After the tense and unsettling experiences of volume 4, Kaneki and Touka have to team up with a one-time enemy to save a loved one. How does it fair? Let’s find out.
Written & Illustrated by Sui Ishida
Kaneki, Nishio and Touka struggle to work together to rescue their human friend Kimi while Ghoul Investigator deaths skyrocket in wards 9 through 12. It all leads to an increase in CCG agents and an increased risk for Ghouls. As reinforcements are called in on both sides, the stakes are suddenly higher than ever.
”It’s hard to trust somebody. But… maybe… I wouldn’t mind being betrayed by you.”
Tokyo Ghoul, a story about an alternate world where Ghouls, beings that can only survive by eating human flesh, live among humanity in secret, has been building its world over the last couple of volumes. As Kaneki Ken, a college student who was attacked by a Ghoul and left nearly dead, only to have bits of the Ghoul transplanted into him to save his life, becomes more and more ensnared in the ghoul world, it’s getting more and more dangerous. This has been shown between this volume and volume 4 with the monstrous serial killer, the Gourmet.
And while all of that is important to this volume, it is perhaps secondary in nature. Because up until this point, mangaka Sui Ishida has been doing a great job building his world but it is here that the first major emotional beat is finally hit with two characters: Nishiki Nishio and Kimi Nishino. Nishio had been one of the first enemies Kaneki encountered post-Ghoulhood. A bit of a territorial jerk who wanted to take over the feeding territory of Rize, the ghoul that originally attacked Kaneki. But it is here when we learn of his past, seeing just how crappy Ghouls do have it, and his relationship with Kimi that Ishida managed to make Nishio my favorite character in the series. It is very rare to see a romantic relationship between a supernatural creature and a normal human done well -often coming off as controlling- but there I actually feel an investment in these two and want them to get out unscathed.
But what about the Gourmet a.k.a. Shuu Tsukiyama a.k.a. Creepy McCreep Fucker? Well it is the fight against him where the art soars. Ishida can bring out quite the disturbing side with some of the things Ghouls can do, whether it’s the ripping off of arms, eyes getting slashed in half or just some of the downright nightmarish facial expressions Tsukiyama will have. For all his flamboyancy, Tsukiyama is a nerve-wracking individual and Ishida makes that abundantly clear. His desire to eat Kaneki comes to an almost sexual fervor, continuing to add to the boat load of queer subtext this series has.
Continuing on with the artwork, we see Touka’s kagune, a pseudo familiar/spiritual appendage Ghoul’s can summon, for the first time and it is a beautifully bleak looking thing. Like the combination of a ruffled bird wing and a demon’s claw. It definitely puts Tsukiyama’s kagune design, an almost drill-like appendage, to shame. And while Touka isn’t enough to fully end the Gourmet, Ishida does depict beautifully violent scenes of her taking him on.
While the conclusion to the Gourmet Arc and the character work with Nishio and Kimi are the high points of this volume, that’s not all the content. We do get a sidestory prequel following Rize before she encountered Kaneki. It’s decent, but it seems to be just a reinforcement of what we knew of her already. The last two chapters of this volume shift focus back to the agents of the Commission of Counter Ghoul (CCG). And like the Rize sidestory, they are decent chapters. My biggest complaint with them is that they are 1. A bit to info dumpish and 2. Kind of fall into an annoying trope in Shounen manga (which “Tokyo Ghoul” kinda isn’t) of things like power ranks of Ghouls and what ranks the various agents in the CCG have. I know these characters will pay off in the longer run, but it’s a disappointing way to end such an emotionally high volume.
Continued belowOne last minor criticism is the cover. Feel like it should have been Nishio on the cover instead of Rize, given the content, but what are you going to do?
“Tokyo Ghoul” has been an amazing surprise in my return to manga and the combining threads of volume 4 and 5 cemented this book as something that I want others to read. Volume 6 isn’t out until April, so get to your LCS, Amazon or Comixology.
Final Verdict: 8.9- “Tokyo Ghoul” pulls off the conclusion to the Gourment arc fantastically. Don’t sleep on this series.
