When I don't call a character by their full name, I use whatever name the other characters use.
As many of you may know, Tokyo Ghoul is an adaptation of a wildly popular recent manga. I have personally read the manga, but I will not reference it at all since manga and their anime adaptations should be standalone works of art and should thus be judged separately.
Tokyo Ghoul was a great premise with lots of little holes strewn throughout the entire show. It has great insights into the nature of monsters, and the grey morality vs. ethics debate going on throughout the show is very well thought out. Where this show is lacking is little details all over, such as Kaneki's random ability to knock out an intimidating thug, or even more so his sudden bursts of fighting ability even though the anime never showed much of him training. Issues like these slowed down the show but did not take away enough for me to give it a terrible review.
Story- 6/10
The premise and world of Tokyo Ghoul is brilliant. Man-eating creatures known as ghouls exist and interlope in human society, constantly murdering humans for a food source since ghouls can only receive nutrients by digesting human flesh. Our hero, Ken Kaneki, gets thrown into the chaos of being a ghoul while still keeping his connections to the human world. What would happen if the only way a human could survive with his new body is to eat other humans? The show tries to answer this question and does a solid job of showing Kaneki's despair. The first few episodes were extremely strong and were arguably the strongest episodes save for the finale. After that, the show takes a nosedive. The Gourmet arc was disappointing. It simply became a battler against the evil guy with none of the provocative morality issues that the show lives and dies by. However, after that the show manages to pick up and until the very end it does well in keeping its original premise and moral dilemmas.
The major issue with the story is that the pacing is horrendous. Plot points seem to be missing, things happen for no apparent reason, and the setting skips all over the place. The show fails to give a sense of time so the viewer is led to assume that all of these terrible things that happen to Kaneki are chronologically very close. On top of this, the show has episodes were a lot happens, episodes where very little happens, and episodes that are too inconsistent. While squeezing this complex story into a 1-cour season may have been tough, it would have been better to make a slower, better prepared 2-cour show that in turn adapted more of the source material.
Characters- 6/10
In a show with grey morality and grimdark happenings in the plot, the characters and the way the characters are shaped should star as conflicted individuals who are hard-pressed between the lesser of two evils. This is not the case.
Our hero, Ken Kaneki, is a little bitch. While this may help advance the plot and enforce the themes of morality vs. ethics, it does nothing for the enjoyment of the anime. The way to get around this is to give our little bitch some fantastic character development throughout the course of the story, where he slowly hardens as more and more crap is thrown at him. What actually happens in the story is that he has almost no character development throughout the story and then suddenly his entire personality changes. This is not the proper way to develop a character.
The best written character and character development comes from the main heroine Touka Kirishima. As a powerful former rogue ghoul who joined the coffee shop and secret ghoul society Anteiku, her extreme bluntness was entertaining when she got lumped together with the clueless and helpless Kaneki. Touka gets proper development. Events change her more subtly. Her personality does not really change even though some events shake her considerably. Compared to Kaneki, Touka is a well written character who personifies the ghoul side of the morality debate.
The other notable character is Kotarou Amon, but he does not get as much screen time as I felt he should. As the human protagonist and the human anchor for the morality debate, seeing more of him and more of his thoughts on ghouls would have been ideal.
Some of the other side characters, such as the manager Yoshimura and the young girl Hinami, are great supporting characters. Others, like the ghoul hunter Mado and the eccentric ghoul Tsukiyama, are much more linear. Because of Kaneki's bad characterization and some weak supporting characters, I gave the show a score of 6/10 for characters.
Art- 6/10
The animation and character design for the show is very good, with each character being instantly recognizable. Action scenes are well done, and the animation of the special ghoul kagunes is very pretty to look at. The major flaw with the animation is that every time some grimdark mutilation of the body occurs, a giant black area appears on the screen and obscures whatever happened in the anime. It's impossible to tell what happened to certain characters because of this and completely takes away from the experience. The angles scenes are shown from however are very well chosen to portray the mood and atmosphere of events.
Sound- 7/10
I really liked the opening of the show at first, but as time went on, the overly high pitched vocals started to get on my nerves. The lyrics of the song tie in very well to the show itself.
The voice acting is done by a great cast. All of the characters sounded alive and the emotion in their voices (or gruesome screams) was done well. Mamoru Miyano was spectacular as usual, but it was a damn shame he got placed on an unremarkable supporting character.
The BGM for the show never caught my attention. It certainly didn't take away from the experience, but it was nothing to write home about.
Enjoyment- 7/10
The main "thing" this show offers is its extremely well defined look into morality. Is it ok for ghouls to eat humans to survive? Are there ways around this? Should any ghoul be killed on sight? This show, despite its huge flaws all over the place, made me think. It made me think a lot about how I condemn certain people for doing certain things. Despite how great this is, many aspects take away from the show. Kaneki is pathetically weak despite his potential strength. The random censoring of gore is extremely annoying. The plot is full of holes and is inconsistent. I can go on and on nitpicking little things, but my stance on the broad aspects of the show is very positive.
Overall- 6/10
Tokyo Ghoul failed to accomplish what it set out to do as an anime. Despite this, it was fun to watch and as a weekly show it certainly did not waste my time.
If your question while reading my review is "Should I watch this show?", my answer is yes. However, do not go in with high expectations, and if you want a better representation of what this story and world stands for, you should go read the manga.
