This review is going to encompass both seasons of Tokyo Ghoul. Before watching Root A, I had already watched season 1 many years back, so I thought I'd spend sometime rewatching Season 1 and into Season 2, just so that I'd get a better sense of the overall plot line and characterization.
It didn't help much, and though Season 1 looked promising, and Season 2 was exciting and dramatic, it all ended in an unsatisfactory, incomplete and cliff-hanger type of way. There has to be a Season 3, otherwise this series falls flat right here. The various plot holes and jumps throughout the series were also appalling, the plot was made too confusing at times, and still never gave us any answers about so many mysteries behind the story.
TL;DR
Story: 4/10
Art: 7/10
Sound: 5/10
Character: 9/10
Enjoyment: 7/10
Overall: 6/10 (rounded down from 6.4)
Good points:
+ Lots of interesting and varied characters
+ Deep and meaningful character relationships and interactions
+ Deep thematic development
+ Great action scenes and animation
+ Good amount of emotion and drama
Bad points:
- Poor resolution with many loose ends
- Many major plot holes and inconsistencies
- Mediocre main male lead (Kaneki)
- Many lousy OP and ED themes and sequences
- Poor pacing means anime can get draggy at times
Story: 4/10
The story itself was split into 6 arcs, across the two seasons. In S1, we had the introductory Anteiku arc, the Gourmet Arc, the Hinami Arc and half of the Aogiri Base Arc. In S2, we had the second half of the Aogiri Base Arc, followed by the Cochlea Arc and the final Owl Suppression Arc. I will address each of these arcs separately below.
In the Anteiku arc, we are first introduced to Kaneki and his friend Hide. Kaneki has a crush on this girl, Rize, who happens to share the same book taste as him. After a date, Kaneki walks her home only to find out that she is a ghoul who tries to eat him. And immediately, the action, the fear and the horror that is so characteristic of Tokyo Ghoul kicks in and we are thrown quickly into the dark and exciting world of ghouls (+1 for intrigue).
Kaneki, after being turned into a half-ghoul from the encounter with Rize, begins to explore the horrifying world of ghouls, and tries to come to terms with the fact that he was once human but now has to feed on humans to survive. Luckily, help comes in the form of Anteiku, and organization that helps ghouls survive peacefully with humans by only feeding on people who committed suicide. Not a bad plot point, considering the high suicide rate in Japan. The main cast of characters also gets introduced in this arc Toka and Yoshimura especially, and we start to see the overarching conflict that divides both humans and ghouls, threatening to start a complete war (+1 for overarching conflict).
Moving onto the Gourmet Arc, Kaneki then encounters a crazy ghoul called Tsukiyama, who becomes obsessed with Kaneki's scent and tries to kidnap him and sell him off at an auction where ghouls buy "gourmet" delicacies. I honestly have no idea what this arc is doing here, because it adds nothing to the overall story except tell us that Tsukiyama is crazy and the gourmet community is a place for ghouls who are thoroughly sick and twisted. Tsukiyama is later defeated by the combined effort of Kaneki, Toka and Nishiki. The action scenes that took place here were probably what saved this arc from being a total disaster.
In the following Hinami Arc, we start to see a new perspective to the story - from the point of view of the CCG- basically those who fight against the ghouls. We are introduced to the idea of "doves" who are basically ghoul hunters using weapons called quinque, which are made from ghouls. While ghouls lives in fear of the doves, the doves have the responsibility to rid society from the scourge of ghouls, and two doves in particular are introduced - Mado and Amon - in charge of the 20th Ward. (+1 for deeper perspective, complexity)
Mado and Amon, as a team, manage to make Hinami, a child ghoul who uses Anteiku as a refuge, an orphan by killing off both her parents in a rather one-sided fashion. Both stood no chance against the doves, whose physical prowess was just much greater. Toka gets back at the doves by killing one of their henchmen, and tries to lure Mado into a waterway where it's harder for him to use his quinque.
