahead of myself, I’m sure Sui Ishida has good intentions for the inclusion of a square root and a letter fused together.

Personally I didn’t think this was like the worse thing I’ve ever seen like many people make it out to be. But, then again I’ve seen a lot of bad anime – the medium is just littered with trash from top to bottom. Sure, the show completely ... threw away the idea of trying to incorporate theme exploration and worldbuilding from season one in favor of just mindless violence, but there were a couple of moments that I felt were well handled. The sound design and atmosphere in this anime for one are fantastic. The show really did a great job at making you feel uneasy at certain points with its visuals. Certain locations within the show really felt like they had this ominous presence throughout and the calm moments really did feel like downtime after tons of bloodshed. The OST, unfortunately, is nothing special as a lot of tracks feel similar to the first season. Yutaka Yamada is a master at his craft and it’s primarily for this reason why he was chosen for big projects like the Bleach live-action adaptation and the anime adaptation of Vinland Saga.

But this is where my praise ends. The show for one likes to focus more on character interactions and battles than the actual plot itself. This would be fine if say they set out to develop a character but most of the conversations throughout the show just boil down to a lot more mundane crap, rather than anything central to the overall plot. Take for instance, talking about studying for university exams or attending a book signing, etc. Not to mention the character development in this seems to be non-existent. Kaneki, in fact, devolves from a timid yet relatable protagonist into this depressed, stoic, moody teenager, kind of like Sasuke from Naruto. The rest of the cast fare no better; Amon is still your average vengeance seeker, Touka loses a bit of her characterization so she could become even more useless as a character… you get the point. A lot of characters in this are underutilized and completely shoved to the side. Two twins are introduced early one but then they are never brought up again for the rest of the show. The show even tries to add even more psychopaths to the mix, that an anime like Psycho Pass would be completely jealous of it. Let’s see, there’s a psychotic little kid who likes to harm people and is voiced by Rie Kugimiya, and there’s another ghoul character that looks like freaking Tarzan. Also, again, why is Touka just being so useless? She’s supposed to be one of the main characters and all she does is spend time sulking, with her side plot having absolutely no bearing on the main story. And then when the plot actually tries to progress all it involves in some senseless violence between Ghouls and CCG members.

Speaking of emotional moments, the worse aspect of TG root A is just how emotionally manipulative it is as a whole. The show tries to get you to care for certain characters that aren’t well developed enough or just do not deserve it as a whole. Certain characters suddenly pull a heroic sacrifice for some stupid reason and the music suddenly goes somber as if to say out loud “this guy is dying, are you crying yet?” All the emotional moments here feel way too forced and it works even less when these characters you’re supposed to be caring for are nothing but psychos. Also, there are also more flashbacks here than a generic Naruto episode and they happen at nearly every emotional moment. Speaking of Naruto, it does seem like the folks at Studio Pierrot are trying to turn this into a darker version of their ninja centric shonen adaptation. The interactions between Kaneki and Touka do mirror that of Sasuke and Sakura towards the latter half of that series, and the Aogiri Tree feel very similar to the Akatsuki. Not to mention that both series start off strong and then start to drag immensely towards the finishing line.

The fights now are more or less just like every battle shonen out there. Full of random asspulls and power-ups. And to make matters worse they aren’t even well animated. Yeah, Pierrot isn’t the right studio for Tokyo Ghoul it seems. They’ve got the soundtrack and the atmosphere on point, but the animation leaves much to be desired. It’s very lackluster with lots of cuts and corners being taken and characters moving about in a very stilted fashion. None of the fights here feel as remotely satisfying as in the first season and therefore, it’s just all forgettable.

When I said that I didn’t feel it was as bad as people made it out to be, I meant that I didn’t think it deserved a 1 or a 2 out of 10. So I’m just going to give it a high 3/10 instead. It is much inferior to the first season and chances are if Pierrot doesn’t learn from their mistakes then I’m not looking forwards to the third. Read the manga instead, or just watch Parasyte, it’s pretty similar except the execution’s loads better.

