FIKURIEN

Humans are considered on the top of the food chain, but there are beings who hunt them as a food source. They are Ghouls, who live among us, as the same as normal people in every way except for their craving for human flesh. In this essay, I will focus on one of the character in the most popular dark fantasy manga in Japan that have been written and drawn by god bless Sui Ishida sensei, Ken Kaneki, Tokyo Ghoul.

Tokyo Ghoul was serialized in Shueisha’s seinen manga (a manga that toward young adult men) magazine Weekly Young Jump between September 2011 and September 2014 and has been collected fourteen standalone volumes as August 2014. A sequel titled Tokyo Ghoul: re began serialization in the same magazine in October 2014. It was to be unknown how the manga or the series can be made due to the author of the series, Sui Ishida, is a mysterious person. According to the media, Sui Ishida never showed his face or any of his personal information details except his date of birth, birth place, his career and his Twitter account. It is also unknown whether “Sui Ishida” name is his true name or it is just his mangaka (manga artist) name. Based on some facts, Sui Ishida was inspired by the novel “The Metamorphosis” that was written in 1915 to create this amazing series. In between July and September 2014, a 12 episode anime series adaption by studio Pierrot (Japanese anime studio) aired on Tokyo MX (television station in Tokyo) was released. The anime adaption got a warm welcome and a good review from the public. Another 12 episodes which is the second season of Tokyo Ghoul series was released on 8 January 2015. According to some media, the second season of the series got a weak storyline and bad review from some audience because it was parallel universe which means, a different storyline from the manga.

A little bit of overview of how the world of Tokyo ghouls works. Tokyo Ghoul is set in alternate reality world where ghouls, individual who can only survive by eating human flesh, live among the normal humans in secrets, hiding their true nature to avoid pursuit from the authorities. The ghoul has some special abilities like enhanced speed, senses, and regenerative ability. A regular ghouls several times are stronger than a normal human, has a skin resistant to ordinary sharp weapons and at least has one special predator organ called a “Kagune” which can be use as a weapon during combat. Another one of their own trait is that when they are excited or hungry, the color of their sclera in both eyes turns black and their irises red. While the predator hunts, there is another company who hunts them called “Ghoul Investigator”. A ghoul investigator is a specially trained professional employed by Commission Counter of Ghouls (CCG), a federal agency that serves as a criminal investigate body in cases connected to ghouls. Since the investigators are only humans, they are compelled to use tactical weapons called “Quinques”, the most effective weapons against ghouls made from a ghoul’s kakuhou (red cells organ).

However, the story of Tokyo Ghoul follows Ken Kaneki who is a college student that barely survives a deadly encounter with Rize Kamishiro, his date who reveals herself as a ghoul. He is taken to the hospital in critical condition. After recovering, Kaneki discovers that he underwent a surgery that transformed him into a half-ghoul. This was accomplished because some of Rize's organs were transferred into his body, and now, like normal ghouls, he must consume human flesh to survive. The ghouls who manage the coffee shop "Anteiku" take him in and teach him to deal with his new life as a half-ghoul. Some of his daily struggles include fitting into the ghoul society, as well as keeping his identity hidden from his human companion and best friend, Hideyoshi Nagachika. Kaneki can be described as a shy and reserved person at the beginning of the manga, also likes to spend most of his time by reading books and novels. He also got influenced by his mother and a true testament of modesty which made him willingly took blame and punishment from others so assertiveness normally got him bullied and taken advantage of.  In the manga or anime, Kaneki’s hair was black but later turned into white due to his torture in the series. This phenomenon called Marie Antoinette syndrome causes by fits of rage or extreme stress that faced by the sufferer. Based on manga, Kaneki is the only character that has a psychological issue which can be noticed over the course of the series examples like when he refer to his actions as “we” or “us” albeit mostly while in stressed state and sometimes prone to making imaginary projections of people who greatly influenced him, trying to protect himself from being alone again.

In Tokyo Ghoul: re, he lost his memory and somehow became a ghoul investigator and a mentor to his squad. His name also was changed to Haise Sasaki. The name Haise was created by combining the kanji word from “coffee” and “world” then simplified to “harlsband world” and Sasaki means “wren” while the first name which was Kaneki means “golden tree” and Ken means “to grind/polish/”. The name also was a reference to the famous novelist Osamu Dazai, who was born in Kanagi and most famous for his novel "No Longer Human". In this sequel, despite having a new identity, Haise still retains some traits from his former self, like the love for reading and the determination to protect his companions with his life. Later on after a few chapters have been through, Kaneki had mentioned that he wanted to make a world where humans and ghouls can cooperate and live together, although his dream seems impossible, it was actually happened in between chapter 145 and chapter 146 where humans and ghouls started to cooperate to save Kaneki who turned into a big kagune monster called “dragon”. The fate between humans, ghouls and Kaneki himself is still unknown due to story of the manga was not finish yet and still airing.