There is a stand-off and two duels happen simultaneously - Mado vs Toka and Amon vs Kaneki. During the course of the duel, the story explores themes that are akin to both humans and ghouls, discussing the reason why innocent people need to die and why they must fight to protect their kind. We see how morals playing out from one side can also apply to the other party - if killing a ghoul will hurt the rest of the family, so will killing a human. Is it right to kill out of revenge? To protect others? Does any motive justify to outcome of leaving another person without a loved one? (+1 for thematic exploration)
After this incident, we move on to the Aogiri Base arc, where the CCG identifies the base of a ghoul organization called Aogiri, which has been causing mass havoc by killing CCG investigators in the 11th district. At the same time, Aogiri's Yamori has an encounter with Anteiku, and ends up kidnapping Kaneki and locking him up in a dungeon at the Aogiri base. What happens next is basically a 3-way war involving CCG trying to eliminate Aogiri and Anteiku trying to sneak in to rescue Kaneki.
Throughout the arc, we are shown horrifying and heart-wrenching scenes of Kaneki being tortured by Yamori - having his toes cut off, and having centipedes inserted into his ears. These scenes help to frame the reason behind Kaneki wanting to get stronger to protect those whom he loves, and in a way drive him crazy, succumbing to the ghoul-like nature inside of him. However, these scenes can get a bit slow and long-winded and even though the anime was trying to be clever with Rize's literary exposition, all of it revolved around the same idea over and over again, until it felt completely redundant and overly repetitive.
By the end of the arc, Kaneki manages to embrace the ghoul powers inside of him, hence turning his hair white for no apparent reason but for visual effect to the audience. He defeats Yamori by cannibalizing him and proceeds to rescue Toka from her brother, Ayato. After a short face-off against Ayato, and showing off his new found powers that came from simply getting tortured, he decides to leave Anteiku to join Aogiri, because he wants to "become stronger".
With that, S1 officially comes to a proper close and we move to the Cochlea Arc. Amon's investigator team gets a bit of a reshuffle and we also get introduced to new characters like Akira, Mado's daughter, and Juzo, who is basically Shinohara's adopted son, both of whom are investigators too. Cochlea is this poorly designed facility that is supposed to house the most dangerous of ghouls, which the anime terms as S-rated and SS-rated. Aogiri attacks this facility to rescue a certain ghoul who then vanishes from the rest of the anime. This arc didn't do anything except for further cementing the partner relationship between Amon and Akira, and giving us a slight glimpse of how crazy Kaneki has become, and who for some reason continues to have to scream and cry out like he's literally been doing the entire anime.
Finally, we move on to the Owl Suppression arc, which is by far the most interesting arc out of the lot, but also the arc that was never fully resolved properly. Yasumori is revealed to be the original One-Eyed Owl, said to be the CCG's greatest enemy, and he's also revealed to have a child with the same ghoul power, hence there being two One-Eyed Owls. CCG, with the help from Akira, manages to discover Anteiku's existence in 20th ward, and our main ghoul characters' home is threatened to be destroyed.
Yasumori, instead of running, orders Yomo to protect Toka and Hinami, and teams up with Devil Ape Koma and Black Dog Irima, both of whom were leaders of previous savage ghoul organizations made peaceful by the existence of Anteiku. They accept their fate and "punishment" for their sins and take one final stand against CCG's strongest investigator teams and divisions.
In the massive fighting that ensues, they are on the brink of defeat when Kaneki manages to arrive last minute and save both Koma and Irima, but not Yasumori, who gets defeated by about 6 strong investigators ganging up on him. There is a massive turnaround though, once Yasumori's child, Eto, literally flies like a comet and smashes into their location and instantly decapitates 5 of their top investigators, but is then chased away by their top investigator, Arima. It is later revealed that Eto manages to save Yasumori when she fled from the scene.
