English Dub Review: Tokyo Ghoul: Re “MAIN: Auction”

For the ghoul with the discerning palate, the Aogiri Auction is the best way to whet your whistle.

Overview (Spoilers)

After Mutsuki managed to get a “job” at the ghoul auction from Nutcracker, he and Juuzou are dressed to the nines as innocent little lambs for the slaughter. However, when the limo that picks them up fills with knockout gas, it’s obvious that things are getting a bit pear-shaped. Mutsuki wakes up in a shipping container, and on stage shortly after. Just moments before, a celebrity actor started a bidding war resulting in a price in the millions of yen. Mutsuki is about to go for a lower price, but the auctioneer sniffs something unusual about him. Off with the eye-patch! Now revealed to be a One-Eyed Ghoul, Mutsuki’s price skyrockets. He’s more than a little distraught, seeing as he has no clear way out. He erupts into a barely stifled panic when the auctioneer whispers “The plan failed. Help isn’t coming.”

Oh, but help does come. Next to auction is Juuzou, who’s got an arsenal of knives stashed in his prosthetic leg. In short order, he ends the audience and leaves the proceedings in chaos. However, that’s not his real target. He was raised by Big Madam, and she was not nice. Well, this is going to be interesting. At the same time, CCG and the other Quinx arrive, surrounding the building. While the Doves take out the lesser-ranked Aogiri white-suits, the Quinxes rush ahead to rescue hostages and take out high-value targets. Things get complicated when Mutsuki becomes the target of a free-for-all between Torso, Nutcracker, and Kanae. In order to take down those few remaining doves, Aogiri unleashes Seidou Takizawa: aka The Owl.

Our Take

This episode was quite the rush once it got going, but did so at a cost. We are given the same feeling as the giant conflict at the end of the first season, with several concurrent battles. These fights show off a good number of ghoul kagune we haven’t seen and throw a ton of investigators into the mix. Most of these guys are cannon fodder, and its obvious. Despite the small attempts to give these mooks a personality and goals, we’ve never seen them before. There isn’t anything to connect with there, and the attempt comes off flat. In an episode where there’s already a lot going on, wasting time to make the faceless relate-able at the last minute just complicates things further. It also gives me the feeling like I missed something in previous episodes since these characters act as if we should already know them.

I’m pleased we’re getting into such a big fight so early on in the season. Normally, a major raid like this would be the final few episodes. There’s a lot of room for the fallout from the fight, and a much more plot. That was my problem with the second season. It was extremely slow and moody until the Anteiku raid. This season has proven lighter and more fun than what came before. The creep factor of the clowns at the auction did a good job of getting me to empathize with Mutsuki’s plight.

So, for an episode with so much action, I’m going in with pretty high hopes for quality animation and direction. We do get that but stretched few and far between. Some shots we got were dynamic, full of energy, drama, and personality. We get one of Akira as a vicious grin creeps across her face, and another of Juuzou leaning back to glare at Big Madam.

Unfortunately, much of the action we see got none of this attention. The camera angles are flat and basic when we weren’t doing a closeup of a character’s face. The animators still manage to keep the action interesting, despite this. The early part of the episode with the clowns, however, was pretty shoddy. It was the kind of animation you’d expect from real amateurs. So, when you shove that against the moderately animated scenes with static cinematography, you have a juxtaposition that feels unpolished and rough.