Well that was something I guess….. Make no mistake, I did enjoy reading it (11 out the 14 volumes to be exact. But that ending (and the final battle in general) though made no sense whatsoever. It’s not like I didn’t like it, but it was definitely not satisfying and it didn’t really give me closure.
So let’s get into the stuff I did like:
Ken Kaneki’s character arc was nothing short of incredible. If I was grading this thing based strictly on his end of things, I give the manga 9 out of 10. I love how it goes from this reclusive weakling of a bookworm into someone that wants to get stronger. And I love how it explores his psyche throughout the course of the series. It gave a lot of nuance to his need to protecting other people. It came less out of something altruistic and we’re having unselfish need to not be alone. And the way that this was interwoven with his trauma of his somewhat neglected upbringing was truly tragic to watch and have me invested all the way to the end. And his death scene was a perfect cap off to this character arc, as he realizes he own hypocrisy in his chase for ultimate power and that he ultimately regrets the person he’s become.
I also thought that the art was really good. I think it gave a lot of emotional punch to almost every single scene. It’s nice to look at, it’s used effectively, and it matches the tone of the story being told.
I also liked the world building quite a bit. I loved how there was an entire stigma towards being a ghoul and that there was a specialized police force, called “Doves”, designed to hunt down such creatures. I love how not all doves were entirely good and that the ghouls were not entirely evil. It was a nice subversion because normally the ghouls would be considered the villains. And the fact that it showed a much more nuanced version of this dichotomy was both welcome and insanely enjoyable to watch. For example, not all ghouls are the same. Some are extremely peaceful and look for non-murderous sources for their sustenance. Others function more as rogue sillier killers. However there’s a separate organization, Aogiri, that actively trying to wage a war with the Doves with brutal tactics (thus functions as a tertiary antagonist). I also thought it was cool how even humans and ghouls could have intimate relationships. And that there was a lot of complications that would have said was an obstacle for such a dynamic. And I think the way that the manga explores was great.
Unfortunately that’s where the positives largely end.
The biggest reason why I can’t say that this manga is the best thing ever made is because there is way too many characters. This is particularly noticeable with the “Doves” portion of the story. If I had a nickel every time they introduced a “special investigator”, I’d be a billionaire. Seriously, there’s like 1 million of these guys and I didn’t care for most of them. Yes, I thought Amon, Mado and his daughter, and Juzu were fine… But the rest are just bland and forgettable. I can’t even remember most of their names or even what their back stories were. It really cuts the story thin because a lot of these guys die during the last three volumes and I felt nothing for them. I understand that they were trying to give the feeling that the “Doves” was this really large organization that had many different members, sections, and subsections… But they failed to do so in a way that didn’t just feel incredibly dragged out yet simultaneously being so uninformative. And this is where I think the six part saga Star Wars by George Lucas did much better. With the Jedi order, the writers chose wisely to focus on only one or two Jedi at any given time so that we could grow more attached to them. And even when new Jedi are featured in the story, they would be only explored and analyzed through the eyes of the main character at that point in the narrative. This is helpful because we have a frame of reference to compare the supporting cast too. However, Tokyo Ghoul fails to do this. Rather than having one private investigator be the focus of that part of the story, the narrative tries and fails to focus on all of them. This causes Amon (a character that I really enjoyed by the way) to get lost in his own subplot. This issue ricochets into a bunch of other smaller problems over the course of the series because it makes the larger story a little bit hard to keep track of. For example there is this ghoul called “The Owl” that the “Doves” were looking for. This is introduced via throwaway lines from the “special investigators” during the Aogiri arc. However, this was a poor way to introduce what would become a vital plot point because I already had a very difficult time keeping track of all the other “Doves”. Thus, a significant revelation gets lost within a haystack of other meaningless junk.
I also didn’t like that a lot of Ken’s friends were pointless. Touka was a massive example of this. Yes, she did teach him how to fight during I believe the first four or five volumes of the story. But after that, she does nothing of importance the story. In fact, both of these characters only meet once before the final battle and that’s it. The story could’ve killed her off prior to the final battle, and nothing would change. Yes, that would be one less character that Ken would have in his friend group…but any one of those friends could have filled the role that Touka does after the Aogiri arc. You could also apply this to The Gourmet as well since he is just a glorified cheerleader for Ken after being defeated by him.
