Nightmare Fuel / Tokyo Ghoul

"Go on a date" they said... "Get yourself a girl" they said...

What starts off as an innocent college student going out with an unsuspecting pretty girl quickly devolves into a chain of events plunging the poor protagonist head first into the horrors the world he lives in has to offer, in which he begins to lose his mind in the process...

As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

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Tokyo Ghoul:

• Everything related to Kaneki's operation. He went in for an organ transplant after a terrifying assault and came out no longer human. What's worse is that this was done deliberately and to several people as part of an experiment by a Mad Scientist.
  • Also, what became of the "failed experiments" is pretty horrifying — they're kept imprisoned in Kanou's lab, some serving as a makeshift security system by attacking anyone who's not meant to be there. They're "failed" experiments because things happen like their kagune consuming their own bodies when unleashed. They get set on Kaneki, and he winds up killing and eating them.
• One omake of the first manga features Touka biting Kaneki in the church to gain the strength to fight Tsukiyama. However, she finds him delicious and keeps eating until Kaneki's nothing but a skull and a pile of bones. This is played for laughs, of course, but still...
• From a human's perspective, anyone they know could be a ghoul that's ready to eat them and we see this happen several times in the series. Such as Donato Porpora who posed as a priest and ran an orphanage so he could eat children. It's pretty darn scary to have someone you knew suddenly become a monster and eat you. From a ghoul's perspective, any mistake they make can tip off a human that they're a ghoul and get them sent to a detention center or killed. In fact, many ghouls are rightly afraid of the CCG.
  • His torture at the hands of a CCG investigator is what turned Yamori into the sadistic Torture Technician that Kaneki meets. Yamori's own torture and the way he brutalized other ghouls can be nauseating, especially when he puts a centipede into Kaneki's ear so that it can destroy his brain.
• The total disregard humans have for the lives of ghouls can be as disturbing as the way ghouls see humans as food.
  • Yamori was clearly a lot younger when he was tortured. Numerous instances have demonstrated that the CCG is not above targeting ghoul children — after all, it's not like they're human...
  • When Touka and Kaneki go to a CCG office to get information, the person they speak to cheerfully says it doesn't matter what they do to ghoul children — they're ghouls, after all.. Some investigators themselves go overboard when capturing ghouls since they don't care if they cause them pain. This despite the fact that there is a rule that prohibits this kind of behavior against ghouls. Not to protect ghouls (it's noted that there is not a single rule that does such a thing), but because it's "what a human would do."
• The fights between ghouls can get very disturbing. Also whenever ghouls eat people, though that's a given.
  • Especially the fight between Kaneki and Ayato Kirishima. Kaneki says that because Ayato is Touka's brother, he will not kill him. No, instead he will only half kill him, and the way that he decides to do this is by breaking half of the bones in Ayato's body, all the while displaying his extensive knowledge of the skeletal system by casually informing Ayato which bones he is currently breaking. Of course, (this being Tokyo Ghoul), the real nightmare fuel comes from the disturbing suffixes of crunching noises, and Ayato's horrifying expressions and screams of pain.
• The Gourmet ghoul, Shuu Tsukiyama, is introduced having eaten a woman's eyes and leaving her to wander the streets with two gaping holes in her bloody face. Then there's the dining club he attends, where people have been literally ripped apart and fed to the crowd.
  • This often glossed over part of chapter 30. Tsukiyama's wanted poster has the following text: "On November 11 close to 8 pm, city council Kuninari was stabbed with a knife. Additionally, his genitals were severed and removed."
• Try reading through the graphic description of Yamori's sadistic torture of Kaneki and not feeling sick to your stomach.
  • Four words: Centipede in Kaneki's ear. The moment in question has almost become memetic in how insanely fucked up it is.
• The way season 1 of the anime ends. Kaneki asks Yamori if it's okay to eat him, claiming it would only be fair. He then closes in on the camera with an open mouth.
  • In the manga, however, we are treated to a rather detailed illustration of how, exactly, Kaneki does this. It's rather gruesome, and very messed up, accompanied by what are potentially the most disturbing set of suffixes to date. Not that Kaneki's behavior was unjustified, but however you look at it, someone pinning someone else to the ground and then eating their flesh with a salivating mouth, (remarking on how bad it tastes) while they ramble incoherently about how they're being eaten, definitely counts as nightmare fuel.
