Tokyo Ghoul's Intro Is so Great

the closest I've ever come to actually talking about Tokyo Google is using it as a throw away gag at the start of my Watson and op4 Jojo way back at the start of my YouTube career and in all honesty I was content to leave it at that because from what I'd seen of the series it seemed like yet another hyper edgy celebration of senseless violence and I'd kind of had my fill of that and then some with a comma a kill but with the new season Tokyo ghoul re out I decided to finally give the series another shot and I'll admit I drastically underestimated it Tokyo ghoul is edgy as hell there's no getting around that but it works it's a series with a lot of heart and something meaningful to say although note that I say series and not show because even the first season of the anime doesn't do the manga justice and the second and third seasons are kind of sort of terrible like Studio Pierrot we've got a talk but not today today I'd like to focus on the one thing that the studio in arguably got right the opie unravel is a fantastic nuanced opening that makes great use of symbolism and some stunning shot composition to present the themes of the show in a very interesting manner it's nowhere near my top 10 but I can definitely see why it one read its best opening tournament back in 2015 so today let's dig into what makes this one of the most well regarded anime openings of all time and what hidden meaning we can find inside it this whole opening is laser focused on presenting us with kaneki's perspective of Tokyo ghouls world and the people human and ghoul alike who inhabit it so it's fitting that we start off seeing the world the same way kaneki does before his unfortunate accident in black and white ghouls bad humans good then as the backing music comes in the whole world comes alive with color we see Kenickie sitting in an ornate chair in the middle of an endless expanse of water and sky the way that the chair is framed is reminiscent of the less fancy chair that Kenickie finds himself strapped to in Jason's torture chamber toward the end of the season the sky and its reflection below represent the world of humans and the world of ghouls beneath its surface as the opie goes on reflections and duality become an increasingly important visual motif in this case the horizon across the middle of the frame and inverted reflections tell us that Kenickie exists in both worlds as do toca and Riza and even before the color comes in and he actually becomes aware of it we see that he's been sitting in both his whole life at a distance Kenickie looks gray and D saturated but pulling him closer we see that he has black hair and a white shirt with blue trim likewise toca and Ruiz a first appeared dull and gray against the vibrant beauty of the sky but moving near them reveals their own vibrant colors the closer you get to somebody this Opie is saying the clearer a picture you get of who they really are and even the most monstrous people you meet may have hidden depths to them the direction of the wind gives us a sense of positioning even in the empty void it's blowing right on Kenickie and left on visa and toca so we can infer that they're standing in front of him toca is looking off to the left ignoring him while Riza is staring directly at Kenickie she did say that she's had her eye on him for a while after all as her eyes open the lens shatters fracturing both the image of Ruiz a and the world behind her as the show makes very very clear even in the lyrics of this song the world of Tokyo ghoul is broken and Reza's attack opens kana keys eyes to that fact Ruiz a fades away as an image of a shattered Tokyo takes her place one by one reflections of the show's main characters flit by in the foreground with most of the ghouls appearing in both their human disguises and their true forms interestingly tokhes brother aya toe only appears as a human while Nishio only appears as a ghoul and motto and yoshimora are conspicuously absent after the characters flit by we see the cracks of the screen slowly disappear and the city distort itself back into a single cohesive image as the title fades into view this demonstrates the ultimate goal of Kenickie as a character to fix the broken world by making peace between ghouls and humans from here we jump to a shot of Kenickie walking next to a window in some sort of high-rise while he looks normal in the foreground in the background his reflection has the red gule it's possible that the black and white tile under his feet is met to foreshadow Jason's torture chamber further but the more interesting environmental detail here is the nighttime cityscape behind him as the opie moves forward we see other ghouls reflected in a similar manner with their reflections almost