Hi,

Today I want to review a series of a genre that I usually don't care about. People who read my LJ regularly probably know that I'm not too much into dark and depressing series.
And I hate zombie-stuff and cannibalism. But the series I'm going to introduce now has all that .... and if you're like me you probably want to close this window and don't care, but wait!

You're probably wondering how I even got into this series when I usually don't touch this kind of genre. It was REALLY just a huge coincidence that had me watch the first episode of the series.
The title sounded familiar because I knew that one of my favorite voice actors (Mamoru Miyano) would be in it - which might have been the final push. ;P



I do admit that I had a hard time watching the first episode.
Like mentioned before I cannot take zombie-like crap and cannibalism and things like that very well. (And that although I do watch all kind of horror movies and stuff ... but zombie-crap is just not mine.)
I had a hard time not throwing up - not only in the first episode but in a few others as well (and all those crunchy sounds ... bleeeh uuhh ... !!)


BUT! The first episode and even more the second got me totally interested and I couldn't stop watching.
There are so many interesting relations between the characters, so many philosophic hints (mainly in the anime) and .... AAAH!!!


First things first.
The series starts rather normal. We get to know Kaneki (his first name is Ken, but EVERYONE calls him Kaneki, so let's just go with that) and Hide.
They're just two normal university boys hanging out in a café and obviously best friends. Kaneki is a very quiet boy who likes reading. He has lost his parents at a very young age, but his lively friend Hide has always been there for him.



They hang out in a café because there's a girl that Kaneki likes.
It's like a miracle when that girl approaches him and sets up a date. Hide is impressed as well.



The good old days when everything was still ok. Oh, how I miss thy!

However, .... that date will change the life of Kaneki and Hide forever (and even while typing this I feel like crying ...).

The date that Kaneki was looking forward to ends in a disaster.
While it sounds like the girl is confessing to him, she's actually about to eat Kaneki. Gross, I know.
That's because she's not a human, but a ghoul.



Right when Kaneki is about to be eaten, something heavy falls onto both of them from above at a construction site.
Next thing Kaneki knows is that he wakes up in a hospital. A doctor just took the organs of the girl who was already dead anyways (?!) and implanted them into Kaneki.
The problem .... she was not human, but a ghoul.

Of course, Kaneki doesn't know that, but suddenly no matter what he eats it tastes horrible.
When he finally gets home he tries everything he has in his fridge, but nothing would stay in his mouth. He throws up immediately.
He soon notices that he's craving for meat ........... fresh meat.

Kaneki is locking himself up in his apartment, not even contacting his best friend Hide - who is very worried, of course.



One night he's walking around outside and cannot control his hunger anymore. Driven by a delicious scent he runs into another ghoul who's eating ......
That ghoul doesn't want to share his prey and attacks Kaneki but then a girl appears and beats that ghoul away.
Kaneki knows that ghoul. She's working at the café he had been frequenting. So, she's also a ghoul .... and Kaneki is about to lose his mind.



Here's a trailer that doesn't justify the awesomeness of the series, but I couldn't find a better one (this has German subtitles, couldn't find an English version ..):





I don't want to spoil you with any more details.
Let me just give you a summary of what happens next (no spoilers yet): Kaneki gets to know some nice ghouls who don't kill people to eat fresh meat (they take corpses that just had committed suicide instead ....).
He's drifting more and more into the world of the ghouls, struggling because he doesn't know anymore whether he's human or a ghoul.



Kaneki is a "one-eyed ghoul" as he's half human, half ghoul. That's very rare. Usually it's not possible that a ghoul and a human can have a child together, that's why it's rare.
He soon gets the nickname "eyepatch" as he has to hide his "ghoul eye" when he's a human and he hides his "human eye" when he's wearing his ghoul mask .....

He has a hard time attending university, not being able to tell his best friend Hide what's going on.
He cannot eat human food anymore. The only thing that's possible to consume for ghouls is coffee (and human flesh ...).



There are a lot of crazy and dangerous ghouls out there.
Like the "gourmet" (who's a ghoul who wants to eat Kaneki although he's also a ghoul / half-ghoul .. whatever). I swear Mamoru Miyano is doing the crazy shit soooooooooooooooooooo well! Just like with Kagami Light (Death Note). I'm loving it!

Kaneki has to go through A LOT! What happens to him towards the end of season 1 is really tough shit .....

