My TLDR opinion of Tokyo Ghoul kinda matched the Author's afterword, it's a clumsy manga, but I like it.

But it gets REALLY clumsy.

Okay now I have said my preface and can start tearing into this shit show. Tokyo ghoul Is considered a 2010s classic when it comes to anime/manga and the original is very strong, while are some parts in where I think it's edginess just leans into being torture porn and r/iam13andthisisdeep ass moments, it's overall really good and has one of most stinging endings I have read in a manga period, Tokyo ghoul is consistent, with a solid cast of characters that ends on a dreadful and strong cliffhanger.

Tokyo ghoul Re by comparison, is a lot more messy, the consensus around Re is that it's not as good as the original and while I'm inclined to agree I should say that Re has some of the best highs in this story and I actually think the first half ranges from just alright to oh shit this is fucking great.

Re falls off hard, and I mean HARD after volume 8, once you reach the volume 9-10 territory you have entered loony toons territory and with volumes 11 and 12 having some of the worst pacing I have ever read and being strong contenders for my least favorite part in Any comic period.

So basically, like a lot of other manga, the ending half is completely fucked.

Everything that worked about The original Tokyo ghoul and that kinda still worked in the starting half of Re goes out the window by the ending half and the problems that were once small become glaring, my major problems are as follows.

The Cast:

Holy fucking shit is this cast bloated. By the time you reach re there are so many fucking people and so many side characters who have plots you're supposed to pretend to care about it just gets disorienting and confusing, I read this physically, and I'm someone who goes out of my way to focus as much as possible while reading and still I ended up forgetting and confusing characters. Another much Bigger problem I have is with the original Tokyo ghouls cast, Re's pacing and how long it spends on the new Re characters with the QS means you barely get to spend time with the original Tokyo ghoul characters until that halfway point, Kotaro Amon for example who is damn near the second protagonist of the first Tokyo ghoul is fucking non-existent for 80 percent of re, and that's just one example I have. The way the cast was handled was not well, and I think the stories pacing definitely did not do anyone any favors here, the first half focuses too much on the Qs, the second half has the Qs fighting for attention in the middle of a massive cast of characters and plot when they dominated the start, it is very disorienting.

Also while on that note, Re's main villain(I will refrain from spoiling who) is quite literally my least favorite character of all time I think, this guy is written like an OC, and he fucking sucks, just a gross villain and the fact his death is one that makes you try to make you feel sympathy for him is laughable, FUCK this guy.

The Action:

For reasons beyond my comprehension, Sui seems to think Re is a shōnen manga now, because the amount of fights in re is fucking crazy. While at first it's a surprising and welcome departure by the time you hit volume 9 it wears thin, additionally (and I know this was because Sui was being crunched( the art for the action becomes so fucking bad it's basically incomprehensible to follow with, I found myself gliding by fights just because I couldn't even tell what was going on half the time, and this really hurts with the "emotional" big fights. This manga relies too much on action later on, and that action also looks like shit.

Also, this doesn't really matter as much, but pretty much any sense of powerscalling is completely broken in re, which makes the action worse.

Weird Ass Homophobic writing:

I am being serious when I say, compared to any other gripe I have with this story, THIS is the one that drives me up the wall the most and I think genuinely hurts the story the most.

Toru Mutsuki is the worst character in this manga, a trans masc character who by volume 8-9 of Re has any good possibilities with his character thrown out the window for what is probably the most "indirectly" transphobic shit I have seen, with an out of nowhere forced love obsession with Kaneki. I am not joking when I say I am actively mad he did not die because I just wanted to stop seeing Sui butcher a promising Queer character in the latter half of the story.

Oh, also, Nico is an annoying Okama Stereotype who doesn't do anything. Thank you, Sui Ishida.

Okay. So those are technically all my problems that I thought should be listed on their own, onto the conclusion.

Conclusion.

Ultimately, many things end wrapping up sloppily or not being answered at all. V, The clown masks, the garden, things you think would be explained more directly, just keep going and going until they end sloppily and last second. The ending doesn't really feel earned due to the pacing and how rushed it felt, but it is a "Happy" one, so it marginally feels more passable. It was cute at least.

Overall, judging this Story as a whole because that's the only way you can be fair, I think Tokyo ghoul is still good, and I did enjoy it overall, it is just dragged down by possibly the most mediocre ending half the story could have gone with, and is too bloated with characters and side plots that don't need to exist.

On its own, I would rate the original Tokyo ghoul higher than re, so the series overall probably gets something like a 3/5 or 3.5/5 out of me, Re on its own is probably a 2.5, but that's just me.

Like I said, Clumsy, but I like it. That's about it