Tokyo Ghoul: re Episodes 1-3 (Review)

By: EyeSpyeAlex After a long time waiting, Tokyo Ghoul is back on the air! Into its’ third season, this latest installation titled Tokyo Ghoul: re brings back a ton of familiar faces, while also introducing us to some new ones.Haise Sasaki (aka Ken Kaneki) is the leader of the Quinx Squad, a group of modified ghoul-humans. The Quinx squad members are able to handle both a kagune and a quinque, making them a dangerous opponent. Squad leader Kukie Urie and his subordinate, Ginshi Shirazu are searching Tokyo for the ghoul known as Torso. Torso has cast a wide feeding ground, targeting only women and only eating their torsos. With Urie hoping to catch Torso and move up the corporate ladder, he and Shirazu get a little risky in their hunt, leading to several close encounters with various ghouls. When their teammate Tooru Mutsuki gets caught in the crossfire, it’s up to Sasaki to come in and save his team.Except, things get a little tricky for Sasaki as the ghoul Orochi also appears to help out Torso. After a fierce battle, Sasaki knocks off Orochi’s mask, revealing he is actually Nishio. Nishio calls Sasaki “Kaneki”, causing him to temporarily go insane from the memories. Luckily the CCG has a contingency plan for this and Akira Mado quickly administers a tranquilizer.Suddenly, we begin to see all the old familiar faces through interactions with the newcomers. Torso meets with the Rabbit - aka Ayato Kirishima, Touka’s brother - and asks to become a member of the Aogiri tree. Photographer Chie Horie, who meets with Urie and Shirazu to give them a photo of one of the Torso’s victims and demands an article of Sasaki’s clothing, meets with The Gourmet to hand over the goods. Alas, since the underwear were clean, he cannot recognize Sasaki’s scent.Then, the meeting we’ve all been waiting for happens. While the Quinx squad is out scouting for information regarding a ghoul known as the Nutcracker (who didn’t get her name from handling almonds) they stumbleupon cafe :re. Inside, Sasaki is greeted with a familiar aroma, and then sees Touka. While he comments that he’s never seen something so beautiful, his ghoul eye sheds a tear. This moment was such a subtle and nice touch to show that Sasaki unconsciously remembers who Touka is.

The fun doesn’t stop there as Juzou Suzuya also makes his appearance. His team plans on helping Sasaki’s with a raid of the auction, a place where the Nutcracker is known to sell her victims. Having intrigued the Nutcracker while on a intel mission at the club, Mutsuki is going undercover to be “auctioned” off to the gourmets. While Juzou is interested in seeing how the auction plays out, he is more interested in the attendance of Big Madam, the ghoul that raised him.If I can say anything about Tokyo Ghoul: re, it’s that it is following the source material very well. Given season two of the anime led to some mixed feelings from fans, it’s good to see the production team sticking so closely to the manga. The only problem I have with the show so far is with the animation. Certain scenes enter this uncanny valley-esque area where the seem more CGI than animation. It doesn’t always happen, but it’s jarring when it does.As someone who is caught up on the manga, I knew what the knew characters would be like going into the anime. Still, there is something about hearing the dialogue voiced that just makes them all incredibly irritating. They all sounds so one dimensional and like broken records that I find myself not really caring what happens to them. I’m going to give the show the benefit of the doubt though as we’re only three episodes in. Hopefully it gets better from here.New episodes of Tokyo Ghoul: re air Tuesday’s on Funimation Now and Hulu.