Sui Ishida

We get a glimpse of Touka's school life. As anti-human as she has previously seemed, it turns out that she actually really values her best human friend, to the point of regularly choking down the food her friend makes for her. Kaneki visits Hinami at Touka's place, learns more about how to fight, and meets up with Yomo, Uta, and their friend Itori (the owner of a bar called Helter Skelter). Itori wants to know more about a special ghoul restaurant, so she offers to exchange info about the show more person who killed Rize - it turns out that Rize's death was not an accident like Kaneki had previously thought. In order to learn about the restaurant, Kaneki has to get closer to Shu Tsukiyama, nicknamed the Gourmet. Unfortunately, he is soon betrayed. Instead of taking him to the restaurant as a guest, Tsukiyama brings him there as an exciting new entree.

I wish these volumes came with translator's note and/or a bit more information about the world terminology. So far words like "quinque" and "kagune" have been thrown about with little explanation. In the previous volume, Mado's last words were something to the effect that he wanted to bury the "Sekigan" with his own two hands. In this volume, the translator opted to translate "Sekigan" as "one-eyed king." Why not translate it this way in the previous volume as well, or include a brief note?

We see more of Nishiki in this volume (who, since I took crappy notes, has not been mentioned in my summaries at all - I'm not even entirely sure I have his name right). He hasn't been doing too well since he was injured. Kaneki saves him and learns that he has a human girlfriend who knows he's a ghoul and doesn't seem to mind. I suspect that this will end badly.

Kaneki is kind of dumb. He knows that Tsukiyama is a flashy killer, and yet he's still drawn in. I wouldn't be surprised if Tsukiyama manages to trick him again.

Again, this series continues to throw characters at me that I don't really like and don't necessarily care to see more of. Part of me is still tempted to get the anime, to see if aspects of the series go over better in that format, and part of me is just not into this series enough for that.

One thing that surprised me: apparently this series is digitally illustrated, and Ishida only has one assistant.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) show less

Sometimes I find manga a little difficult to read, only because I find the plot too predictable or the characters too stereotypical. Tokyo Ghoul really surprised me, because neither of those things happened! Throughout the story, there's a sort of Ghostbusters-y vibe going on, what with all the ghouls roaming the city, which I really enjoyed. The whole plot has a very engaging adventure/horror/paranormal feel, but not overwhelmingly so. There were also large doses of humor, especially the show more interactions between Ken and Hide. Those two together just made me so happy! They have such a strong bond, and the flashback moments to their childhood and how they met were so sweet.
My only grief with the first volume here is how some of the action sequences were drawn, and the fact that the narration dragged a bit in the middle. The art style is really nice and strong, but during some of the fight sequences I honestly couldn't tell what was happening. It wasn't anything too distracting, just a little awkward to try and understand.
Despite those two minor things, I already have the next two volumes and can't wait to read them!! show less

Kimi, Nishiki's human girlfriend, comes to Kaneki for help - Nishiki's wound isn't healing well. Unfortunately, this puts her in the Gourmet's sights. He uses her as a hostage to lure in Kaneki, and ends up getting Nishiki and Touka as well. None of the three are strong enough to battle him, so Kaneki offers himself to Touka as a snack, thinking that his body is probably human enough to help her build her strength up enough to fight the Gourmet. She does manage to beat him and then wants to show more kill Kimi too, for knowing too much, but ends up sparing her. There's a flashback showing how Kimi and Nishiki met. She learned he was a ghoul shortly after Kaneki fought him - she even offered herself to him as food so that he could heal better. Then there's another flashback, this one to Rize moving from the 11th Ward to the 20th. Then back to the CCG and the present - things are ramping up, and a new ghoul investigator, Juzo Suzuya, is introduced.

I enjoyed the flashbacks to Nishiki's past, although the way that Kimi came to accept him isn't something that would work for most humans. I'm not quite sure how I feel about their relationship. On the one hand, they seem to genuinely care for each other. On the other hand, I'm not entirely sure that hanging around ghouls is healthy for Kimi. While her relationship with Nishiki kept her from committing suicide, she's made it clear that, if he needs food, she's willing to be his meal even though she might end up dead.

The flashback to Rize's past was a bit worthless, although it did show that there were lots of ghouls with a reason to want her dead. Kaneki is going to have a tough time narrowing down the suspects.

The CCG stuff was just...not good. Even if one of them hadn't killed the relatively harmless Ryoko Fueguchi a few volumes ago, every time they appear on page at least one of them strikes me as being at least as scary as the scarier ghouls. The scene with Suzuya and the officer made me decide that I probably don't want to watch the anime, not if that scene is included. I couldn't tell exactly what it was he did (I mean, did he really just blow something through the guy's skull via his ears? did I interpret that right?), but whatever it was, it should have qualified him as just as much of a monster as the ghouls they were trying to defend humanity against. And yet.

Amon seems to be the most normal of all the ghoul investigators readers have so far gotten to know, and I'm not particularly impressed with him either if he can witness the behavior of someone like Suzuya and not start to question whether he's on the right side.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) show less

Kaneki starts working at Anteiku, learning to make coffee and wait tables. He meets Ryoko Fueguchi and her daughter Hinami, two ghouls who don't (can't?) hunt. Kaneki starts practicing eating human food like normal, so that he can more easily blend in and hide his ghoul nature, orders his first mask from Uta, and controls his hunger with brown "sugar" cubes in his coffee. I have a feeling he's going to rely too much on those "sugar" cubes and forget that he actually needs to eat human flesh show more every once in a while. This quiet period ends when two ghouls investigators track down the Fueguchis and try to exterminate them. Ryoko sacrifices herself so that her daughter can escape, and Kaneki, who witnesses Ryoko's death, decides that he no longer wants to be helpless. He asks Touka to teach him how to use his kagune (ghoul weaponry?).
The volume ends with Uta's delivery of Kaneki's first mask, which is way more badass (if impractical) than he, at this point, deserves.

I'm intrigued by the world and the story, but many of the characters are just not very likeable. For example, I understand what drives Touka but I can't entirely root for her. Unlike Yoshimura, she seems to have a much more black and white view of the world. Then there's Kaneki, who's still a spineless wimp (granted, I doubt I'd manage much better than him if I were suddenly told that the only thing I could comfortably eat was human flesh). The Fueguchis were nice, but clearly low level ghouls and not the sort of folks that this series is going to focus on. And again, Yoshimura seems nice enough, but readers haven't exactly gotten to know him much yet. Uta intrigues me, at least. I have to wonder how he stays hidden from ghoul inspectors, considering that his appearance screams "ghoul." Is it even possible for his eyes to look normal?

This volume's main goal seemed to be to make the ghouls more sympathetic, at least low level ones like the Fueguchis, and it succeeded in that. As far as I could see, they weren't hurting anyone, and even their Anteiku-provided meals were acquired in as harmless a way as possible.

The ghoul investigators, on the other hand, were a bit disturbing. At least one of them didn't seem to be quite human himself. I wonder, is he a ghoul hunting other ghouls?

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) show less