In this transformative and sensational first season of Tokyo Ghoul, the innate nature of every living thing is shown.
If the limiter known as reasoning is taken away and some cause of their violence is given to them, every living thing can justify their basic instinct of violence.
Transformation is a part of life and it happens in various terms.
A certain type of transformation is depicted in this season.
Synopsis
As described in Tokyo Ghoul’s first season, in an alternate version of Tokyo, except for humans there also exists another species, ghouls.
Ghouls have some unique physical constitutions.
One of those constitutions is to survive only on human flesh as a diet.
They are considerably more strong and agile than normal humans.
Ghouls can use some hidden apparatus on their bodies in their defense or to hunt named Kagune.
Kagune is like an extra limb to them.
In other words, they are the perfect urban predators.
The protagonist of the first season is Kaneki Ken.
Kaneki is an introvert, who is an avid reader. After his father’s death, he left a collection of books for Kaneki, which were his only friend in loneliness until a boy named Hide became his real friend.
First season raises its curtain on Kaneki’s college days.
Being an introvert, it was not easy to have a girlfriend.
But when he was able to get a date with a girl he liked he was elated.
That girl was Kamishiro Rize, the same book lover as he is.
He met her in a café, Anteiku where he was a regular.
On the beautiful date day, while returning, he was attacked by Rize and found out she was a ghoul.
But fate had something else in the plan for him.
As she just managed to wound Kaneki, some building wreckage fell on her by accident, killing her in the process.
A heavily wounded Kaneki was taken to hospital along with Rize and had her internal organs transplanted in him.
This process turned him into a half-ghoul, half-human hybrid.
He first struggled against his instinct to crave human flesh both physically and mentally.
After reaching a breaking point, he lost control of himself, but a staff of Anteiku saved him from his condition in the Nick of time.
Anteiku was not only a café but also an organization built by ghouls for ghouls.
He later was taken in by Anteiku and learned the way to live as a ghoul while coexisting with humans.
Anteiku also taught him to steer clear of the CCG investigators.
He also had to maintain his relationship with his only friend Hide.
The first season entirely focuses on the maturing of Kaneki Ken and his ghoul life.
Leading Characters
Kaneki Ken
As described in the first season, Kaneki Ken is a naive introvert and an avid book-lover college student. After his father died in his early childhood, he received his book collections and has been fond of them since.
After surviving an attack from a ghoul named Rize by the accidental death of her, her organs were transplanted inside him.
This process turned him into a half-ghoul, half-human hybrid.
Kamishiro Rize
As described in the first season, Kamishiro Rize is a unique ghoul who needs to consume humans in larger numbers than a regular ghoul.
At first, she used to live in another area. Later she came to the area where Kaneki lives suddenly.
She met Kaneki under the pretext of a date while plotting to eat him which resulted in her accidental death.
Later her organs were transplanted into the body of Kaneki, turning him into a half-ghoul, half-human hybrid.
Hide
As it is shown in the first season, Hide is the only friend the naive and introvert Kaneki has. He had been Kaneki’s best friend since childhood.
Hide has a keen sense of understanding things, but never goes out of bounds by pointing things out.
When Kaneki turned into a half-ghoul, half-human hybrid he sensed some discrepancies in his behavior but chose to not worry Kaneki over that.
Kirishima Touka
In the first season, Kirishima Touka is a high school girl, a little bit rough around the edges and only rude to Kaneki due to his negative take on ghouls in general at the beginning.
She is a very strong ghoul, protective of his community.
She hates the CCG from her guts, as they hunt ghouls indiscriminately.
Yoshimura
The first season describes Yoshimura as a stoic person and the boss of the cafe Anteiku that Kaneki frequented before he became a half-ghoul, half-human hybrid. He is also the leader of the organization Anteiku, built for the ghouls by the ghouls.
He was the person who helped Kaneki, adjust to the human world after he became half-ghoul.
Nishio Nishiki
Nishio Nishiki is a short-tampered ghoul who first appeared in the first season, who is very sensitive about his territory.
He is a senior at the same college in which Kaneki and Hideo study.
Before he knew of Kaneki, Kaneki once intruded into his territory and was almost killed by him.
Even though he thinks of humans as nothing more than food, he is in love with a human girl.
Hinami
According to the first season, Hinami is a small girl, who can’t meet her father due to his work. She lives with her mother at Anteiku, because she is a ghoul in need of protection.
She loves to read books but can’t go to school due to her being a ghoul. So, Kaneki often helps her read difficult words.
Her father and mother both were killed by CCG investigator Kureo Mado.
Tsukiyama Shuu
Taukiyama Shuu is an eccentric ghoul who only eats selected parts from selected sources he likes.
For that, he was widely known as Gourmet, this is how he made his debut in the first season.
He was an acquaintance of Kamishiro Rize, so he could easily smell Rize’s smell off of Kaneki.
After accidentally smelling half-ghoul, half-human Kaneki’s blood, he became obsessed with tasting him.
Yomo Renji
Yomo Renji is a ghoul with great physical strength. He usually helps Anteiku with grunt work.
He decided to train Kaneki in self-defense after he joined Anteiku in the segment of first season.
Mado Kureo
Mado Kureo is a CCG first-class investigator who kills any and every ghoul indiscriminately like a madman.
He collects all the Kagune of the ghouls he killed and Makes Quinque.
Quinque is a weapon made from Kagune to deal with ghouls.
According to him, ghouls are inferior to humans and are trash who are trying to imitate human behavior.
He is hell bound to take revenge on another half-ghoul except for Kaneki throughout the entire first season.
Amon Koutarou
Amon Koutarou is a CCG first-class detective with a strong sense of justice.
He is subordinate to Mado Kureo in the first season.
