An appetite to die for…
What They Say:
Amid news reports of “Ghoul” attacks nearby, Ken Kaneki points out Rize, a girl he is interested in, to his friend Hide at a local coffee shop. When Kaneki discovers the two share a favorite author, he asks her out. However, their date ends in tragedy!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Horror is nothing something that is easily done, in my opinion. On one extreme, you have psychological horror; fear, paranoida, hallucinations, and you never feel safe. Is the door really locked? Did you remember to lock your windows? Does it matter if you did both of those things? And the other extreme, is rain of gore blood torrents and viscera being thrown around the screen like cooking ingredients are on a cooking show. Body parts, fountains of blood, and no matter what you do, how much fire power you have – you’re eventually going to be turned into a lifeless puddle at the hands of the monster.
Both have their place, and both can be used to incredibly chilling effect. Tokyo Ghoul starts off in a nice sweet spot, right in the middle. The world is populated by ghouls; creatures that appear human, but can only be sustained by the flesh and blood of human beings. Nothing else will satisfy their hunger; regular food and liquids taste horrible, and they can’t even keep it down. Supposedly one human body can keep a ghoul satisfied for a month, but there are others who either gluttons, or sadists, and enjoy killing many more people than they need.
In a lot of ways, it feels like this is just part of the world – ghouls are talked about on the news, and there’s even scientific research about them. In a lot of ways, this sets <i<Ghoul apart from any other shows, in that the existence of the monsters is well known, but it doesn’t’ necessarily mean they walk around freely and openly to the world.
Kaneki, our protagonist, seems to be an ordinary high school boy who is excited to go on a date with a girl he likes, Rize. They both like reading, enjoy the same authors, and click really well. The only problem is Rize turns out to be a ghoul, and she’s not only the gluttonous kind, but also takes a very sick pleasure in the torment and dismemberment of her victims (at one point she politely informs Kaneki that she’s going to “scramble your insides now”). However, either by freak accident or because someone grew tired of Rize’s constant disruption of life in the area, she’s crushed by a number of steel girders, and Kaneki is rushed to the hospital. What the doctor’s don’t know though, is Rize was a ghoul, and with a large number of Kaneki’s organs sitting on the pavement, they transfer Rize’s organs into him to save his life.
You can guess what happens next. Kaneki is overcome with hunger, but nothing tastes good, and he slowly descends into despair and hysteria, eventually meeting two other ghouls – Nishiki, who tries to kills him for encroaching on his turf, and Toka, a waitress at a coffee shop that Kaneki and his friend Hide frequent, who scares Nishiki off. Seeing that Kaneki is resisting the urge to eat human flesh, feeling he’ll no longer be human, the episode ends with Toka literally shoving a chunk of the dead man into Kaneki’s mouth.
In Summary:
If you read the review above and you thought “Wow, that sounds brutal and graphic”, you’re not wrong. This show is not for the weak of heart. It’s bloody, intense, and feels very nihilistic. Ghouls aren’t undead or vampires – for all intents and purposes, aside from having special abilities and, in the case of Rize – horrible tentacle limbs that look like they’re made of blood, ghouls are for all intents and purposes human. Except for that whole dead flesh thing.
The animation quality and use of color especially are very top notch in this show; all the production values earn top marks. It hits a lot of those horror troupes I touched on earlier as well, with both gore and psychological terror being persistent throughout the episode.
At first glance, I’d say if you’re a fan of horror, or want something that’s (much) darker than the rest of the shows this season, Tokyo Ghoul might just be right up your alley. The creators went to great lengths to make the show stand out in a lot of ways, and even the drool and tears of Kaneki evoke this intense, visceral feeling when they’re shown on screen, to say nothing of the incredibly short, but incredibly severe violence depicted that ghouls carry out.
This show has a lot of potential, and is certainly different than a lot of the standard fare we see each season. Certainly a must watch (if you can stand the blood and intense, dark moments the characters go through, that is.)
Grade: A-
Streamed By: FUNimation
Review Equipment:
Intel Alienware laptop, Windows 7, 25” HP2509m screen at 1920×1080 resolution