always being imposed against a bigger image of the outside world the transparency of these reflections well just as a quick aside the reflections are actually wrong in a lot of these shots you can see the reflected backgrounds through the bodies of characters who are supposed to be standing in front of them like the building behind Nitschke or the railing behind toka or the tile showing through Kentucky's leg this seems to just be an error with how the animators decided to handle transparent layers and to be fair you don't really notice while you're watching the actual Opie because it goes by so quickly but yeah that's not how reflections work regardless this effect creates the impression that these characters are almost like ghosts living in the human world without really being part of it having to constantly hide their true selves in order to fit in the reflections also hammer home the theme of duality there's more to these characters than meets the eye which is obvious when you look at say Nitschke and toca who reveal themselves to have hidden kindness very early on but it also applies to characters who appear to be absolute irredeemable monsters like Tsukiyama and mato and even to kentucky's best friend he day everyone has a side that they don't show the world while these shots use wildly different camera angles they keep the points of focus the characters in roughly the same position from shots a shot in order to allow your eye to naturally flow through the montage except for the investigators who are on the opposite side of the screen from the ghouls beyond the visual motif running across them these shots mostly just serve to show us the series important characters but a few cool details do stand out firstly Nitschke is the only ghoul who we actually see being framed against the human world instead of it being shown in a reflection revealing his true nature to Keamy means that he doesn't have as much to hide as the other ghouls do and the secret hidden side of his life is much smaller than that of the others now day is shown moving over to the investigators side of the screen which reflects some of his career choices later in the series and also he's the only character who we see moving downward in this entire Opie which in terms of cinematic language usually signifies a character falling from grace or descending into hellish circumstances which is appropriate given that things do not go super well for he day as this story progresses especially later in the manga and that's not the only later development foreshadowed in this Opie before we get to that though I want to quickly point out that as motto is marching forward he hides his left hand the one with his wedding ring inside his pocket further burying the symbol of the tragedy that drives him to kill ghouls lastly we get a look at Amon leaning against a window as a car drives by and just a heads up this part is a bit speculative and involves a spoiler for Tokyo ghoul Reese so if you want to avoid that skip to this timestamp you've been warned he's the only character in this entire montage whose eyes aren't clearly visible in his reflection but when the light from the car catches his face if you squint you can see his right eye in the reflection and it doesn't exactly look white now does it it's easy to miss but this for shadows that Amon will eventually be turned into an artificial one-eyed ghoul like Kenickie who's black and red eye is on his right side rather than his left you really have to admire the thought that went into framing this shot in order to hide that detail in plain sight from Amon we cut Therese a standing in front of the Tokyo skyline after a beat her reflection unleashes its kagune shattering the window behind her once more this symbolically breaks down the barrier between the human and ghoul worlds for Kenickie but it also shows him how broken the world truly is in a flash the visuals become more abstract and wheezes kagune transforms into a collage of dancing clipart it's hard to make out all of the shapes spreading from her back but we can see several red spider lilies in there the same flowers that show up when she appears to kaneki in the torture chamber spider lilies are often used in Japanese funerals and have a heavy association with death and the after life specifically held they're said to guide the dead toward reincarnation which matches their use in the story as they signify how rise a becomes a part of Kenickie both in body and eventually mind after her death we see this death happen symbolically as blood red spreads across Riza his white dress and she closes her eyes mirroring how she opens them at the start of the opie her positioned to the right of the screen compared to toca on the left further parallels