bookdragonofsomekind

[bookdragonofsomekind]

*****Manga Monday 03*****

Tokyo Ghoul Volume 3

Summary:

Meet Kaneki who has discovered a new evil in his world. The doves are ambitious, clever and completely ruthless when it comes to their duties. It gets harder and harder for Kaneki to draw the line between good and evil. The doves are protecting human society but they also killed the innocent Ryouko in front of her daughter. What’s right and wrong? Is it wrong for Touka to protect Hinami?

Questions that Kaneki doesn’t know the answer to…

Poor Kaneki

New characters you will meet in this volume:

Ruisawa

Ippei Kusaba

Nakajima

Ayato

Kie Muramatsu

Quotes I particularly liked:

"I’ll change that. This world is wrong" - Amon

"Feeding time" - Kaneki 

"Don’t make me a murderer"  - Kaneki 

"Is it okay for me to live…?" - Hinami 

My thoughts:

Kaneki is different than the other ghouls around him. And slowly but surely it shows.  Not only in his confusion and acceptance of himself as ghoul but also in a scientific way. Only one eye transforms, he regenerates not as fast as other ghouls and now we also learned that he does not have the same high RC- Factors than the others. He therefore is invisible for the human technology so far. He literally has a green card for both sides (even if he smells like a woman in one of those worlds). But, and that is the important part, Kaneki chooses not to stay invisible. We see him crossing his own morals for the first time and actively hurting people to rescue the ones close to his heart. And he does it in his ghoul form while still being human. Being himself. Even though he has some minor problems with the aftermath of his actions. If you haven’t guessed it… im talking about the fight of Kaneki vs. Amon. That’s what this volume is all about. Showing us the reality of what happens when ghouls and doves join a meeting together. The extremes both will go to! But I also have to say that we see two types of fights going on in front of us. And I find it to be an interesting parallel. On the one side you have Kaneki and Amon doing their worst. Physically and verbally. They’re both talking and trying to convince the other one of their perspectives. Kaneki now standing on the ghoul side. A shocker for himself. The fascinating thing is that they are actually listening to each other. Having even some understanding for each other (not much but some).

On the other hand you have the fight between Touka, Hinami  and Mado. They are also fighting. And yes also physically and verbally. And yes they are also listening to each other. But understanding is a thing that does not happen. Take Touka who is so so hurt of everything what humans,or should I better say the doves, have done to her (and her family?) that she can’t think straight when a dove hurts one of her own. She only sees one possible way to deal with this situation and protect the ones who are still there. Revenge. And she would risk everything for it. Even herself. And she can’t let loose. The others pain is her pain. And by her way of protecting she accidentally endangers others. Take Kaneki who had more than luck not to be discovered by the technology of the doves or Hinami who because of the attack prior to the doves from Touka is now being hunted. She means good but does harm. She can’t control herself. She is a loose cannon. And therefore reminds me of Mado. I could imagine that Mado once was like Touka and that Touka has the potential to become just like Mado. 

Mado is absolutely brilliant, mad and dangerous. And long long gone. He also gives himself to his cause. He is a hunter and collector of rare trophies. He is beyond revenge. He is unreachable. With no clear thought or basic reasoning. He himself is not only collecting the most deadly weapons but he has become the deadliest. And tragically he is not able to wield it anymore. Touka and Mado are screaming, yelling and riling themselves up to see each other loose control.

And poor Hinami is in the middle of all of it. The one everyone (on the ghoul side) wants to protect but simply can’t be, because Hinami sees herself as guilty. Should she be alive? Does she deserve to live? Can she even survive in this harsh reality? When she sees Mado she does not seek out revenge. She realises that that won’t bring her parents back or take her pain away. It only hurts. Hurts so much. And when she sees how cruel and vile Mado is, by recognising Mado's weapon as her mothers and fathers kagune even then she doesn’t go further then protecting Touka from his attacks. She would have let Mado kill her. And she would also be dead if it wasn’t for Touka finally reaching for "her" revenge. 

