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[Spoiler Warning]

0/10, Unfortunately a huge let down, an almost exact repeat of the mistakes made before, this anime is both an unusually bad adaption, sequel, and has been vastly overhyped.

- Characters: 0/10 - Does what Tokyo ghoul does best, it ignores interesting characters, and instead focuses on the subpar, uninteresting ones. After establishing a bland and unchanging cast from the first series, this pointless sequel throws them all under a bus and replaces them with insert generic copy and paste characters here. This now includes the protagonist, the author waited until this sequel to reset him with a deux ex memory loss to retcon his ... development. Also with Nishio, he does get to come back but Re resets him too so, surprise, surprise he’s right back to what he was doing before.
Similarly, Touka was the most popular character in popularity contests in the first manga, so naturally she had to be demoted to a side character here (remember Tokyo ghoul’s claim to infamy is that it identifies the good members of the cast fans like, and purposely boots them to the curb in favour of second rate, extra inferior characters. This fails in terms of concept, an audience would want to see cool and great characters, not insert wooden acting person or ghoul here, character wise it chose the wrong path to walk).
Regarding Touka, the female lead, even though Kaneki at first fancied Rize, and didn’t give Touka the time of day, Tokyo Ghoul is somehow convinced that Kaneki would fall madly in love with the most trite, insipid person on the market. It’s because she was supposed to have her Emo black hair for Kaneki to fall head over heels in love with, so they can have a Marilyn Manson themed romance later. In a dire attempt to introduce a tender moment (Kidding you not, Touka is waiting for Kaneki to regain his memories/cut Kaneki right out her life, perfectly content with moving on without him, “two years later my life’s fine without you, seen you again, you mean nothing to me.”) It brings to mind the ‘Twilight’ comparisons, just bizarre, mismatched and wholly unconvincing attempts at romance with clumsy plastic characters, and it doesn’t work, unless it’s an Emo’s unite (spoiler, it is) series, funny that should be mentioned.
Identically, Amon, the only one with some sense, a capable fighter and strategist has disappeared, again because he was a good character and, don’t forget, Tokyo Ghoul can only focus on the third rate, especially dull characters, all eyes on you Quinx squad.
The added problem with this is the author already tried this by establishing the bad characters as the focal point in the first series. The animation studio made them worse than they were on paper, route √A spiral dived further underground. Now Re is out with a vengeance of a retcon, even direr characters to revolve around in the form of everyone, with the occasional call back to the least inspired props from before. It’s like some kind of aggressive belly flop to the bottom in making the poorest excuses for characters as possible, quite impressive in hindsight. “Interesting characters, and character development? What are those?” – author of Tokyo Ghoul Re, clearly. Not to be out manoeuvred the studio leaped on the bandwagon: “Nice looking, well drawn, emotive animated characters with good voices? Does not compute” – the studio’s apparent view.

The other result of this is that Tokyo Ghouls main niche audience, the Emo “my life is such a black abyss” crowd have also been rejected and forgotten, by the author himself no less. I think the creator was like “it’s ok! In Re the Emo’s are gone! Even Juuzou’s had his body modifications toned down, look! Normal, ‘cool’ people now!” Disrespectful towards fans who come to this series for a certain validation (“my mom told me to do my homework, but I want to grow my fringe all over my face, I can totally relate to Tokyo Ghoul”) not to mention it remains unacceptable for anime fans that want to see something promising, and this reset couldn’t even provide it when it had the chance to attempt it.
Characters, with good, bad, in between traits, whatever quirks they have, are vital to a great story; Tokyo Ghoul Re characters don’t warrant a second glance. To fail to create anyone likeable, or unlikable in a series that is supposed to flesh out the backgrounds of even minor players, there is something fundamentally unsound with the premise. The anime couldn’t even bring them to life with voice acting, expressions, or anything. How on earth an anime can be created where you don’t like a least one character and want to follow their story, hear their voice, see their expressions and who they are, I’ll never know, but Re has achieved that.
Ignoring popular characters to focus on ones with even less likeability, and having no complex development in quite a harsh world that should draw something, anything out doesn’t work for a reason. It is not needed, or courageous for Tokyo Ghoul to play a necessary evil and remind manga and anime creators that sketchy characters and menial plot routes make for a subpar anime, everyone already knows.
The repercussions of this, and the greater failure, is that the audience will find it challenging to become invested in a story. It’s more like looking at playing cards: that’s not Kaneki, that’s chew toy number one, there’s wall flower whoever, indeed Hide, not the best friend, rather the plot device is also missing. Whether it’s Hide, Rize, guy Mado, even a comatose Shinohara, whoever it is, the golden rule of this series is to stamp out the good characters, Tokyo Ghoul always makes that clear.

- Story: what story?/10 - Decided to reset the previous Tokyo Ghoul and voila, here’s some detective, whatever the heck is going on with this plot (genre wise its a reminder of a show called ‘Descendants of Darkness’ which was effective in the sense that it done what Re is trying to do here but done it a lot better. That Re came out some time after but hasn’t added anything new to this genre is discouraging).
Re’s animation couldn’t do anything for the clichéd and monotonous arcs, no need to describe the failures of the story in detail, but spoiler alert, Re is just essentially the same as the first manga. It just shows the human detective viewpoint, with the added bonus of missing good characters, the Emo’s have been white washed removed, and there is a cliché crime watch plot this time, in lieu of the fractured nonsensical one the first time round.
The audience (especially those who haven’t read the manga) may not know what is going on with the story, and it’s not hard to acknowledge; you don’t actually need to care. This brief advert for the manga has too much material condensed in far too few episodes, and complicated further when there’s a fundamental detachment between the audience and this series. What does the casual viewer want to see? A bargain bucket police academy? What do the fans want? An anime where significant material has been scrapped, and a supposed seinan manga crammed into this? Have I missed something?
That so many manga chapters are condensed into a 12 episode series was, quite frankly shocking to learn, and really sets the bar for the failures to come. Couldn’t even give some nice text or sentences worth listening to in this rock bottom adaption. The only suspicion is that Re was made with the express intention of being bad on purpose to big up other series, imagine: a studio could point to their other anime and say, “look doesn’t this look good in comparison to Tokyo Ghoul?" Suppose it’s a shrewd business manoeuvre, it’s not like Tokyo Ghoul has any artistic integrity to preserve or risk losing at any rate.

- Animation: 4.5/10 – objectively and technically speaking near average, not bad but not great either. But just not good enough especially considering other anime titles that will be commanding people’s attention. My Hero Academia continues to knock the ball out of the park, and who else is very keenly aware that Tokyo Ghoul is trying to ride on the success of Attack on Titan. Tokyo Ghoul can’t even claim to be a good filler anime until the time comes for fans of this genre, try being a good animation and build your own success by being a great series, free advice.
Certain chapters of the manga are drawn reasonably well and you would have thought the anime would reflect this, or make up for the not so great parts, but major spoiler alert: you thought wrong. Just to maim the manga even more, and also ensure that the studio has matured and tried to edit out the Emo feel of, like the whole cast, they even had Touka’s haired dyed purple, not manga Goth black hair, “see! See! It’s OK for normal people to watch now!” Says the studio, undoubtedly.
The animation needed to be optimal for this reboot considering the dive off the deep end the second season (route A, which is now officially irrelevant with Re, which still can’t clear up that travesty though) was, you would have thought the studio would really up their game with the animation to try and claw something back. Unfortunately, it’s clear that the good folks were like “oh its Tokyo Ghoul, here’s some basic stuff those weebs enjoy, they’ll lap up anything.” I do feel sorry for the fans, though it’s telling what the studio really thinks of Tokyo Ghoul when the environments and backgrounds are… just why, what wicked, unforgivable actions have people done to deserve this?! The Twilight/Tokyo ghoul fans deserve sympathy for them having their hopes built up and presented with this, and especially with a Spring time anime this should be top notch regardless of what it is. In hindsight, it's perfectly feasible that the creators are in fact cats, who thought they were doing good and were expecting some praise when they came in with a horribly mangled mouse/Tokyo Ghoul animation.