that opening shot next we see tokhes kagune emerge from her shoulder like butterfly ways the way that the images that make up this collage are stretched out it's difficult to actually discern what any of them are but this seems to be a mix of manmade and natural shapes which would reflect tokhes deeper involvement in the human world when we zoom in on her face toca turns to the camera and to kaneki by proxy for the first time signifying her eventual acceptance of him as a ghoul and a friend from here we cut to human kaneki falling through the water bewildered and terrified as the camera turns we see that he's falling upward toward the expanse of sky from the beginning of the Opie as well as his gula fide reflection on the surface of the water and we can tell that it's a reflection because his eye is on the wrong side as kaneki passes through the surface his two disparate sides collide and merged together and out of this fusion emerges his final form the white haired black jacketed ghoul that he transforms into as a result of Jason's torture session this version of him contrasts starkly with the black haired white-shirted Kenickie from the start of the okie and not just in his colour scheme where that Kenickie was in a sad passive seated position this one stands confidently showing no clear emotion Kenickie has made a conscious decision about who he wants to be instead of waffling between ghoul and human and his ordeals have clearly forged him into a much stronger person than he was when we first met him as the music dies down the camera spends a few silent seconds pulling back further from Kenickie while the sky behind him becomes increasingly d saturated and less vibrant kaneki's worldview is becoming starker and less naive than it was when he first entered the world of ghouls but it never becomes as simple and colorless as it was at beginning and as the camera finishes pulling back the Opie ends unravel sums up Kentucky's transformation over the course of this season beautifully and succinctly while giving plenty of clever hints about the characters around him and even foreshadowing some plot turns from very late in the manga the consistent visual motif of reflections and broken glass makes it feel much more cohesive than your average jumbled anime Opie but smart shot composition and editing still allows for it to present us with varied and striking imagery and of course the theme song itself unravel with its haunting whisper singing beautiful instrumentation and somber tone is absolutely phenomenal as well and feels very distinct from your average j-rock or j-pop opener with a few glaring animation errors it's not quite perfect but it stands apart for how visually imaginative and information dense it is combining a stellar song with brilliant visual direction unravel really is the complete Opie package and it's no wonder that so many people hold it in such high regard now if only Studio Pierrot could make the actual anime that good but that's a topic for another day and if you want to see me talk about it make sure that you hit subscribe to catch every mother's basement video as it goes live for now I'm Jeff Zhu professional signing out from my mother's basement

Tokyo Ghoul's Tragedy

Tokyo Ghoul is a neo classic anime that elicits strong emotions. It’s gut-wrenching, violent, action packed, disturbing and intense. The metalcore op and the cyberpunk /atmospheric soundtrack coupled with writing that blows minds and can also blow chunks, gives the show artistic highs and lows that make me feel like I’m on my fix, man. Before I watched Tokyo Ghoul I’d heard two things about it. #1 that it’s a metal, giant bamf of a show. And #2 people loved it, until that love turned into anger and disappointment. Did the hate originate from Kaneki masks at Hot Topic? Or perhaps because Kaneki is a weenie? Maybe it was the unapologetic gore or that people drink coffee at night all the time and no-one has trouble sleeping. No, it’s something else, something far more heartbreaking. So if you’re ready, sit back, relax and prepare your tasty, fleshy self for a dive into the headspace of Kaneki. For a heavy, philosophical cup of bitter black truth coffee. For what makes him the most loved and hated character in modern anime. This is the story of Tokyo Ghoul’s Ken Kaneki, the story you never knew. Hi I’m Grant. I’m told I’m a wishy washy guy. I kind of agree. I enjoy weird books and watch anime. Welcome to the Story You Never Knew. I’d like to turn your attention towards Ken Kaneki, a half human, half ghoul. Ghouls are exactly like humans, except they’ve got cool eyes and need to feast on human flesh to survive. But they don't just need human flesh, they crave it. Everything else tastes like that time you drank that beer can