• Kakuja ghouls. They're monstrously powerful ghouls who attained a higher form of kagune through eating other ghouls. Their kagune have evolved into a sort of grotesque fleshy armor that covers their bodies and take on various horrific forms. For example, Yamori's kakuja covers most of his upper body and head in what looks like a mess of tentacles and muscle tissue, and also makes it look like he's got a giant claw instead of an arm. Kaneki's half-kakuja state is a centipede-like speed demon with a razor beak cyclops mask. The one thing all kakuja ghouls appear to have in common is being extremely prone to psychosis, if not being outright Ax-Crazy, since it's implied that the cannibalizing costs you your sanity.
  • For proof, one need not look any further than Kaneki's little episode in Kanou's mansion. His insane babbling (which implies he's hallucinating) coupled with his monstrous appearance and abilities are not only enough to completely freak out everyone in range, but to also make a Special Investigator, someone who's seen and fought with plenty of downright depraved and Ax-Crazy ghouls, say that he (Kaneki) is by far the craziest one he has ever faced. What follows after only drives the point home even further.
• Kaneki's progressively degrading mental state. It's horrifying watching such a genuinely kind person gradually lose part of themselves in the horrors of the ghoul world until they hit such a point that they are left standing on the edge of madness.
• The Doves' special weapons: they're basically attacking ghouls with the dead bodies of other ghouls. Mado in particular took way too much pleasure in the thought of killing Hinami with the quinque made from her parents.
  • It's actually worse than that, The Quinque are made of only a singular part of the ghoul, their special hunting organ, so in context, it's closer to someone beating you with some guys lung or heart on a stick.
• Suzuya: shortly after being introduced, he blows out some poor cop's ear just because he looked at him funny. He's quite obviously unhinged, and the CCG, as long as he keeps killing ghouls, largely doesn't care about what he does. The only thing keeping him back is Shinohara's influence.
  • His backstory, too, what with being raised and tortured by a ghoul 'mother' who castrated him with a hammer.
  • It's also revealed that she used him as a scrapper for the ghoul restaurant. Now mind you he was a young kid being forced to kill other humans for sadistic ghouls' enjoyment at the threat of being horribly tortured and abused by his ghoul owner. To make it worse, his introspection reveals that his first kill made him sick and gave him nightmares for three straight days. And then he just got... used to it. After that reveal it's not surprising that he is so kill-happy and indifferent to death — not just in regards to ghouls, but to everything else too.
• Amon's backstory: He was raised in an orphanage run by a ghoul, masquerading as a priest, who had a particular appetite for children. One day, young Amon goes into a room unannounced, and sees his "father" cutting up one of his dead friends...
  • He was making the appetizers that Amon was so fond of out of them as well; not only was he eating the adopted children, he was feeding their remains to the other children as well.
• A heavily-wounded Kaneki, while wandering through the sewers, starts hallucinating zombies of Rize and Yamori trying to tear off hunks of his body.
• Arima walks the line between CMoAs and pure nightmare fuel. For the CCG, he's a symbol, an idol, someone everyone admires for his unparalleled talent. But for ghouls, his name as CCG's grim reaper is wholly earned. His appearance in the Anteiku Raid arc cements this: Kaneki heads to V14 to meet up with Koma and Irimi, only to find to his horror Arima standing, completely untouched, in the middle of scores of slaughtered ghoul corpses.
  • And then they fight, if it can even be called that — Kaneki, who at this point has become a powerful ghoul in his own right, still stands absolutely no chance against Arima, and he gets skewered through the eye. What follows is probably the most horrifying meltdown the poor kid has had since his torture at the Aogiri Tree HQ, as he staggers around screaming and rambling from the pain and asking if he's going to die. And then Arima ends the battle.
• Owl, the one-eyed ghoul, is a monster that looks closer to a Resident Evil boss than it does anything from earth. It crawls around on a multi-legged, insectoid body, has a super long tongue, is incredibly fast and powerful, and only has a single eye.
• How the Owl seemingly kills Shinohara. It cuts Shinohara's right leg into a shish-kabob, using its Kagune as the stick, and eats it. It then gives a nightmarish face to Suzuya, saying that now they match (Suzuya lost his right leg earlier) and then stabs Shinohara through the chest as Suzuya desperately tries to save him.
• Something to note, Kaneki was a simple college kid crushing on a cute girl and is introduced initially as such. Then he gets introduced to just how awful the ghoul world is along with some of the worst of the human world and we really see just how fucked up depressing he is comparably to the nice, meek guy we were initially introduced too.