- Sound: don’t even waste a rating/10 - sub fails to give emotions, anything at all to what should be an illustrative cast, as for the dub… just don’t, got to spare you, it’s too late for me, I’m gone, save yourselves.
It’s quite obnoxious considering the Emo/Gothic niche that Tokyo ghoul is supposed to lay claim is now gone. The sound track could have been a great glue to cement that semi-unique status, the voice acting too. Honestly, it’s not certain how they could have got it so… wrong, but lets be self aware here and realise Re is a “oh splat, there you go Tokyo Ghouls all done for now, time to move on to the next project, what do I care about this series.” Not exactly reassuring, even for people who have moved on from this series but came back hoping there was something salvageable (I did want there to be something salvageable, I really did).
They couldn’t even have another cheese ball of an opening song. Whilst it’s ridiculous, the male version of Twilight fans were all over the ‘unravel’ titular song from before, it reminds them of the dark times when their parents told them they have to stop dying their hair black and tidy their rooms, and they were the edgiest people alive, just ask them. But the songs here have failed to encapsulate the supposed atmosphere of Tokyo ghoul, and sound wise there’s nothing notable to enjoy or remember.
A wasted opportunity in that sense, could have had music to match the tone of the series, but it is apparent this is a part of the white washing exercise to remove all traces of what fans liked from the start (must not forget the only golden rule of Tokyo Ghoul, the fans like something? It’s removed; this evidently applied not just to the story courses and characters, but has carried over to even the music as well). It was a bit suspect but it’s obvious now, we aren’t imagining things, and perhaps the writer and studio really do loathe the fans, let go of the hate people, treat your fans right, they’re the ones propping up this explosive train wreck of a show.

- Homophobic undertones - (addressed) To its credit the glaring read between the lines prejudice articulated in the first manga have been acknowledged. It’s clear that the following conversation took place between the publisher and author. Publisher: “dude the whole Tsukiyama, Yamori, Nico, Souta ghoul villain thing is not subtle at all, son, people don’t use the magical N-word man, or the coin grabbing greedy Jew, or the homosexual stereotypes any more, they weren’t right then and they’re not right now. And the whole ghoul culture as an allegory for LGBT culture, with those yucky ghouls/gays out to prey on one another, who don’t have feelings for one another, who view each other as pieces of meat and only approach human/straight people to eat them/come onto them, someone will notice!” And then the author, after he had stopped frothing at the mouth, nevertheless continued to chug beakers of mercury and proudly proclaimed: “but Tokyo Ghoul is perfect! In the first manga we had Kaneki catching the ghoul/gay disease AIDS from a blood transfusion! He doesn’t have bad AIDS so it’s cool right?" The author is a machine, nothing stops this train.
"And then! He goes over to see Tsukiyama for whatever purpose those gays/ghouls invite guys over for, (even showering before! I wonder what was going to happen?!) With the intention of having him torn apart for fun, and only spared because ‘that guy’ Tsukiyama wanted him for himself! After which Kaneki faints and wakes up on the sofa by himself, whatever occurred when he was unconscious and Tsukiyama was with him? What impression do you get?! What do you think I’m trying to tell you?!” Is or is not quite possibly the thoughts the author wants us to have.
The author guides us through: “Tokyo Ghoul also explores Nishio struggling with his homosexual/ghoul desires but he rejects those foul urges and stayed with his girlfriend, a lady!” The editor, or someone who wasn’t totally clueless chimes in with “this is what happens when you don’t take your meds! We get it! Tsukiyama and especially Nico were made with the express intention of prodding our vulnerable audience to react with “yuck the horrible gays!” and the writer, giddy with excitement demonstrates how subtle he is “right! So after every arc being centrally themed around homosexuality (catching the gay/ghoul disease, Nishio inviting Kaneki and Hide, two guys back to his place where he makes his move when they’re on their own, you know? Then predatory gay Tsukiyama who just loves the smell of Kaneki, and wants to cannibalize him, just like ghouls/gays just look at you and want to be around you for whatever."
Re continues in the same vein thought wise, this was after setting a foundation that Kaneki and the ghouls/gays can deny their carnal urges by drinking coffee, and resist their inner desires by being happily together with a member of the opposite sex, even when there’s little compatibility between them (Nishio and his girlfriend, Kaneki and Touka, Akira is literally thrown at Amon).
The homophobic bedrock Re is built upon will bring up the past, as the author helpfully explains: “After that non stop parade, it’s time to switch things up!” Cue the daring stereotypes: Nico and Yamori, the latter who beats and kidnaps heterosexual Kaneki, after Yamori stabs Kaneki from behind with his kagune no less (can you see me ker wink) and then violates him (implied in the manga during the centipede scene) “because that’s what those awful gays/ghouls do of course! Not to mention that Kaneki learned his lesson not to approach those ghouls/gays, see Tsukiyama, but horror alert, they come and kidnap you and do what they do!” The author gives it his all.
The editor, noticing that the author’s eyes had stopped rolling in opposite directions in his head must have said, “Just like straight people, LBGT people are awesome, do some good now, introduce people to offset this demonizing behaviour” to which the writer replies “of course! I’ll introduce a trans character but only because my hate infused homosexuals are horrible monsters apologue has been caught and my editor is making me do it.” This is good, greater representation is sound, but clearly Mutsuki is the result of an editor’s input rather than being present due to the writers choice, the latters views on LGBT+ people are clear, discreet as they were.
The writer, having his homophobic anthem of stereotyped, crude prejudices called out, was strong armed into adapting his ways, with condescending attitudes such as: “We’ll show that Naki does care about Yamori! See! Those yucky gays/ghouls can feel human emotions too! Who would have thought?!” The author did try, and though Mutsuki has been introduced, these serious issues have not been remedied in Re. Souta, who is of course ‘fabulous’ because the author relishes his out-dated stereotypes from a bygone era, and of course the homosexuals have to be villains to be defeated. Re doesn’t do much to bring this back from the brink, indeed, in terms of grossly odd biased views it goes further over the edge!

Note: (spoiler for manga, and where Re has set the stage, and will no doubt be shown in the later episodes this year) with Hide’s ‘because I love him’ comment, and with the commentary that came with Kaneki choosing Touka when fans wanted Hide (apparently Kaneki's mind was so severely damaged that he considers hat stand Touka to be the most beautiful person he's ever seen. To his credit when Arima wants to mangle someones brain, he does not mess around), first accept deepest sympathies for fans of either of these pairings. To begin with, Hide was taken out for largely the entire story, so much for that pairing, or indeed any exploration of what was clearly a special bond between Kaneki and Hide. Even Touka & Kaneki shippers have a poor guy who really needs some psychological help and decent friends and loved ones around him, matched with a physically and emotionally abusive literal side bit of a character, now demoted here to a non-tier character. Be nice to Tokyo Ghoul fans, with this anime and series they don’t have much to be happy about, still the pairing options are a testament of how greatly Tokyo Ghoul can fail.
As for Hide, the author’s rabid disdain of LGBT people may be the greatest clue to the outcome. It’s very subtle (lock me away for criminal sarcasm, and throw away the key) but the author is very keen to portray LGBT people as horribly as possible, whether because they’re made to be all harsh stereotypes, or through what the author makes them do and the message is resolute: ghouls/LBGT people are truly bad, and this will reflect in the treatment the author has in store for them, including Hide.