He thinks that the world isn’t right, it has become twisted.
Due to some negative experiences due to ghouls in his childhood, he thinks they are the ones twisting the world in this way.
According to him, no ghoul is innocent and all of them need to be purged.
Oomori Yakumo
Oomori Yakumo is a strong and brutish ghoul who indulges in torturing others and eating his species.
His sadistic need for torture developed in a prison he was previously in, at the hand of his interrogator.
His body developed beyond a normal ghoul’s due to his cannibalistic habit.
He is manipulative and uses violence to get whatever he wants.
Due to his nature and his always wearing a hockey mask while “working”, he gained the nickname of Jason.
He was also called “Yamori” due to his lizard like face structure.
What’s in the story of the Tokyo Ghoul first season?
The society in this story of the first season of Tokyo Ghoul is divided into two, one for humans other for ghouls.
The protagonist of this story Kaneki Ken was a naive human at first but later turned into a half-ghoul, half-human monstrosity for both communities.
In his standing, he understood the worst of both worlds.
To humans, ghouls are mindless monsters, only true to their instincts and feed on human flesh.
Whereas ghouls fear the CCG organization of humans, which even kills the ghouls who don’t kill humans directly and feed on dead bodies.
Both of the worst came together in this season.
Inside different world
A naive college student Kaneki’s world entirely changed when he encountered
Kamishiro Rize. She was a female ghoul in human disguise.
As she was Kaneki’s crush, it was not difficult to approach him.
As a result of his naivety, he paid heavily with his internal organs.
His internal organs were replaced with dead Rize’a organs turning him into a half-ghoul in the first season.
This plunged him into a different world than he knew up until then.
The world of Ghouls. The concept of the place is very similar yet different from the human world.
Ghouls live just like humans in a civilized society.
They have the emotions of love, loss, and rage, just like humans.
The only different thing is their forced habit of diet.
They can’t help but eat human flesh.
Other foods damage their digestive system as shown in the first season of the Tokyo Ghoul.
Just like human society, there are different ghouls with different points of view.
Some of them, hunt humans to eat. While some of them can’t bear to hurt others so they can’t hunt.
For those weak individuals convenience exists the organizations like Anteiku. They gather flesh from already dead bodies, like if someone commits suicide, their body and share them with those weak individuals.
Anteiku is an organization built by ghouls for the ghouls.
Yoshimura works as the leader of that organization.
This organization helps weak ghouls to adjust to human society by supporting them in every possible way.
This world of ghouls is always in danger from a human organization called CCG or Commission of Counter Ghoul Organization.
Their only objective is to purge every ghoul in Tokyo indiscriminately.
Out of fear and disgust for them, in a different area from where the Anteiku operates a different team took rise.
The team name is Aogiri Tree. They aim to terminate every investigator of CCG to make a Tokyo in which ghouls can live freely.
Powerlessness
Kaneki was always powerless, which he knew.
In his childhood when his mother died of overwork.
She was trying to earn living expenses for themselves and their jobless, trash of an aunt’s expenses.
He was helpless then.
After he became a ghoul in the first season, he felt his powerlessness in controlling his craving for human flesh.
He couldn’t even protect himself when faced with the Gourmet Ghoul and was about to be eaten alive.
He realized his powerlessness could harm others when he couldn’t save Hinami’s mother from CCG investigator’s hand.
Kaneki could only cover Hinami’s eyes to not let her see the terrible scene.
He felt powerless as he couldn’t do anything about the chain of enmity between ghoul and human even though he had both of them inside him.
At the end of the season, he was kidnapped by Jason, an executive of Aogiri Tree. At thet time Aogiri Tree was attacking local division of CCG.
Jason tortured him over and over to make him realize his helplessness.
As he couldn’t do anything for a solution, he could only loathe himself for all the worst things he couldn’t prevent.
Necessary discrimination
Discrimination may be a sign of disrespect for humans, but it’s a luxury for many ghouls.
Some want to be discriminated against by the CCG investigators while they kill ghouls.
There are two main types of ghouls.
One, who kills humans directly for their flesh.
Two, who are afraid of killing and only eat flesh already dead bodies.
Those dead bodies are of the people who commit suicide outside of the public eye.
The ghouls with such dietary habits long for discrimination of CCG investigators.
To them, it is a necessary discrimination.
Bird in a cage
Kaneki had a certain point of view about living life, which he learned from his mother.
According to him instead of hurting others getting hurt by himself is far better.
Following this aspect he became a passive person who only knew how to bear every suffering.
After becoming a ghoul in the first season, knots of his reasoning came undone as he witnessed many unreasonable happenings.
Life he couldn’t save, failure in building understanding between ghoul and human and his passive nature become obstacles in achieving those.
Finally, when he was in peril in Jason’s hand, he realized fully that all the thoughts about sacrifices and not hurting others, in turn, hurt the closest persons the most.
Having a conversation with Rize in his inner mind in the gap of his torture sessions he realized, he didn’t approve of the way his mother lived.
He wanted her to think of him solely, even by sacrificing his aunt.
But after realizing all this, instead of accepting Rize’s way he did things in his way.
He escaped Jason’s grasp and turned the table on him.
Now his mind and body both are liberated.
He isn’t like a bird in a cage anymore.
He fought with Jason intensely.
Finally, he tortured him and ate him near his death.
It was a symbolic scene of him overcoming his past restraint and moving forward.
Conclusion
In this transformative and sensational first season, the society of ghouls is introduced as well as their bane CCG organization.
Conflicts between those two powers took priority in the story setting the beginning point.
First season could be called an introduction to the main story or character-building arc.
So it is given that the story would end on a cliffhanger and the next season could be the answer to that.