with all the cigarettes in it. Ghouls are also 4 to 7 times stronger than the average human, can survive for a month or 2 on a single body depending on how thicc dat bootay is. They have heightened senses and basically super powers. They’re monsters, but they also have feelings, and Kaneki is forced into their world. He gets a crush on this cute librarian-looking girl named Rize, a simple surface level attraction. He asks her out on a date and boy do they go into it. Walking back in the black of night. The funny thing about life is you never expect it to end. You never get in the car expecting a crash, but it happens in an instant. That night was Kaneki’s crash, and he went out the windshield if you know what i mean. Rize loses control of her hunger for Kaneki’s sweet, supple flesh. And not in a sexy way. Turns out she was a ghoul the whole time, a binge eater no less. Kaneki’s not into it. Mostly because his insides were being placed on his outsides. Fortunately, before he’s completely ripped to pieces by this worst-girl, some very heavy things fall off a crane and smash her. Rize’s dead, and with Ken barely alive, a surgeon transplants Rize’s organs into him to save his life and also because it’s a fun science experiment. Turns out if a bunch of your organs are ghoul organs but the rest of you is human...that makes you half human half ghoul. A ghoulman! A Humoul… with incredible healing powers. And so her insatiable hunger is passed onto Kaneki. And that hunger strives to control him. The gnawing twinge of hunger has always been enough to drive armies against armies. Every empire that ever conquered its way into existence has done so under the guise that those who serve it will never go hungry again. Hunger is the driving force behind every thought we have, every choice we make. It’s why you get out of bed, it’s why you go to work. Boil it all down, it’s for food, to survive. Hunger is our need for life, the feeling that pushes us forward. We live in a society that diminishes hunger’s role. Grocery stores on every corner. Shops upon shops all selling whatever we need. But if food became scarce, we’d kill each other, for meat, for sustenance, to live. Pets, family, friends, we don’t like to think about it, but they’re all food in the end. History has shown that when humans have nothing, they’ll eat anything. The Donner Party, the Siege of Leningrad, the Famine of Povolzhie, events as recent as World War II. Hunger controls our lives, whether we want it to or not. And an insatiable hunger, stronger than that of humans, is forced upon Kaneki. He's pushed into a world where he must fight against himself. Two sides are warring within Kaneki. One is human and tells him flesh is as disgusting as the methods required to acquire it. The other is ghoul and needs said flesh to survive. This dichotomy within Kaneki originates from his mother's beliefs. Kaneki's mom was a generous lady who was also pretty hump worthy. She helped those around her so much she literally worked herself to death to pay for her deadbeat sister’s lifestyle of uselessness. She always told her son, “it’s far better to feel pain yourself than to inflict it on others.” Kaneki's hot mom cared deeply about the people around her but she lacked a basic survival instinct, the ability to assert her own needs. Kaneki inherited a plethora of these meek qualities. Kaneki’s character is an internal war between a kind but weak human and a cruel but pragmatic ghoul. This war in his head reflects the one going on outside. Both humans and ghouls despise each other with some exceptions. Beyond the gore and the horror is a philosophical crisis: a roaring moral quandary that combines with gnawing hunger to drive even a mellow-mannered fellow mad. As the bridge between ghouls and humans, Kaneki is a weird conduit for these mixed and confused feelings towards everything. He’s confused all the time, he’s conflicted all the time, scared, grossed-out, REACTING NORMALLY to things that would upset your average non cannibal person with compassion. At every point along the way he’s done what I would have done. And probably you too. Imagine seeing a corpse being feasted upon while one side of you sees it as delicious food and the other as rotting flesh? Would you be a super duper hero and feel unphased by it all? Or would you suffer like Kaneki did? Your reality turned on its head, a constant worry you may give in and take a mortal bite out of your best friend. Also the organs of the girl you liked are now inside you, which I might call even more successful than getting laid or landing a girlfriend. New game sodomy + It’s so surprisingly intimate This scene is where the clash between human and ghoul comes to a head in a transcendental space where Rize is alive within