Meanwhile, Kaneki faces off in a duel (damn, this anime sure loves duels doesn't it?) against Amon, whom he manages to overcome and defeat, much to Akira's despair. Kaneki then meets up with a dying Hide, and Toka runs to Anteiku only to find it completely burned to the ground, as Yomo has done so on Yasumori's orders. The anime the ends with Kaneki carrying Hide's body to CCG, and the epilogue shows Toka opening up a new coffee shop, in place of Anteiku, the only place she'd ever call home.
Basically, the resolution of the plot was complete nonsense and we never got anywhere regarding the CCG-Ghoul conflict. Aogiri is still out there, as is the One-Eyed Owl. There are still so many characters who feature in the anime whose names are kind of just mentioned once then disappear (basically man of Aogiri's top ghouls). Also, Hinami's fate is uncertain, as is Kaneki. The ending was again, a cliffhanger, and it just left a gaping hole in the plot.
Moving onto the overall coherence of the story, there was basically none because there are so many plot holes that I can hardly even count. They are listed as follows.
In S1 episode 2, Yoshimura states that coffee is the only thing that ghouls can consume and enjoy just as humans do. However, the explanation for this is completely left out. What's so special about coffee that ghouls can drink from it without having it taste bad? In fact, while I can accept that ghouls can't eat human food, there needs to be at least some consideration as to whether they can at least eat raw animal flesh, because that's also a food source that has the same characteristics of human flesh, including all the blood.
Hide asks Kaneki why he's been skipping school, but this makes absolutely no sense. Kaneki has just recently undergone a life-threatening medical operation involving the replacement of his organs. Shouldn't he be getting at least a week of medical leave from school from the doctor? Man, Japanese schools these days must be really tough then - even after a major operation, you're expected to return to school the very day you're discharged?
Later, Kaneki realizes that Nishiki's plan is to kill Hide while they go to his place. However, Kaneki decides that the best way to deal with this is to go with them as well? At this point, Kaneki should be terrified of Nishiki, who in their earlier encounter easily beat him hands-down. What in the world is making Kaneki think that his presence is ever going to change any of Nishiki's plans? Kaneki should have at least tried to come up with some excuse to tell Hide that he shouldn't go with Nishiki alone.
In S1 episode 5, Tsukiyama kidnaps Kimi to blackmail Kaneki, but the problem is that there was no way for Tsukiyama to be so confident that he would try to save Kimi anyway. Kaneki literally just met Kimi in the same episode, having visited Nishiki's house for the first time ever. It's quite a far cry from just having met someone to suddenly wanting to save them.
Also, it was unnecessary for Kimi and Kaneki to have their conversation in the park, when they could have simply had it in the house, in private. Having them talk at the park was just a matter of plot convenience to explain how Tsukiyama could eavesdrop on them in the first place.
In the blackmail note that Kaneki reads out, it doesn't even mention the venue where they are supposed to meet. Of course it's implied that Tsukiyama included details about the church they were to have "dinner" at, but this was never explicitly mentioned. Also, how the heck did Toka even know where to go to rescue them? Wait, how did Toka even know they were in trouble in the first place? Is she psychic now?
In S1 episode 7, when Hinami brings Kaneki back to the scene where Ryoko is in trouble, she clearly shouts "Mother!" within 5 metres of the scene. Even if Kaneki managed to shut her mouth to conceal their presence, that one shout should have been clearly audible despite the rain, since it was only 5 metres away. Also, not to mention the fact that they were running straight into the alleyway and were in plain sight for quite a while, so there was no way the doves and their henchmen would not have noticed this.
Also, if we take a closer look how Kaneki and Hinami arrive at the scene, we see them sneaking up behind Mado and Amon, listening to what was going on. This is a contradiction to the earlier scene where Hinami clearly first encountered Mado and Amon from the front, then ran away back the way she came. If she then led Kaneki to the scene, they should be arriving from the front of Mado and Amon, not the other way around.
In S1 episode 8, Amon asks Kaneki, "Why does your kind exist?" This is the exact same question that the anime has completely failed to answer - where exactly do ghouls come from? It's simply been assumed they exist so far, but there has been no effort in explaining their origins.