But the ghouls don't only have other ghouls to worry about. There's the ghoul investigators ("doves") who are humans that are hunting and killing ghouls.
Just like among the ghouls there are "good" and "bad" investigators. Some hold a grudge because a family member was killed by ghouls and vice versa.
The relationship between all the characters, their past, the fact that you just don't know anymore what's right or wrong or who you should cheer for .... that's what make the series so interesting.



There are characters you'll love and you'll hate but it's certainly going to be different for everyone.
For me, for example, I couldn't take Mado (his daughter Akira is somewhat ok), but who's really getting on my nerves is Juzo / Rei (though I'm sure he has a LOT of fans out there ...).

Spoilers ahead !!!! ↓↓↓↓↓↓↓










Spoilers for season 2 and the second half of the manga:

After the torture Kaneki had to go through he's mentally broken. His hair turned white. He ate Rize and Jason. He's a cannibal now.
From here on the anime and the manga are very different.



I started with the anime and I liked it a lot better. The soundtrack is beautiful. The philosophic backgrounds in some scenes are breathtaking ... like the conversation between Shinohara (was it?) and the manager of Anteiku .....
... and of course the talk between Kaneki and Hide in Anteiku right before it all blows up ..... and the final scene when Kaneki walks towards the "doves" with dead(?!) Hide in his arms, snow falling down. THAT WAS SO INSANELY BEAUTIFUL AND SAD!!!!!!
Like .... somehow I made it through all the crap that happened, but from the start I knew that there's only ONE thing that should NEVER happen and that is Hide's death! ......



The fact that it was an open ending where we didn't know what happened to Hide and Kaneki sucked big time. Apart from that there were still SO many unanswered questions ... it's like .. the series had so much potential and they had just blown it up in a few seconds.

LUCKILY the manga gives us a lot more answers.
Kaneki doesn't join Aogiri, but we completely miss those scenes I liked (points up).
The doc who operated on Kaneki actually knew what he did and he plays a HUGE role in the manga (is he ever mentioned again in the anime? don't think so ...) - with that a lot of things make more sense!
Rize is still alive! There's still hope for the manager? What's Yomo's and Rize's relationship?
And for me one of the biggest surprises were that Hide was open about his relation to Kaneki and that all the doves knew about it ..... kind of ... I don't know ... changes the whole series a lot in my eyes.
We also have an open ending here, but at least there's Tokyo Ghoul re for that.



Spoilers for the new series Tokyo Ghoul :re

Sasaki ....
I really don't know yet what to think about this all.
I'm glad that Kaneki is alive and kicking. And there were times when I thought that it's maybe better for Kaneki to just die as he suffered so much.
But finally he seems to be somewhat happy .... but he's not Kaneki anymore. Not at all. Well, apart from a few things, of course.

I wonder what will happen to Hina who is captured at the moment. He slowly seems to remember, but if he doesn't hurry up Hina might be killed. T_T



But that aside ... WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO HIDE???????????????

I read a spoiler somewhere (though it must be false as I've read up to the newest chapter and we still haven't heard anything about Hide) that Kaneki ate Hide to survive. Like .. Hide offered himself.
If that's true, I'd completely freak out. That's the WORST thing that could actually have happened. Not only is Hide dead but killed ... no, EATEN by his best FRIEND???? ARE YOU SERIOUS???? NEEEVEEEER!!!!! (... but that would explain why Sasaki lost his memories and refuses to remember ...)

I hope we soon get to know what happened to Hide as soon as Sasaki / Kaneki gets his memories back, but at the same time I'm afraid to know.
We also don't know for sure yet what happened to Amon.
But we do know what happened to Takizawa and .... now ... I'm really worried about Amon and Hide.
Though, Hide was with Kaneki at that time, so the crazy doc shouldn't have gotten him. If at all then the doves. And they wouldn't do anything to Hide other than telling him to stay away from Sasaki now that he has lost his memories?! ... AAAH!!!

I dunno. The series has gone into a direction I really didn't expect.
I thought that maybe one day Kaneki could be the link between the human and the ghoul world and make it a peaceful relationship ... though I know that such a happy-go-lucky ending wouldn't suit the series at all ....

But there are still so many unanswered questions, there are some new interesting charas in the re series .... and I just cannot stop reading until I know what happened to Hide!!! ;__________________;








*sigh* .....
Anybody here who has read / watched Tokyo Ghoul?
Discuss away!!!~