Kaneki, a literal representation of the ghoul versus human struggle. But this struggle doesn’t last forever, it comes to a conclusion during Season 1’s finale. A bad man named Yakumo Oomori has kidnapped Kaneki because his ghoul-human mix makes him an interesting specimen. And also a threat. Yakumo himself was kidnapped many years earlier and was subject to terrible torture techniques. The worst, mind-shredding pain, suspense, and fear all tangled together in Oomori’s head until he broke free. Now, he’s using the same torture techniques on Kaneki. Oomori makes our relatable weenie count down by sevens from 1000 while he cuts off his fingers and toes one by one. When they grow back (due to his healing powers) Oomori does it over and over and over, the counting is a trick to keep Kaneki consciousnessly hanging on to every excruciating moment. Geeze Vegeta calm down. Until this point, Kaneki’s mother’s words had stuck with him. During flashbacks in the midst of torture, we hear Kaneki’s mom tell him, “it’s far better to feel pain yourself than to inflict it on others.” This was the motto that carried him through life. The string of words that kept him kind, understanding but also timid and naive. Rize rubs his idealistic world view in his face. She calls his mother worthless. If she had the guts to cut her deadbeat sister off she wouldn’t have worked herself to death. She wasn’t kind. She was weak. It was because she didn’t have the power to hurt others that she couldn’t save herself and she couldn’t save Kaneki from growing up without a mom. Because Kaneki embodied his mother’s words, he didn’t have the power to save anyone, not even himself. It’s only when he accept’s Rize’s mocking plea that feeling pain isn’t better than inflicting it on others that Kaneki literally takes her into himself. He bites into her, merging with her cynical psyche, still promising that he won’t let her be in control. Unfortunately, that promise was a lie. Kaneki does escape, he gets his revenge and it was exactly as awesome as you’d expect it to be. But then it’s over. His revenge is bittersweet, his kindness gave way to brutality. The Kaneki we knew is gone. In episode one of season 2, Kaneki is a lot more Rize than he is himself. When Touka, his good friend and love-interest, spots our now-white-haired, no longer weenie and talks to him… he just stands there. Perpendicularly. Profoundly. Oh how profound. We get it. You were brutally tortured and experienced unimaginable pain. Centipedes crawled through your sinuses and stung you and you twitched, screamed, had your already painful life shattered into sharp pieces that were forced back down your orofaces. But this...THIS! Was rather abrupt. White-haired Kaneki is exactly how I’d imagine myself if I was 14 and suddenly got uber powerful thanks to an experience that justified me being an edgemaster emo kid. Not hating on the look. Just the guy. He never struggles with Rize after his realization. He just becomes her. Plus emo. In season 2, we rarely see Rize. It’s as though she so seamlessly intertwined with him that she ceased to whisper in his ear and instead just took direct control of his nervous system. There’s no battle between who he was and who he has become. He’s just a main character who is no longer himself. And I get it. Kaneki had a gorgeously, powerful and traumatic experience. I’m not discounting the brilliance of the season 1 finale. I’m not discounting that it SHOULD have changed Kaneki forever. I’m just saying there should have been a shred of what he represented to begin with. You could say the bridge between two worlds was no longer caught between two ways of thinking. Ken Kaneki was no longer at all tormented by what he demands of himself versus what the world demands of him. Eventually, in order to unlock his full potential and save the world from fighting itself into chaos, Kaneki had to cast away his doubt, his naive optimism and desire to help others even when it doesn’t make sense. Kaneki had to learn the art of selfishness if he was to transform into something resembling a hero. But as far as what that really meant, that was addressed and then cast aside once Oomori was killed by Kaneki. By all means, I’m happy the creep is dead. However this theme of being caught between two understandings, two worlds, was traded for the theme of “yeah I know how hard life can be” as soon as Kaneki didn’t bother to turn 90 degrees that one time. Our protagonist... was not the same character. Actually, director Shuhei Morita was told by manga creator Sui Ishida to go his own direction with the anime...and also not chip away at the story of the manga. Not an easy task, he was pulled in opposing directions, having to hit the important story points while also feeding