| The first season of Tokyo Ghoul was a messy set up to a story that could've been great. Season 2 was a disappointing follow-up with some big problems, but I still had some fun watching. Next came the 2 seasons of Tokyo Ghoul:re, which once again had the opportunity to turn the series around and bring back what was great. Instead, we got a hilariously bad mess. Season 3 has seemingly no logical connection to season 2. There is no conclusion to the battle from season 2's climax, we just jump 2 years in the future and find ourselves following a CCG member named Haise (who is actually Kaneki with his memories gone) fighting ghouls along with a group of other CCG members. We spend the whole season following this group of people who have nothing interesting happen with them. Similarly to how Kaneki forgot his past, the show has also forgotten about the characters we actually cared about. Touka, one of the Anteiku ghouls, just smiles at Kaneki a few times. Hinami, the Anteiku ghoul who had chosen to not chase after revenge, has joined the evil ghouls for some reason. And Seido, a CCG member with no apparent mental instabiltiy in season 2, is completely insane now. Just like Kaneki at the end of season 1, it turns out he was tortured for a while and became insane. For some reason this method is used a lot in the show even though it's the most boring excuse to make someone a violent psychopath. The show also adds even more new characters than season 2 did. These new characters get at most 5 seconds of backstory and development or have no development and are in the story for seemingly no reason. I guess they didn't realize season 2's problem of having too many characters, and so they decided to just add even more. This season also has the most insulting story line in the whole show. Much of the season focuses around Tsukiyama and his family/servants. Tsukiyama was always a terrible character; in season 1 he was put in the story seemingly to dehumanize the ghouls which was the opposite of what they needed to do. His personality is also way too goofy for this show, and even the other characters think he's annoying. So of course season 3 gives him a story line in which a lot of people care about him for some reason, and tries to make you care when he "dies." Also just like Kaneki's lost memories, the show has lost any thematic depth. Nothing is said about the cycle of violence, and nothing is said about the nature of the ghouls. In fact, this season introduces one of the most dehumanized ghouls in the show: the "Nutcracker." A ghoul who got that name because she literally enjoys cracking men's... nuts. And then when she dies they try to humanize her by showing a short clip of her as a child saying "I want to be pretty." As if that had anything to do with how she acted as a ghoul, or that a character called "the nutcracker" for the reasons in this show could seriously be sympathetic in any way. I honestly can't think of any reason why someone might like season 3. All of the old characters get either no development or they change in ways that make no sense. None of the new characters get enough focus to become interesting. Even the fights scenes (which weren't that good in the earlier seasons) are terribly choreographed and animated. And there are a few story lines that are literally trying to insult your intelligence. I did get a good laugh many times, however, whenever they tried to give any of the random side characters development for 5 seconds. Season 3 was a mess from start to finish, but season 4 just feels disappointing. It starts out with Eto, one of the ~evil~ ghouls who was actually working as an author, making a big announcement. She publicly reveals herself to be a ghoul and expresses her intention to make peace between the humans and ghouls. Even though this seems extremely out of character for her, it gave me some hope that the show was finally remembering its purpose. However instead of continuing to build on this, the show goes right back to random fight scenes barely strung together with no development for anyone. The main overarching storyline in this season seems to be something about a ghoul family that controls the CCG??? And I think they wanted to turn everyone into ghouls??? But this family had never even been hinted at existing before this, making it seemed like they pulled this final boss out of nowhere. And nothing about them is made clear during the final season, other than that they are the bad guys and they need to be killed. This season actually does try to have a conclusion to the cycle of violence theme from season 1. In this season, the CCG and ghouls finally make peace. However, their coming together in this season completely misses the point. The problem meant to be solved which was set up in season 1 was that ghouls needed to eat humans, and so they ended up killing humans. The CCG then wants revenge for the dead humans, so they kill any ghouls they can find. Oftentimes these ghouls which are killed weren't actually violent ones, and so other ghouls then seek revenge against the CCG. This cycle has been going on for a long time, but it has only led to more and more death on both sides. So what needs to happen is for both to realize that seeking revenge will only lead to more death, and that the actual solution is to talk with each other to try and find a peaceful solution. In season 4, there is no big realization of this problem. Instead, Kaneki creates an organization called Goat (lmao) with the purpose of bringing peace. Then he shows up to the CCG with all his Goat ghouls and tells them to join Goat. The leader of the CCG can't make the decision himself, so he chooses another CCG member to make the entire decision, and this character basically says, "Yeah ok." No one in the CCG has a moment where they question if the ghouls are evil or a realization of the cycle of violence. In fact most of them still seem to view the ghouls as bloodthirsty monsters. The main reason the show gives for the CCG joining Goat is actually something really boring. Basically, Kaneki turns into a big worm thing for some reason and it is causing the aliens from Mars of Destruction to spawn and attack people. The CCG members agree to make peace with the ghouls because they'll be stronger against the worm thing if they work together. So basically instead of having the CCG agree to peace because of the interesting reasons set up in season 1, giving a conclusion to the show's powerful themes, instead the reason is "oh no big monster." The final battle of the season is completely nonsensical. Kaneki gets dug out of the worm and then searches for the worm's core to destroy it. Meanwhile, everyone else fights an army of people dressed up like vampires who look exactly the same and I don't even know who they are or where they came from what is happening how did this show get like this AAAAAAAA. And eventually the credits roll. And it doesn't feel that good to stop watching this terrible show. At the end, I felt nothing but disappointment. Season 4 definitely had some better moments than season 3. There's one part where a CCG member meets some ghouls in the park and it's actual heartwarming how she finds out they're not bloodthirsty monsters. However these few good moments make season 4 feel even worse, as they are contrasted drastically by being put next to the rest of the season which is a complete mess. At least they remembered the themes existed. Tokyo Ghoul's biggest problems were always there. However at every opportunity the show had to turn itself around and focus on the good stuff, it instead decided to bring out its problems even more. The first season focused slightly too much on being edgy, and soon the pointless edge became the entire show. Season 2 had a few too many characters, and then seasons 3 and 4 decided there needed to be even more. The character decisions started to make less sense in season 2 and eventually there wasn't even a way to judge that as we don't even know who the characters are anymore. As the anime embodiment of the downward spiral, Tokyo Ghoul constantly made its problems more of a problem and added even more problems on top of them. Which is how it became a 1/10. |
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