My other issue is with the old guy that runs the cafe designed to shelter ghouls. It is a plot twist that apparently he was the father of “The Owl”, that he founded the Aogiri originally, and that he worked for this “secret organization” that ends up killing his human wife. To put it bluntly, absolutely none of this was fleshed out in anyway that I found plausible and the overall execution felt contrived as hell. I honestly think that there was no reason to connect this character is such a ridiculous backstory. Couldn’t the old guy just be an ordinary ghoul that helps Ken grow as a character instead of a stupid mystery box?!
Another massive gripe I have is that there’s way too many factions in this story but almost none of them matter during the stories climax. You have the “Doves”, the Aogiri, Dr.Kane and his artificial ghoul twins, and the people running the cafe. Only the first and last entries on that list actually matter. The other two just sort of just vanish. I know the doctor and at least one of the twins survived, and I know most of the Aogiri leadership survived their story arc… So why the hell were they not in the story’s climax?! It doesn’t even bother to explain it in a way that makes sense. Now, some people are going to defend this creative decision by explaining that this series has a sequel -Tokyo Ghoul: RE – that would potentially answer some of these questions. And I think that’s a dumb argument because I shouldn’t need to consult any outside material to make sense of the current story. For example, “The Empire Strikes Back” still makes sense narratively speaking even if “Return of the Jedi” didn’t exist. Yes, there were loose ends in that movie that are addressed in the sequel, but that’s entirely different from making sense of plot points that didn’t make sense previously. In other words, I shouldn’t have to watch Tokyo Ghoul: RE to understand Tokyo Ghoul. And even then, this is still a moot point because Ken dies in Tokyo Ghoul in such a way where the story really does feel over. My point is that Tokyo Ghoul: Re would obviously feel like a pointless sequel rather than an authentic extension of its predecessor. And if it was supposed to be one big story, why not just have Tokyo Ghoul: RE be in the same series as Tokyo Ghoul?!
And this leads into probably why I end up not enjoying this series nearly as much as I could have… The final battle was overdone. There were way too many characters to keep track of and I honestly didn’t care about most of them. Seriously there was these two ghouls known as the Monkey and [Holy crap I forgot the name of the other one] that were defending the café from the “Doves”. And the story acts like it’s this big tragic thing. But I was bored because I had no sense of who these characters were, what their stake was in this conflict, and why they were even there. It would’ve been nice if they actually had any real importance to the story leading up to this conflict, but they don’t. They barely have any screen time at any point prior to this, and their deaths are as hollow as humanly possible. And even the “Doves” have this issue too. A lot of them are just faceless/forgettable characters that barely got any development. So the entire conflict most of the time felt like two armies of characters I didn’t care about. And given that this was supposed to be the climax of the story, that’s not a good sign.
And even with that aside, I thought the battle itself was so over the top and edgy but I actually thought it was kind of funny. If you thought people in Star Wars lost their limbs too often, just wait until you see this. People are actively getting their hands, legs, and heads chopped off constantly in this final battle. The reason that it’s particularly jarring is because there wasn’t this much dismemberment during any of the other battles/fights throughout the course of this series. So this fight feels disproportionately and feels totally inconsistent with the rest of the series. I get that it’s the climax, but it feels like the writer just wanted to make everything extra bloody to give the illusion of any of this was impactful. It very much rhymes with the whole “bigger is better approach”. In other words, I could totally see the writer thinking to himself “if I put a lot of blood and dismemberment into this part of the story, then it will automatically be well written!” It doesn’t work like that. You have to have characters you can connect to… Which this battle doesn’t have most of the time.
Yeah I could go on all day but why the final battle was absolutely nonsensical… But I think I’ll just stop here. Overall the manga was fine. It had a really strong start and a pretty solid middle part, but it took a huge nose dive towards the end to the point where I can’t even take it seriously. If I had to guess why so many people love this manga series… I would guess it was due to Ken’s amazing character arc, the strong arc style, and the great action scenes. I mean I guess if you turn your brain off and you don’t think too much about it, it is really good. But if you actually dig into the writing of this thing… You’re gonna be in for a rude awakening. As for my own personal verdict, I thought it was OK. It’s 3.43/5.00 stars for me.
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