I write this review for both seasons. I hope that the third season comes out soon.
After seeing the first few episodes, I wasn't that enamored. Looked to be just an anime about humanlike creatures that feasted on humans with blood dominant and character development scarce. Was I wrong. I at first thought that the ghouls were obviously the bad guys, and that we humans were right in eliminating them from society.
But think about it from the ghoul's perspective. A ghoul is born with the desire to consume human flesh, and the inability to gain nutrition from anything else. What else can he or she do to survive than to kill and eat humans? And even so, some ghouls aren't even willing to go that far. On the outside, ghouls are human. They feel the same emotions, have their beloved ones, feel anger and sorrow and joy. And to the human, these ghouls are creatures that kill humans, and that can't happen. Which side is right? And then there's Kaneki, the half-human, half-ghoul who struggles to understand. When watching this anime, I was caught between both sides too. Kaneki, after interacting with ghouls in their daily lives, sees the human side to them. Of course there are ghouls who live on killing humans, and there are humans who devote their lives to killing ghouls. You see the perspectives of everybody. Like Death Note and Code Geass, Tokyo Ghoul presents penetrating moral questions.
The sound is emotive, poignant in every way. I only give it a 9 because it's not as majestic as that of FMAB or Code Geass. Opening theme "unravel" is a stark portrayal of the ghoul-human discrepancy, and the ending themes with their changing illustrations per episode show a calmer, more revealing side of the characters.
And the fighting. Each ghoul has a bodily weapon called a kagune, which takes on a form according to his or her personality. When two ghouls clash, their kagune fly, blood spatters, and the ghouls clash again and again in a flurry of emotion-driven blows and parries and dodges that defeats the eye. Compared to anime like Fairy Tail, in which many times the characters end battles through pure determination and force of power, the fight scenes are more elaborate and realistic here. And the ghoul hunters, they use weapons called quinques, which are kagune taken from the bodies of dead ghouls. You have the agency with its many members, each with a quinque, and you wonder about their fighting ability. Then there's the many ghouls who fight, each with their own motivations and capabilities, and Kaneki, who has a brilliant power development. If you're wondering why Kaneki has white hair in the opening theme, well, watch and find out.
I'll just say that if an anime makes you stay up to four in the morning, then it is damn good.
