Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-67.83.39.44-20150327202121/@comment-98.221.181.140-20150327210915

Understandable if you haven't read the manga. What many ppl are saying is that the anime's finales are seriously advertising the manga to get people to read it.....and you should, actually. Idk if they cut out many elements of 70 chapters from the manga on purpose, but starting from chapter 1 and going to 143 is totally worth it in my opinion.

NOW.....(super spoilers)

Though it was said to be an 'alternate universe' compared to the manga, not that much actually differentiated the anime from the manga other than Kaneki joining Aogiri, Kaneki fighting Amon, and Hide dying. But this wasn't much of a change, rather like a BAD version of the manga. Here's why.

Kaneki joining Aogiri from the first episode didn't seem like a flaw at first, but going on this 'lonely path' took away his development and relationships with Tsukiyama and Banjou especially, (in the manga they form 'Kaneki's group') so maybe that's why Tsukiyama seemed so weird in this season to you.

In the manga, Kaneki gets some closure about the guy who made him into a ghoul to begin with, Dr. Kanou who was in the VERY first episode. Manga Kaneki brings his 'group' with him in Kanou's lab to confront him, ending up with the TWINS, Shachi, and CCG which we also saw in episode 5 of root a. Now the anime totally skips over Kanou, instead replacing the lab arc entirely with an Aogiri Kaneki helping out with a raid on a ghoul prison. Sure, he fights with Shachi and the twins fight with Juuzou, but WHY? And you know that 'centipede' transformation he has at the end of this episode? An absolutely unecessary transformation if you ask me.

Manga Kaneki only transforms after cannibalizing a TON of Dr. Kanou's experiments, turning a bit insane and showing off his new kakuja. But you know what? He had Tsukiyama,Banjou, and Hinami there to keep him sane.

Anime Kaneki transformed without cannibalizing, turning into centipede just because he was SO worried about his friends at home and wanting to protect them all. (remember this is his lonely path)

Fast forward to the very end of episode 12, we see Touka opening a shop called ':re', something she's always wanted to do. Anime watchers may see this as a pointless ending for someone who's been running around for 3 hours doing absolutely NOTHING, but this is actually a hint to a season 3, though only manga readers can understand this. Why? Because Ishida's currently publishing a SEQUEL to the Tokyo ghoul manga(finished serialization after chap. 143), called Tokyo ghoul:re. And don't you DARE read :re first because it won't make any sense to you if you haven't read the entirety of tokyo ghoul first.

Anyway, although it was only 12 episodes, the anime hasn't filled in enough, even as an alternate universe. I can't explain this enough because explaining everything that was left out of season 2 and I would be here for hours.