Hello everyone. This is Hampnie Hambert coming at you with a new series. Anime Reviews! This series will hopefully help you decide a good series to watch on a rainy day or to discuss about an all time favorite. Also for these reviews I'll try to show as little spoilers as possible.
Now for the first weeks anime I would like to talk about is
Tokyo Ghoul.
The Plot::
The plot to Tokyo Ghoul is this horror/dark fantasy story which takes place in Tokyo, which is haunted by mysterious "ghouls" who are devouring humans. The people of Tokyo live in fear of these mysterious Ghouls everyday. An ordinary college student named Kaneki encounters Rize, a girl who is an avid reader like him, at the café he frequently visits. But little does he know that his fate will change over overnight when he is suddenly thrust into the world of ghouls, creatures who must eat humans for survival, and he constantly struggles to retain his humanity. If you think this is going to be Attack on Titan 2.0, I will tell you right now that it is not. The premise may not sound very original but the execution is top notch, or rather, this applies mostly to the manga and not the anime. Tokyo Ghoul is morally grey and we are exposed to both sides of the story as we explore the conflicts between humans and ghouls. In many instances, the ghouls are even shown as the ones who are being hunted down instead. Now, the anime decided to do something strange and that is switching around the arcs. I was welcome to this at first but afterwards I felt that maybe it wasn't such a great idea. Right after being shown the grey area of the story, it immediately switches to a later arc in the manga which makes you lose track of the grey portion for a while and question where the story is going. The rushing of the anime doesn’t help either and it causes the anime to feel as if it’s going downhill. Pacing problems also lead the anime to cutting out many explanations and details related to the world in Tokyo Ghoul, becoming a shallower story in general. And another funny thing is that the studio who is animating this decided it was a good idea to mess around with and change every detail, I’m guessing in order to squeeze in as much as they can into 12 episodes. Sometimes for the better, but most of the time for the worse. Some dialogue became cheesier, specific scenes less interesting (partly due to rushing and censoring as well), and the anime overall gives off more of a shounen feel. Personally I have nothing against the shounen genre but you do not just go around making a seinen into a shounen. Just no.
The animation:The animation for the most part isn’t bad, but sometimes you can spot some sloppy animation or awkward movements. After all, Studio Pierrot has never been the best with this kind of stuff. Character designs are done fairly well and are very close to the original. The Kagunes and Quinques also look quite nice. However, the anime is heavily censored to the point where a lot of the time you can’t even tell what the hell is going on, so if you do plan on watching the anime, I’d suggest waiting for the Blu-ray DVDs to watch the uncensored version.
The Sound:One of the things that the anime has done right. The voice casting is perfect and very fitting of the characters and their personalities. Soundtrack is great as well but I’ve noticed a lack in variety and the same ones are used repeatedly. The opening captures the anime and the main character very accurately and is probably one of the best openings of this season.
The Characters: For the characters, there are 3 notable ones who represent different views in the story. Touka, the hot headed and rash heroine who represents the ghoul’s side. Amon, who believes that the world is corrupted by ghouls and he provides us with the human’s side. And of course the protagonist Kaneki who is the middle ground. We are also introduced to some crazy and wacky antagonists who never fail to entertain.
However, the characters of the series have by far suffered the most with this adaptation. As I’ve mentioned, the anime without a doubt has some pacing issues most of the time and so we are introduced to a huge cast of characters before having time to care about them. It appears that Studio Pierrot also thinks that character development is boring and decided to flush it down the toilet and get to the action instead which still ends up feeling lacking at times due to the rushing. Lets take our protagonist, Kaneki for example. He seems like a side character at times because of the fact that they've cut out a lot of his development and most of his monologues which I found to be very intriguing in the manga. Kaneki’s development and his gradual progression in the manga are vital to the story so that the development he gets by the end of the anime does not seem out of place. But it seems like an unnatural and shallow transition because of the fact that they’ve hurt his character far too much already. Not to mention that the arc switching screwed it up even further and he starts pulling magical dodging powers out of his ass.
Overall:If I were to look at the anime as a standalone, I think it would be a good-decent anime for most but shallow and rushed for people who may be a little more picky with what they watch.
And if I were to do a short comparison between the anime and manga:
The anime> A rushed shallower retelling of the original, lacking in character development, more shounen esque, a needlessly weakened and dumbed down main character, and censored to hell (for now).
The manga> Very well done story, deep and well developed characters, and it includes lots of foreshadowing and symbolism.
If you're currently watching the anime right now and enjoy it very much, don't be affected by my negativity because this is after all, just my own opinion and I am slightly biased since I love the manga. However, I would urge you to read the manga from chapter 1 if you're an anime only watcher and if you haven’t started this anime yet, I’d recommend reading the manga instead or giving the first episode a try and then going to the manga if you want to get the most out of this series. I won’t say that I can guarantee that you’ll love the manga, but please do at least give it a try and don’t drop it until you’ve reached at least around the 60s chapters. The manga ends quite abruptly but I'm confident that there will be a sequel. And if you still decide to watch the anime first, I also wish you good luck. Do take note that the anime ends in a massive cliffhanger as well which will likely be followed with a second season in the future.
Thank you for reading my Review on Tokyo Ghouls. Please keep your eye out as I will try to post a new review every week. Also if you have any request that you would like me to do a review on please leave a comment below as well as your discussion or thoughts of the anime.
- Flux Realm
