How Tokyo Ghoul Became A Tragedy

I'm a big fan of Tokyo Ghoul, in fact, it's my favorite Manga... Manga, not Anime. Tokyo Ghoul is a great story when you read it, but when we get towards the Anime that's an entirely different subject. So where did we go wrong?

So admittedly, I got into Tokyo Ghoul during its first run in Summer 2014. The first season was the best season, and honestly, it's pretty unanimously agreed that that's the case throughout the next few seasons that came about. Season 1 follows Ken Kaneki, the protagonist who is somewhat of a socially anxious college student that loves reading books. Living in a society that features Ghouls, a predatory race that mimics the appearance of humans with the exception of their diets.

Long story short, Kaneki by some twist of fate becomes half-ghoul, half-human. Struggling between two worlds in which either he can't co-exist. Throughout the manga, there is symbolism, struggle, and a well-unraveled plot. The panels are great and world-building/character-building takes precedence so the readers feel attached to what's going on.

This upcoming image explains the story in a nutshell and this panel is from the very first chapter:

So I won't sit here and dissect the whole plot, but let's talk about the Anime shall we? Season 1 of Tokyo Ghoul was pretty good, the best in the series. Now, while Season 1 was good, it's not like it was perfect for the most part it skipped pretty important parts and rushed through the story, some of this missed content bites back at you in later seasons. One thing that took me aback when I was reading the manga was that in Season 1, two of the arcs were switched. In the grand scheme of things, it didn't matter, but damn that threw me off.

All in all, that didn't make season 1 bad at all, in fact, I'd probably rewatch it again because it was pretty solid. The music in Tokyo Ghoul was great and the voice acting was phenomenal, ESPECIALLY in the end when Kaneki gave in to his Ghoul side. The animation was pretty good, as well as it seemed to have a lot of color in the world to make it more vibrant.

I'm going to spend as little time as possible talking about Season 2 of Tokyo Ghoul, also known as Root A. Root A, is horrible it's basically a twist of what the studio thought was good. One, it's not even canon so it doesn't really even matter what happens in the season, it takes the momentum built from Season 1 and just crushes it. Two, it takes all the character-building Kaneki did in Season 1 and just shoves it down a trash can. Three, it kills off Hide which in the manga leaves his fate unknown and makes huge complications down the line in later seasons. Ultimately, Root A is what I believe sent Tokyo Ghoul the anime downwards that killed much of the hype for the series.

Season 3, I mean eh... it's a continuation of the sequence of events from the manga, but like Season 1 it just skips a ton of content. Oh, also animation production quality goes down because it switches studios I mean like I said prior it's just on a downward spiral at this point. Also, due to the missing content if you were an anime-only watcher you were missing a lot of stuff, so I'm sure y'all we're just confused as hell.

Last, and thankfully the least Season 4... Man, if you thought Season 3 was something, Season 4 was worse. So because it was the final season and there was just so much to adapt, Season 4 adapts more content at a more egregious pace, so think like 2x the speed. Oh also, remember when I said missing content becomes relevant again? Yeah, that happens in this season, where all that content that is manga only comes into play here and you're just very confused. Plot developments are horrendous and make no sense, and the animation is just poor. The fight scenes leave lots to be desired, just truly a tragedy.