When it comes to anime adaptations, there’s a lot that determines whether it’s good or bad. For me, the most important thing is how true it stays to the source material. While not having read very much manga at all, I still value the author’s vision for the story. What’s the point in making an adaptation if you’re not going to stay faithful to the source material? At that point you should just make something new. I understand needing to change a small thing here or there to fit an animation format, but key plot points, character development, and themes should all stay the same. 

This leads me to a very controversial topic in the anime community: filler arcs. For those that don’t know, anime filler is the name for episodes the studio adds to the story in order to stall for more source material to come out. In most cases, the content of these episodes is completely original. The majority of anime watchers dislike when the studio adds filler, because they usually do it poorly. Oftentimes, the plot of these filler episodes or arcs just doesn’t make sense. It distracts from the plot that the original author has laid out, and interrupts the pace of the story. 

I’m in the same boat as most people. Except for the rare case when it’s done well, I think filler just gets in the way. 

With my pre-ramble over, I can get to the point. Despite enjoying it for its dark themes and interesting characters, Tokyo Ghoul is one of the worst anime adaptations I have seen. I say this not with hate for the series, but sadness for the hand that it was dealt. 

I mentioned earlier that I haven’t read much manga. Tokyo Ghoul is actually the only series I have read in its entirety. This is because when I watched the anime, it felt so underwhelming. Plot lines felt rushed, character development was cut short, and there were times when I was just simply confused about what was going on. This led me to do some research, and I learned that the manga purist all shared my view on the anime. It turns out that the studio cut out a ton of the source material, rushing the story to squish it down into 12 episode seasons. Why they did this, I can’t begin to understand. 

The manga was extremely popular, selling over 47 million copies within a decade. In 2016 it even topped the manga sales charts. Clearly the manga was popular enough to be deserving of a high quality adaptation.

The number of episodes they made really makes no sense at all. When a manga is adapted into an anime, they typically put about 2 chapters into each episode. Popular series like Demon Slayer follow this format. Not including the new movie, there are 63 episodes of Demon Slayer that adapt the first 139 chapters of the manga. This is almost exactly 2 chapters per episode. 

We can even look at an extreme case like One Piece, a series notorious for its slow pacing. About 1100 chapters of one piece have been adapted, and these were put into about 1000 episodes (This count excludes the filler episodes). That math is pretty easy, at about 1 chapter per episode. While this sounds a little ridiculous when you think about it, the popularity of the show proves that slow pacing is better than fast pacing. 

When looking at Tokyo Ghoul’s numbers, you really start to question what the studio was thinking. Between the 2 parts of the series, Tokyo Ghoul has 322 chapters, while the show has 48 episodes. This equates to a whopping 7 chapters per episode. It’s no wonder they cut some of the content out, because otherwise it wouldn’t have fit. 

With the way they decided to tell the story, it almost takes on the form of a summarization. The amount of content they cut made it so that no real character development took place. So, while the characters are really interesting, you don’t get to know them very well or see them grow as the story progresses. The other thing is that the anime was downright confusing at times. Certain decisions the characters were making didn’t make sense with the context the show provided, and events seemed to pop up out of nowhere with no build up. It’s so disappointing to know they rushed what is truly a great story. 

That, however, is not the only mistake they made when adapting Tokyo Ghoul. In order to make their version of the story make sense, the studio opted to change some things around. While the series technically has no filler episodes, large portions of the series are a mix of cannon and filler. In my opinion, this is the worst choice they made. 

As I said earlier, I’m not a big fan of filler in anime. One of my favorite series, Bleach, has a ton of filler that gets in the way of the story. Fairly early on, there is a long filler arc. This arc not only has a similar plot to the first, making the show feel repetitive, but it also introduces characters that stick around for the rest of the show. They show up from time to time, but don’t ever have any effect on the real plot. Whenever I rewatch Bleach, the only way I can enjoy it is to skip all of the filler, and pretend those extra characters don’t exist.

There are, however, rare cases when filler is actually done right. Take Naruto for an example. Between the two parts of the series, there is a 2 and a half year time skip. When Naruto was adapted, they opted to add a string of filler arcs inside of that time skip. These arcs showed Naruto going on more missions, but didn’t contain any real development of the story. I actually found most of those episodes enjoyable. I believe this is the right way to do filler, if you need to do it at all. 

Getting to my point: Unless it is done a very specific way, filler ruins the author’s vision of the story. I would almost go as far as to say that I see it as disrespectful. Almost. I don’t actually think this is ever the intention when making filler, but it greatly takes away from my enjoyment of a show when the material is altered in major ways.

Tokyo Ghoul is the biggest example of this that I have experienced. 

I mentioned earlier that one reason for filler is to stall and let more source material come out. Well, this excuse can’t be used for Tokyo Ghoul. The first part of the series finished serialization in 2014, which is the same year the anime started. It’s the same case for the second part of the series. So again, I really cannot understand why the studio chose the route they did.

I’d like to end things off with a call for something I have been wishing for for years now: A Tokyo Ghoul anime remake. I want to see the story get the adaptation it deserves, and more than that I want what would most likely become my favorite show of all time. After reading the manga, I know the story is great. Tokyo Ghoul is truly worthy of an adaptation that stays true to the author’s vision.