LLBird said:For many years, it was unanimously believed that the mess that is Tokyo Ghoul √A was solely Studio Pierrot's fault. And there were a few reasons why people believed it.
Studio Pierrot has a mixed reputation for having produced anime such as Naruto, Boruto, Bleach, Kingdom, and Black Clover. These anime would often be criticised for several reasons such as sub-par animation and visual quality, excessive filler episodes, pacing issues and more. Because of the general media perception that animation studios matter the most when judging anime, it's easy to see why Pierrot is constantly discussed when talking about the Tokyo Ghoul anime.
Also, after Tokyo Ghoul √A finished airing, Sui Ishida's drafts of √A were released online and circulated rapidly among the anime community. To everyone's dismay, the drafts were very, very different that what was shown in the anime. Scenes like Kaneki proclaiming that he will kill the One-Eyed King, Touka seeing Rize in Anteiku's basement, and Tatara forcing Kaneki to eat Taguchi did not make it to the anime.
Here are the links to the drafts I managed to find:
https://sunset-tower.tumblr.com/post/129424575942/thank-you-so-much-for-you-post-about-the-anime
https://sunset-tower.tumblr.com/post/129418629852/ishidas-root-a-storyboard-drafts-are-so-fun-to
https://sunset-tower.tumblr.com/post/129451544167/how-does-tatara-make-kaneki-to-eat-her-corpse-and
This led to the anime-manga community creating the narrative that Pierrot ignored Ishida's drafts of √A when making the anime. One anituber even made a rant video about the drafts, which I think accelerated the narrative even more.
However, this cannot be further from the truth as there was an interview with Shuhei Morita (Director of Tokyo Ghoul S1 and S2) in 2018, around the same time as the Tokyo Ghoul :re anime was airing.
Link to interview:
https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/88fddm/im_shuhei_morita_the_director_of_anime_series/
Before I talk about the interview, I needed to clarify a few things about the nature of √A. When √A was announced after Season 1 aired, it was advertised as a season based on Ishida's original story concept that deviates from the manga. The drafts are proof of this because they showed scenes that were not in the manga.
https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2014-10-11/tokyo-ghoul-2nd-anime-season-video-teases-new-story-by-creator/.79825
The reason why I am saying this is that a major criticism about √A is it not following the manga, whereas it was Ishida himself who wanted √A to deviate from the manga. However, the anime-manga community largely blamed this decision on Pierrot because of the animation studio stigma. So if you are unhappy with the fact that √A deviated from the manga, then blame it on Ishida, not Pierrot, even if you respect him.
Back to the interview. Basically, Morita stated that the reason why the anime was different from the drafts is that the producers interfered with the original vision. To understand what he means, we need to talk about the production committee. The majority of the anime-manga community believes that the animation studio is generally responsible for how a work is adapted. This is not the case most of the time, as it's the production committee (manga publishers, merch, TV companies etc.) that decides that.
In the case of Tokyo Ghoul √A, here are the main producers:
- Shueisha
- Marvelous
- TC Entertainment
- Pierrot
Now you are probably thinking: "Pierrot is on the production committee so they should have some responsibility in how the √A story was handled". However, that is not the case. Pierrot is ranked at the bottom of the list so they really have little say in the decision-making; they simply do what other producers ordered them to do.
Back to the topic, Morita wanted to follow Ishida's drafts, but the producers' interference prevented Ishida and Morita's vision of √A come to fruition. This could be because the producers find Ishida's original story to be risker than the manga story in that it may not make a lot of money. The result was a mixture of anime-original and manga-canon scenes that didn't really make much sense.
My intent with this post is not to change your opinion on Tokyo Ghoul √A, but rather to bring light to a topic that is severely twisted by the anime-manga community for a very long time. Thank you for reading.
This post was largely inspired by these 2 posts:
https://twitter.com/Namaryuu/status/1494343939557675009
https://twitter.com/dotdotKam/status/1492920227104837633