We can infer that Hide is romantically attracted to Kaneki because of the appalling way that the author perceives and treats homosexual people.

Can you imagine what the author thinks, and precisely what he wants his audience to deduce: “Hide is an amazing person in terms of friendship, bravery and skill, but behind that perfection he’s one of those yucky queerosexuals, and that therefore stops him being good! Turn on your dear, precious friend and hate him now because you’ve discovered he’s gay!”
Though Hide is a great character, (don't make the silly mistake of referring to a Tokyo Ghoul drawing as a ‘person’, Tokyo Ghoul manga and animation has not ever, and does not bring its text and drawings on paper to life) but because of Hide’s sexual orientation he has to be relegated to a minor part in the entire series, his brief cameo on a ‘missing’ poster here says it all. Perish the thought that we can have a focus on those creatures now! But we can, only if there are negative depictions of homosexuals and have them represented badly, hence the myriad of characters like Nishio – ‘struggling’ with same sex/unnatural ghoul desire, and the crass steryotypes Tsukiyama, Nico, Yamori, Furuta, more or less every arc baddy of the day. Re lets it's hair down by plummeting head first right back into the mire with newcomers Torso, the woman hater gay stereotype that was designed to not exactly be ‘manly’ and drawn to Mutsuki “you know when those type of people meet, wink wink, nudge nudge” being the suggestion. There is also the man hating lesbian, Nutcracker, and of course the exaggerated super horrible villain of Big Madam. Big Madam, birth sex male, and the no contest parent of the year in raising Suzuya. Can you hear it? listen closely, it's there, guttural chanting from the deepest recesses of the earth: STAWP THOSE HOMOTRANSOSAPIENS! Must stop them adopting DUR children at all costs, look what they DOO!" You can just about make out the token "will someone PLEASE think about the children!" The author delivers its hysterical, paranoid anti LGBT adoption audience a pristine example of why we can't allow LBGT adoption like ever. The author also walks the walk since Suzuya ends up dealing with that nasty awful LBGT caregiver, PHEW! Thank heavens! And then all the LGBT's were never allowed to adopt again, and the heavens opened up in a sea of sunshine and reclaimed rainbows, all thanks to Tokyo Ghoul's on point message.
It's strangely awe inspiring how may blundering, degrading steryotypes of LBGT people the authors imagined, he's won every game of Bingo don't doubt it. The little rascals fervently, wackadoodle, maniacal prejudice drenched head must have been smoking as it went into overdrive to conjure the whole gang. Then there's the rest, Ghouls/gays in general are made to be horrible looking and acting, don’t forget depicted in such a heartless and sadistic manner, wanting to eat human flesh? As unnatural and revolting as wanting to be with someone of the same sex is the presumed meaning.
The deeply rooted prejudice the author exhibits untoward LGBT people extends to Uta and Yomo, both single and meant to provide a theist example of how like Nishio, those evil gays/ghouls can be redeemed by resisting their impulses. Yomo is likely meant to be perceived as ‘the homosexual uncle’ (“see! Those homosexuals can be useful and they can be family! Praise me for my deep revolutionary message!”) It was more so the case for Uta if the author is associating Emo’s with homosexuals ‘deviant’ behaviour (which actually is the case in some cultures) and it’s why they’re given the time they’re given for the reader to get this poisoned, do you notice the gamma radiation, see the real story message for the whole of Tokyo Ghoul.
The author also lays a heavy handed ‘code’ essentially stating that: “Kaneki as a straight person can end up experiencing the ghoul/gay scene with all its misery and horror but ended up living happily ever after, delightfully married to a lady!" Never mind that it’s scrape the bottom of the barrel Touka, so long as it’s something, anything with female parts.
Meanwhile his homosexual best friend Hide can look on from the side-lines because that’s the place of homosexuals in this series. Even if they are good natured then they can’t have main roles or happy endings, they exist to revolve around the straight protagonist. If Hide were heterosexual, wouldn’t be a problem, can be back-to-back with Kaneki in the thick of the plot (the way Banjou was despite him not serving much purpose fighting, or story wise, but Banjou's straight so it's cool, don't you know). But not straight? Not allowed (was also applied to the nice natured Yomo), homosexuals don’t get page/screen time in stories unless it’s in a negative light, just in case Nishio, Tsukiyama, Nico, Yamori, Naki, Torso, Nutcracker, Big Madam, Souta and goodness knows who else, didn’t give the game away.
The author’s pathological sickness concerning his mind set on homosexuals is only fully realised when we see what he has happen to Hide. If you were invested in this series, and we saw more of Hide we could actually emotionally react to the terrible maiming that occurred. We see that the poor guy has much of his mouth bitten off, teeth gone, neck severely damaged needing a voice synthesiser, the lot. The author really turned on Hide like some demented animal snapping and trying to murder it’s own young after deciding Hide was that way. This was complete with the read between the lines message of “that horrific, life ruining scarring will teach Hide a lesson for trying to get close to Kaneki! Hope that teaches those homosexuals to try and kiss their friends! And kids! If you have someone who’s gay and they try and kiss you/dare to show you affection, inflict that horrible injury on them too, gay panic defence nice and legal! The gays aren’t your friends, they’re horrible monsters out to eat you/show you affection, how awful!” How awful indeed for the author to hold those toxic views, and to try and imprint them on an impressionable and resistless crowd. Make sure you’re not duped, as tough as it is to resist this very convincing propaganda.
Add to the fact that truly amazing people like his best friend Hide, a really nice guy, really clever, courageous, selfless, best of them all, that Hide was reduced to a plot device, had his lower face badly mutilated for everyone to see, just because he loves Kaneki, “that will teach those filthy gays, to be gay!” (The author reinforces his concrete views by bringing Amon back, he too experienced the gay/ghoul treatment but like Kaneki he can be happily together with a woman, the ever bland Akira, oh how wonderful!... meanwhile the homosexuals/ghouls including the nice ones like Hide will end up with nothing, and that's if they’re lucky). Says a lot that the heterosexual relationships, however contrived are meant to be considered nice, and distinguishes them to the homosexual ones, say Nico who was made by the author to just see Yamori as an attractive man nothing more, but that's how they think and act, get with the program already. The series is not a fan of happy endings for ghouls/gay people, just in case you couldn’t tell.
Overall we may accept the authors treatment of ghouls/LBGT people as proof that Hide does indeed love Kaneki romantically because of what the author has diminished Hide to be.
Even their later reunion was to be superficially meaningless on another level, “oh hey best friend, always had my back, lost your face? Whatever I’ve got Touka now, you’re not a part of this story, still keep admiring the straight protagonist from over there, know your place now.” Leave the author at his basement dungeon lair bending over and squirting Tokyo Ghoul out of all his seeping orifices into his braying fan army of hooting human rabbit dolls, it can’t be any worse than this shoddy anime that was left behind.

