Blood, Gore, and Entrails

Tokyo Ghoul is one of my favorites so far this season and it is magnificently ghoulish. A component of it leads me to think of “I am Legend”, the book not the film. In Tokyo Ghoul, ghouls are hated by humans and are hunted down and killed because of the ghouls that ferociously devour humans. Humans find it hard to understand that the ghouls live off flesh and that there are ghouls who don’t want to kill humans to survive. Some ghouls try to create their own society and want to live relatively peaceful lives. Humans do not know about this side of ghouls and cannot see past their fear. In the book, “I am Legend”, Neville has been killing the infected humans and was completely unaware that there were “vampires” who were taking control of their infections and trying to live normalized lives again.

Ken Kaneki who is the main character in Tokyo Ghoul is trying to live a normal life as a half ghoul/half human. He has to fight to overcome the ghoul side of him that wants to viciously devour flesh. He wants to maintain his humanity. He is learning as we are learning in each episode that there are ghouls who also want some humanity. It brings to question, what is humanity? There are characters, specifically those that are called “Doves”, that act horrifically in murdering ghouls, and these “Doves” are human. One laughs at killing a ghoul in front of her child and mockingly questions that she can feel love for another. As humans, we have the tendency to let our fear and lack of knowledge sully how we see those different from us. Granted, not all ghouls are peace-loving creatures but those who are get placed in the box with those that are not. They suffer from the stereotypes perpetuated upon their group because of bad apples. This happens in our society constantly. A group of people are demonized by due to the actions of a minority in their group. The group as a whole pays the price for the actions of a few. Or the group has stereotypes placed on them because another group simply does not like them and wants to oppress them. So far, in Tokyo Ghoul, it appears that it is the former in their situations.

The show is very dark and though the story isn’t teeming over with complexity, it most definitely has a good plot. The fight scenes are pretty good, lots of violence with dark, vibrant, bold reds. There are some levels of intrigue. For example, Kaneki was not born a half ghoul/half human, he was given an organ transplant of a ghoul. It appears that the doctor knew what he was doing based off the smirk he gave when Kaneki told him he didn’t like regular food anymore. In addition, there was the snippets of the conversation between the doctor and nurses during the procedure. The show has not returned to this but I hope that they don’t leave this plot hole gaping open. I will say this show has me biting my fingernails.

What are you watching right now?

 

Image created by: xmelancholyskyx

• Posted in: Anime ♦ Art ♦ Fashion