Tokyo Ghoul √A

By: Robert Murphy 

It’s hard enough to be living in a world surrounded by monsters that you cannot see, it’s a whole other issue when you get thrown into that world and be expected to survive. This is exactly what happened to Ken Kaneki, an average student who loved to read his books and spend his days off in his head. This would all change though when he is attacked by a woman that turned out to be a ghoul, creatures that feed on human flesh and prey on human beings. He is fortunately saved by an unknown presence but in order to survive, parts of the ghoul were implanted in his body and permanently altered him into a mix between human and ghoul. After a series of grueling events, we find Kaneki finally awakening his powers as a ghoul. Viewers saw brief glimpses of his strength all throughout the first season but Tokyo Ghoul √A starts out with Kaneki’s powers being unleashed in full upon the world. We see a new, quieter but fierce presence from his character and I’ve eagerly awaited to see what he is now capable of and what lies in store. So without any further stalling, let’s dig in.

I am not going to lie, many of the issues that I had with the first season of Tokyo Ghoul had stemmed from Ken Kaneki not being an engaging main protagonist. He was a character that seemed to have great power locked away inside of him but was too afraid to use it. His character should have gone through the typical transformation that you see main characters do in order to get stronger but he never did, he kept getting his butt kicked and whining about it. I do however understand why he didn’t want to unleash his powers, in order to become more powerful as a ghoul you need to feed on humans, you need to let go of your humanity and that wasn’t something Kaneki wanted to do. Now though I have fallen in love instantly with his character transformation. Kaneki has dawned a new white haired look and gone all leather on us and it is frankly very epic. But, it isn’t just the fact that he looks better or even that he can now put up an actually fight, his character actually has some depth and interest to him now.

In Tokyo Ghoul √A, Kaneki is on the opposite side of things and joined forces with the very people that employed Jason last season and effectively got him kidnapped. Aogiri Tree is the name of this organization and they’re a group filled with insanely powerful ghouls (probably could tell in the last episode of season one). His reasons for joining the group are a little confusing to me, even after watching the season all the way through it’s still a tough one to nail down. It’s sort of one of those “I did this to protect you” things that you see people do but it ends up seeming too convoluted. Regardless of the reason, it puts Kaneki in an interesting position with things and his struggles became far less whiney in nature. He doesn’t go all full ghoul and starts killing humans, quite the opposite in fact and he goes through many new transformations and issues. It’s far more of an engaging process this time around and I was more invested in Kaneki as a main character.

As for the story, things mainly revolve around the inner struggles that I have spoken about at great lengths for Kaneki and his overall transformation. It may not seem like it but the whole series is really his show this time around. In Tokyo Ghoul’s first season viewers were subjected to a lot of introductions and character development that further bogged down the story. It seemed to take quite a significant amount of time to introduce all the players and people that you will be seeing throughout the shows entirety and it left little time for anything else. Now, characters have all been established on either side of the story and the new ones that come along get introduce but develop gradually as the story goes on. It seems the developers this time around found their groove with bringing in new people and were now free to work with the solid characters that got introduced.

Amon, the by the books CCG agent, is another example of how things are progressing more smoothly for characters in this second season. Amon was a bit bland and hard to figure out, you knew he had strong convictions but he still never stood out too much, perhaps it was his insane partner outshining him that caused this. This time around though you see a lighter and stronger side to his character when he is not only partnered up with Akira (daughter to his former partner) but you also see into his past and what made him become a CCG inspector. I burst out laughing when Akira finally goes out to drinks with Amon and another inspector and he ends up staying the night at her place because she drank too much. A lecherous thought pops into his head and he begins to do push-ups, almost like his own version of a cold shower.

This experience wasn’t entirely perfect however, there were four or five different characters that came into the story briefly but quickly disappeared. Two other half ghoul characters (Kuro and Shiro) appear in the story and bring up some memories for Amon and another CCG agent named Juuzou but then quickly disappear, never seen again. During the prison break episode, Aogiri Tree invades a secret CCG prison to release the high level ghouls imprisoned there but one powerful ghoul in particular was meant to be released and this guy ends up beating the snot out of Kaneki and is also never seen again. Perhaps the biggest plot hole character though would be Kaneki’s old friend from his human days, Hide. Hide appears numerous times throughout the season at the CCG headquarters, he apparently becomes some sort of delivery worker. But what is overall confusing about him is when he appears in the final two episodes in CCG armor and is fighting off ghouls. Was he doing it to find Kaneki? Why was he there at all? What was he trying to do the entire time at the CCG?

Confusing questions like this have popped up in my mind more than once with Tokyo Ghoul √A, despite my overall enjoyment of the series there is a fair amount of information that feels left out. This point especially comes up for me when I watched the final episode for the series when things abruptly come to a close. The final episode isn’t a bad one in anyway; it’s a very slow and quiet experience but does a great job of saying a lot about Kaneki’s character and what he’s gone through. The big issue though is that everything piles up and up and you get ready for the big finish and the screen fades to black. No more, no less and you can’t help but wonder what the heck just happened. It isn’t a brilliant cliffhanger to be left with, yes it makes me wonder what’s next but it ends so quickly that it doesn’t explain what you’ve just experienced and really is just bad storytelling.

Despite its problems, I cannot hide my overall enjoyment for Tokyo Ghoul √A. The characters are so much stronger than they were the first time around, before you were bogged down with their introductions and getting to know them took an insane amount of time. Kaneki also becomes a solid lead character for a change, he was so hard to like when you first met him and it was hard to sympathize with him when a lot of his attitude got in the way. The story does need some work though; there felt like plenty of information had been left out in certain areas of the story, plenty of confusing questions needing to be answered and some characters that weren’t explained well. Hopefully with the promise of another season on the horizon the developers can get these questions answered but for now it left a bit of an after taste in my mouth for a show that could have been rock solid.  

Good:

- Kaneki goes through an amazing transformation that makes him a stronger lead character

- Other returning characters are much stronger and more engaging

- A quieter but fantastic story

- What action there was this time around was great

Bad:

- Plenty of new characters get introduced but immediately disappear

- Plot holes and left out information make the story feel like you’re missing something

Scully Rating: 7.8 out of 10