Tokyo Ghoul – 06

Not sure whether to focus on his grievous wounds or his overly-detailed hair

I’m starting to get the hang of blogging while having a full-time job. It only took…halfway through the series to get used to things. I’m actually surprised 50% of the season has come and gone so quickly. At this rate, I should already be preparing for the next season! Ahhh, maybe I’m not really used to juggling everything just yet…

Relief washed over me as soon as that battle ended. I just couldn’t get into it with a villain as cheesy as Tsukiyama. That alone makes me glad everything was wrapped up within a few minutes of episode 6. However, I can’t help but notice how much of a poor fight it was. The choreography was dreadful, the pacing was weird, and it was all over the place as Tsukiyama randomly beat down one of three targets. This scattered focus made it a really messy scene from start to finish. Maybe if they were better, they could benefit from being longer. But they’re so lifeless that I’d just prefer they speed it up and get it over with at this rate. This is my issue with most of the fights so far – they are extremely short and lack a strong climax. The showdown between the Doves and Yamori was an improvement, but it was also very brief and lacked anything interesting.

Good riddance (I HOPE)

It’s hard to like a fight when it’s just people running at each other straight-on, one of the them dodging and then countering with a stronger attack. Rinse and repeat and you’ve got pretty much all of Tokyo Ghoul. The most “strategy” you get is taking a nibble of a nearby ration (such as a shoulder) to get a power boost. For a show that seems so keen to throw away the psychological and horror aspects and go right into shounen territory, it struggles with making the battles interesting. Why throw away a good idea and then replace it with a half-hearted version of another one?

Perhaps the tedium of the fights comes from the time restraints of the show. It’s clear that the original material is being cut, spliced, mixed up and god knows what. I felt that very acutely when the Doves whipped out giant weapons and provided us no real explanation about them. If they did, I must have blinked and missed it. From looks alone, I assume they are man-made replicas of kagune for ghoul-hunting. Regardless of how clear it is what those hideous, glowing weapons are, it feels like something is missing. We know very little about the Doves. I don’t know if Mado is obsessed with Yamori for a reason or if he’s just plain MAD. I don’t know how the hell they make those weapons. Heck, I didn’t even see Hinami’s dad’s face during that entire scene. Whether this is due to content being left out or just in the interest of moving the action along with too much word-dumping, I don’t know. But it felt like there was a lot missing here. It doesn’t help to have a scene where all of the characters feel like strangers and be expected to fully grasp their conflicting goals and interests.

Well, it’s a relief to know they weren’t just bashing ghouls with suitcases this entire time

On the bright side, things pick up once the atrocious fighting ends. Hinami is naturally adorable thanks to her magnetic charm. Who doesn’t love an obedient kid who just wants to read books all day and spend time with her family? Even if you hate kids, you have to admit that she would be easy to babysit at the very least. Just forget that she could eat you for a second. Other than the whole ghoul thing, she’s a sweetheart. We’ve seen enough of her that seeing her get upset about her dad has meaning. I found myself not caring about his death at all until I realized what it meant for Hinami. I didn’t know the guy – we never got the chance to learn about him. But I do know Hinami and I don’t like seeing her suffer.

Of course, a little girl in a show like this is destined for suffering. I was expecting her to die, but this is just as bad. Now her mom and dad will end up dead while she’s left all alone – full of bitterness. It’s an interesting place for the story to turn because it shows us the dark side of ghoul hunting. Initially, you may think of ghoul-hunting as humanity’s natural way to weed out a population of creatures that are trying to kill them. But it’s depicted more like mass genocide without a lick of mercy. It seems like every human is either a special ally to the ghouls or so anti-ghoul they want to strip off their skin and burn them alive. It makes it very hard to take the issue seriously when the lines are drawn so clearly instead of being fuzzy. We’re supposed to side with the ghouls, and we’re not given much else as a choice since the humans that kill the ghouls have no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

As weird as it is for the humans to be played as the villain here, it works wells for completely messing up Hinami’s life. If there’s one thing I cared about this week, it was seeing Hinami get her hopes up only to have them come crashing down in the worst way possible. Although Tokyo Ghoul is far from being the most eloquent show out there, I’m still curious how it will progress each week. Namely, what will Hinami do now that she’s an orphan? This show varies wildly in terms of quality from moment to moment, but the strong finish this week made me feel a little more hopeful.

There’s a lot to complain about in Tokyo Ghoul, but it’s oddly enjoyable in the moment you watch it. It’s only when I sit down to write about it that I realize how much it’s missing things. Ah well, we get to see red-eyes beasts pummel each other to death and ponder over what the heck is under those censor lightbeams.

I-it’s not like I’m pretty or anything! B-baka!