Review: Tokyo Ghoul root A

Tokyo Ghoul root A is the successor of Tokyo Ghoul, one of my favourite series of last year. I started root A with very high hopes and, instead, I was treated to a series so convoluted and unclear that I don’t really know what I spent those twelve episodes watching. Read on to find out why!

First, let’s begin with a foreword about the first season of Tokyo Ghoul.

It is set in Tokyo. A Tokyo that is filled with your normal human beings and a few ghouls to boot. Ghouls look exactly like their human neighbours, except they survive by devouring human flesh, and, because of this, they are hunted and sometimes detained. This had led to ghouls living in secrecy, trying to blend into human society.

Ghouls come in different varieties. There are some who hunt humans for food and others who try to get by without taking any lives.

And this is where our main protagonist, Kaneki Ken, comes in.

Kaneki gets into a tricky spot at the start of season one, where he is literally about to be eaten by a rather beautiful ghoul. He gets out of it, but not without injury. After being taken to hospital and being operated on, he soon makes a recovery, except something isn’t quite right.

A few twist and turns later, Kaneki finds out that he is now part-ghoul.

Season one is amazing.

You watch Kaneki struggle with his new tendacies. As part-human, part-ghoul, he desires human flesh but he also refuses to hurt anyone. If he doesn’t feed however, it will start to affect his own health. Kaneki is later taken in by a group of ghouls that run a local coffee shop and ‘things’ start to happen.

The end of the first season was great and I eagerly awaited the start of the second season. I was really, really, really looking forward to it.

And it finally came.

Right from the get go, shit was hitting the fan. I watched episode one with a whole load of joy for what was finally happening. When it ended, I had a few questions. Why did this happen? Why has this character done this? Why did that character not do that?

There were a lot of whys, but I didn’t think too much about it, instead I was excited about what the rest of the series was going to be filled with. Root A had gotten off to a fantastic start and I was ready for eleven episodes of more gore and action and battles and just downright good anime.

And so I continued to watch root A every week and there seemed to be a lot happening…

But… I just had no idea what was going on.

Sure, there were fights, but I didn’t know why they were fighting. Kaneki was eating people, but I didn’t know why he was eating people. There were owls and kakujas, but I didn’t know why. 

Lots of things were happening, but I point blank did not know why.

All of the above uncertainty is only made worse by Kaneki no longer voicing his opinion on anything. His character has changed a hell of a lot since the very beginnings of Tokyo Ghoul. Now, the change was believable and done quite well, but what we have been left with is a cold, almost emotionless Kaneki.

So that means that all of these events and battles and so on that Kaneki becomes involved with during root A are made that little bit more confusing because there is no narrative or explanation and also because Kaneki is so damn difficult to read.

One of my other gripes was with new characters. There were many new characters introduced, but there was little to no insight into who they were or why they were around. Furthermore, characters, new and old, just seemed to fall completely off the radar, with, again, little to no explanation as to why.

Despite all of this, there were a few episodes towards the end the series that I actually cared about a little bit, but this was short lived because things started happening, seemingly OP characters started appearing and things ‘go down’ yet again.

And as for the ending…

Now, it might just be because I recently watched the ending to Shigatsu, but what I think was meant to be quite a powerful, emotional ending, well, wasn’t. I found it very flat.

I feel as though root A was very rushed and sort of haphazardly put together. Much of the plot twists and events needed further development and would have benefited from an episode or two to explain why they were happening. Furthermore, there are loads of interesting characters that are dangled in front of you briefly that would have severely benefited from a little development.

What concerns me is the little hint at the end that points towards a further series. Unfortunately, at this point, I think I will struggle to find motivation to watch it, if it does happen.

Tokyo Ghoul was very promising, but sadly didn’t deliver.