One detail that I found pretty interesting was the marriage band of Mado on his attached hand. I don’t believe that he is still married. The guy is way beyond saving (mentally). But what I could imagine is that he was married and lost his partner to a ghoul accident and that’s also why he went mental. Maybe for him revenge turned into obsession. I mean the guy would have done anything to get his hand(s) on Hinami as a future weapon. Speaking of being head over heels. 

Going back to Amon whom I mentioned earlier. I believe him to be a very tragic character. Right from the start we did not see him happy once. All he seems to send into the universe is misery. He definitely has some burden to carry. Personally we still don’t know what exactly happened in his past. Sure he lost some people in his life but I don’t think they were that close to him. But Amon seems to have a gift. Empathy. He is full with it. We see it at the memorial. How he treats the stranger who has just lost his colleague. And of course when Mado dies and Amon finds him (I pretty much doubt that Mado would have showed the same empathy if the roles would have been reversed). That’s also why I believe that he was able to listen and understand Kaneki. Sure he also was confused. Kaneki is not you’re average ghoul. First holding back, not even using his kagune. Amon did not even believe that he was an actual ghoul. Then of course Kaneki had to fight for real but he did something that I think no ghoul has ever done to Amon. He showed mercy. And that exactly planted something in Amon. And I don’t think that Amon likes that. It’s nice to see the world in black and white. It’s easy to find his way around and to draw lines without crossing them… even easier. But now he has a problem. A problem he is not alone with. But I doubt that Kaneki will help in the near future (but I hope so). I could imagine that Amon and Kaneki could one day fight for the same cause or at least at each others sides. 

This volume we have been blessed again with the presence of Yomo. Yomo being the lifebelt for Kaneki after he looses control of his ghouls side. Attacking Yomo as a consequence. But Yomo apparently doesn’t mind. In general… Yomo gives me good uncle vibes. He is the one you call when you need a ride home from a party because you couldn’t hold your liquor. A place to feel safe without much judging. 

I’m glad that Mado is gone. Don’t get me wrong he was an interesting first villain but I didn’t see a chance for him to survive if Hinami was suppose to live. Mado is a bloodhound that doesn’t let loose. And maybe it gives Touka some kind of closure. But I don’t think so. But what I do hope is that Hinami actually got through to Touka. Maybe seeing how Hinami hurt differently than Touka, it could give Touka a wake up call.  But than again… we still don’t know exactly what happened to her but we get to know someone from her past. Ayato. Who he is I don’t know. But he left Touka. Of his own free will. That must have hurt differently. Kaneki has also done some work on himself. He now seeks to find his place in the world. He recognised his power or rather said his influence on Amon and that got him thinking… maybe he is really part of both worlds. We shall see. But still for that to happen he needs to get control of the ghoul inside him. And a nutrition plan. 

The last chapter was a nice edition and showed the loss for Amon that Mado is. Amon was his student. He learned so much from him. I think they were partners for four years and this time Amon learned a lot from him. I have to say that Mado was crazy yes. But he was a great mentor. One of the best. That’s why Amon now is one of the best as well… so Mado's legacy lives on. 

Little by little we get more and more details about how the doves work and function. It seems to be a huge network that includes the humans as "spies". They have really good technology to identify ghouls and their weapons are recycled and deadly. 

I think prior to this post I said that Uta and Yomo were my faves so far. Please put Amon on this list aswell. I like him pretty much (not only because of his sportsplan) but for the potential future I mentioned earlier. I can see "good" things coming our way (maybe not for him… or anyone). But I think that’s it for this volume! I will see y’all next Monday! Bye bye

Please leave your thoughts and be kind and don’t spoiler anything!

Thank you for taking your time!

Please feel free to discuss your thoughts, I would like to hear them!

I will see you in a week with a new volume!

#book review #manga #reading #sui ishida #tokyo ghoul #book #ken kaneki

[bookdragonofsomekind]

*****Manga Monday 02*****

Tokyo Ghoul volume 2

Summary:

Meet Kaneki who finally has found a job and a position in life that does not make him miserable anymore. After taking his first new steps in ghoul world he comes around new challenges. 

Because ladies and gentlemen it gets spicy. 

Kaneki has his first encounters with ghouls who aren’t bad at all and human hunting ghouls who are totally evil. So now Kaneki is more confused then ever and has to sort out on which side he will stand from now on… will he keep to himself or will he stand up for him and others and fight?