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Tokyo Ghoul:re :

• Our first glimpse of Torso, a gaunt madman cradling the decapitated body of a woman and playing with the stump while moaning about his lover. In the shadows, various kinds of cutting implements can be seen, as well as numerous Polaroids.
• Donato Porpora describing in graphic detail wanting to disembowel Mutsuki and feast on his organs.
• The gender reveal in chapters 4 and 5, which has numerous elements in common with a sexual assault. Mutsuki is choked, pinned to the floor, and is clearly horrified when his shirt is torn open with Torso gleefully calling him a woman. He manages to fight back briefly, but is given a brutal beating and it isn't clear what Torso might have done had Urie and Shirazu not interrupted him. Made even more horrifying since sexual assault is a common danger faced by trans men, with numerous cases of this happening after being outed. Suffice to say, more than a few fans found the sequence nightmarish.
• In chapter 7, immediately after Haise sees Nishiki, he falls to the ground screaming in agony as the memories of being Kaneki (which the CCG had wiped him of) start rushing back to him, causing him to go through a Amnesiac Dissonance. As Haise starts to writhe on the ground from the rush of memories, Nishiki makes his escape. The CCG, seeing that he is regaining his memories, rush to the scene to keep "SS Rated Ghoul Haise." from running away while Akira shoots a gun with RC suppressant bullets at Haise to calm him. Soon after that, we see Akira holding the now calm and crying Haise while she reminds him that he is Haise Sasaki and not Kaneki.
• Nutcracker is pretty bad too. She crushes men's testicles and then sucks them up. What's worse is that we actually see her do this to a couple of poor bastards.
• The Auction, a special event where kidnapped humans are sold to the highest bidder. Those that aren't purchased as a meal are destined to become slaves, which if Suzuya's past is any indication of the norm, means a life of extensive and varied abuse.
  • Mutsuki, already established to be terrified by predatory male stares, is thrown out on stage and triggers a frenzy upon being revealed as a Half-Human Hybrid. He remains in a state of shock the entire time, until he's sold and dragged off stage to the holding area; the entire ordeal is topped off by Nutcracker engaging in celebratory Lecherous Licking after a record sale.
• Roma showing why she's an SS-rated ghoul.
• The appearance of Dr. Kanou's new Owl: former Plucky Comic Relief Seidou Takizawa, transformed into a white-haired Ghoul with a deranged expression declaring that he's starving. Just the implications of being experimented on and possibly tortured by Aogiri for two years are terrifying to consider.
  • A chapter later, we see him nonchalantly rip a man's head off. The calm way he does it makes it even more terrifying.
  • It seems that everything about him is nightmare fuel, with his slaughter of the Atou Squad not only brutal but with comparisons of human brains to jam.
  • His comment about how being Impaled with Extreme Prejudice doesn't hurt because he's used to that kind of thing. Just what kind of torture did he go through that being impaled is no big deal?!
• Chapter 22: Uta "wearing" Arima's face, with his face turning into a mass of wriggling tendrils when damaged. The implications of what this could mean are terrifying and pure Paranoia Fuel.
  • The fact that he can take his face being cut open without missing a beat and wound Take before the investigator has even realized what happened.
• Chapter 23 gives us two prime examples:
  • Nutcracker displaying her trademark Groin Attack, followed by eating a beautiful woman's face.
  • Takizawa casually chewing on a severed head while two survivors cower in the corner, so terrified they cannot move.
• Big Madam is not only a horrific sadist, but her Wall Crawl and attempting to swallow Urie is disturbing as hell.
• Ch. 28:
  • Nutcracker's flashback to her childhood, including a shot of three shadowy male figures with terrible smiles looking down on her while she thinks "I need money". She's a Ghoul that focuses on crushing and eating the testicles of men, and the word she uses for "pretty" can also be translated as "pure". The implications are disturbing, to say the least.