In S1 episode 10, Kaneki hides the fact that Rize is dead and instead tells Banjo that she isn't there any more. After hearing this, Banjo, after coming all the way from the 11th ward, gives a completely unnatural reaction and accepts that she has just travelled somewhere else. This is an unnatural character reaction because anybody, especially a love-struck Banjo, in that situation would have immediately reacted with, "Where did she go?"
In S1 episode 11, Tsukiyama explains that he managed to keep himself alive by "eating himself." If that's true, then why don't all ghouls simply keep "eating themselves" to survive? Also, even if a ghoul actually tried to eat himself to recover, there's no way he can ever fully recover because every time he eats, he injures himself more and will only ever regenerate the exact amount of which he injured himself. Unless of course, the laws of matter don't apply to ghouls, in which case it's still a plot hole and a horrible explanation of ghoul regenerative mechanics.
In the dungeon scene, Yamori explains that hypothermic needles normally don't affect ghouls unless injected into mucous membranes. While it makes sense that mucous membranes are obviously more susceptible to damage and penetration, the anime here draws into question exactly what property it is of ghoul skin that makes it impervious to knives and sharp objects. Since they decided to come up with "RC inhibition fluid", they should at least provide some scientific explanation as to how different ghoul skin is from humans and why the fluid changes this. But the anime fails to deliver and merely makes things up as it goes and expects the audience to believe their assumptions.
In a news announcement, CCG announces that the ghouls have been occupying a shopping centre more for the past two months, with their numbers at around 500. But wait a moment, CCG has waited for two whole months to pass before they are even taking any actions against this large number of ghouls? Something seems to be a little off here in this organization that's supposed to be protecting the humans in the various wards. It's more shocking than surprising that the CCG took so long to react. Perhaps excessive red-tape was the problem then?
In S1 episode 12, at the start of the episode, Kaneki counts 559, but he had already counted this number in the previous episode. In fact, Kaneki was counting 223 by the middle of episode 11, so does this mean he doesn't know how to count, or did we somehow go back in time here?
Also, Kaneki claims that Yamori took off his hands and feet, but clearly only his toes were getting cut off. His fingers looked perfectly fine being chained behind his back to the chair.
In S2 episode 4, the existence of Cochlea isn't very clearly explained. We know that it's a facility that holds S and SS-rated ghouls, but we don't know for what purpose. There has to be a very good reason for not killing incredibly dangerous ghouls immediately and instead keeping them alive in a facility, hence wasting manpower and resources.Plus, isn't it true that ghouls must feed on human flesh to survive? If that's the case, has the facility been feeding them human flesh? This sounds absurd and calls the very legitimacy of Cochlea into question.
Also, no matter what purpose it is, the security forces deployed within Cochlea seem very pathetic for a place that is supposed to be securing ghouls of such high power ratings. Given the weak security system that is has, the fact that there are so few armed with quinques to defend against ghoul attacks, means its unimaginable how does S and SS-rated ghouls could even be kept down in such a facility in the first place.
Also, who exactly is this person that Kaneki was sent to save from Cochlea? For no reason at all they starting fighting each other, and this person vanishes from the rest of the anime?
In S2 episode 9, after Suzuha throws the paper plane he folded into the city below, there is a shot of it gliding horizontally across the screen with Kaneki in the foreground. It would suffice to say that I've thrown those kind of paper planes many times off high places and they only ever glide for at most 3 seconds, before nose-diving straight down. So I call rubbish on this particular paper plane gliding scene since Suzuha clearly throws it from such a height, and it's not possible for it to continue gliding after descending enough to be in view of Kaneki from the ground below.
Yasumori says that his wife Ukina, performed a "miracle" that allowed her human-ghoul baby to be born, but what exactly is this miracle? This is completely overlooked in the anime and never really explained! Why go through all the trouble telling us that it's impossible to create a ghoul-human baby if you're not going to tell us how they overcame this impossibility?
