"Tokyo Ghoul" Brings Manga Super-Horror to the Big Screen

Tokyo Ghoul, the live-action adaptation of the popular (in Japan and international fan circles) anime/manga series, is in limited release in United States theaters right now. One of the best pure adaptations of manga/anime source material to date, it is a strangely satisfying and satisfyingly strange mix of superhero, (a little) martial arts, family drama, and yes, horror action -- and given the importance of creepy masks in the film, an excellent choice for this Halloween season.

"Creepy? Yeah, okay, fair."

I saw Tokyo Ghoul last weekend with my daughter, who has been a huge fan of the manga and anime material from when it first started landing in the U.S. What follows is my spoiler-free review (I only mention things that are clearly obvious from the trailer or the first ten minutes of the film), which will be followed by just a couple spoiler thoughts at the very end -- which I will clearly label for anyone who wants to wave off at that point.

The first thing you need to know about Tokyo Ghoul is that the ghouls in the story world are not undead creatures -- they're a separate sub-species of humans who, because "enzymes" or something, can only consume coffee and human flesh to survive. Their bodies cannot digest other food items, and eating anything else makes them violently ill and can eventually kill them. The ghouls look like normal humans, except that their eyes become spooky black-and-red when they're crazy hungry (and hunger can drive them literally crazy) or when they manifest their ghoul powers.

Ghouls are tough, strong, fast, and can regenerate, have super enhanced senses of smell, but their most amazing power is their kagune. Kagune are powerful extra appendages that can extend from their bodies at will and come in several different forms, such as tentacles, wings, or tails. The kagune, and obviously the dietary restrictions, are what make the ghouls in this story monstrous superheroes/supervillains with body horror issues.

Our hero is a young college student named Ken Kaneki (Kaneki Ken in Japan). Quiet, bookish, and socially awkward, Kaneki has managed to forge exactly one real friendship in his life, and talks to a pretty girl for the first time in his life early in the film. Of course it goes horribly wrong(emphasis on horribly), and an emergency transplant of what turns out to be ghoul organs into his body transform him from human to ghoul. And then things start getting weird.

"Define 'weird'."

Kaneki manages to find a community of sympathetic ghouls who don’t seek to kill and eat living humans, but soon discovers that psychopathic ghouls (and there are certainly some of those) aren’t his only problem. There is a human agency called the CCG responsible for policing ghouls, and some of its members confuse “policing” with “hunting and exeterminating”, armed with special empowered weapons made from harvested kagune called quinques.

Unlike the disastrously disappointing Attack on Titan live action film, the Tokyo Ghoul movie is an amazingly faithful adaptation of its source material, down to outfits and hairstyles. I order to condense eight anime episodes (and around 20 manga chapters) of material it covers into a non-overwhelming film story, the filmmakers obviously needed to change numerous things, but the choices they made to compress the story timeline and create narrative shortcuts are all extremely smart choices (some of which are actually more narratively satisfying than what happens in the manga).

The casting is excellent. The actors chosen all strongly resemble the characters they’re playing. Masataka Kubota provides a strong portrayal of Kaneki, a character who has to be, at times, equal parts naïve, sweet, awkward, defiant, bloodthirsty, and hysterical. Yô Ôizumi also stands out as the chief “bad guy” of the piece, the CCG inspector hunting Kaneki’s new friends.

"We prefer the term 'aggressive policing.' We swiped that from America."

The gore elements are extremely downplayed in the movie (believe me, unless you’re already a fan of the manga, you have no idea how much gore the movie skates past), but the body horror and situational horror elements are still considerable. And if you have any ickness about food or eating (which, as it happens, I do), there are a couple scenes that are going to make you seriously squirm.

Although obviously not as good as a modern Star Wars or Marvel superhero movie, the CGI effects in Tokyo Ghoul are still very good, and a couple shots are spectacular. One are that really stands out in the film is how the ghouls use their kagune to help them move around as they fight, something that is not really an element in the manga or anime. 

The most tentacle action you will see in any Japanese film that isn't hentai.

There is also a fun training montage, and while there's not much martial action, the limited wire-fu fight choreography is well-done and a welcome spice to the action.

The meat of the story (haha! see what I did there?) is the ambiguity of the narrative’s thematic implications. It asks questions about the ghoul’s right to life and what a reasonable human response is, what moral actions for ghouls are, that it doesn’t have clear answers for, and that’s part of the fun. In Kaneki we have a young hero accepting changes that he had no choice in, and learning to be active, to fight. But it's not clear to him or us that he should be fighting. There are some near-heartbreaking scenes that ask these questions, and they work because of the ambiguity presented by the situations the characters face.

"Yeah. Yeah, we got it. You're kind of a moron, aren't you?"

Before I get to the spoiler topics I wanted to discuss, I did want to mention that the film nicely and easily passes the Bechdel Test, with strong female characters discussing how to solve the main problem of the story without bringing their male allies into the conversation.

Before any of you wave off here, let me say that if you’re looking for an original, creative film with elements of horror, action, and even superheroism, go see Tokyo Ghoul, which is playing in limited release across the United States now.

Okay, spoiler time.

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I think my favorite thing about the movie is the fact that the hero doesn't defeat the main bad guy. He simply keeps the main bad guy's partner from coming to help his mentor. In spite of the training montage (which probably covers a couple weeks of intense training), Kaneki is clearly outclassed as a fighter but wins because of his superior powers.

Meanwhile, two of the main female characters defeat the main bad guy without the hero's help. At one point it seems like they, just like the audience, expect him to show up and the save the day, but when he doesn’t they have to dig down into their own reserves and take care of business. It’s the rare instance where the young male hero’s more experienced and better prepared female ally is the one who actually saves the day. A nice touch and a pleasant surprise!

Now go see the movie.