For 11 episodes, Tokyo Ghoul is an anime that deserves praise. An anime that isn't afraid to delve into philosophy: What does it mean to be human? Should you be considered human if your biological default is to eat another human? Does denial of the self serve friendship? What does it mean to be selfish? When is it time to be selfish? Good stuff. One of the things that made this series so enjoyable for me is that it asked questions.
Animation 9/10, Sound 10/10
The visuals are well-done, even though certain scenes bordered on the meme territory (e.g. copious amounts of tears, extreme close ups of characters shouting and roaring in their emotional moments). The artsy and obviously half-hearted blood censorship (color inverts) made it more stimulating. The music and the sounds were decent.
Story 8/10, Character 7/10
The pacing is all right, striking a balance between moving the overall plot and providing the necessary back story. Granted, not all important characters were given the back story treatment. I don’t get the complaints that the pacing sucked because it didn’t match the manga.
The world building is decent. The series refrained from explaining everything, possibly because the manga has not provided the materials. That works for the story because it’s unlikely to have Kaneki undergo a massive information dump on ghoul living. As far as the story is concerned, Kaneki is an average citizen, trying to live the life of a murder-free ghoul. He's not being schooled as a secret agent, so giving the audience a major intel on Tokyo ghouls and a rigorous course on ghoul mythology is a fat the series does not need.
For the 12th episode, Tokyo Ghoul deserves to be panned. I'm aware that the manga is ongoing, that's why I can forgive some missteps, like the certain fight subplots in episode 12. On second thought, those missteps are rather unforgivable. I guess they didn’t decide to wait for the manga for this cash grab. Instead of making a semi-satisfying conclusion to these encounters, the studio decided to leave it hanging.
The character development is superb... for 11 episodes anyway. The biggest disappointment is that Kaneki went through the personality vortex and came back another person... almost like another character! I'm certain the manga has a good excuse as to why the introspective Kaneki, who constantly negotiates with his inner psycho and determines that empathy should win every time, suddenly turned into a cold "bad ass" that served the revenge fulfillment of some audiences. Trauma, perhaps. This "bad ass" engaged in casual cruelty: torturing an already subjugated villain, oh just because hmm plot device. We’re supposed to derive some emotional closure to this? Problem is, the audience is well-aware the character has been traumatized and is engaging in acts he would not normally do... and yet the studio decided to package this as some sort of triumphant ending.
*sigh*
Eleven out of 12 episodes are well done, so the series is worth a chance, even with the last episode taking a bit of dive.
