Funimation recently began streaming ‘Tokyo Ghoul’, a new anime series about the Differently Animated, and after four episodes the ZRC can give it a provisional evaluation.

Some minor spoilers below the cut, along with our thoughts.

‘Tokyo Ghoul’ is, as one might expect, a show about… Ghouls, in Tokyo. Specifically about one young man who unexpectedly joins the ranks of the Differently Animated after an accident and some sketchy emergency medicine.

The aforementioned Ghouls may or may not qualify as Zombies, depending on your personal definition. They have to eat human flesh at least once a month, and the longer they go without this necessary nutrition the more painful their hunger becomes. Ghouls cannot eat normal human food; it is intensely unpleasant to the taste, and actually poisonous to their physiology if ingested for too long. Ghouls have, to varying degrees, more than human strength, and some have magical powers that are as yet ill-defined.

In some respects, these Ghouls more closely resemble Vampires, particularly in the way they can largely pass for Living humans. They cannot, however, merely get by with a little blood, potentially from living donors; the existence of a Ghoul unfortunately requires consuming human flesh.

What’s most interesting to date for the Zombie Rights Campaign about ‘Tokyo Ghoul’ is the unexpected sympathetic view of the Undead it presents. Ghouls have families, they hold down jobs, they try to blend in to the larger human population. Many, if not all, try to find less morally objectionable ways to deal with their hunger. They quietly form a sort of shadow government and attempt to rein in their more antisocial members.

Meanwhile, as is frequently the case, Ghouls are hunted and persecuted. By The Man.

On the whole, the ZRC likes what it sees so far in ‘Tokyo Ghoul’! It’s pretty even-handed, and Zombies as characters are a rare treat. We’ll keep checking in as this series progresses.

For now, we rate ‘Tokyo Ghoul’ as Zombie Friendly.

Tags: Anime or Manga, Television, ZRC Reviews

This entry was posted by John Sears on Thursday, July 24th, 2014 at 5:37 pm and is filed under Zombie Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.