Tokyo Ghoul Re gets a mercy 1/10 in this area for doing something to alleviate the LGBT equivalent of all the black face racism of the past that is central to the first season. The presence of Mutsuki, better that than nothing. But as the points with ‘camp’ Souta, Tsukiyama whose entire life revolves around Kaneki, to 'eat' him no less, and now Torso, Nutcracker and Big Madam, and especially Hide as explained above, the prejudiced undertones, well overtones now remain a central pillar of this series, and are still in the sludge filled pipeline to come.
Don’t be deceived though, or lose heart, with the story, animation, the travesty of the cast, and now this, scraping Tokyo Ghoul off your boot is easy. The author can rest soundly, resolutely secure in the knowledge that he has completely and utterly failed to turn me against LBGT people. That one can immediately identify Tokyo Ghoul as not a thinly veiled jab at LGBT people, but correctly recognise this as the LBGT equivalent of some sort of crafted propaganda demonising Jewish people using crass stereotypes and behaviours. It can be viewed right now the same way we look at old racist Disney cartoons, interesting being modern, ancient history let's give it that. And appealing to the audiences suspension of disbelief to accept what is shown them, to be able to see through it all is a good skill for the audience to have.
Despite the major league, full throttle conditioning (subconsciously moulding the reader to think these are the issues the ghouls/gays face, keep away from them, see how horrible they look/are, virtually every villain is some variation of a LBGT stereotype, don’t worry the good straight people all make it, but even the nice LGBT examples like Hide have to have the hammer fall on them) and the normalisation of extreme preconceptions this series espouses, Tokyo Ghoul’s efforts must prove to be futile, it would not be wise to drink from this radioactive lagoon. And though Re continues to be the must have quintessential tool for some lobotomised fear monger to illustrate how ghoul society and how all the awful villains are supposed to represent LGBT people and how detestable they are, it can fail to lay a claim to our views. For the real overarching villain isn't the LGBT/ghouls, their society or the humans, not Arima, Eto or Furuta, the true villain is well hidden within plain sight. Hint, it's in the form of the Tokyo Ghoul manga, animation, the series itself, and the foul hateful anti LGBT message it champions.

- Summary - Deserves some praise because Re does actually somehow manage to be worse than both previous seasons, no easy feat considering the state they were in. Re was supposed to make it all better but it doesn’t. It could have righted the wrongs done before but it didn’t. Though there is an intuition that suspects this was done to be spiteful, not just to the fan base, but casual viewers as well (the ‘My Little Pony’ creator mocked bronies, the cast of the ‘Twilight’ movies look down on the subject material and fans, and it’s evident here that both the author and animation studio are repulsed by the Emo/Goth fan base of Tokyo Ghoul and are trying to shake them off). They also need hugs and whatever it takes therapy wise to cleanse them of their serious wrangle against LBGT people, don’t worry though who’s gullible enough to absorb anything from Tokyo Ghoul, right? It can't even patronise the viewer with some cutesy "look Mom, I figured out gays/ghouls have feelings too just like us!" Can we all agree to be beside our precious LGBT friends and family and disown the broken homophobes that had an accident on their failed expedition to the toilet and violently discharged Tokyo Ghoul? We can train them to be better, we’ll be that good.
Additionally, Re does have a remarkable penchant for resetting the established narrative, characters and repeating the exact same events with a deux ex machine memory loss, so they can parrot entire events but with the protagonist as a detective this time, complete with new rusty old forgettable cliché characters as a bonus, whoop!
This anime, in terms of plot, characters, animation, premise, everything is dull, and subpar, though nothing does dull and subpar like Tokyo Ghoul, and Re has taken that to a brand new, unprecedented tier of defective. Sorry guy versions of Twilight fans, and the Emo crowd, I actually am, for the author to cut his fan base loose, and for this series to plummet to ever greater depths must be hard, my condolences, though finding something good and leaving the series behind to wallow in it’s own squalid filth takes nothing, that’s for certain.

- Overall verdict: negative points/10 – unworthy of your viewership or time, people are waking up and recognising Tokyo Ghoul as the ‘Twilight’ manifestation of anime. Identifying the male version of Twilight fans, who can see Bella and Kaneki in abusive, fake relationships with certainly no love, in no story, characters, everything is appallingly dire, why go on. Let’s acknowledge that land fills like Twilight and Tokyo Ghoul may have their fans, but that does not mean that they are good. Tokyo Ghoul is a block so shockingly deficient and worthless from a literary and personal enjoyment perspective, yet under propped up by… really nice people.
Understand It’s Ok for you to feel let down by this latest soiled diaper unto our fair earth; at this point what’s important to note is that no you did not deserve this, and no it is definitely not your fault, you done NOTHING wrong to warrant this animation. Tokyo Ghoul Re was supposed to be everything to make up for the previous seasons, indeed the manga itself but, it just didn’t want to, or couldn’t.
The problem is ingrained with the manga source material itself; it was already a fail by concept, character and story premise, had a reset in Re but repeated the exact same mistakes but to an even greater extent. To result in this animated abomination is an absolute travesty of our time. Try as you might you simply cannot polish excrement. You can strive to apply a glossy concealment but you can’t disguise the material that lurks underneath and forget about containing the rancid stench. You can give Tokyo Ghoul’s manga a shiny, well… at least not an eye exploding, hideous anime adaption, but the gloop within cannot be covered for long. And for all the production values, sound and animation, they sink into the heap that is Tokyo Ghoul. The good features on board go down with the ship. Whether it’s the point blank refusal to center on the appealing characters (of which there are fewer in Re) or ignore decent plot options, to choose the exact same boring story, again, Re cannot trip over the hurdles enough and repeatedly.
Basic animation and voice acting can apply a cover, but what type of awful veneer is this anime? In hindsight the studio done the best with what they had to work with, and the weary and uninspired result is far from pretty. That they made a hippo mess failure of an anime, which should be safely disposed of, is actually a compliment considering the state of the actual manga.

Casual viewers will likely have zero interest in the anime equivalent of an almost B-movie both in terms of the actual animation, sound and characters. Little here stands out, if you like police/detective stuff, find something that’s worth it, this will leave you hanging.
Perhaps the fans can hope for an entire wipe the slate clean anime reboot, to properly polish out the swan dive to the bottom that route A was, and now this is. It happened with Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood and that was astonishing, fingers crossed Tokyo Ghoul can also be redone and done as right as can be. Some people cling to anime to feel nice, that's fine, whatever makes them happy. Tokyo Ghoul, however is a life jacket made out of lead, a parachute that when opened is revealed to in fact be an anvil. Be decent and chuck people a bone here.

In terms of dire, boring characters, uninspired dull plots, and always opting for the poorer choices instead of the enriching ones, nothing does it like Tokyo Ghoul. It may always be resented for choosing the worst when it could be the best, and the direction the whole dilapidated series took is a pale inferior shade of what it could have been.
Re has once again used it’s tried and tested, super delicious recipe of baking a cake using ultra fresh cat vomit instead of flour, malevolent hobo droppings rather than icing, a choice collection of plague rat fur and tapeworm eggs for sprinkles, and who needs a cherry garnish when Tokyo Ghoul opts for a sublime bloated, fully loaded prolapsed rectum on top. The animation proceeded to make a malodorous finger paint, cave scribble with infected menstrual blood, savour Tokyo Ghoul to your hearts content, party people.