his creative freedom. This tug of war resulted in the disappointing Kaneki in Season 2. He was a kid raised to believe it’s better to feel pain yourself than to inflict it on others. Then he’s confronted with a biological destiny that makes him crave the product of murder. It’s a philosophical mind-bend best captured by doubling over in a gross ally, sobbing from excruciating hunger pangs at odds with your deep fear of hurting others. A very human, thinking mind is fighting a very primal, craving one. It’s the war between a cultured monkey and a slobbering animal. It’s the one we’ve been fighting for millions of years and it’s one we’ve won enough battles against to be civilized enough to have a civilization. Kaneki stopped fighting that war. He was the moral compass we all needed and his agony was an unpleasant reminder of what makes us human. Keyword: was. Because he gave all that up. Save for the idea of friends and family. Well actually his family is dead. It’s just friendship. For example: Hide! Kaneki’s only real tie to the human side of things by the end of season 2. They’ve been friends since childhood, since both of Kaneki’s parents died and left him alone. While Ken is nervous and skittish, Hide is peppy and confident. This chill, blonde, dudebro was a beacon of light in the old days, and he remains one today. He’s such a perfect tie for Kaneki to his old, human life. Everyone else Kaneki knows are Ghouls. While it is a little odd to see Hide get official with the CCG, he is the foundation for Kaneki’s old life he’s grown incredibly distant from. Then this happened. RIP RIP connection to everything Kaneki represents to us! Without any human friends, what’s to keep him caring about humans? Thanks to Season 2, our realistic human was replaced with an OP hot topic model with no hold on his mother’s morals. The mascot for weenie hut juniors is now the spokesman for the edge-bucket! When Hide bled out, Kaneki lost every shred of idealism. Not that he had any since being tortured. Kaneki was the connection to both worlds, a connection we needed to relate to the show, his mother's words are what defined him. When he threw them aside and never considered them again, Kaneki threw himself aside. He was the person we wanted to be, who we sympathized with because of our own moral boundaries and natural weakness as humans, without that we lost what attaches us to the world of Tokyo Ghoul. Kaneki is powerful now. He’s focused, he’s unyielding, but the heart of his purpose, that one we connected with as we watched from our own world...is now missing. We lost our link. Our reason for watching, our reason for understanding. The man we grew to love, the divide that made him believable, disappeared after that finale. And now what’s left is just a shell of Kaneki. His inner, excruciating tension has been silenced for a sad, focused quietness that no human can relate to. I feel nothing when I used to believe in his pain. I relate to nothing when I used to see his divide in myself. Kaneki was in all of us, you, me, everyone. And now he’s in none of us. His fight was ended just before he became a powerful fighter. That’s the tragedy of Tokyo Ghoul. The story of Ken Kaneki: The Story You Never Knew. And that’s my take on Kaneki. Tokyo Ghouls universe is pretty trippy. Full disclosure I know I didn’t even talk about Tokyo Ghoul: re. If you’ve seen it you’ll know why it’s not technically necessary for a video about Kaneki. But more importantly I’ve been taking a deep breath before I jump into it because of...the reasons I talked about. I’ll be back to Tokyo Ghoul. But given there’s another big “main character reset” for the last season I’ve been procrastinating on watching it..for a while. I’m looking forward to it, I’m just mentally preparing to piece together who the main character is now exactly. I think that makes sense. If you liked this video. Like it! If you didn’t...don’t like it. Also check out this story you never knew on Spike from Cowboy Bebop. It was the first video ever hosted on this channel so it’s got a bit of a special place in my heart. Or check out mike’s video about why the promised neverland is better than you think. Up to you. I’m Grant. I’ll see you on that subscriber feed. If you subscribe and hit that bell. Snuck that one in there.

Tokyo Ghoul Mask

