If I eat some human necessarily to satisfy my hunger, am I wrong?
If I kill someone to prevent them from eating my species, am I wrong?
These are the two fundamental questions that drives the whole story, and really interesting indeed.
I first found out about TG on those anime season preview sites and read its manga before its anime got published as the story interest me. Of course this wouldn't affect my review of the anime, gonna keep it as objective as possible. But the anime really pales in comparison to its manga (well that is true for a lot of anime that follows a manga).
The story is something new to me. A species called ghouls that feast on humans to subdue their hunger and the story takes place in Tokyo, so Tokyo Ghoul (yeah...). It features a teenage boy that unexpectedly met a ghoul and reached the end of his life(?). That's all I will say because more of it would be a spoiler. It's something fresh so I was tempted to give it a 9. But the whole thing feels so rushed to me, maybe because they have to cramp everything into 24 episodes (yes, there's a season 2 coming so I'm taking that into consideration as well). So I gave it an 8 at the end.
The art is good, not superb but does the job, a 7 probably. The sound is not as pleasing to me, but the OP by TK from LTS totally rocked the socks so an 8 from me. I'm not really good at judging art and sound so this may not be very accurate.
The characters are good. A protagonist that developed from a weakling to something respectable. Protagonist's friends that are really cool and helpful. And to top it off, a not-so-clear antagonist (its sort of a 3-way battle) which I really like.
Overall, I enjoyed it (not as much as the manga) so I gave it an 8.
However if I were to compare it to what it could have achieved, from what I see in the manga, it would probably have been a 4-5. That's how badly done the adaptation is, give this to MADHOUSE and maybe we can see some wonderful gore.
It's still in my recommended list, but its quite far back in the list. If you are those hardcore anime-only people (like me, the only manga that I read was this and some Korean ones), this can probably pass off as good/okay. But if you have the time and don't mind some silent reading, GO READ THE MANGA.
