This is my first review and I'm kinda dumb but let's go anyway. I haven't read the manga either (soz). Also another note, sorry for the terrible format, as I am just letting my thoughts spill out.

I had known about Tokyo Ghoul for many years, even before watching anime, but never felt compelled enough to watch it until I was very bored and a little drunk. I went into this anime with no expectations of it being good and was left with many thoughts, overall a great premise, but unfortunately everything else falls flat after finishing the 12 episodes. In this absolute mess of a review, I will try to spill my thoughts as to why this anime quite honestly, a mess.

First, I'd like to talk about one of the few things I actually really enjoyed about this show, that being the overarching premise that the plot tried to convey, a psychological horror story about an average person having their mundane life being swept under their feet, and dragged into constant torment over their new identity. When I first got into the show, I had a genuine interest in the protagonist, Ken Kaneki, but unfortunately I felt the direction of the story fell flat and ruined the premise and Kaneki, especially in the last two episodes. Basically, I felt the show tried way too hard to convey its message, the last few episodes in particular felt rushed and out of the blue, but this may be due to me losing interest and failing to pay attention to an otherwise already convoluted story.

The second thing I enjoyed was the art style, there's not much to say about it other than it was enough to keep me watching, although some fight scenes seemed a little rough, I pretty much enjoyed everything else. The OP 'Unravel' kinda slaps too idk tho.

What about the characters? Tokyo Ghoul introduces a lot of them during its 12 episode run, and by the time I had finished the show, I could only remember Kaneki and Touka Kirishima. That's not to say there weren't memorable characters however. The ghoul hunters, although utilised poorly in my opinion, were at least somewhat memorable other than that, the rest of the cast seems heavily under utilised and in general, uninteresting, this includes Kaneki and Touka as well. I had previously said that Kaneki's overarching arc interested me in the first half, but by the end I loathed this character and found him to be boring. As for Touka, I disliked her from her introduction and only remember her due to how many times our protagonist calls her name. Touka was uninteresting and felt like a generic female side character with behavioural issues.

I'd like to keep this brief, so I'll wrap up this terrible review on an otherwise mundane anime adaptation, I just felt the need to put my thoughts down on why I loathe this show. Had some things been different, I think Tokyo Ghoul would be a brilliant show. A fantastic setting and intriguing premise that sucks in the viewer in, but fails to keep you interested long enough for you to care about anything by the second half. I wouldn't recommend this show to anyone tbh.