That might me a bit much for an 18 year old.

Poor Kaneki. 

New characters you will meet in this volume:

Yomo 

Ryouko Fueguchi 

Hinami  Fueguchi

Koutarou Amon 

Kureo Mado 

Uta 

Quotes I particularly liked:

"For us to blend into human society, it’s basically like walking on an endless tight rope.“ - Uta

"I was about to scream. The only thing I could do was to keep her from seeing it.“ - Kaneki

"What’s tragic isn’t that we can’t retaliate. What’s truly tragic is being consumed with vengeance and not being able to live your life anymore“ - Mr. Yoshimura

My thoughts:

As I said… it gets spicier. The plot I mean. I liked this volume way more than the first one. That might be because the first volume came with little surprises (again my partner is to blame) but the second one has me more intrigued.

First and foremost Kaneki. He has survived the fight with Nishiki and won. Even better, he now learns to make coffee. The job gives him stability and the owner of the "Anteiku" Mr. Yoshimura is his new role model when it comes to the survival in the human world. Because eating like a normal human being is still Kaneki's biggest nemesis. But not for very much longer. Now being a part of the ghoul world he quickly has to learn that ghouls can be as good as humans and humans as bad as ghouls. And that’s why I say it finally gets complicated! And I loved this by the way. Kaneki can not see black and white anymore. Ghouls bad. Humans good. Oh boy was he wrong. 

For example as good as a flower… Hinami Fueguchi. A little ghoula just existing beside her mother Ryouko Fueguchi. Hinami recently lost her father and is now fighting with her mother for survival. When I first saw Hinami with the book in her hands I almost instantly knew that Kaneki and Hinami will have a connection. And I am glad to say that I was not wrong. The interaction between him and Hinami was very cute. It showed Kaneki furthermore that ghouls can be as sweet and innocent as one can be. No monsters in sight. I also think that this was the first time that Kaneki bonded with a ghoul that is not Mr. Yoshimura. Having a good time and even smiling.

So… it was even more heartbreaking for him to see Hinami in such pain when her mother was brutally murdered. But a bit later more to that. 

Moving on to new characters! Uta. I have to say he is my new favourite so far. From his character design to his way to interact with poor, scared Kaneki. Uta not being afraid of physical touch and a creative mind Kaneki is in good hands with his future mask. 

A mask that Kaneki doesn’t know the usage of. He does not want to have trouble with anyone and he definitely does not want to hunt humans. I still don’t know exactly how Uta got the idea for Kaneki’s mask and I also don’t know if I like the mask or not. But hey it looks professionally made. Soo good job Uta. 

Someone who should visit the mask maker is Yomo. He is giving me spy vibes. I also think that you don’t want to mess with him. Knowing absolutely nothing of him… I don’t know… I like him. He cares for his people. He "shops" for Mr. Yoshimura and is kinda acting like the security for the 20th ward. He is clever and strategic. He doesn’t let his feelings overcome him. Unlike Touka. 

Touka is a troubled soul. In this volume she seems even angrier to me than in the one before. She is overcome with grief and therefore revenge. I can’t blame her. She seemed more then shook about the execution of Ryouko. I kinda got the theory that something like this tragedy happened to her when she was growing up. I mean where are her parents? (I hope to get an answer next volume or so). Also… who hurt her?! When she trains Kaneki to get control over his kagune, she mentions that she will train him like she was trained. Who in the ever loving fuck trains someone like this. I highly doubt that it was Mr. Yoshimura. But breaking someone’s finger just to get him riled up is something else. But I have to say, the girl can fight. And she is not afraid of cold blooded murder. It was awesome to see her fight those doves. And we even got a new fun fact: like Ryouko, Toukas type of kagune is an ukaku. Very pretty! Ryoukos I mean. Another fact about Touka. She is stubborn. Not listening to "orders" she attacks the doves anyway and deals with the consequences alone (if Kaneki would let her).

