Tokyo Ghoul



""If, for argument's sake, you were to write a story with me in the lead role, it would certainly be a tragedy.""

- Ken Kaneki

Tokyo Ghoul is a 2011 seinen manga series about things who feed on humans.

Ken Kaneki is just a college student with a crush on a girl. He manages to have a date with her, only to discover she's an horrible human-eating monster that seduced him only to kill him. When she's about to kill him however, a piece of falling beam falls and kills her.

Wounded, Kaneki is saved through an organ transplant from his would-be killer. Soon, he begins to acquire the traits of the human-like monsters known as "ghouls"...

Written and illustrated by Sui Ishida. Serialized on Shueisha's Weekly Young Jump.


 * Combat Tentacles: Ghouls are capable of creating these, growing it from inside their bodies.
 * Dark Is Not Evil: Kaneki when using his Ghoul mask, which makes look like he have giant exposed teeth and is black.
 * Don't Make Me Destroy You: In chapter 26, Kaneki urges Amon to run away after he defeats him in battle so he doesn't have to kill him.
 * Don't You Dare Pity Me!: In chapter 27, Mado feels such disgust at Hinami sparing him that he attacks her despite being already very injured.
 * Due to the Dead:
 * In chapter 24, Mado reveals the weapon he using to fight Touka is made from body parts of Hinami's mother Ryouko.
 * The investigators mourning Kusaba is used to humanizing effect, showing that their sorrow and of Hinami is not very different and untimely both sides are fundamentally good.
 * Face of a Thug: Uta seems to be a nice person, but his piercings, tatoos, and weird half-shaved hairstyle really weird out Kaneki.
 * Good Times Montage: One where Kaneki remembers his friendship with Hide just before his best friend is almost killed.
 * Green-Eyed Monster: Despite knowing little to nothing about Kaneki's character or personality, Touka in anger refuses to help him because he used to be human and she envies the fact he used to be able to eat normal food.
 * Half Human Hybrid: What ghouls and Kaneki himself consider that he is, since a good lot of his body parts are human and only one of his eyes is ghoul-like.
 * Hero Antagonist: The inspectors. With ghouls actively hunting humans and their several super-powers who they use to do it, their presence and murdering of ghouls feels necessary. Even if some of them do their work with extreme malice.
 * Horror Hunger: Kaneki begins to feel that after receiving a transplant from a ghoul. Not only normal food tastes horrible, but the thighs of a waitress look incredibly delicious to him...
 * I'm a Humanitarian: The ghouls are said to be "monsters in human shape" and can breed with humans, what can mean they retain enough of their human nature to still be considered human. And they eat humans, so they're still cannibals.
 * Killed Mid-Sentence: Kusaba dies in Chapter 17 while talking to Nakajima, having his head diagonally cut by Touka.
 * Must Have Caffeine: Ghouls can digest coffee unlike every other kind of human food. As result of their hunger, soon they become addicted to it.
 * Peek A Bangs: Touka's bangs cover her eyes. Considering how much she tries to keep Kaneki at distance, it means concealment.
 * [[Revenge: Hinami gives up on seeking revenge on Mado on chapter 27, since it won't bring her parents back and alleviate her pain.
 * Shower of Angst: Kaneki goes through one in Chapter 16, angsting over the moral ambiguity of Ryouko's death and his own unability to save her.
 * Sink or Swim Mentor: In chapter 19, Touka begins to train Kaneki by kicking him around until his survival instincts kick in and the tentacles come out.
 * Super Toughness: Desperately trying to get rid of his condition, Kaneki tries to stab himself to get his ghoul organ replaced. The knife bends.
 * Survivor Guilt: Kaneki begins o suffer of this after Kyuko dies in chapter 15, blaming her death on his own weakness.
 * Zettai Ryouiki: Played for (dark) laughs. Kaneki begins to show his cannibal ghoul's hunger by staring at the thighs of a waitress using thigh highs.