In S2 Episode 12, Toka runs through the snow, tripping on nothing and then falling down. If she visibly slipped I would have given it to the anime, but it was obvious from the animation that she "tripped". Unfortunately, the anime has joined the likes of many others in causing their characters to trip over nothing just for dramatic effect. Sigh.
Also, the Kanou surgeon who operated on Kaneki just vanished from the anime. He was the one who transplanted Rize's organs into Kaneki and hence played a crucial role in the plot, but was only mentioned once or twice. His motives for creating a one-eyed ghoul went unexplained, even though the anime poked fun at this plot point when they sent Takatsuki Sen to do some random interview at CCG.
So all in all, there are a total of 22 plot holes in this anime, 5 of which are rather major in nature, so this plot gets zero points for coherence and logical sense. This is rather depressing for a plot that itself already suffers from a lack of proper resolution. Despite it's attempt to explore deeper themes, the plot fails with it's many inconsistencies and logical jumps throughout the story.
Art: 7/10
OP Sequence 1: 2/2 - Beautiful with all the myriad of colours forming the kagunes of the ghouls
OP Sequence 2: 0/1 - What is this crap? A slow motion shot of Kaneki opening his eyes? Pfft.
ED Sequence 1: 0/1- Several dull still scenes, mashed together. No effort put in.
ED Sequence 2: 1/2 - Boring but at least it had some artistry in it
Aesthetics: 2/2 - Generally great because the design put into the characters was very varied, from the hair colour to the clothing style.
Animation: 2/2 - Just awesome and solid especially looking at the kagune and even quinque animations all around.
Sound: 5/10
OP1 Theme: 1/2 - Ok the music was upbeat but the vocals were annoying
OP2 Theme: 0/2 - Just what in the world is this nonsense of an OP theme?
ED1 Theme: 0/2 - Boring and lame
ED2 Theme: 2/2 - No seriously why is this not an OP theme? It's way catchier than the other themes and as better vocals!
Background Music: 2/2 - Generally good, and they even put in some English songs in this one, which somehow managed to fit in.
Character: 9/10
Tokyo Ghoul introduces so many characters that it's probably difficult to name them all, but we'll just look at the main characters and judge based on how well they've been developed in the anime.
We'll start off with the main character of the series, Kaneki. Kaneki is a rather confused character who's thrown into a conflict that he never wanted to be in, and as a result goes around screaming and going crazy for most of the anime. He wants to be become stronger, and this so that he can protect those close to him, and there's some minor talk of him being the only one who can bridge the gap between humans and ghouls. Kaneki's tired of not being able to protect anyone, but I'm ultimately just tired of all his whining. Sure he does get stronger, he manages to embrace his ghoul nature to become stronger (+1 for slight growth), but he, a main character, has like the least backstory out of all the other characters. In my opinion, Kaneki is a major failure of a main character who, while manages the audience to be sympathetic towards him, doesn't drive the plot and exerts even less influence on other characters, including Hide.
The other main character, Toka, is a much better archetype. She's hardworking, determined, a bit of the Tsundere-type, but ends up having a bit of an effection for Kaneki. She also has like this amazingly beautiful Kagune wings and is really powerful in fights, at least in S1 (+1 for great tsundere female lead). For most of S2 though, she kind of just stays in her state of longing to see Kaneki, and also doesn't drive the plot in any meaningful way. There was one scene where she beats up Kaneki, telling him never to come back to Anteiku again, and that was pretty powerful, showing how desperate Toka was to see Kaneki again. It's a pity Kaneki hardly even returns this affection.
But we move on to much more interesting characters like Amon, one of the investigators for the 20th Ward. Amon is Mado's partner in S1 and Akira's partner in S2, and we can easily see how much Mado has changed Amon from the interactions with him, as well as from lengths of backstory that has made Amon respect Mado enough to continually visit his grave, as shown multiple times in S2 (+1 for backstory). Mado's words continually stick with him as he fights, and he's also no pushover with his dual blades and immense physical strength. His main drawback is his lack of character growth throughout the anime, as even though Kaneki shows him time and time again that ghouls can be good, Amon continues to be obsessed with revenge against Kaneki for killing Mado, and eventually pays with his own life.
