Nov 19, 2020
By far the best thing I have ever had the pleasure of watching. Every single moment and frame, from the sound design, to the art style, to the animation, tells and riveting, layered and dynamic story.
The story is about the struggles of ghouls vs humans and about the multiple perspectives that this struggle entails. Humans represent the stoic and yet hypocritical side of the story with how they claim ghouls are immoral for killing and eating humans for the sake of their survival, yet humans do the same exact thing to ghouls in order to protect their own species through the work of the
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detectives. Ghouls on the other hand display the very opposite side of the spectrum, with the unhinged and at time epicurean side of the story, they kill and eat sometimes for food and sometimes for sport and their own personal enjoyment. The main character lies in the middle of these two extremes and is an ex human turned into a ghoul, he has the battle with his own nature and fight to maintain balance for on one hand he still upholds the morality of his human side but is forced to engage with the ghouls and consume humans in order to survive due to his new ghoul nature. There are points where his ghoul nature gets the better of him and he relapses and falls into eating humans and almost killing the ones he cares about showing how this is not too dissimilar to the concept of ones base instincts acting against their morality and then falling into the temptation, "the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak" as you will. This culminates to the fight scenes where he has to literally fight the embodiments of both sides of the spectrum he is struggling with, both the hypocritical humankind, and the decadent ghoulkind.
When it comes to the artwork the style can morph into many different schools of thought, in some scenes the architecture is brutalist representing the cold and desperate situation is in, however at other times the architecture is gothic and rustic, representing a more homely and safe experience, or even one of growth and development in the case of gothic. When the environment is destroyed it not only signals the presence of danger but the challenge of the ideology that is being upheld in the establishment. For example the main character, Ken is trapped into a large neoclassical building, this building represents the epicurean take of those that love to kill and eat humans for sport of characters such as Shu (a subtle nod with the architecture calling back the roman and greek decadence of the late roman empire with bacchanal festivals being common place). Ken then destroys the building showing his opposition to the establishment of the ghoul epicurean class due to his human morality. To top off all of this the animation is fluid and thrilling.
Sound wise the show barely even needs a review, every single song in the show is a well known classic amongst the anime community, from its opening to its closing and all the background music which are not only great pieces of music in their own right, but also masterfully connect with the story and artwork to the point of it being tearfully good.
When it comes to the characters of the show I do not want to delve too much into each and every single one but I would like to say that if you have any philosophical books under your belt you will enjoy every single one, each one represents different ideas and ideologies that combine and complement each other masterfully.
Overall I would say this show definitely deserves a 10/10 and is by far my favorite anime of all time. I would recommend this anime to anyone I know and personally it has changed my life and the very way I view the world. Everyone should watch this at least once in their life.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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