- Hi, I'm Benny Fine. - I'm Ted Evans! - And consider yourselves warned! - Grab a cup of coffee and activate your Kagune! - We're going to be spoiling everything from the first two seasons of Tokyo Ghoul. - You'll be all caught up for season three after watching this recap in one take and under six minutes. - Starting now! - Meet Ken Kaneki, who lives in Tokyo. - Well, more like an alternate reality Tokyo, where ghouls live among people. - They're exactly like humans-- - Except they have enhanced senses, predatory organs called Kagune that they can use as weapons, and disgust of normal food besides coffee. Oh, and they eat human flesh. - Everybody got that? Good! - Kaneki goes on a successful date with Rize, which ends unsuccessfully when it turns out she's a ghoul! - Before she can eat him, she gets squashed by metal beams. - RIP, Rize. - Kaneki is sent to a hospital where he is saved by a doctor who transplants Rize's organs into him to save his life. - Side effects of the surgery include one black and red eye, visions of Rize, and a hunger for human flesh! - Ghoul 101: most of the time, ghouls' eyes are normal, but when they become excited, both their eyes transform into kagugans, black and red eyes. - He's a half-ghoul, half-human hybrid! - Kaneki hides himself from his friends and loses the taste for his favorite foods. - Kaneki runs into the ghoul Nishiki, who attacks him for entering his territory. - But another ghoul, Touka, saves him from being killed. - Touka offers him human meat, but he refuses and runs away! - He tries not to give into his hunger for humans, but it proves grueling. - The struggle is real, people! - Trying to remain human, he hangs out with his best friend Hide-- - Who introduces him to Nishiki. - Hide has no idea that Nishiki is a ghoul. - Yeah, this can't be good. - Nishiki attacks them, knocking out Hide in the process. - This causes Kaneki to get so angry that he unleashes his Kagune for the first time! - RIP, Nishiki. - The only bad thing about him beasting out is that his flesh hunger is boiling and Hide looks extra tasty! - At the last second, Kaneki is stopped from eating Hide by Touka, who decides to help him. - Kaneki is brought back to a cafe where she works, which doubles as a ghoul haven. - Hide's there too and he survived! - He doesn't know they're all ghouls though. - Cafe owner Yoshimura offers to have Kaneki stay and work at the cafe alongside Touka and other ghouls who are trying to coexist peacefully in society. - Continuing his life and training at the cafe, Kaneki is befriended by the purple-haired gourmet ghoul Tsukiyama. - Tsukiyama invites him to dinner, but the gourmet ghoul has other plans. - Turns out the invitation is actually Kaneki being thrown into a trap for other ghouls to eat him! - However, Tsukiyama witnesses his one-eyed ghoul form and decides that Kaneki should be a meal all to himself, letting him go. - Kaneki comes across a wounded ghoul, who-- - WAIT, that's Nishiki? - Yeah, turns out he's still alive. - Kaneki decides to help him and learns that he's in a relationship with a human girl named Kimi. - He returns to the cafe, but has to leave once more, learning that Tsukiyama has taken Kimi hostage. - Turns out Tsukiyama wants to eat Kaneki while Kaneki is eating Kimi! Nasty! - However, with the combined efforts of Kaneki and Nishiki, and Touka, they are able to defeat Tsukiyama - RIP, Tsukiyama. - Meanwhile, on the other side of town, crazy-eyed Mado and newbie Amon... - Two officers, AKA doves from the CCG. - ...search for some of the most notorious ghouls in town! - Hold up, what's the CCG? - Ghoul 101: The Commission of Counter Ghoul, investigates criminal ghoul activity, utilizing mysterious weapons called quinques, which are housed in the most advanced briefcases since Tony Stark’s in Iron Man 2. - The doves encounter the ghouls Asaki and Jason, killing the former while Jason gets away. - RIP, Asaki. - From there, they hunt down Asaki's wife and daughter... - Ryouko and Hinami. - ...who happen to be staying at the cafe. - Mado and Amon trap Ryouko, who saves her daughter but is killed in the process. - RIP, Ryouko. - As protection, Kaneki is fashioned a rather toothy mask to protect his identity. - Later, Touka and Hinami lure Mado to the sewers while Kaneki confronts Amon above them. - Kaneki manages to get ghouly and breaks Amon's quinque. - However, he spares him so as to not to fully give in to his murderous ghoul side. - Down in the sewers, Mado reveals that the quinques are made out of ghouls' Kagune, and that he had turned Hinami’s mom into a quinque weapon! Mind blown! - This causes Hinami to unleash her Kagune, and her and Touka finish off Mado. - RIP, Mado. - After the battle, things change for everyone. - Amon is given a new quinque and task force, Hinami stays at the cafe, and Kaneki investigates Rize’s past. - A ghoul organization, Aogiri Tree, begins killing doves and ghouls around the city. - Not only that, but rumor has it that they're being led by a powerful ghoul called The One-Eyed King! - Another one-eyed ghoul? - Back at the cafe, the inhabitants are visited by several Aogiri Tree Members, who are looking for Rize. - They discover that Kaneki is a