The other character that I really like is Akira. Akira starts off as cold, disrespectful to her seniors and task-oriented. Takizawa loathes her, but time and time again, she's shown that she's capable, responsible and hardworking, and that she keeps to a strict lifestyle as well. Akira's character begins to shine in the short scene over dinner where she gets rather drunk and ends up talking about how much she loved her father and mother, and wanted to be like them (+1 for dedicated daughter). She eventually opens up to Amon and even tries to kiss him at one point (+1 for character depth).
Another pair of characters I have to add is the Shinohara - Juzo combination. Both are kind of one-sided without each other, but together they are like a father and son team. Juzo being the crazy scythe-wielding child who was raised by bloodthirsty ghouls, and Shinohara being the kind father who raised him to be an investigator (+1 for father-son relationship). CCG expressed many doubts about Juzo's potential as an investigator, but under Shinohara's guidance and effort, Juzo manages to excel. There's also a scene of Juzo mourning for his dad, which shows that he's grown from seeing death just as "another death" (+1 for character growth).
Yasumori, the One-Eyed Owl, is also a powerful character that I'd like to mention. Initially starting off as a ghoul only taught how to kill, he transforms into a peaceful ghoul after meeting a human lady Ukina who accepts him despite him being a ghoul (+1 for backstory). His interactions with her eventually lead him to set-up Anteiku, which is a symbol of ghoul-human peace throughout the anime, together with the idea of coffee, the only thing that both ghouls and human can enjoy and share together. He's also the only SSS-rated ghoul in the story, having immense power and being able to stand up to 6 investigators in battle at the same time.
Besides all these key characters, there are also an amazing set of varied side characters like Yomo, Koma, Irimi, Hinami, Ayato, Hide, Nishiki who are all amazingly different in their own ways and who also have powerful kagunes. (+1 for varied character cast) It is also rather impressive that the anime managed to draw out the backstories of many of their characters. The only drawback from the characters is honestly Kaneki, who is really lacking in any meaningful character development. It seems like the anime thought that making him scream a lot would make him a more lovable character.
Still, the character interactions are probably what Tokyo Ghoul manages to excel at, so definitely a job well done, but perhaps all the time spent developing characters meant less time to developing a proper plot.
Enjoyment: 7/10
Excitement: 3/3
In this aspect, the anime doesn't fail to impress. Whether it's through the fast-paced action scenes or through the intrigue created by the mystery surrounding the One-Eyed Owl, the anime definitely has got me excited about what's going to happen next.
Emotion: 2/3
For an anime that isn't technically romance, there's a lot of emotion put into Kaneki's inner turmoil and fight with himself (or Rize / Yamori, if you see it that way). There's also some very memorable character relationships, especially those of Amon-Akira, Shinohara-Juzo and even Toka-Kaneki, where things can get really touching at times.
Pacing: 1/3
The anime started off really good, with excitement right from the get-go, but things can get really draggy towards the middle, especially in the scenes post-Aogiri Base arc as well as at the very end where things don't really clear up. The main conflict was of course, not even resolved by the end of it.
This anime receives 1 point for having no filler episodes. (+1)
I can't say I didn't enjoy watching Tokyo Ghoul, as it was definitely a thrill to watch. There was a whole lot of drama thrown in and mixed with the action scenes, but I really thought the anime could have been paced better. Certain plot arcs could have been omitted entirely and other episodes could have been shortened, as many a times they didn't contribute much to the overall plot.
Overall: 6.4 / 10 (rounded down to 6)
The anime looked really promising, but ultimately at the end, it ended with utter disappointment, with no plot ends being tied up and all the surviving characters being left confused and in a lurch. I really hope there is a 3rd season to bring some kind of closure to the plot, as there are still many unanswered questions and characters we haven't even seen yet, but as of S2, the anime has so far not performed to it's full potential, suffering especially in terms of plot.