Btw, If you’re a fan of Tokyo Ghoul make sure you watch this anime, it’s such a good adaption, you’ll be really happy, and it will be so worth it, and you’ll love it so, so much : )

A fine anime. You can watch and enjoy it as a fairly pleasant thing to view, it might not be majorly deep, but it doesn't have to be. Just because something isn't out of this world amazing that doesn't stop it from being good in it's own right, and this is a great example of that. It works because you can appreciate the characters, art and story, and the good news is these great features are enough to prevent you thinking well, there's nothing good or bad here, there is good stuff and that's what gets the focus.

Critically speaking, the story, art and sound are ... great. It is the case that you can just watch and enjoy it without over thinking things, and for a series to be able to achieve that is impressive. Sometimes reviews can reduce things to their individual parts and you've lost the forest for the trees. It is enough to say forget seeing this through the critical lens of judging it in each of these respects, and simply enjoy this great show you've come across.

There may be familiar vibes, but that's a good thing here, there's a tried and tested formula, may as well use it for it's full effect.

0/10, A fails by concept series, three notable and sinking problems with Tokyo Ghoul:

- Problem 1 - the titular fails by concept; I’m not going to feel sorry for the poor little ghouls and their hardships (hardships such as not being able to eat people). I am certainly not going to feel sorry for the poor little ghouls in comparison to their human, and other ghoul victims.
Tokyo ghoul focuses on the ghoul perspective, tries and fails to make them sympathetic characters. The fact of the matter is in this case one could make the case for hunting them down. There are binge eating ghouls ... who lead people way to eat them alive, ghoul restaurants where people are kidnapped and eaten for sport, a terrorist organisation who wants to wholesale slaughter humans. Anyone could be a murderous ghoul out to kill you horribly; they need human flesh to survive. It’s tough to make a, “oh humans can be just as bad as ghouls, and we need to get along” when you have rather large problems like psychopathic, flesh eating ghouls, and issues including the ones below:
The glaring problem with ghouls is compounded by the fact that the supposed nice ghouls, like Touka are unintentionally just as bad as the sadistic ghouls. It’s hard to sympathise with Touka when (spoiler) she was fully aware that Kaneki was being led away to what would have been his brutal death by Rize (had Rize succeeded, Touka would have also seen a troubled Hide looking for his missing friend, she’d know full well what occurred, but likely remain aloof, a major problem: an apathy to the extreme suffering and distress of others). Main character Touka’s likability goes completely out the window when she kills random people, out of revenge no less. Not to mention she’s annoying (“oh look at me in my mysterious rabbit mask” vomit) physically and emotionally abusive to others, not attractive, and the second rate dog food option to the prize cut steak of Rize.
Similarly Ayato knew what Yamori would do to Kaneki (working with Yamori he knew he liked to torture underlings, to death, for fun, and said he was a “torture loving pervert”). That was a huge echo chamber they were in when Yamori was going to town on Kaneki’s digits, Ayato must have heard his screams, and yet the torture didn’t even seem to register with this sociopathic mess that were supposed to feel for. Both Touka and Ayato’s indifference makes them the worse villains of all. They weren’t psychopathic, they could recognise the pain in others (Ayato’s troubled reaction when Kaneki was being beaten demonstrated this) but the rather blasé attitude to it all quite frankly puts them at the top of the hit list, and who would miss such boring, uninspired characters?
A fundamental tipping point is that this series is like trying to garner support for unfeeling, sadistic monsters/unrepentant terrorists, it just does not work. There’s no excuse, their choices define them, and the wrong choices they (indeed most of the ghouls, considering their two faced natures) embrace can’t be overlooked or dismissed, that the lovely ghouls are content with watching people walk away knowing full well the outcome. And when it comes right down to it they’re just not interesting and shouldn’t be front and center, potential likability is thrown out the window with the over focus on them.
In an utter failure of an attempt to make the viewer feel sorry for the ghouls, we are apparently supposed to bleed our hearts out with grief for Tsukiyama, who only wants to be near Kaneki to eat him (wink wink, nudge nudge, will discuss this later) and falls into a depression when Kaneki disappears because he can no longer cannibalize him, the poor ghouls and their hardships, it really tugs on the heart strings as well, where are the violins.
Another notable example, Shinohara is in a freaking COMA! But were supposed to bawl because poor little Touka’s café has burnt down, hoo boy the tears are flowing. That horrible scenarios are befalling the humans but were supposed to feel bad for the living the dream life ghouls is fantastically surreal (not in a good way) and quite frankly inappropriate; humans are dying left right and centre but the ghouls can’t continue to murder them, where’s the ghoul pity party?!
It also transpires that some of Kaneki’s supposed ghoul friends enjoyed his misfortunes, the deceptive nature of ghouls, that they enjoy violence does not make them the same as humans. Do not buy the premise that humans can be just as bad, even the nicest ghouls are a problem like with Touka. Sure, people may commit just as bad actions, and view the ghouls in a certain light but the notion that were supposed to root for the ghouls is misguided, it must be promptly rejected, as both courses make for a failed concept.
It was a novel experience to show a perspective from the villain’s point of view, unfortunately for them, there’s a real reason why they’re being hunted, and a real failure of a manga to not notice this, especially when there were more interesting scenarios to explore, and, unforgivably, more interesting characters to be focal points:

