You know how there's just that common sense knowledge passed down that the book is always better than its film or television adaptation? Well, take this as a post that just solidifies that as hard fact. Let me just state first that I actually watched the first season of Tokyo Ghoul before I picked up the manga. While I saw running meme posts and manga caps of the manga wandering around, I didn't feel a particular draw to the series. While the anime in and of itself is not bad, the popularity of the series rests with the original world that Ishida Sui created in Tokyo Ghoul, the manga, and any adaptation I feel should respect and stay as true to the source as much as possible. Instead of doing that, Tokyo Ghoul turned out like this--a sad and tragic fate for an already sad and tragic story of a young boy who did absolutely nothing wrong.
When Tokyo Ghoul first premiered, I was browsing around deciding on what shows to watch for that particular season lineup. Since a lot of people were freaking out about it, I decided to give it a shot. The first season of Tokyo Ghoul will always carry a small token of appreciation and gratitude from my heart for merely introducing me to Ishida Sui's creative world. While manga readers prior might not have felt the same when they watched the episodes' releases, I came in completely unaware and it created a decent platform to enter the manga's world. It was after the end of season 1 that I felt desperate to read how it continues. This was also the time when the serialization for Tokyo Ghoul ended in a drastic and very cliffhanger-esque way. The explosion on my dashboard was phenomenal and I caved. I started reading the series and even followed TG:Re's serialization when it started to come out. It was during this transition and hiatus period between the anime's first and second season that made me realize what the complaints were about while the first season aired and my attention to the details between manga and anime were heightened.
I'm not a stickler for keeping everything exactly as the book formats it, but obviously there were just crucial and critical pieces that shouldn't have been cut out that was during the animation production and storytelling. While I won't nitpick the details, I'm just going to blanket the entire issue under character development; this might be my biggest gripe given my creative writing background but nonetheless, it's still an important feature to any effective type of story. What drew me in more in the manga is detailed deterioration of Kaneki's life as he is thrown into the world of ghouls, and also the surrounding backgrounds and histories of all the other characters both CCG and ghoul alike. While Tokyo Ghoul is obviously a very violent world given the circumstances of how a ghoul survives, the story is much more psychological in nature rather than about action. Tokyo Ghoul the anime sacrifices these emotional and mental conflicts and obstacles for the more colorful and varied action scenes. While it's appealing to watch, it degrades the impact of a character's actions or traumas. The issue with the first season in particular, despite my fondness for it, is the shift away from Kaneki's situation as he tries to adjust being a ghoul and later on the torture scenes with Jason. We aren't allowed to see the true extent of the tragedy of his story. Instead of feeling intense sadness, despair and hopelessness, the chopping of Kaneki scenes give us a pathetic sense of sympathy.
The second season Tokyo Ghoul √A suffers much more than the first season. If I had to make an apt comparison of the second season and to some other train wreck of a show, it'd be the equivalent of Game of Thrones season 3 onwards, specifically season 5. The storyline while loosely similar was moved around and changed. Kankei, our protagonist, gets about 20 minutes of screen time in the entire show where he isn't in kakuja form, or sipping coffee in an abandoned warehouse. Any change Kaneki has is reserved for the last two episodes and even his choice which diverges away from the original work is never fully explained. We're supposed to accept strangely that Kaneki should join Aogiri Tree, but never a proper why or if he got anything out of it. Likewise, Hide's participation in the second season is severely reduced. As a character that's crucial to Kaneki, Hide doesn't get the full development he needs to reach the dire consequences of his end. Likewise what I very much dislike (perhaps even hate) about the second season is how we actually see Hide die. While I'm not waiting for Tokyo Ghoul to have a third season, the ambiguity of Hide's mortality was what made the end of the manga so distressing and right for the situation. This ties in with the relatively amicable end of Kaneki essentially turning himself in. It washes away Kaneki's state as a kakuja, totally thrown to his instincts of hysteria and protection, completely animalistic and devoid of proper cognition. The ghoul world is a violent world and Kaneki's end in the manga as he is essentially "killed" by Arima.
Nothing feels entirely tragic, just sad.
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