Tokyo Ghoul √A

Ken Kaneki has finally come to accept the monstrous, flesh-craving part of himself that he has feared and despised for so long. After escaping captivity and torture, Kaneki joins Aogiri Tree—the very militant ghoul organization that had abducted him, leading his friends to question his true motive and loyalty.

As tension between the government and the ghouls continues to rise, the Commission of Counter Ghoul, the government's specialized anti-ghoul agency, has intensified their efforts to completely purge Tokyo of ghouls. This threatens the transient peace of Kaneki's friends and former comrades—the ghouls at the Anteiku coffee shop. Aware of the dangerous situation, Kaneki faces several battles that puts his precious fleeting humanity on the line.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Kaneki, Ken Main

Hanae, Natsuki Japanese

Kirishima, Touka Main

Amamiya, Sora Japanese

Suzuya, Juuzou Supporting

Kugimiya, Rie Japanese

Uta Supporting

Sakurai, Takahiro Japanese

Nagachika, Hideyoshi Supporting

Toyonaga, Toshiyuki Japanese

Tsukiyama, Shuu Supporting

Miyano, Mamoru Japanese

Eto Supporting

Sakamoto, Maaya Japanese

Arima, Kishou Supporting

Namikawa, Daisuke Japanese

Kirishima, Ayato Supporting

Kaji, Yuuki Japanese

Amon, Koutarou Supporting

Konishi, Katsuyuki Japanese

Cook, Justin Producer

Maruyama, Hajime Producer

Danno, Yoshito Producer

Soga, Hidetada Producer

Reviews

Nov 23, 2024

Cersil

Recommended

During the second season, I couldn't help but think that the plot reflected the battle between the scriptwriters and the mangaka, which ended epically with the victory of the project management, who had their own ideas about the series. And the most important thing for them is decency, not to be taken off the air, and therefore the censorship in "Tokyo Ghoul" will be crude and ruthless, up to and including drawing anything but the affected character.
Because the creators of the anime pulled the rug out from under each other, refusing to make any concessions to each other, the adaptation itself came out piecemeal. ... The plot was cut more than once and more than twice, resulting in "unexpected" twists without logic or justification. The screenwriters were torn between the manga and the directives from above, so that a viewer who watches two or three episodes in a row runs the risk of getting lost in the multiple twists and turns of the plot, freaking out and giving up.

Unfortunately, it is impossible to give an example of the most strikingly unreasonable decisions of the main character, because it is already a spoiler. But I assure you, your logic will be infinitely offended.
A particular disappointment is the beginning of the second season. For some reason, the scriptwriters decided to mangle an almost finished product (the manga) based on God knows what calculations, but miscalculated so monstrously with the beginning of the series. Perhaps Ishida would have died defending this part, because the opening is entirely in his style: the sprawling watercolours, the flowers representing all aspects of human life, and the protagonist static in oblivion. All of this may be beautiful, but most people expect something else from "Tokyo Ghoul": action, cruelty, struggle, not contemplation of the futility of existence.
Speaking of futility, the deaths in this season were clumsy and pathetic, most of them were never killed, and if they were, it would have been better not to touch them. If most of the deaths in the manga have something to teach us, to prove some author's thesis, so that the reader can't take his eyes off them, the anime has managed to level all the mangaka's achievements.
I'll tell you a secret: the last episode of the first season contained everything that could be squeezed out of the story, everything else just promises some kind of life lesson to be taught to Kaneki and the audience.

A bit about the characters: the active ones are no more than a dozen. The rest are put out for epic contemplation behind the acting ones. They're just set pieces that pop up a few times for a pathos line or a tail/sword swing. And you, the viewer, don't understand why they exist at all. What do they change? And if they do, why? Tired of an active character? Take the inactive one and kill him quickly. Why does such a strong character, who has been twirling in front of the viewer for the entire 12 episodes, kick the bucket so quickly? Because. And that's all the viewer is left with. Following the same pattern, the active character takes out the inactive ones in packs, so that they do not even have time to open their mouths.
On the dynamics of the fights and the battle schema: The decisions made by the scriptwriters will make you cry out of hopelessness. Favourite scheme: to let a large number of people become cannon fodder with rifles, and when they're finished - to feed all the ghouls in the area, only then to finally release officers with wunderwaffles. At the same time, superiors at all levels sincerely see it as a tactic. And they accept wills in piles.
The scene in which an old lady - just a civilian - was injured was particularly shocking. According to the scenario, the epic battle with the collapse of buildings is taking place in a residential area where no one has been evacuated. No one is interested in what is going on, no one is looking out of the windows to see the neighbourhood collapsing, everyone is sitting at home, probably drinking tea.

