Tokyo Ghoul: A World Divided – Anime Review

Directed By: Shuhei Morita
Written By: Chuji Mikasono
Music: Yutaka Yamada
Studio: Pierrot
Licensed By: Funimation

In the lovely city of Tokyo, where all us western people who love Anime would like to visit… But who knows what’s lurking in the shadows of our breaming hearts? We don’t until your best friend decides you’d make for a perfect sunday dinner.

Tokyo Ghoul is an Anime where humans live their daily lives as any normal person would, but fit in with them are ghouls, who wait for the perfect time to strike and feed off of any delicious smelling person they think would make a great lunchtime meal. To counter the ghouls, there are investigators who seek to put down ghouls once and for all, using their suitcases filled with the abilities of a ghoul or quinque as they call it. But alls not lost in this world divided, for one boy stands in both the world of the human, and the ghoul…

The Story

Kaneki Ken, a young boy who has a problem that most of us guys have had at some point, there’s a super hot girl that’s into the stuff we enjoy… Jokes aside, Kaneki is bold enough to actually approach the woman named Rize. To his surprise, she actually makes conversation and sits with him for tea. The day grows old, and it’s time for Rize to go home… Kaneki being the man that he is, decides to walk her home, which leads to her moving in for a ‘kiss’ and ultimately being the worst kisser ever… She takes a chunk out of Kaneki and he is astonished, bitten by this girl… She can’t be a ghoul, she can’t be… It was all too good to be true. Rize toys with Kaneki which leads to them playing a very unfair game of tag in a construction yard. Unlucky for Rize this huge ton of slabs just drops on her, and they’re both rushed off to hospital. Rize dies, and Kaneki needs an organ transplant, lucky for him, Rize can’t say no to giving her organs away (This guy has a shady pot of gold sitting around somewhere.)

About a week later, he’s sent home, and this is where he starts going slowly insane. The ghoul inside him has spread and he hungers for flesh, he tries eating the food but only vomits it right back up again because normal food tastes like something out of the trash. He wanders the streets, looking for a victim and comes across a man who has killed a human, which leads to Kaneki fighting off his ghoul to stay human. A man named Nishiki appears and attempts to kill Kaneki for strolling on ‘his turf’… Which leads to another person showing up, my all favorite, Touka! (Drools.) She kicks Nishiki’s ass, then kicks Kaneki’s ass, and then a strange old man allows Kaneki to join Anteiku, a sanctuary for peaceful ghouls. But something darker lurks, investigators come and Kaneki is left to fight for both his humanity and his ghoulish counterpart.

 

 

The Characters

As you can tell, there’s quite a few characters, a lot of them just seem to come out of nowhere… So I’ll go over the main characters or characters I think are worth mentioning.

Kaneki Ken – You saw this one coming, Kaneki is a young boy who has become half ghoul and half human… Leaving him as a centre piece between two different worlds. At first he’s really annoying in my opinion, but hell, if I was in that situation I’m pretty sure I would’ve done the same, except with a lot less crying. Later on through the series he welcome his powers, and tries to take control, using them as a way to connect the worlds that are seemingly far apart, but the difference is just in name and take-away meals.

Touka Kirishima – Touka is a young girl just like Kaneki, however she was born a ghoul and tries to live a normal life much like humans, which is made difficult due to the fact she has to feed off of humans and being hunted by investigators is part of her daily life. She first met Kaneki and bossed him around and acted cold towards him because he was a former human who took life for granted… But she slowly developed feelings and began to care for him. With the movements she’s had with Kaneki, they are slowly becoming a stronger team and are able to strategize and synchronise attacks quickly.

Hideyoshi Nagachika – Honestly, Hide doesn’t show up too much in Tokyo Ghoul. However he does play a big role in Kaneki’s transformation and resolve to become stronger. Hide has always been Kaneki’s best friend and is always willing to help him out. Kaneki knowing this, holds back as best he can to refrain from eating Hide, and instead actually reveals his powers to protect him from Nishiki. Hide not having any great powers, is actually very perceptive as a human, knowing that Nishiki was actually dangerous. He’s one of my favorite characters because you can tell he knows a lot, but says nothing because he’s helping Kaneki out.

 

 

Graphics and Audio

One of my favorite sections, Tokyo Ghoul is more on the voice and sound effects than anything else… But let’s start with the opening. I kind of like it, but kind of don’t like it, it’s got its hard parts, and its soft parts (music wise.) but the way they’re mixed just doesn’t sound too good on my ears, aswell as that person using a very high pitched voice. Though the graphics of the opening are awesome, thought my screen broke when it gets to the part with Rize. There’s a lot of blood and gore, but recently it’s been censored a lot, which kinda pushes me away. But when they use their Kagune’s (Ghoul powers.) it looks amazing, all these shiny blood lights and badass looks. Now back to audio, the voice acting is brilliant, definitely gives off the feeling that the characters are in difficult situations, and the sound effects of body’s being assimilated and eaten are almost real. Now that for me, is a great feeling and gets that heart of yours racing!