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By: Robert Murphy
You know how you were told as a kid to never judge a book by it's cover? Well that is something that has never been more apparent in one of the new anime I had been watching, Tokyo Ghoul. In this world you never quite no what is hiding behind a friendly face and you'll probably think twice before asking out that cute girl you've been noticing when you realize she might be a blood thirsty ghoul ready to devour you. This is something Ken Kaneki learns first hand when he meets a young woman, Rize Kamishiro, who after treating him to a lovely day out attempts to eat him. Things however go even more wrong when a near dead Kaneki witnesses her mysterious death and is then rushed to the hospital and implanted with some of Rize's organs. This leaves Kaneki in a borderline between two worlds, the world of humanity and the world of ghouls because he has now become the combination of the two.
The plot to Tokyo Ghoul alone had immediately peeked my interests once I heard about the show a few weeks prior. Things are so immensely dark toned right from the get go as Kaneki is thrown into this tragic fate of being an average Japanese student happily going on reading his books. Then he is now put into a position where in order to survive he must eat human flesh, hide himself from his friends and be surrounded by people he use to fear. However, Kaneki quickly learns that ghouls are not the complete terrors that the world makes them out to be. Many of them are just trying to live relatively normal lives and many even have found ways of surviving without causing too much harm to the human race. This was such a great aspect to the story as we meet more and more ghoul characters through the storyline who would love nothing more than to co-exist with humanity and even some humans are understanding enough to want this as well. A great example of this comes from the relationship between one ghoul named Nishio and his human girlfriend Kimi and where something like this shouldn't be possible in this world it somehow is. Kimi does not care that he is a ghoul and she even offers herself to him at a low point where he needed flesh, if that ain't saying something about a strong partnership I don't know what would.
However, things aren't as simple as all that in the narrative and we dig right back into the darker tones of the show. Not every ghoul is happy trying to live a life of quite solitude especially when you see what the CCG does to many of their kind. The CCG are the ghoul hunting agents who are out to exterminate every ghoul from the face of the Earth by any means necessary. The strongest of these agents are known to ghouls as "Doves" and they are suppose to hunt down "dangerous" ghouls to protect humanity but we are often shown a darker side of this organization and how they're really more about extermination than anything else but with such a high level of fear can you blame their extreme nature? These "dangerous" ghouls though do exist and when you see how some of them are such as the ghoul Jason, you'll understand why there is so much fear. The whole setup is quite ingenious because it shows that not all the humans are good guys for what they're doing but not all ghouls are innocent by any means either. The two sides mainly just look at the bad and it leads to some gruesome confrontations, or at least I assume so do to the fact that scenes with excessive blood get partially cut away from which is a bit of a detraction for such a dark show.
What's also unfortunate about Tokyo Ghoul is the way things are left at the end of the series, the show ended last Thursday and I had no idea that it was over until I didn't see the new episode this past week. It's a very open ending and I'm not saying that it was a bad one, on the contrary I loved every minute of the final episode for this season I just wish it wasn't left so haphazardly. That being said though, here in the first season for the show a whole lot of ground has been covered as the story has introduced multiple characters and multiple storylines in such a short amount of time. I wish more characters were given some attention such as Mado, an eccentric CCG agent to say the least and one who has some back story hinted at but is never fully delved into. This happens a bit through the show, there's plenty of setup and back story cues that never quite develop, maybe in the possible season two we will get our answers.
In the end, Tokyo Ghoul gives off a dark tone and violence that I haven't seen since Deadman Wonderland and it's handled beautifully. There is also a great story here with both ghouls and humans on each side trying to have a life without too much strain but then you have the CCG and the more dominating ghouls looking to turn that all on it's head. I do wish that the story didn't feel so compressed and that there was less setting up but it was still over all enjoyable. I certainly hope that Tokyo Ghoul is due for another season in the future because where things are left off you can just tell that things are going to intensify more and more.
The plot to Tokyo Ghoul alone had immediately peeked my interests once I heard about the show a few weeks prior. Things are so immensely dark toned right from the get go as Kaneki is thrown into this tragic fate of being an average Japanese student happily going on reading his books. Then he is now put into a position where in order to survive he must eat human flesh, hide himself from his friends and be surrounded by people he use to fear. However, Kaneki quickly learns that ghouls are not the complete terrors that the world makes them out to be. Many of them are just trying to live relatively normal lives and many even have found ways of surviving without causing too much harm to the human race. This was such a great aspect to the story as we meet more and more ghoul characters through the storyline who would love nothing more than to co-exist with humanity and even some humans are understanding enough to want this as well. A great example of this comes from the relationship between one ghoul named Nishio and his human girlfriend Kimi and where something like this shouldn't be possible in this world it somehow is. Kimi does not care that he is a ghoul and she even offers herself to him at a low point where he needed flesh, if that ain't saying something about a strong partnership I don't know what would.
However, things aren't as simple as all that in the narrative and we dig right back into the darker tones of the show. Not every ghoul is happy trying to live a life of quite solitude especially when you see what the CCG does to many of their kind. The CCG are the ghoul hunting agents who are out to exterminate every ghoul from the face of the Earth by any means necessary. The strongest of these agents are known to ghouls as "Doves" and they are suppose to hunt down "dangerous" ghouls to protect humanity but we are often shown a darker side of this organization and how they're really more about extermination than anything else but with such a high level of fear can you blame their extreme nature? These "dangerous" ghouls though do exist and when you see how some of them are such as the ghoul Jason, you'll understand why there is so much fear. The whole setup is quite ingenious because it shows that not all the humans are good guys for what they're doing but not all ghouls are innocent by any means either. The two sides mainly just look at the bad and it leads to some gruesome confrontations, or at least I assume so do to the fact that scenes with excessive blood get partially cut away from which is a bit of a detraction for such a dark show.
What's also unfortunate about Tokyo Ghoul is the way things are left at the end of the series, the show ended last Thursday and I had no idea that it was over until I didn't see the new episode this past week. It's a very open ending and I'm not saying that it was a bad one, on the contrary I loved every minute of the final episode for this season I just wish it wasn't left so haphazardly. That being said though, here in the first season for the show a whole lot of ground has been covered as the story has introduced multiple characters and multiple storylines in such a short amount of time. I wish more characters were given some attention such as Mado, an eccentric CCG agent to say the least and one who has some back story hinted at but is never fully delved into. This happens a bit through the show, there's plenty of setup and back story cues that never quite develop, maybe in the possible season two we will get our answers.
In the end, Tokyo Ghoul gives off a dark tone and violence that I haven't seen since Deadman Wonderland and it's handled beautifully. There is also a great story here with both ghouls and humans on each side trying to have a life without too much strain but then you have the CCG and the more dominating ghouls looking to turn that all on it's head. I do wish that the story didn't feel so compressed and that there was less setting up but it was still over all enjoyable. I certainly hope that Tokyo Ghoul is due for another season in the future because where things are left off you can just tell that things are going to intensify more and more.
Good:
- A simply stellar idea and plot
- Characters are all engaging, some are rather dark, others are kind and then there's the completely scary ones
- A great concept of both sides, ghouls and humans, good or bad, neither side is exempt from either
Bad:
- Some loose strands left laying around with the story that I wish were explained
- The ending is left out there and we're left here hanging so hopefully there will be another season to pick up what is left
Scully Rating: 7.5 out of 10
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