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lead=yes is a Japanese dark fantasy manga series written and illustrated by Sui Ishida. It was serialized in Shueisha's seinen manga magazine Weekly Young Jump from September 2011 to September 2014, with its chapters collected in 14 volumes. The manga has been licensed for English release in North America by Viz Media.
The story is set in an alternate version of Tokyo where humans coexist with ghouls, beings who look like humans but can only survive by eating human flesh. Ken Kaneki is a college student who is transformed into a half-ghoul after an encounter with one of them. He must navigate the complex social and political dynamics between humans and ghouls while struggling to maintain his humanity.
A prequel, titled Tokyo Ghoul Jack, ran online on Jump Live in 2013, with its chapters collected in a single volume. A sequel, titled Tokyo Ghoul:re, was serialized in Weekly Young Jump from October 2014 to July 2018, its chapters were collected in 16 volumes.
A 12-episode anime television series adaptation produced by Pierrot, aired on Tokyo MX from July to September 2014. A 12-episode second season, titled Tokyo Ghoul √A (pronounced Tokyo Ghoul Root A), which follows an original story, aired from January to March 2015. A live-action film based on the manga was released in Japan in July 2017, with a sequel being released in July 2019. An anime adaptation based on the sequel manga, Tokyo Ghoul:re, aired for two seasons; the first from April to June 2018, and the second from October to December 2018.
By January 2021, Tokyo Ghoul had over 47 million copies in circulation worldwide, making it one of the best-selling manga series of all time.
A half-ghoul can either be born naturally as a ghoul and a human's offspring, or artificially created by transplanting some ghoul organs into a human. In both cases, a half-ghoul is usually much stronger than a pure-blood ghoul. In the case of a half-ghoul, only one of the eyes undergoes the "red eye" transformation. Natural born half-ghouls are very rare, and creating half-ghouls artificially initially has a low success rate. There is also the case of half-humans, hybrids of ghouls and humans that can feed like normal humans and lack a Kagune while possessing enhanced abilities, like increased reaction speeds, but shortened lifespans. Naturally born half-ghouls can also eat like normal humans or full ghouls.
The prequel series Tokyo Ghoul Jack follows the youths of Kishō Arima and Taishi Fura, two characters from the main series who become acquainted when they join forces to investigate the death of Taishi's friend at the hands of a ghoul, leading to Taishi eventually following Arima's path and joining the CCG (Commission of Counter Ghoul), the federal agency tasked into dealing with crimes related to ghouls as well.
The sequel series Tokyo Ghoul:re follows an amnesiac Kaneki under the new identity of Haise Sasaki (the result of horrific brain damage sustained from Kishō Arima). He is the mentor of a special team of CCG investigators called "Quinx Squad" that underwent a similar procedure to his, allowing them to obtain the special abilities of Ghouls in order to fight them but still being able to live as normal humans.
In 2013, a prequel spin-off manga titled Tokyo Ghoul Jack was released on Jump Live digital manga service. The story spans seven chapters and focuses on Kishō Arima and Taishi Fura twelve years before the events of Tokyo Ghoul. It was compiled into a volume published digitally by Shueisha on October 18, 2013. It was licensed Viz Media and published digitally on September 26, 2017.
A full-color illustration book, titled Tokyo Ghoul Zakki, was released along with the final volume of the manga on October 17, 2014. It includes all promotional images, volume covers and unreleased concept art with commentary by Ishida.
A sequel manga series, titled Tokyo Ghoul:re, was serialized in Weekly Young Jump from October 16, 2014, to July 5, 2018. The series is set two years after the end of the original series and introduces a new set of characters. Shueisha collected its chapters in sixteen volumes, released from December 19, 2014, to July 19, 2018. The manga was licensed by Viz Media, with the volumes released from October 17, 2017, to April 21, 2020.
The third novel Tōkyō Gūru［Sekijitsu］ was released on December 19, 2014. Past takes place before the events of the main series and focuses on the further backstory of certain Tokyo Ghoul characters, including Touka Kirishima, Ayato Kirishima, and series protagonist Ken Kaneki. The fourth novel, Tōkyō Gūru:re: quest was released on December 19, 2016. It takes place during the events of Tokyo Ghoul :re, focusing on the Quinx, CCG, and other characters.
An anime adaptation for Tokyo Ghoul:re was announced on October 5, 2017, and started airing on April 3, 2018. Toshinori Watabe replaced Shuhei Morita as the director, while Chūji Mikasano returned to write scripts. Pierrot produced the animation, while Pierrot+ is credited for animation assistance. Atsuko Nakajima replaced Kazuhiro Miwa as the character designer. The opening theme of the first season is "Asphyxia" by Cö shu Nie and the ending theme is "Half" by Queen Bee. The series aired in two seasons, with the first 12 episodes airing from April 3 to June 19, 2018, and the second season airing from October 9 to December 25, 2018. The opening theme of the second season is "Katharsis" by TK from Ling tosite Sigure, and the ending theme of the second season is 楽園の君 by Österreich.
Tokyo Ghoul was the 27th best-selling manga series in Japan in 2013, with over 1.6 million estimated sales. By January 2014, the manga had sold around 2.6 million copies. It was the fourth best-selling manga series in Japan in 2014, with 6.9 million copies sold. The whole original series sold over 12 million copies. The sequel series, Tokyo Ghoul:re sold over 3.7 million copies in Japan during its debut year in 2015, and 4.3 million copies in 2016. It was the fifth best-selling manga series in 2017 with sales of over 5.3 million copies. It was the tenth best-selling manga series in 2018 with 3.2 million copies sold. Both series combined for over 24 million copies in circulation by June 2017, and they had 34 million copies in circulation worldwide by January 2018. By July 2018, both manga had 37 million in circulation. From December 2017 to December 2018, the franchise sold 2.3 billion yen, and was ranked at sixteenth place as one of the top-selling media franchises in Japan. By March 2019, both manga had 44 million copies in circulation. By January 2021, both manga had over 47 million copies in circulation.
On June 12, 2015, the Chinese Ministry of Culture listed Tokyo Ghoul √A among 38 anime and manga titles banned in China. In an academic article from the School of Marxism at Southwest Jiaotong University, it was argued that Tokyo Ghoul is representative of Japanese animation where characters turn evil, and such stories interfere with adolescents' moral values. In February 2021, it was reported that the series, along with Death Note and Inuyashiki, was banned from distribution on two unspecified websites in Russia. However, the Tokyo Ghoul series became unavailable for Russian audiences from March 2022 after Russia invaded its neighboring Ukraine. As a result, Sony, who distributes the series via Crunchyroll, has closed down its Wakanim and Crunchyroll EMEA services in the country, in line with global sanctions and boycotts.
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