Tokyo Ghoul: A Catastrophe?

Sui Ishida’s Tokyo Ghoul is a Japanese dark fantasy manga series written and illustrated by him. Tokyo Ghoul is set in a parallel universe where ghouls—creatures that resemble people but can only exist by consuming human flesh—dwell secretly among humans, concealing their true nature in order to avoid detection by the government.

A half-ghoul is typically significantly stronger than a pure-blood ghoul in both situations. Only one of the eyes changes into a “red eye” in the case of a half-ghoul. The narrative centers on Ken Kaneki, a student who just escapes a fatal confrontation with Rize Kamishiro, his date, who turns out to be a ghoul and wants to devour him. Kaneki learns that he underwent surgery that caused him to become a half-ghoul after he has recovered.

As is the case with all shonen stories, this one also treats its subject matter superficially in terms of explanation and ridiculously in terms of needlessly violent scenes. The majority of the time is spent watching lifeless individuals mutilate victims while spouting absurdly basic justifications for what’s happening. So, it is impossible to take the ghoul civilization seriously because it is both cartoonishly simplistic and presented in such an exaggerated fashion.

The biggest troll of them all is the way they try to convince you over and again that the main character is gradually learning and becoming into less of a pussy. But that is a deception, as each time one of his superpowers activates and he becomes enraged, it has no lasting effect after the combat. In addition, any so-called character growth he has is really just him copying other people’s personalities rather than developing his own. His combat abilities are a replica of the ghoul whose organs were donated to him; they are not his.

But hold on, perhaps the manga will be great. Everyone who has read it will agree that it seems much better because the pacing is slower, and the cast is much more fully developed. Sorry, but that doesn’t make the plot any better overall. It continues to be badly thought out and again illustrates how a species lives in secret without explaining why they don’t just camp outside morgues and stop. Despite reading hundreds of pages, you won’t advance or learn anything from them.