Thus, not only the ghoul society is cartoonishly simplistic, but it is also presented in such an extreme way that it’s impossible to take it seriously. You are mostly busy watching flat characters cutting people to pieces while throwing in some very simple and yet over the top reasoning for whatever is going on. Just like it happens with all shonen stories, this one too takes its material way too light in terms of exposition and way too silly in terms of unnecessarily violent scenes.

Basically the show is not a thriller about his internal struggles at all it is about a poorly conceived world inside a fighting shonen and the whole thing falls apart early on. He is just used as a plot device for lazy infodumping, a guide for the viewer to explore the society of these man eating monsters. But nope, turns out the whole thing was just an excuse to have a lobotomized main character entering a world where everything needs to be explained to him. Maybe he will accept it and go on a murder spree or maybe he will find a way to control it. His freak out was done masterfully and you were made to think the rest of the show would be a constant internal struggle between his human and monster sides. It starts off as a psychological thriller about the main character suddenly turning to a man eating monster.

Tokyo Ghoul was one of the most hyped titles of summer 2014 but it quickly proved to be far weaker than what its first episode promises. Notice: This review covers both seasons of this anime.

Uta tokyo ghoul english dub