Dark colors and horrific settings. Intensely personal characters who are so movingly human and interesting at the same time that it practically screams reality; a reality sometimes too real to deal with. Gore, blood, and death, the normal staples of the horror genre. A tale of humanity's darker impulses, interwoven within the context of a supernatural, psychological thriller. And finally, underneath this fantastic concept, there lies a poignant social commentary about human society with regards to ostracism, acceptance, and the simple human desire to be loved.
This is Sui Ishida's graphic novel "Tokyo Ghoul," a tale about a young college student whose name is Ken Kaneki, and how, through a series of unfortunate events, he is transformed into a monster known as a ghoul, which feeds on the dead flesh of humans. The story progresses with how he deals with this enforced dichotomy between his new monstrous impulses and his "higher" human side, and how he attempts to find his new sense of identity within this struggle. Along the way, he learns more about the society that he is a part of, including that the truths he had previously taken as unquestionable were now more subjective, as previously what had been black and white to him faded away into a world of gray.
Many times throughout the story, the issue of ostracism is presented in several ways. First, there is the initial rejection of the ghouls by humans - seen as monsters and frequently hunted and murdered by humanity. Then, also, there is Ken's rejection as a half-human, half-ghoul hybrid; he feels doubly alienated from society, as even among the monsters, he is an outcast. This constant ostracism manifests in several ways - in the organization of ghouls and their resistance to being forced out of society, as Kaneki's own peculiar method of thinking with regards to this division, and also with the CCG's (Commission of Counter-Ghoul) attempts to exterminate ghouls. It all starts with the extermination of ghouls, but then, as the ghouls retaliate, the situation devolves into killing and revenge, promoting the violence all because of the fact that both sides refused to see the other as people, just of a different nature.
The violent tendencies of the ghouls are best not taken in the literal sense, but instead, in a metaphorical sense. For the violent and gruesome tendencies of the ghouls outline the possibility that humans, when forced out of groups and rejected for being who they are, tend to resort to violence as a way to fight back. This connection might seem extreme, except for several findings by the American Psychological Association (APA), which found that the brain comprehends social rejection in the same way and manner as physical pain, activating the same areas of the brain. Furthermore, in a study conducted in 2003, Doctor Mark Leary, psychology and neuroscience professor with Duke University, found that excepting two cases, 15 school shooters were victims of social ostracism when they committed their crimes. Humans are group creatures; we depend on each other for survival, comfort, and shelter, mentally and physically. Thus, being ostracized is a social condemnation, often like death in a mental sense, for it means you cannot be tolerated by the community that gives you life. In "Tokyo Ghoul," this idea is skillfully encapsulated by the characters, who react to the pain in various ways.
In "Tokyo Ghoul," there is a large cast of characters, each their own person. While these are not all that there is, Ken, Hinami, Touka, Yoshimura, Yomo, and Nishio, and each have their own problems and ways of dealing with the ostracism forced upon them. Yomo and Nishio are more apathetic, while Yoshimura stresses avoiding confrontation and focusing on living life to the best of their ability. However, Hinami and Touka have the most interesting reactions, especially Touka, as her reaction is symptomatic of the problems put forth by the APA.
When Hinami’s mother Ryoko is killed by the investigators of the CCG, her reaction is of shock, and Hinami quickly falls into depression. However, Touka, who was a close friend of the family, instead chooses revenge, wondering why Ryoko had to be killed. After acquiring knowledge about the investigators who killed her, she launches on a bloody rampage and begins murdering them. This is indicative of the truth of the APA’s findings, and also is in keeping with the unfortunate occurrences of the study done by Doctor Leary. There was the case of ostracism; in the novel, it was the event of Ryoko’s death, and the backlash by resorting to violence. While the novel presented a more real and universal example of death and revenge killing, in reality, what is social ostracization but a condemnation, the statement that some don’t deserve to live within our society anymore, even if allowed to exist physically?
This message that Ishida conveys is important is in a large part because of the setting - "Tokyo Ghoul" takes place, as the title suggests, in the modern day city of Tokyo, Japan. In Japan, these is a distinctive culture of putting the community first and the individual second, and this often translates into using social ostracism as a tool for reformation. In an article depicting the nature of Japanese bullying, one can see how students will often ostracize and subject students with overwhelming individual traits to bullying, regardless of whether they can be changed or not, in order to push them to conform with society. The article talks about how many have been subjected to violence, even targeted in class. Another article by the Washington Post relates several crimes from Japanese society, telling the accounts of students jumping off of 14 story buildings, or found stabbed or drowned in rivers, all because of individual non-conformity.
America, unfortunately, is no better. Racial tensions, violence, and incidents of brutality have been occurring in several places across the country, indicating that the problems are universal across eastern and western societies, just predicated on different values of what it means to be a person.
And all throughout the story, "Tokyo Ghoul" discusses that by contemplating the idea of what it means to be a human, and more importantly, a person. The violence and brutality depicted within "Tokyo Ghoul" are reflective of society as a whole, and how humankind's inhumanity to our own is astounding, in an entirely negative way.
The main struggle Ken faces is the idea of making human and ghouls to resolve their differences and see each other not as opposites or enemies, but as people. Applying this to humans society, this ideal is something every human should subscribe to, regardless of our differences of ethnicity, religion, orientation, etc.
This discussion and commentary is what makes "Tokyo Ghoul" a great social commentary, aside from its already fantastic story.
