| I recently finished watching all of the Tokyo Ghoul Anime (all 4 seasons) and I am not only impressed at how bad it got, but also very sad because this show could’ve been so good. Tokyo Ghoul is another show featuring monsters that look like humans that need to eat humans to survive, similarly to the demons in Demon Slayer and the vampires in Shiki (or just any vampires I guess). However unlike both of those anime, Tokyo Ghoul is from the perspective of a ghoul named Ken Kaneki. Kaneki was human initially but after some shenanigans in episode 1, Kaneki is turned into a ghoul without his knowledge. He finds out that he can now only eat human flesh, and he will be hunted down by the anti-ghoul organization called the CCG. The beginning of the first season handles this very well by showing everything Kaneki goes through as he figures out he's a ghoul. It then also begins to humanize the ghouls through Kaneki finding a coffee shop called Anteiku. Anteiku is secretly run by ghouls and also a place for ghouls to live. All the ghouls found here are shown to desire a peaceful life without the need to kill humans (they eat humans who have already died, mostly suicide victims). The first season of Tokyo Ghoul has some very strong ideas. It questions if the ghouls are actually evil and also presents a problematic cycle of violence, however due to the lack of communication between the two sides neither of these issues are able to resolve. The strongest episode of the season has one ghoul shown that revenge is not the answer, and also has Kaneki realize the problem that is the lack of communication. He then also decides he must be the one to bring the 2 sides together and get them to find peace. I found these ideas and Kaneki's drive to create peace extremely strong and saw it as great build-up to the second season. However looking back on this season it is clear the writers were not completely focused on developing these themes. This is shown in the storylines taking place at the beginning and end of the season. However, there was still imense potential for the show to improve in the second season. All they had to do was cut out the unnecessary fight scenes and pointless edge and replace it with plot lines centered around the themes which created the heaviest scenes of season 1. We also had this main character Kaneki who had realized his need to further these themes and because of that had great potential in season 2. Of course, that's not what happened. Kaneki joins the ghouls organization who had brutally tortured him last season (???) and then gets almost no screen time for most of the season, spending most of this time rolling around on the floor or looking edgy. Ok, so Kaneki isnt doing anything, but there were other characters in season 1. Like Touka, a female ghoul who was starting to realize that revenge wasn't a good solution. What does she do in season 2? She goes to school. And runs a lot. Literally nothing important. We also had Hinami, a girl who lost her mother but was still able to hold back her anger and deliver an extremely powerful moment back in season 1. Does she have any new special moments like she had with Touka is season 1? No, she does nothing. Neither of these characters develop themselves or cause any development for anyone else. Instead of continuing to develop the characters with huge potential, this season begins the show's long-running problem of having too many characters. It attempts to put the focus on many other ghouls and even a lot of CCG members, but almost none of them get any development or a satisfying resolution to the their stories. The character problem becomes even more obvious in the final battle of the season, which has multiple CCG members we've never seen before randomly appear. There's also a lot of focus put on 2 random Anteiku ghouls who had no development before this fight and get no new development during the fight, leaving a large portion of the climax with much less emotion than it should. Season 1 of Tokyo Ghoul seemed like a very good story pulled down by a lack of focus and questionable story decisions. It was very possible for season 2 to build on the best parts of season 1 to become amazing. However instead of building on the best parts of season 1, season 2 decided to build on the major problems of the first season, basically making those parts the entire show. Along with the problems leftover from season 1, season 2 adds the problem of having too many characters, causing none of them to get a good amount of development. All of this along with no conclusion added up to make season 2 extremely disappointing. |
| Tokyo Ghoul is simply wasted potential. As you stated, the franchise fixated on its previous flaws, and only dug its own grave. I subsequently dropped season 3 and have stopped following the series. I completely agree with your stance on the subject. |
| Enjoy! |
KiwiKev23 said: S1 was decent,nothing special but the last episode was done well . After s1 everything kinda goes down the drain pretty much . It half followed the manga half doesn’t . In both the seasons of re, your mean't to know what happened in the manga so if you were an anime only watcher, you wouldn't get some of things that happened(cos they never adapted it) . I agree with everything u've told about the character development and the abundance of characters with no background or character .Anime could've been so much more if they could've got a 25 episode 1st or 2nd season . Honestly yeah the last episode of season 1 was done well but that whole story line is just a complete deviation from what the show should've been focusing on which is why I have a problem with it |
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