But now taking a closer look at the new trouble maker. Mr. Koutarou Amon and Mr. Kureo Mado. Aka bad cop and worse cop. You don’t want to stand on opposite sides of these two. I’m pretty sure that Amon has some glorified reasons why he wanted to be a hunter but for Mado I can’t say the same. He is just crazy and at first sight he is Igors brother from "Frankensteins monster". The way that he openly enjoyed the cold cruel murder of Ryouko or the fight with masked Touka… it gives me shivers. On the other hand Amon is not giving me that much safety either. For him the world is still black and white. And he is ruthless. Oh and even better… he’s ambitious. I’m telling you: best combination ever! Together they are like bloodhounds and they now have a new prey. Touka. And they just smelled blood!

The element of the doves is very nice.  It adds so much depths for Kaneki now living in both worlds. New conflict with his own morals. I have to say that I didn’t really expect to find out that the food source for ghouls would be corpses from successful suicide attempts. But it’s clever on the no killing part… even though I’m pretty sure that it is not ideal. I mean if a person who killed themselves isn’t found… there will be others searching for them. But hey… you win some you loose some. 

Gotta say… this volume really got me intrigued. I could say that I was missing something last time when I finished the first volume. But now… oh Boy I’m excited to start the next one. The characters Uta and Yomo really made it for me. Not to mention Quasimodo and his companion. Still, questions are there and no answers to be found!

Please leave your thoughts and be kind and don’t spoiler anything!

Thank you for taking your time!

Please feel free to discuss your thoughts, I would like to hear them!

I will see you in a week with a new volume!

#tokyo ghoul #sui ishida #ken kaneki #reading #manga #book #book review

[bookdragonofsomekind]

******Manga-Monday 01******

Tokyo Ghoul Volume 01

Summary: 

Meet Ken Kaneki, a shy college student who loves to read. One day Ken’s dream finally comes true when a charming girl named Rize decides to go on a date with him. She seems to be the perfect girl for Kaneki. She even reads the same books as him! Even better she has the same favourite author! What could go wrong now? 

Happily ever after.

Unfortunately Rize is not a big fan of fairytales and seeks a different end for her date. 

Poor Kaneki.

Characters you will meet in this volume:

Ken Kaneki 

Hide 

Rize Kamishiro

Touka Kirishima

Dr. Kano 

Hisashi Ogura 

Yomo

Mr. Yoshimura  

Nishiki Nishio 

Quotes I particularly liked:

"I’m not the protagonist of a book or anything, I’m just a normal college student who likes to read, but if I were to write a book with me as the main character it would be a tragedy." - Kaneki 

"The bird struggles out of the egg. The egg is the world. Whoever would be born must first destroy a world." - Herrmann Hesse/ Kaneki 

"You are both ghoul and human at the same time. You are the only person who has a place in both worlds." - Mr. Yoshimura  

My thoughts:

What brought me to read Tokyo Ghoul in the first place was my boyfriend. You can absolutely blame him for this project. Tokyo Ghoul is one of his favourite manga series. 

You could say that I’m a fairly new beginner when it comes to manga and anime. I only started one and a half years ago with watching anime regularly and I think a year ago with reading manga. 

(You can also totally and absolutely blame my boyfriend for this)

So starting Tokyo Ghoul I’m not completely new to the premise of the story. My partner already told me a few things about the story and characters. 

Just a small disclaimer that I wanted to get out of the way.

So let’s start…

First things first Tokyo Ghoul is written and drawn by Sui Ishida and was published in 2011. I’ve gotta say I love the art style but also dislike it sometimes. Throughout the first chapters the illustrations are easy to follow and wonderful to look at. But when the action panels start it gets a bit tricky for me. That might be because I have little experience with manga of course. But I wish that he would have drawn some panels with a bit more clarity. 

Kaneki at first seems to be the typical side character even though he is absolutely the main character of this story. But with characteristics like being shy, reading a lot and having a non existing social life (except of course for Hide, his best friend) Kaneki would not have been my first pick as an interesting character. But what makes him interesting is his reaction of the tragedy that befalls his life. He keeps fighting with himself to accept what happened to him. Frankly he doesn’t really know what happened to him. But as he learns more about his new self and the world that changed before him he still is set on denying being a monster and separating himself from the "monsters" around him. He is and always will be human (we will see about that).