Huh! to Tell the truth, Just after finishing the 1st season i was crazy for the 2nd season and day by day waited for its completion to be released but when it got released and after i read reviews i didn't bothered to watch initially but at last watched it no doubt its about that it was an "Alternate Root" from manga perspective so called "Root-A". So after hearing rumours that it doesn't stand to hopes of peoples and is constantly criticized as far as i know, They are right at their place but the ending was fitted to it. though the ... ending was not clear but we can assume that like Arima V/S Kaneki = Arima so we can certainly give it a try, and from my point of view its "Great".
Hope it would Get 3rd Season Tokyo Ghoul Re; soon enough though its announced but delayed.

The most disappointing thing isn't the end of this series, it's that I wasted my time watching all of it. Some of the worst character development I've ever seen, the Cat in the Hat finished plots better than this garbage series. Let's go in order of what I had to rate before writing this review:

=

Story: blah blah blah protagonist has a sad childhood story/goofy best friend, something strange happens to him where he lives on both the side of good and evil so fucking original blah blah struggles to find his place in the world blah blah ambiguous fate (if I wanted to read how ... shit turns out I wouldn't be on a site called My ANIME List would I?).

=

Art: Cool, these guys know how to draw, it's like they dedicated their entire life thus far to this type of stuff, but there were no spectacular scenes of a promise land, no 7 goddamn wonders of the world; the are is on par with any somewhat decent anime of this day and age, and the most relevant scenes are set in cities. C+ for the "effort" used to make a bunch of building, and eventually rubble look like the doodles of an art minor who wants to get a real job.

Sound: My friend Tyrone's mix-tape is more fire than this. But honestly, theme song is whiny, and the songs used at the ends of episodes are in English (nothing wrong with that, just inconsistency). I LOVE how they replay the original theme in the last episode, I get to feel like Kaneki!...while he was being tortured by Jason.

Character: Kaneki is such a baby, worst protagonist by far. After going through so much denial, you would hope the character stays true to the morals you listen to him shout/bitch/cry about over and over again, but no.

Touka: 3edgy5me. I imagine the thought process when developing this character was "Hey let's make go tsundere but stray from normal!" "How should we do that?" "By just keeping her angry and rarely showing signs of any kind emotion!" "But won't the viewers be expecting it at some point?" "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA".

Not enough time in the world to go on about the characters you never see again but were relevant to the core plot of some episodes, not to mention how some that seem extremely important just pop up out of nowhere. or how the fate of characters who are known from the beginning are left unkown.

=

Enjoyment - Nah. I liked it in the beginning and the only real thing I enjoyed was having background noise/content to watch while I played games mid season, because at a certain point you just gotta say "Fuck it".

=

Overall: WATCH SOMETHING ELSE.

The story picks up after season 1 of Tokyo Ghouls were Kaneki leaves for unknown reasona and basically there is an all out war between the ghouls and the CCG and now the CCG is looking for the owl. Now keep in mind that I still haven't read the manga so my review will not be compared to the manga like most reviews are.

Story- The story was great, I like the whole idea of ghouls and the CCG throwing down and fighting for their beliefs. Also like Kaneki joining the other ghouls and leading them as their leader. I liked the story better then ... season1 because the season 1 was just about establishing the whole ghouls problem that Tokyo has. Season 2 you already know that and now we can get to was really important which is the conflict between the CCG and the ghouls.

Art- Looked great, love how well shot the fight scene were, very well done.

Sound- Better music selection exept for the intro music ( I really hate it) but loved the fight music they included, well edited.

Character- This season fixed a problem I had with season 1 which is the character development. They did a better job at making a connection with the characters. Now you feel the friendship with each ghoul not just Kaneki and Hide friendship but with everyone else. My favorite character got to be Juuzou. This guy was a lot of fun to watch, he was quirky and very weird but I love how careless he was when he fought, he just didn't care as long as he was having fun.

Enjoyment- Had a better time with this season then the first. Better character development, better and more fight scenes with a great story that is fell develop. I recommend this anime to all anime fans.