Tokyo Ghoul #01 — Let Me Tell You About Tastebuds

July 3rd, 2014

  

Oh god no! Not tastebuds!

Impressions:

This certainly had the strongest opening bit of all the shows so far, although I spent most of hook hoping that none of what anybody was actually saying was going to be important (it rarely is) since I couldn’t make out a word over the blaring music. Only the orgasmic laughter was apparently important enough to carry over the din. I can’t say that the direction in general is particularly effective either. It makes constant use of reds and blacks to try to show supernatural elements, but the entire world, normal or supernatural, has a bit of a fluorescent glow to it whether or not there are undead glowing a slightly different shade of neon. Pierrot did put a surprising amount of effort into this at least. The animation certainly isn’t what’s letting it down. 

Pretty soon in though, it made a fatal mistake; it introduced the astonishingly abhorrent protagonist. I know Japan loves its pantywaists, but this guy takes it to a truly ridiculous level. To its credit, the show does indeed go on, covering more ground than the other three things I’ve watched so far today combined, but all he does is cry, whether it’s watching a news broadcast on tastebuds or trying not to eat some kid. Cry and curl up into the fetal position. You can’t even blame it on turning into a flesheater either since he was a socially maladjusted pathetic lecherous worm without any thought but “Gonna stare at some titties!” to start with. As with the direction, there needs to be contrast. Pathetic to patheticer isn’t enough. Take something actually away from him. “His humanity” is what they’re going for, but that’s a poor argument to make considering the small glimpse we had of his life. Besides which, the protagonist has to be an actor in the story. Otherwise, it’s nothing but a sadistic exercise in watching an idiot suffer while he bemoans his fate.

There certainly are enough things here to make it worth a second look, but I have my doubts that I can get past my detest for this protagonist.

Posted in Tokyo Ghoul | 12 Comments »

12 Shouts From the Peanut Gallery

  • frog212 says:

    Oh god I love eating. Do you live to eat or do you eat to live?

  • datchison18 says:

    Only problem is that the girl that died wore glasses. Why couldn’t an ally wear glasses?

  • Atmo says:

    I loved his Yuuki faces, they were all so… damn, I’m a S.

  • Kinda impressed says:

    Though I hate the protagonist, I just read the first few chapters of the manga and they seem to be making some good decisions in what to cut out, add, and reorder.

    Wasn’t looking forward to this, but the adaptations seems to be fairly good so far.

  • The Phantom says:

    Based on the pics alone this looks outright awesome. *Must watch*

    • aklik says:

      yes apparently they’ll put some effort into it, because it relates to cannibalism legalisation company which follows homosexualism and incest/pedo legalisation companies

  • ElevatorDreams says:

    This show has so much potential.

  • Dave Baranyi says:

    Hmmm – you “can’t stab them”, so a kitchen knife blade breaks when a weakling tries halfheartedly to stab himself. But the doctor could operate on the girl ghoul and give the weakling her organs…

    So we’ve got an idiot plot mixed up with up-front plot holes and a crap protagonist. Not a great combination for keeping suspension-of-disbelief going very long.

    Essentially, this was crap, trying for some “sex and death” titillation, and doing a piss poor job of it.

    Good luck with the second episode – I won’t be watching it…

    • aklik says:

      so it is weird that ghoul with inhuman strength can break knife in one strike…
      also you should watch anime, not only screenshots…
      doktor wanted to implanted ghoul’s organs into a normal human so of course he knew how to operate on ghoul…

      • Dave Baranyi says:

        I watched the episode – I wish that instead I only spent the time to look at the screenshots. The premise is crap, the execution is crap and the characters are worse.

  • stupid seiha says:

    Oh look. Tenka is going to drop another anime that seiha is gonna drop cause of a small mundane thing, when perhaps this anime is going to exceed everyone’s expectations. Fate/zero? madoka magica?

  • Flip Porter says:

    Aroduc I will say this. Given time the protagonist will change to be a bit more interesting. Sadly depending on how long they drag it out it could be near the end of the season knowing anime.