Animschar’s 30 Day Anime Challenge – Day 10

Day 10: Anime that changed you – Tokyo Ghoul

MAJOR, MAJOR SPOILER AHEAD

Tokyo Ghoul as a series rather than just as an anime has had a great impact on me as a fan. For the most part, any horror genre almost always has a good outcome for at least one of the characters.  Sure, the main protagonist is put through hell and they either live or die. That’s about it. Ishida Sui, Tokyo Ghoul’s mangaka, goes above and beyond what a normal author usually does. And that is completely torture his main character over and over and over again with little to no hope of a happy outcome.

What can I say about Tokyo Ghoul that I haven’t said already. To reiterate myself, Tokyo Ghoul has become a HUGE series in my life. Never have I ever seen a more tragic story revolving around one character. Kaneki’s story starts off tragic and continues to be more and more depressing until he is kidnapped, tortured and sexually assaulted for two weeks straight.

As I read and watched, I slowly became more and more motherly towards Kaneki. I have NEVER called any character prior to him “my son”.  But after reading those chapters and watching Natsuki Hanae’s amazing and intense performance, I soon found myself attached to this character unlike any other.

My sweet baby

Let’s rest a bit…

And if THAT wasn’t enough, in the series’ sequel, Tokyo Ghoul:re, Kaneki is given a new life, albeit not his own. He was brainwashed and led to be a ghoul hunter by non other than the man who initially “killed” him. What the hell, Ishida?! I have never before seen an author put forth so much effort into tormenting their main character. But Ishida had a plan this whole time: kill of my main character, bring him back under the guise of someone else, return his memory and come back as someone more monstrous than before. Oh, and all of his friends are either missing or dead. My heart cannot take it anymore.

And here I am talking about just ONE character. I could go on and on about other tragic characters such as Juuzou Suzuya, Koutarou Amon, Touka Kirishima, Tsukiyama Shuu and many, many others. Every single character has a special place in my weeb heart; even the assholes who caused all this pain.

This is a series I cannot recommend enough. The manga is near perfection. Ishida’s use of watercolor for his covers is something I’ve never seen before; he even painted the illustrations for the opening of season two and endings for both seasons. He is active on twitter and is very in-tune with his fans and responds to their tweets. He has a great sense of humor with his characters such as painting them in silly situations. Everything he does seems to blow me away. I can only hope that he has a happy ending for our sweet prince.

To quote myself, ‘Even as I write this, I feel the sorrowful emotions and tears flowing through me. I am brought back to one of the first lines Kaneki said, “If you were to write a story with me in the lead role, it would certainly be… A tragedy.”‘

I’m off to therapy now. Bye.