one-eyed ghoul and take him captive as Rize's replacement. - The members of the cafe devise a plan to save Kaneki and are offered help from… TSUKIYAMA?! - Yep, turns out he's still alive too. - Do these ghouls ever actually die?! - Meanwhile, Kaneki is getting the torture of a lifetime from Jason. - He gets tortured so bad that his hair turns white. - His regenerative abilities astound Jason. - It turns out that his whole organ transplant was done on purpose as an experiment by the doctor! Mind blown! - Kaneki finally fully accepts his ghoul side after a pretty disturbing heart-to-heart with a vision of Rize. - He goes full beast mode and overtakes Jason, and in the most don’t-eat-while- you-watch-this moment of the series, EATS HIS KAGUNE LIKE A BADASS!! - What boss battle has ever had the good guy eat the bad guy?! - Time for season two, AKA Root A, where the show decided to deviate from the manga. - So while Kaneki was inside eating some Kagune, outside it's a cluster war between the doves, Aogiri, and the members of the cafe. - On top of that, Yoshimura transforms into the One-Eyed Owl, who's the dove's most wanted criminal. - It's Amon and the doves versus The Owl, AKA Yoshimura. - It's also Touka versus her brother Ayato, who is is also part of the Aogiri! - And more humans versus more ghouls! - Jesus, there's a lot of fighting to keep up with. - Touka gets her butt whooped, but before Ayato can end her, the new and improved Kaneki steps in. - He wins the duel and drops a bomb on Touka and all the Tokyo Ghoul manga readers. - He's joining The Aogiri?! He doesn't do that in the manga! - He gets happily welcomed into Aogiri by its founder, Eto. - From there, things change for everyone. - Long story short, the doves blame Kaneki for Mado’s murder, Kaneki helps out the Aogiri and starts eating ghouls, becoming even more powerful, Touka starts mirroring her life to Kaneki’s to the point of trying to go to his school, and Amon starts dating Mado’s daughter Akira, but no, not THAT Akira! - Everybody got that? Good! - The volatile Kaneki encounters a vengeful Amon and the two duke it out again. - It's Kaneki versus Amon, Part II! - This time around, Amon beats the crap out of Kaneki's Kagune, leaving him wounded, but also now a bit more human. - Later, the doves track Yoshimura, aka the One-Eyed Owl, and plan to take him out. - Yoshimura holds his own against the doves, but gets overpowered and killed. - RIP, Yoshimura. - However, it isn't over as ANOTHER One-Eyed Owl swoops in and takes the body. - Yep, turns out this One-Eyed Owl is actually the one causing destruction around the city. - On top of that, it turns out to be Eto, who also turns out to be Yoshimura's half-human, half-ghoul daugther! - Mind [bleep] blown! - Kaneki runs into Amon again, and while he doesn't want to fight him-- - It's Kaneki versus Amon, Part III! - The two still seriously injure one another and both pass out. - Waking up in the cafe, he hears someone who turns out to be an injured Hide, who had dragged him back. - By that time, Kaneki realizes that his ghoul eye activated, but Hide tells him, "I knew." - Yep, since that battle all the way back with Nishiki, Hide knew his bestie was on a human diet. - More alarming though, the cafe's on fire due to Yoshimura's wish that if shit went down, so would the cafe's protection. - Hide collapses from his wounds as Kaneki carries him out of the fire to the doves' camp. - RIP, ghoul cafe. - With the original cafe now burned down, Touka later opens up a new cafe. - And now you're all caught up on Tokyo Ghoul! - Is Hide dead? - Who is The One-Eyed King, if there really is one? - Don't ghouls ever get sick of coffee? I mean, I can really only handle two or three a day and they drink it, like, all the time. - Will you keep watching Tokyo Ghoul? - (both) We know we'll be! ♪ (singing Tokyo Ghoul theme song) ♪ (trilling tongue) - Iron price! And now here's all the times we messed up! (beep) - I'm Benny Fine. - I'm Ted Evans. - And consider yourselves warned. - Grab a cup of coffee and activate your "kah-goo-nay". - "Kah-guh-nay." - "Kah-guh-nay." (beep) - Grab a cup of coffee and activate your "kah-goo-nay". - "Kah-guh-nay." - "Kah-goh-nay." - "Kah-guh-nay!" (beep) - They're exactly like humans-- - Except they have enhanced senses, predatory organs called Kagune that can-- gee-ku-ga-geh-geh-koo-geh-geh-koo... - (joining in) - Kakogaequinque, kakogaequinque, kakogon. (beep) - ...sewers, Mado reveals that the quinques are made out of ghoul's Kagune, and that he had turned Hiname's mom into a minque-- "Minque?!" Nooooo! - Noooooooooo! (laughter) "Minque." (beep) ♪ (singing Tokyo Ghoul theme song) ♪ - ♪ A total eclipse of the heart ♪ (both crack up) It sounds just like that. - Oh yeah. Yeah. (laughs)