He is very strong willed. Which is not always a good thing. He’s also pretty good at talking himself into the depths of depression. 

It was a bit weird for me that he doesn’t tell anyone (not even his best friend) what happened in the alley with Rize. He keeps to himself. Tries to deal with it without help from the outside. He decides to be alone in this matter. 

Even when Hide tries to break through to him. Hide is the polar opposite from Kaneki, loud and he appears not to be the brightest. But as you read on you learn that that is definitely not the case. He notices a lot and he is a very capable people reader. He senses danger. (Something that Kaneki is not as good… unfortunately for him).

As Kaneki is being changed the world around him changes too. Or at least Kanekis perspective of it. Where in his eighteen years he never had an encounter with a single ghoul he now is trembling into them at every corner. 

And we quickly learn that not every ghoul is the same. I really liked Touka for example. She felt very real. She is someone who has a lot of anger inside of her. She implied many times throughout the volume that she didn’t have it easy in life. Being treated shitty from the human side as well as the ghoul side. By just confronting Kaneki how cake tastes or how easy it must be to eat all the time whenever you want. She is scarred from her life and knows the rules how to get by. 

On the other side we have ghouls like Nishiki to show the complete opposite. I’ve got the feeling that Nishiki is the "standard" ghoul in the story. By that I mean a cruel, asshole who doesn’t care about humans but is pretty good at disguising as one and being charming just to get what he wants. Manipulative, greedy and absolutely power hungry. As he doesn’t only treat Hide (kinda his prey) like absolute shit but also Kaneki (a ghoul just like him (who looks to be a bit inferior against Nishiki)). Not to mention the rivalry between ghouls which is portrayed in the territory fights we’ve seen in this volume. 

And then again we meet Touka's boss aka Mr. Yoshimura . He screams father figure to Touka and I could imagine that he will also be a great influence for Kaneki. He is just cozily nice (except for the human flesh in his fridge). He didn’t waste a minute to offer his help to poor Kaneki. And even after Kaneki doesn’t take his first "present" he still wants to help. Mr. Yoshimura  achieves something that didn’t happen before. 

Let me explain what I mean by that. I think and believe that so far Hide was the only good thing in Kanekis life. Of course Kaneki read or drew and found joy in that. But what I mean is that Hide was and is so far the only connection that Kaneki has to his "real" world. He goes out to dinner with or introduces other people to him. So of course Kaneki saw Hide as his only hope to ever live a normal life again after the incident with Rize. 

But Mr. Yoshimura  achieves to give Kaneki a sliver of hope to live a normal life again. And Kaneki, just by asking if he could work for him in his restaurant, takes it.

Not really a character but a thing that I really liked was when Kanekis ghoul side showed up! I really enjoyed the chaos that broke loose between Nishiki and Kaneki… and how Nishiki didn’t even have a chance. I will call it muscle memory from Rize and yes people could say that Kaneki is overpowered from the very beginning. Being good at fighting and all. But I like the fact that he just went feral and annihilated Nishiki (something he deserved). 

Minor characters like Dr. Kano appears to be pretty sus to me (Who transplants organs without permission ?!) just like Hisashi Ogura the ghoul expert (I’m still asking myself how he knows so much about ghouls). I think they will (and I hope, I want the answers!) appear again.

The world building so far is nothing to be mentioned that much. It’s the world we live in but with predators on top of the food chain that aren’t humans. The volume doesn’t explain too much what’s up with the ghouls but I’m fairly sure we will see more of it in future volumes. What we know so far is pretty dope! Ghouls don’t have a choice… they have to eat humans or else they will die. Their weapons seem to be their kagune, they have changing eyes, are kinda indestructible and then the usual heighten sense of smell, very strong and totally sassy. 

All in all it’s a good opening to a story and I’m definitely intrigued to read on. There are many questions still unanswered and I really really hope I will get them answered. 

Please leave your thoughts and be kind and don’t spoiler anything!

Thank you for taking your time!

Please feel free to discuss your thoughts, I would like to hear them!

I will see you in a week with a new volume!

#tokyo ghoul #sui ishida #kaneki ken #reading #manga #book review