As the title of the anime suggests, the story takes place in Tokyo. There exists a race of beings known as “ghouls” who look and behave like humans for the most part, but change their form and take on unique abilities as their eyes redden. They are a menacing looking bunch for sure! While during day to day life one cannot tell if a person is a ghoul or not, they do have one trait that stands out dramatically. This of course, is that they eat humans.
Our protagonist – the young Ken Kaneki is a typical college “nerd”. He’s shy, polite, and enjoys reading. His life takes a downward spiral however when through the course of a freak accident he becomes part ghoul. This creates an interesting dynamic as our relatively boring hero is now turned into a monster – one that is feared and loathed by the general public. Over the span of the anime we see the trials and tribulations Ken goes through and we are faced with themes such as the loss of innocence, injustice in society, having to come to terms with unfortunate circumstances and making the best of it, as well as the justification of both sides – humans and ghouls.
The plot certainly has its fair share of emotional scenes as it is just as much a drama as it is an action show, and by the end of it one would have developed some sort of connection with Ken, even if he isn’t the most likeable person at first. His character suffers from having to be portrayed as overly weak – this leaves audiences impatient and constantly wishing for him to take a stand. When he finally does however, it’s worth it!
What the story suffers from in this adaptation is the pacing of the show. It starts fairly strong but there are lulls in between where either nothing consequential happens, or one is left thinking “how is this relevant to the actual story?” In a show where there are only a total of 12 episodes, each episode counts and while the finale makes it worth it, some may have to trudge through an episode or two they might find boring or useless.
Another unfortunate product of having such a short course for an adaptation is having to either rush or completely skip certain details. The cast of characters are richly developed in their own ways in the manga, however the anime fails to capture much of it, and we are only given shadows of characters who are a lot deeper than they seem. If one hasn’t read the manga, perhaps it can be overlooked but it is still a desire left unfulfilled.
On the whole, the story manages to do its job when it comes to delivering a grim personal story, and ultimately showing the development of a character. The more prominent side characters are quite likeable as well – in fact, arguably more so than Ken himself.
What one should look for and understand when watching this is that it’s about the development of Ken – how he progresses as a character, his internal strife, how he comes to terms with his situation and becomes who he is. If one knows that this is the focus of the show, perhaps they won’t be disappointed by other factors that aren’t as strong.
There’s more to a nice looking anime than just a nice art style though. The animation is important as well – how smoothly it runs during action sequences, if it looks sharp and well put-together, whether or not CGI is used appropriately, etc. In this regard, Tokyo Ghoul delivers excellently. Excellent creative vision by the animators helped make some great looking action sequences, where the motions of the characters flowed nice yet tightly, and interesting effects were used to emphasize certain sequences – especially the gorier ones. Gore is one thing the show does not skimp out on in the least.
