Firstly this a review for the sequel alone so if you haven't seen Tokyo Ghoul then these are gonna be spoilers. The show picks up where it left off with the battle between Aogirii (a Ghoul faction in Tokyo) and the CCG (human counter measures for ghouls, 'ghoul police' essentially), while Anteiku (Kaneki's Ghoulfriends (ha)) attempt a rescue. This quick plot synopsis is necessary.
First its essentially because these are last remnants of the first season. From this point there were problems. Before the story was about Kaneki finding out about the world of ghouls but now the focus is divided between Kaneki and what the impact of actions that occurred that day. Not bad since its called Tokyo ghoul not 'Kakneki Ghoul', but before the story before went semi-randomly into its plot in a natural and believable way but root A's plot really just seems to go from A to B for the sake that the plot has to exist. At least now there is more mystery but that's primarily because the plot just seemed to be setting up for 3rd season in a way I'm relatively okay with.
In addition the story is accompanied by some good art and that's thanks in part to the increase in action and fight sequences but Tokyo Ghoul S1 didn't have that many fight scenes making them more enjoyable. The fights also didn't seem as meaningless as they do in root A. The style isn't that different from TK S1 and consistency is a good for shows like TK. However the Kagune designs became repetitive with the inclusion of all the background ghouls and there were a lot of them.
Furthermore root A DID do character development. Not so much from Kaneki's side which is not a good considering how much I like him and how he changed, but character development is still natural and somewhat enjoyable at times, even if it uses flashbacks. Root A also added more characters, which is to be expected of a sequel, and most were annoying which only helps any of the previous cast that wasn't that explored to be more interesting but comparison.
Furthermore the soundtrack wasn't very memorable in my mind. OP's and ED's only affect my score by .5 which didn't help root A considering how both were terrible. I watched the FUNimation Dub. I find this one of the rare cases where I didn't care at all whether the voice acting was good or bad because it really wouldn't add or subtract anything from a show of this 'caliber'. Which is a rare thing.
The only thing I enjoyed in Root A was its ending and not even the ending itself but its 'principle' as it were. A mix of conclusion, open-endedness and a possibility of a sequel. Granted we went from the worst part of S1's ending being the fact that it was a cliff-hanger, to the best part Root A's ending being their use of S1's OP, even though they played a slower rendition and the voice they used was different and terrible.
In conclusion root A is A sequel. It did a sequels job, continue the story. How it did that however was not an easy route (or a good one). If Tokyo Ghoul root A gave us anything it is the joke that it is the root of Awful.
