When I decided to watch this (three days ago), I had not seen a psychological anime in a very long time. I think the last time I saw one was before I'd even heard of MyAnimeList. The first ten episodes of the anime were fantastic. The characters were well-developed, the art and voice acting were great, the story was original, but then Kaneki got kidnapped. By this time, I had thought this anime wasn't that serious in its psychological-ness. Sure there are some parts where some people might find it mindblowingly psychological, but I didn't.
So Kaneki gets taken, I freak out when Banjou and the other two are saying they'll get him out. I freak out more when Touka lets Tsukiyama help get him back and then it goes back to Kaneki and Rize and his hair is white and I'm like, "So the guy in the opening was Kaneki". I like died when he got out because he was in a totally different mindset and stuff. Don't get me wrong, I understand why, and I think it makes a lot more sense than a ton of other shows I've seen, but I just absolutely hated the ending. It made me dislike Rize more and it changed how I felt about Kaneki.
And the worst part of the ending was that it left me feeling really incomplete. I plan to watch the second season, but at this point I have no idea what happened to Touka, Hinami, the manager and all the others. Not to mention that I'm reluctant to watch it because the Kaneki in the last few minutes of episode 12 reminded me too much of Accelerator from A Certain Scientific Railgun and A Certain Magical Index (Toaru Kagaku no Railgun S and Toaru Majutsu no Index).
But overall, Tokyo Ghoul was a great anime, and a horribly good way to rethink how I felt about psychological anime.