There are a lot of these weird bloopers. They accumulate from episode to episode and become so irritating that you try to finish the anime out of sheer stubbornness.
Fans of the manga - I do not recommend watching it. Fans of the first season - give it a try.
I still rate it highly, although I have a very negative attitude towards the second season. The reason is that some parts of the plot of the manga were still realised, and for that it was worth watching everything.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Apr 13, 2023

Zapper7

Mixed Feelings

This anime was nothing special or neither it was extremely bad, it just felt empty and had nothing to offer compared to the first season which was just amazing in my eyes (for someone who has not read the manga). also this anime looks like a bridge for the upcoming season which i will be watching in the future and maybe then i would edit this review right here,, overall this is not a season which would make you go wow! or anything like that, only reason you would want to continue watching this season would be the excitement that the first season might have ... filled you up with

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Aug 7, 2022

Runasius

Not Recommended

What is it with Japanese creators coming up with these weird titles. “Root A”? There’s practically nothing in the series that even warrants such a title. Why not call it “Tokyo Ghoul 2” instead? Anyways, I’m getting ahead of myself, I’m sure Sui Ishida has good intentions for the inclusion of a square root and a letter fused together.

Personally I didn’t think this was like the worse thing I’ve ever seen like many people make it out to be. But, then again I’ve seen a lot of bad anime – the medium is just littered with trash from top to bottom. Sure, the show completely ... threw away the idea of trying to incorporate theme exploration and worldbuilding from season one in favor of just mindless violence, but there were a couple of moments that I felt were well handled. The sound design and atmosphere in this anime for one are fantastic. The show really did a great job at making you feel uneasy at certain points with its visuals. Certain locations within the show really felt like they had this ominous presence throughout and the calm moments really did feel like downtime after tons of bloodshed. The OST, unfortunately, is nothing special as a lot of tracks feel similar to the first season. Yutaka Yamada is a master at his craft and it’s primarily for this reason why he was chosen for big projects like the Bleach live-action adaptation and the anime adaptation of Vinland Saga.

But this is where my praise ends. The show for one likes to focus more on character interactions and battles than the actual plot itself. This would be fine if say they set out to develop a character but most of the conversations throughout the show just boil down to a lot more mundane crap, rather than anything central to the overall plot. Take for instance, talking about studying for university exams or attending a book signing, etc. Not to mention the character development in this seems to be non-existent. Kaneki, in fact, devolves from a timid yet relatable protagonist into this depressed, stoic, moody teenager, kind of like Sasuke from Naruto. The rest of the cast fare no better; Amon is still your average vengeance seeker, Touka loses a bit of her characterization so she could become even more useless as a character… you get the point. A lot of characters in this are underutilized and completely shoved to the side. Two twins are introduced early one but then they are never brought up again for the rest of the show. The show even tries to add even more psychopaths to the mix, that an anime like Psycho Pass would be completely jealous of it. Let’s see, there’s a psychotic little kid who likes to harm people and is voiced by Rie Kugimiya, and there’s another ghoul character that looks like freaking Tarzan. Also, again, why is Touka just being so useless? She’s supposed to be one of the main characters and all she does is spend time sulking, with her side plot having absolutely no bearing on the main story. And then when the plot actually tries to progress all it involves in some senseless violence between Ghouls and CCG members.

Speaking of emotional moments, the worse aspect of TG root A is just how emotionally manipulative it is as a whole. The show tries to get you to care for certain characters that aren’t well developed enough or just do not deserve it as a whole. Certain characters suddenly pull a heroic sacrifice for some stupid reason and the music suddenly goes somber as if to say out loud “this guy is dying, are you crying yet?” All the emotional moments here feel way too forced and it works even less when these characters you’re supposed to be caring for are nothing but psychos. Also, there are also more flashbacks here than a generic Naruto episode and they happen at nearly every emotional moment. Speaking of Naruto, it does seem like the folks at Studio Pierrot are trying to turn this into a darker version of their ninja centric shonen adaptation. The interactions between Kaneki and Touka do mirror that of Sasuke and Sakura towards the latter half of that series, and the Aogiri Tree feel very similar to the Akatsuki. Not to mention that both series start off strong and then start to drag immensely towards the finishing line.

The fights now are more or less just like every battle shonen out there. Full of random asspulls and power-ups. And to make matters worse they aren’t even well animated. Yeah, Pierrot isn’t the right studio for Tokyo Ghoul it seems. They’ve got the soundtrack and the atmosphere on point, but the animation leaves much to be desired. It’s very lackluster with lots of cuts and corners being taken and characters moving about in a very stilted fashion. None of the fights here feel as remotely satisfying as in the first season and therefore, it’s just all forgettable.

When I said that I didn’t feel it was as bad as people made it out to be, I meant that I didn’t think it deserved a 1 or a 2 out of 10. So I’m just going to give it a high 3/10 instead. It is much inferior to the first season and chances are if Pierrot doesn’t learn from their mistakes then I’m not looking forwards to the third. Read the manga instead, or just watch Parasyte, it’s pretty similar except the execution’s loads better.

Reviewer’s Rating: 2

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