series introduction
Tokyo Ghoul is a dark fantasy manga series created by Ishida Sui in 2001. It belongs to seinen demographic (targeted for mature male audience) and serialized in Weekly Young Jump.
It features rather heavy themes—blood & murder, graphic violence, tragedy, psychology (also a veeery little bit of ecchi). Tokyo Ghoul manga ends in 143 chapters, and continues on a second installment under the same magazine that is still ongoing, named Tokyo Ghoul: re.
The series has been adapted into anime and live action. They also release 4 volumes of light novels with original stories, a short spinoff manga named Tokyo Ghoul: Jack, and 4 different kinds of games. This shrine, however, is heavily based on the manga Tokyo Ghoul and Tokyo Ghoul: re, because the anime (well, unsurprisingly) is not faithful to the manga storyline.
Plot
Tokyo Ghoul takes place in an alternate reality in Japan, where humans are no longer on top of the food chain. There exists a creature that has the form of a human, lives amongst them while hiding its true nature: stronger physique, red eyes, and preys on humans—called a ghoul. More than that, a ghoul can release a weapon out of their body, called kagune.
The story follows Kaneki Ken, a shy college student, whose life has taken an unexpected turn after a date with Kamishiro Rize, a young woman who appears to be a ghoul called the “Binge-Eater”. She attacks Kaneki with the intention to eat him, but accidentally gets killed by I-beams that fall on top of her. Kaneki, in a critical condition, is brought to Kanou General Hospital. The doctor decides to transplant Rize’s liver into his body to save his life. Unfortunately, the surgery changes him into a half-ghoul, which brings forth tragedy in his life.
After some time, Kaneki finally realizes that he’s no longer a human, as he finds human food disgusting and inedible. Yoshimura invites him to join Anteiku and teaches him how to live as a ghoul. From then on, Kaneki has to learn how to survive from the danger of other ferocious ghouls as well as the CCG—the bureau that investigates and hunts ghouls.
In Tokyo Ghoul:Re, Kaneki suffers from amnesia and assumes a new identity of Sasaki Haise, a ghoul investigator for the CCG. He is a Rank-1, and becomes a mentor of a group of quinx. Despite being a half-ghoul, Haise does an excellent job fighting ghouls, and his ability makes him gain promotions from time to time. However, he is still haunted by the voices inside his head. Haise then begins to encounter more people from his past and fragments of his memory.
key characters
Here’s a short introduction to several key characters from the first Tokyo Ghoul series. There are actually many more of them, but I can’t fit them all into this page, sorry!
Kaneki Ken
The protagonist of the series. Kaneki is very reserved and has problems interacting with other people. He hates hurting others, and as he grows closer to his ghoul friends from Anteiku, he sees that the world is wrong.(more...)
Yoshimura / Manager
A gentle and wise old man who runs the coffee shop, Anteiku. He provides help for ghouls who cannot hunt for themselves. He assures Kaneki that he has place in both human and ghoul world.
Nagachika Hideyoshi
Kaneki’s longtime human best friend. Unlike Kaneki, he’s cheerful and sociable. Hide is also very perceptive and has a strong intuition. Hide secretly knows about Kaneki’s transformation, but supports him nevertheless.
Kirishima Touka
One of the very first ghouls Kaneki encountered; she works part-time as a waitress in Anteiku. She seems very brash at first, but shows a much gentler side and caring nature later on. (more...)
Nishio Nishiki
A ghoul who intends to kill Kaneki because he suspects him for trespassing his territory. He bears a grudge after being heavily wounded by Kaneki, but they become allies later on.