- Problem 2 - Deliberately ignores the interesting characters (Amon, Hide, Rize, guy Mado, and Itori to some extent) and instead focuses on the boring uninspired characters (Touka, Hinami, Uta… basically most of the ghouls, definitely everyone working at the cafe) and Kaneki is thrown into the latter group to interact with, and share a focus on fantastically dull plot lines.
Amon’s a powerful fighter with his head switched on, I wanted to see him fight more, use his detective skills more, instead on the rare occasion he’s given page time were treated to some truly bizarre out of place, almost an office sitcom with his work colleagues. It was wacky, his storyline was just in a different universe and so out of place in this manga. It done nothing to contrast it, indeed it’s evident the author had a different story idea and thought, “sure I’ll just plonk it in Tokyo Ghoul” the badly mismatched Frankenstein limb of a side plot sticking out of this manga is hard to miss…
Guy Mado was a fascinating character, the ultimate foil arguably for the series itself and what it wanted (but failed) to explore. His prejudices and how people can be as bad as ghouls was a crux of the series and clearly what Tokyo Ghoul thought of doing, but evidently didn’t know how to. Mado is interesting, quirky, would have been brilliant to see how he played out throughout the series, instead the focus shifted onto his daughter, who is on the opposite end of the spectrum. Akira is unusually bland and, again in Tokyo Ghoul fashion was designed to be as monotonous as possible. A true linchpin character, complete with the backbone of the issues to work through, and who easily could have helped carry the entire manga, was instead replaced by some engineered bimbo (author: “the guy can be a great character, the woman can be the opposite, who needs gender equality?!”) presumably because they were desperate for a rom com sitcom, and a clumsy love interest for Amon. A huge waste of potential and a fine salt to pour into the wounds with this lousy replacement, who has zero chemistry, with anyone if you look, and a mediocre love interest to boot.
Hide was insightful and should have definitely been capitalised for his full potential, rather than going from a great best friend to plot device (note: Hide does appear to be a part of the end story, he’ll appear right at the finish to play whatever cards he has, if any, it’s Tokyo Ghoul, don’t hold your breath for anything dramatic or purposeful). It was an unacceptable waste of a great character right of the bat, he was kept firmly out of the picture (by the authors hand, in real life a friend like him would have brought Kaneki away from the ghouls, all of whom wish him bad, and to a better place, say the detectives institution where he works, ‘Ajin’ would later pick up the ball where Tokyo Ghoul dropped it here, succeed where it failed). Hide appears so sporadically he may as well have not even been included, the author should have brought him in back to back with Kaneki, he can keep his secrets but remain an interesting character for the series to pivot round, not that you should care mind, it’s easy to detach yourself from Tokyo Ghoul, the author burns his own bridges.
Rize was the girl Kaneki liked, but the creator was like “oh I see you’ve noticed a good character, psyche! The story’s focusing on the abysmal ones! What’s that? Kaneki you like the gorgeous, clever Rize? Too bad, here’s car crash face, Meg from family guy, emotionally and physical abusive, doesn’t warrant a second glance Touka!” It would have been excellent Rize taking over Touka’s part, Kaneki interacting with the ghoul who played such a pivotal part in his life would have been a unique path to explore (and fits in with the central theme of Kaneki developing Stockholm syndrome and liking the ghouls who try and kill him) more than reducing her to a figment of his imagination, but you want great plotlines? Too bad, here comes a huge Emo fest!
In regards to likability, the café ghouls are notoriously pointless, from forget name here to what’s her name who I can’t even remember, heck even hipster white haired ghoul Yomo should theoretically have been memorable, but, whom was I talking about again? Weirdly, even a sweet little girl like Hinami draws no positive emotive response, even with her experiences the plot and her character was carried out so awkwardly, anyone could watch rather casually without feeling emotionally affected by them. It’s because the whole time the impression was who gives a what to some featureless, shouldn’t even be focused on pointless girl, give the interesting characters page time already. There is a detachment between the reader and these drawings on paper/certainly not characters that doesn’t invite us to empathize with them. Hinami is one of many flags showing Tokyo Ghoul demonstrating it’s uncanny ability to create shallow, uninteresting characters with zero likability. Guess that’s impressive, quite hard to actually pull that off. It was points like these that made you realise, “great there’s other stuff going on but they’re focusing on this?” Major let down.
Including the rest of the characters, the entire cast is bland. Simply drab, cut and paste, insert generic bores here, twins, bin brothers, masked people, to spare the imagination of thinking of original characters, three of the same people, nice going Tokyo ghoul. Don’t forget the generic police people, how can you even make something so plain?! Tokyo ghoul shows us how, aside from Kaneki, (Spoiler in re all his development is retconned because … you that’s why) none have any development, indeed even though many are given an Emo feel so theoretically they should stand out, they’re still largely forgettable, no idea how that works but go figure. That stands as another fundamental failure, to supposedly construct a character building manga with backgrounds for all, and fail at it to such an extent; and when it is done right it’s kind of awkward because it's a huge who cares moment, it’s uncomfortable to acknowledge. That all the while we were focusing on the garbage characters and plots whilst there were better ones wanting to be seen is also inexcusable. To spite the reader further, and this is where Tokyo Ghoul really sinks is by the time you’re waiting for the good stuff to happen, the manga’s already taken up and filled with tripe like this. Put Tokyo Ghoul back where you found it and wash your hands.

- Problem 3 - homophobic undertones: I wonder what were supposed to infer from the many villains being homosexual stereotypes? And the ghoul scene and lifestyle, it’s very subtle you see you might have to squint just to notice. I can’t imagine what the author is trying to tell us? Editor to writer of Tokyo Ghoul “er, hey fella, the whole Nishio, followed by Tsukiyama, and then Nico and Yamori… well… dude, that’s just not discreet!”
In a fun game of “guess my personal views” the author went to great lengths to portray the ghouls in a certain manner, and ghoul society, just what is the message? Well, funny you should ask, Tokyo ghoul could very easily be read by anyone as an out dated, extremist paranoid vendetta on LGBT people, let old frazzled brain, homophobe explain how good Tokyo Ghoul is! “Those yucky ghouls/homosexuals are monsters out to prey on people, they abuse one another and view each other as pieces of meat to consume with no emotion between them.” Very subtle indeed, please continue creator of Tokyo Ghoul. “Well see this guy called Kaneki caught the gay disease and was turned into a ghoul/gay person, but wait! He caught AIDS/the ghoul condition through a transplant, AIDS can also be transmitted through blood transfusions; it isn’t just the gay disease dammit! He doesn’t have bad AIDS/ghoul condition so it’s Ok to sympathise with him!” The author does try, be nice and patient with him, but oh wait; he’s just getting started.
After contracting the condition, Tokyo Ghoul jumps straight in with commentary on the ‘struggles’ with same sex desire. Meet Nishio, who grapples with his same sex attraction/ghoul affliction (his hunger for forbidden human flesh/guys – he was bringing both Kaneki and Hide back to his place when he made his move when they were on their own, (“get it?”) But later manages to fight the urges by trying to be with a girl friend. Kaneki also gets thrown into ghoul/gay society, and he lives a miserable existence with those low life deviants (the implied message of course) “but wait! He managed to get out of the ghoul/gay scene and was happily married to a woman near the end (in Re, the exact same manga just with even worse characters, somehow) hooray! Meanwhile those yucky gays/ghouls die because that’s the outcome for them in these situations, all the gays have to die or be redeemed you see. Good thing I can use this softy-softy parable to show how awful those queerosexuals are!” Said the author giggling with glee as his wrote Tokyo Ghoul, his allegory of ‘LBGT society’ and the people within it.
Characters like Tsukiyama and especially Nico were designed with the express intention of having the audience (the guy version of Twilight fans, Emo basement dwellers who go wild over super mysterious rabbit babe Touka) go “yuck look at the disgusting gays/ghouls!” (Didn’t fall for it, have an IQ over 0) And Tsukiyama just desires to be around Kaneki to eat him, even inviting him over where innocent Kaneki showered before hand, for who knows what, all because those ghouls/gays don’t view other people as friends, no they look like people but sinisterly in their monster minds they just see pieces of meat to tear apart and consume (who hurt the author). On that note Yamori is the predatory gay/ghoul who stabs Kaneki from behind with his kagune (“DO YOU GET IT?!”) and the manga hints at rape, not just of Kaneki but other ghouls, but of course that’s what those yucky homosexuals do. The author also has him call Nico the equivalent of the other ‘F’ word, anything to depict ghouls/gays as horrible as possible. Give a hug to the author and tell him everything’s going to be alright, seriously.
Not to be outdone, Tokyo Ghoul is also patronising to non-LGBT people, what does it want people to say? “Look! Naki does feel emotion for Yamori! Nico performed a kind act to make up for a brutal one, look Mom look! Tokyo Ghoul teaches us that those yucky homosexuals/ghouls can feel feelings as well! Wow isn’t Tokyo Ghoul vastly ahead of its time?! It’s teaching us that those ghouls/gays are like people too! Who would have thought!” Yes, yes run along with your brand new worldview, don’t forget those blacks have feelings too, now!
Surprisingly, the author has failed to turn me against LGBT people; I would rather be friends with different people than racists, friends with men and woman rather than misandrists/misogynists, and friends with LGBT people and keep broken homophobes at arms length, and out of the picture. LBGT people should not be held in contempt, people who choose to be prejudiced towards them should be mocked and ridiculed, and if they won’t want society to hold them in contempt then they should stop their prejudiced behaviour, or keep doing it, why should the thoughts of Twilight or Tokyo Ghouls fans hold any weight?

