STORY
Now, at that point most reviewers would recap the plot of the show, albeit in very broad terms to avoid spoilers and such. But here's the problem: this show has no plot. None. A thing happens, the characters respond to it, then they fight it out. Rinse and repeat. This has been a formula for the second season as well, and surely enough it's back this season with no changes to it being done.
It doesn't go anywhere, and even if character arcs are present, there's still no sign of an overarching narrative to tie them all together. Any story, in its essence can be divided into the beginning, the middle and the end. While Tokyo Ghoul certenaly had a beginning, we don't have a slightest idea if it progresses anywhere. The episodes feel disjointed and abrupt, pacing is all over the place. That is, however, the least of my problems with the series and this season in particular. Moving on to the
CHARACTERS
Unlike the previous section I can at least say something about the characters of this show. While many of them are underdeveloped and bare-bones, it's definately the strongest aspect of the show. And by strongest I mean it's not completely abscent or all around terrible.
Before talking about individual characters I want to adress by far the most outrageous aspect of the show. A lot of the episodes feature characters that were never introduced, but treated by the show like they have been, or like they matter. An episode can literally start with characters framed like we're supposed to care about them or at the very least know them. A lot of them end up dying dramatically, even though the viewer couldn't possibly have cared. I even ended up rewatching the previous episodes' endings to make extra sure I didn't miss an episode or two on accident. I didn't. I don't know if that's because half of the episodes got cut out from the show, or because the writers expect the viewers to be familliar with the source material or any other reason, it's simply unforgivable. With that out the way, let's talk about some of the more prominent characters.
The Main Protagonist -- Is it even a spoiler to just call him Kaneki rather than Haise? I mean it was obvious from the start. And yet I don't feel like calling him by his real name. Why? Because Ken Kaneki is not even a character. They change him up, seemingly at will every single season, to the point where his name doesn't belong to any character. Kaneki from season one and Haise from season 3 are two completely diffirent characters, no matter what the writers want you to believe. Haise himself is incredibly dull, he lacks a character arc and prominent traits, unless caring for his friends a lot counts as one. You knew what was gonna happen to him, I knew what was gonna happen to him, so he really lacks any sort of hook. This guy is really hard to care about on any level.
Urie -- he's the best character this season, but once again, "the best" as in not entirely dull or boring. He has a character arc, complete with a motivation and a goal. Sure, it's all basic, but it exists and I have to commend the effort. His only gimminck of being an egoistical hypocrite still gets old very fast.
Saiko -- the token loli. She's listed as the main character in on the title page, but doesn't do anything. She can usually be found playing vidya or running around aimlessly with that big goofy-looking hammer. She's hinted to have an amazing power, but when she does it, it's kinda meh.
Tooru -- no idea if it's a guy or a gal, either way had a lot of time devoted to him in the beginning of the season, only to be entirely forgotten about in the end.
Shirazu -- the opposite of Tooru. Had nothing going for him at the beginning, only to rapidly develop a storyarc near the end. His only piece of characterization is having shark teeth.
Juuzou -- I'm only talking about him because he was my favorite character of the second season by far. Not only was he the only character to feature a proper arc and any sort of nuance to him, he also wasn't too boring in a fight. However, that was the last season (whitch was almost as bad as this one by the way). Here, Juuzou is a dissapointment, honestly. They skipped his character development to its conclusion, and so this season nothing happens to him. Even his fights have gotten boring.
Shuu -- absolutely irrelevant as a character, despite having a hude arc of his own. I don't really get why I'm supposed to care about anything that's happening to him, he was never even likable to begin with. Since his very first appearance in season one, he wasn't shown to have a single redeeming quality as a character.
Well, that about covers most of the relevant ones, now onto the reason I can't see anyone ever enjoying this show:
FIGHTS AND ANIMATION
Every action-driven anime lives and dies by the execution of its fight scenes. And by execution I mean everything in them, not just choreography and animation. Nontheless, if I had to start somewhere, I'd start with animation in general. It's all over the place, ranging from being legitimately not bad in some fighting scenes to being insulting in more somber moments. The low point to me was in episode 3 or 4, where, durning a conversation, animators used shot-reverse shot in such a way, that the speaking characters' mouth would not be visible. When it was their turn to talk, we'd only see their back, and not their face. I wish I was kidding. That being said, when the action heated up, the animation sometimes followed suit, for the more important battles. And that would even be sort of fun to watch, if not for two reasons:
Firstly, I had a hard time caring about any of the characters because of the reasons described in the previous section. And even without that, I couldn't enjoy the action at the most basic level because, secondly, there was no stakes. Let me elaborate. The ghoul powers are basically never put in any sort of easy to understand but concrete enough to follow bounds. Because of that, the viewer is never sure what's dangerous and what's not. At the writer's whim any hit can hurt the characters badly, or be completely ignored by them.
Is a gaping hole in your abdomen bad? What about being sliced in half? There are no answers to that. It's unknown just how much can the characters endure before going down, so you can't even follow the battles from that perspective. Some can die from a fairly normal looking wound, some can withstand being dismembered. You never know, so naturally, you never care.
With all that being said, I couldn't even enjoy watching this show just to laugh at how bad it was, like I can with some other ones. It was a chore all the way through. I can't, with good faith, recommend this show to anyone.
Oh, and the sound was kind of alright, the OP was even good at times.
