tokyo ghoul - 東京喰種

a manga/anime series i really like.
i prefer the manga over the anime and frequently read all of the books again.


it is a pretty dark story about a young man who lives in a world that is split between humans and ghouls; human-like monsters that can only survive by eating human flesh. ken, the protagonist, is unwillingly turned into a ghoul and has to find out why as well as deal with the consequences of this development.

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tldr; guy eats humans

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me and tokyo ghoul

i have thought about this series extensively every day for the past three months. the characters and the world are just so mesmerizing to me, i fall in love with them every time when looking into the books again. every few years, i find myself returning to this series and it never disappoints. i get sucked into the void again when turning the pages of the manga. i do have my complaints when it comes to the story (especially tokyo ghoul:re) but i just love the art of sui ishida and keep looking at the artworks in these books for hours and hours.
it really has a special place in my heart.

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my praise

i love the characters in this story so much. some of them have so much depth and lore, it's really refreshing to see. there are so many different dynamics and relations -- i enjoy seeing all of the characters interact with each other. the best part is that as a reader, you can change your opinion on the characters in this story so much. my opinion on some of the characters like furuta oder mado changed so much while i read through the story. it feels like sui ishida cares, which makes me care. you can see how much fun he has with these characters in the last pages of every book with the little short stories and jokes he does. my favorite characters:


  

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my critique (spoilers!)

i read the total end of :re for the first time. and man, it sure is a lot. if someone told me all those years back when i bought my first tokyo ghoul manga that "ken turns into a giant worm and this background character slaughters all of the ghouls with an army of 100 kid clones of ken on bikes" i would not have believed them. yeah, i think sui ishida put some pretty wild ideas in there. but i like the overall solution to the main plotlines! i like it that humans and ghouls have to unite and fight against a bigger evil, that is a good solution in my opinion. but i think there should have been more of an explanation to this mysterious evil force ??
also, some elements are introduced just to be completely useless ... like the whole ken-aging thing: okay?? it did not develop the plot too much??
but my biggest critique point is the last fight was pretty whack - we never see furuta fight in the first place, we just need to believe that he is strong because he beat the owl (which we saw in like 1 panel). and ken got his ass kicked by juuzou and hanbe so he also kind lost his status as the unbeatable fighter ... idk, it just did not feel to exciting.

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