Tokyo Ghoul will be remembered as the product of a terrified, needs a hug author who made an entire manga, with the express premise focused heavily on depicting LBGT people as awfully as possible. Most themes, indeed every arc has homosexuality at the very forefront. It is now understandable why the author forgot about the few good points he had, his mind was solely fixated on this objective. Right away catching the gay disease and having his life ruined, Kaneki met other ghouls/’gays’ and they were all awful, horrible beings, he helps redeem Nishio by joining him with a girl friend, but then it’s full steam ahead with every last homosexual arc villain, from Tsukiyama to Yamori and Nico. It all comes to a close with Kaneki being stabbed through the head to wipe his memory, the only way to make people forget about how horrible those homosexuals are.
Now Tokyo Ghoul can be correctly identified not just as a travesty of a series in terms of story, characters and the direction it takes, but one that relied on crude stereotypes to demonize an already maligned minority group. We can look at it at this very moment the same way we look back at old racist cartoons and think really, this is the sperm that won? The people who made stuff like this? Make sure Ku Klux clan members don’t turn you against people of colour, don’t soak up anti-semantic material demonising Jewish people, and utterly reject the garbage message Tokyo Ghoul tries to impose upon us concerning LGBT people. It will surely make the authors blood boil to learn that we’ve seen through his diseased, prejudice riddled brain, that though this manga is trying to condition us to loathe LGBT people and see them in an extremely negative light, it has failed.

- And for the rest: - Story: 0/10 - even disregarding these terminal problems, Tokyo Ghoul is, to put it plainly: boring. Understand it was custom made for the Emo “my mom made me take out the trash, my life is such a black abyss” crowd and do feel dirty for looking at it, just have to say it how it is, thanks for understanding. It is a rule of thumb that plot wise Tokyo Ghoul has to take the most banal course of action. Want some action packed thriller with Kaneki, Hide, Amon, a changed Rize fighting problem ghouls? Too bad, Touka, Nishio and Hinami are far more remarkable, clearly. Maybe some cool suspense with Amon, Mado and Hide’s detective skills solving the problems? No, no, no have to focus on the homosexual allegory, like have everything centered around homosexuality. A supportive Elite team of the best of the best? No, cannot have team spirit, everyone has to be on their own and surrounded by people, sorry ‘people’ who want to hurt and kill you.
Opted for the Emo gutter route, which is drab, especially in comparison to what could and should have been. Indeed with the focus on the right characters the series could still explore the gore and violence and would work better with good stuff to contrast it, rather than everyone breaks up and goes to their own tunnels to dwell in, and everything in the mire, it's less effective that way. Still, fans that relish gobbling up liquid garbage can enjoy their cat faeces, magnum opus of a shockingly bad conception of a manga story wise.

- Characters: negative points/10 - see above, all bland and generic, the focus on the dire ones has backfired spectacularly. Third-rate bit characters are given prominent positions to show their terrible features and take part in an unremarkable plot. It is unfortunate, but the series went to great lengths to take this direction. You want Rize? Too bad here’s Touka, Hide seems interesting? Have café person number 1 instead. Amon and guy Mado seem cool? Nonsense you can have Ayato, who is afflicted with an unusually potent case of whiny brat syndrome. By the way here’s troubled Juuzou, who can replace Kaneki as a main character if the reader gets bored with him later, and unlike Kaneki, Juuzou is more like a naughty pet to be trained, thrilling right?
It was actually quite cruel of Tokyo Ghoul to give us a glimpse of remarkable characters, both human and ghoul but instead veer off to give the time to the especially substandard ones. Whether it’s Yomo (a real shame because he looks cool and can certainly be vital to the series, if the manga would let him) Uta (the quintessential should be memorable based on looks but personality and featurelessness dooms him) insert named but move on from person here, with no quirks of note. For an extra slap across the face (the non sexy type) little to no development over the course of an entire Seinen manga. (Then the author stuck one too many crayons up his nose and retconned their development in the sequel, because remember plot, character and concept wise, this series needs to be as big a chronic, shoddy laughable failure as possible, and in that sense it succeeds with flying colours, well done!.

- Art: Whatever/10 - not even interested in rating it, manga as a whole has the notable ability to draw you in with the illustrations themselves, and impressively the appalling state of this manga overshadows the little that is good. Even having said that, when it comes right down to it, why rate something that doesn’t inspire you? Remarkable when something can be so dire it can usually score points if the art style is at least nice to look at. It could be the best art in the world but it would go down with the sinking ship that Tokyo Ghoul is. At any rate the style is fairly generic; it can’t keep this floater above water though artistic depictions of open sewer holes have their charms to some people I guess, enjoy.

- Summary - Tokyo Ghoul is a rare fails by concept series. The story fails, the characters fail, and the fact that it’s a front to demonize LGBT people has also failed. I get focusing on the bad things makes it different but there is a reason it doesn’t work. It’s like making a cake with man jam instead of icing, salt instead of sugar, and a choice human yeast infection instead of flour, there’s a tried and tested reason that uninspired, cliché plot lines, and mundane, irksome characters remain inadequate for anything, let alone a manga that wants to be enjoyed by something sentient.
It does have it’s niche though, it’s one of the few manga that has fully embraced the Emo/Goth/”my Mom told me to do my homework, but I said in a minute, I’m so criminally edgy” crowd. Twilight had loads of… urm, really nice fans to be polite, and Tokyo Ghoul appeals to the my chemical romance, reject crowd (speaking as a matter of fact, people rip on Twilight fans, my little pony fans, and Tokyo Ghoul fans, obviously not meant to be personally).
Tokyo Ghoul, including the later RE, is a singular brand of toilet paper that will leave an even filthier mess on you when you started, read an inspired and good manga and be better for it. If you are unlucky enough to come across a copy of Tokyo Ghoul, be a decent person and immediately flush the chain. Or dive right into the steaming pile if you feel sorry for people who are sick-makingly unlikable through their own bad actions, enjoy seeing potential good characters and story routes, but being yanked the other way and tricked into wasting time on shockingly wearisome characters, and plots, Tokyo Ghoul might just be the cistern you would want to dunk your head in, go, go, go! Just kidding, find something good and fill your mind with awesome things, you deserve good things.

Spoiler free: for both seasons and manga.

Loved it, the clever plot mechanics are carried over from the first season, and here the tension erupts in multiple aspects. The story continues with multiple twists and turns. Confirmation of theories and suspicions are shown, rending surprises galore ambush you. Everything's going on plot wise and is shown across multiple fronts, and yet with each new revelation it only commands more questions, though thankfully there is not an extended wait for the next episodes, and at any rate it is Attack on Titan which is well worth the wait.
Goes without saying that the story is currently, and ... can glue itself into animated history, as the most interesting premise, only Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood delivered a similar vibe. And like that, Attack on Titan continues to flesh out it's own unique concept with this season. It's not really something to describe or explain, go and experience it for yourselves.

The animation is excellent, there are some scenes that the overly critical may find suspect, but in all honesty the art could be appalling and yet you would still be focused solely on the characters, the plot and everything that's done right with this season, the amazing animation is just an extra cherry on the cake.
The manga has it's own charms style wise, and that is where the anime can come in and add extra layers of awesome if you like. This works wonders with the 3D manoeuvre gear, and especially the titans, in all their weird and wonderful appearances and movements.
The true achievement of the animation is that it adds a vibrant life to the black and white pages of the manga and presents the audience with a truly beautiful world described by the characters, which works even more effectively considering the, er, joyful tone of the titans, and the atmosphere of the world.

