REVIEW: Tokyo Ghoul (manga, vols. 1-5) by Sui Ishida, translated by Joe Yamazaki

Tokyo Ghoul is a series that I feel torn about. On the one hand, it was an interesting read. On the other hand, it may be a little too dark for my tastes, and even after 5 volumes I'm still not particularly attached to most of the main characters, although I do have a few side characters that intrigue me (Nishiki and Kimi, Uta, Yomo, Yoshimura).

I'll probably continue on with this during my next vacation, but after the incident with Suzuya I'm not sure it's a good idea for me to try the anime. It would be nice if both the ghouls and the ghoul investigators came across, morally, as varying shades of grey, but, as of volume 5, it really does feel like the more prominent ghoul investigators are as monstrous, or possibly even more so, than the ghouls they hunt. I can think of only one ghoul investigator I could name, Amon, who might turn out to be a decent human being, and if he keeps turning a blind eye to the way his colleagues behave, I don't know that even he would count.

As usual for these posts, there are major spoilers from here on out. I wrote the descriptions with an eye towards allowing me to pick the series back up again a year from now. Oh, and I took terrible notes for this series. For example, I recorded Hinami's name as both Hinami and Hinako, and didn't write down several other characters' names at all. I had to rely on fan-created wikis to straighten things out.