Sound, even minute details can make all the difference to more technical reviewers. Acknowledge that the sound is what ensures Attack on Titan is cutting edge objectively speaking. Background noises are very effective and the music exemplifies the tone of each respective scene.
Voice acting for both Subbed and Dubbed versions are on form, since it's such a great series, they can both be enjoyed, and repeatedly. Without giving the game away, always remember that practically speaking you can hear some of the best voice acting possible, no matter how you feel about Attack on Titan concept wise, one cannot refute the amazingness of the cast voices, their reactions and tones, again helps to hear for yourself.
After scoring an iconic, indeed possibly the best, certainly most well known opening song, the studio did play it safe with a similar one this time round. No need for that, as the second part of the first season showed, feel free to branch out and make more distinct opening songs, the studio certainly has a knack for making great ones.

The characters are given focus to bring the background of Attack on Titan to the forefront, and it was sensible to focus a twelve episode arc for the characters in question, and the issues they are involved with. Even those who are briefly introduced seem as human as anything in real life, even more so when they're in whatever situations they are in. To be able to make newly introduced people and be invested in them is no easy task for a series to pull off.
The greater praise goes to the main cast, there is a focus on what were secondary characters from the first season and this was the time to see more of who they were, and their reactions. Sasha is a key example of this, more significantly it is Ymir, who after this is one of the most intriguing and remarkable people ever seen. Certainly an out of this world unique background, and this is the season where there are even more who could have seen that coming revelations on top of everything else.
The characters are a great foil for the dark atmosphere Attack on Titan masterfully creates, the world, characters and their views and actions are why something with a premise so incredibly dark can work. For all the horror, indeed new horrors this time around, the tone succeeds because we have a cast that can be cared about to focus on. Anything can happen, no ones safe, so when said things happen it is wounding because we care, considering the stakes this even applies to people briefly seen.

Attack on Titan is classic case of if you want a tree to grow to heaven, it has to have roots that grow down to hell. It would be a mistake for people to be put off by the gore, for just as extreme and violent the show can be, it has everything that reaches the other extreme in terms of scenery, characters, mystery, plot, everything.

Like the best things you can praise it all you want, and yet critical appraisal is largely meaningless. This isn't something to poke at, or try and find flaws, you just enjoy everything about it. Attack on Titan earns it's status as one of the best series out there, the only reason this isn't awarded higher is because the scoring and review applies to just this twelve episode, one arc animation. An overall score of the entire series would be higher, and if WIT studio continues to excel in the development of the rest of the series then, considering what's coming in the manga, it can be higher still.

- 0/10- A rare fail by concept series, of which the anime doesn’t even try and redeem. Intentionally ignores good characters (Amon, Hide, Rize) and focuses on the boring ones (Touka, everyone at the café, Uta, yeah most of the ghouls). Disregards what could have been awesome plotlines such as the potential for Kaneki to get in with the humans right away and have a ghoul, human team for the ghouls that need to eat a bullet or ten (interestingly this was to be the premise for the later Tokyo ghoul Re but remarkably even that had the ball and dropped it, again by forgetting ... good characters and introducing an extra bland cast). An inferior production of a manga that was in sore need of a good anime to give it some life, just all round dire.

- Characters: 0/10 - I get it, ignore the intriguing characters and focus on the boring ones, give the Emo’s their chance to shine. Emo was done long before Tokyo ghoul came out, and it’s failed to convey their… er, charms. Virtually all people and ghouls are astonishingly monotonous, un-inspired stereotypes for characters as well, flush. Apart from Kaneki, no one goes though any development over an entire 12 episode session, we’re non better for knowing them, they could spend the rest of their lives working in the coffee shop and you wouldn’t notice their absence. Same with the police side, nothing original and like the ghouls it was clear from the outset that the least appealing characters would get the focus on them. Seriously, what is the point of any of these cliché, literally copy and paste wooden boards?

- Animation: 3/10 - Surprisingly bad, objectively speaking and from a technical standpoint the only thing that is notable is the fluid blood like kagunes which are aesthetically impressive, to the extent where it’s inspired other anime (Seraph of the end apparently used similar designs for the realistic blood) of which this has to be commended. A shame they couldn’t apply some effort to make up for the poor backgrounds, and the clear disdain the studio has for this series with its dodgy animation in places. It is even more unfortunate since this would have been a great chance to animate Tokyo city that would be neat. And an effort to resurrect a lifeless cast from the manga would be impressive too, but why bother, right studio?
When it comes right down to it, a series can have the best animation imaginable, but it counts for nothing when it’s on top of a bedrock of crumbs like this anime. Even if the art were decent, who would ignore everything wrong with this series and go ooh look at the pretty art, isn’t Touka wearing some absurd rabbit mask so beautiful? Behold, the best animated scenes ever! Of an oil spill/blimp explosion/toilet eruption/Tokyo Ghoul manga.

- Sound: 4/10 - Yamori had an appropriate voice, Touka did as well, but again under average. Subbed should definitely be chosen over dubbed voices, but even then the voices fail to bring out the emotion or feelings of the text and drawn on paper characters. There is little to make them stand out, nothing to explore who they are.
In both aspects though it’s hard to be positive, for example Kaneki’s voice during the lopping off toes scenes unfortunately didn’t work so well, they were supposed to be serious scenes, not laughable ones because of how ridiculous it sounded (especially compared to the sub), kind of awkward to say the least.
Background music also doesn’t count for much, neither do the titular songs, though it appeals to the Emo audience who love the sound, like the beginning song (unravel) it was all rather cringe inducing for everyone else. Then again, Twilight has its fans, Tokyo ghoul has its fans, and there you go. As well as the titular songs, the background tracks for the whole series were forgettable, never a good thing in an anime, especially in this one which could have capitalised on appropriate sound effects to exemplify the tensions that were supposed to be present. Never mind, the only song that wasn’t dire was the ending one, though it cannot be enjoyed it because of the association with this Taco Bell squat result of an anime. Thanks Tokyo ghoul for putting people off something potentially good through your association with it.

- Enjoyment: 1/10 – 1 given for the cliff-hanger at the end, anything to make it register that this animes out to be as bad as it can, the fans appreciated it that’s for sure. And, splendidly it leads conveniently into the swamp of no returns that route A sequel is, thanks a bunch. The 1 was also because fans may appreciate the manga being animated, notably the kagunes, though with this result they still needn’t bother watching. Still a mercy point for trying, we have to be constructive.
The studio has succeeded in bringing the authors story to life, in the sense it’s a filled to the brim catheter of an anime. For the points awarded for the animation and sound, these ultimately count for nothing since both go down with the ship that is the concept of Tokyo Ghoul. A series is doomed from the start when you’re making a cake with cement instead of eggs, locusts instead of sugar, and horse poo over icing made of chicken dribble. Deliberately choosing the bad characters, storylines and cliché avenues, and saying, “look mommy, look at the Tokyo ghoul I made in my diaper!” What do we do? Give it a gold star for trying? Sink time into those doctors are angry with this granny adverts; you’d get more fulfilment from those scams then this.
If you enjoy series where the worst imaginable storyline is followed (an office rom com between Amon and Akira anyone? No?) And it spirals off into an Emo fest, then by all means this is for you. Fans can drool over Uta, Touka and Kaneki’s Emo form - Kaneki’s still something, Tokyo ghoul can’t taint a decent character like him. Why invest anything in this anime, all the best, but don't be tricked into thinking this is good, this means as much to the viewer as it clearly meant to the studio that made it: nothing.

- Overall verdict: doesn’t warrant a rating/10 - even a ‘0’ is giving this animation version of B-movie some unwarranted credibility that it is not entitled to, and undeserved critique that should be reserved for something notable.