  • Takizawa apparently torturing Sasaki, with an accidental broadcast causing everyone at the Auction to hear his screams. Saiko's horrified look when she turns on the monitors looking for Sasaki speaks volumes about what is being done to him.
  Takizawa: HAHAHAHAHA! This is amazing. Who set up this strange thing for me? Now everyone on the premises can hear me! I just thought of something great. I've made holes in various places, so let's get your friends... to hear your vibrations.
• Chapter 31: Once again, Takizawa provides a hefty dose of the nightmare fuel.
  Takizawa: "Mommy! Daddy! I'm sorry! I can't help it! I couldn't help it! I ate Mom's intestines. Ta-....ta-.....TASTY!!!"
• At the end of chapter 32 we get a glimpse of Tsukiyama's current state as a result of supposed starvation and depression.
• Shirazu's nightmare, of him as a little boy finding his father's body after he hung himself and a zombie Nutcracker crawling out of a box to attack him.
• Chapter 35: Tsukiyama´s condition is further elaborated upon early on in the chapter and the affect his flawed genetic condition have done with him. His defective kakuja has grown his koukaku to a leech of immense size from starvation, cannibalism and turned Tsukiyama into a raving lunatic while lucid who easily mirror Kaneki in his worst moments. The fact that this happens whenever the sedatives used on him wears off and that he doesn´t seem to remember anything afterwards just makes it no mystery why he´s locked up or why the servants fear him.
• At the end of chapter 38, Mirumo Tsukiyama views a video that Kijima uploaded on the CCG website addressed to Rose. Kijima shows the torture of one of the Tsukiyama servant ghouls that he had captured earlier. After stating that the ghoul had been refusing to talk after inerrogation, Kijima says that he decided that the ghoul didn't need his tongue. A number of tools are displayed on a table, along with the recently cut-off tongue.
• Shikorae is creepy as all hell.
• In Chapter 42—Dear god, Shirazu's sister Haru's RC Cell Over-Secretion Disease. At first it was an itchy eye and now there's a giant Kagune Tumor growing out of her right eye socket. It's so big it has to be tied to the ceiling in order to not hurt her.
  • Worse, there's nothing to indicate this isn't a recent phenomenon. This could be a rare but known disease. Imagine how many people could be afflicted. Any itching, swelling, wort or mole turns into a giant RC Cell tumor. Unless it's stopped right away, there could be no cure.
• Chapter 43: Eto's kagune. Just.....the sheer Body Horror of branch-like things exploding from her shoulders, with ''human limbs' growing out of human limbs growing out of the branches, and numerous grinning mouths that can SPEAK on their own.
• Chapter 45: We get to see the aftermath of what Eto did to Kanae. The results are not pretty to say the least. His eyes and lips have been stitched and he kneels on the floor, bloodied and without a shirt, surrounded by ticking clocks as Eto speaks to him.
• Chapter 47 gives us a brief glimpse of of Kanae wearing a new mask and outfit after Eto was done torturing him. A mask that looks very similar to Noro's and an outfit that looks similar to Seidou's. This is going to get very bloody and violent for CCG judging by it....
  • Then, in the next chapter, the first thing we see him do is is brutally kill Shimoguchi and his squad, then cradling his severed head while saying that's it's a fine rose for Tsukiyama before beginning to scale the wall.
• Chapter 49 is possibly among the most violent and bloody chapters in TG history.
  • Noro goes to town on the Ito and Quinx squad with its toothy kagune. When it is later bisected by Saiko's kagune, it simply pulls its body together in seconds through its bizarre and highly effective Healing Factor.
  • Saiko's kagune is finally seen on-panel, and it is hideous: A massive tentacle with bumps all over and several tendrils emerging from the tip.
  • Noro lands a crushing blow on Ito, resulting in a broken ribcage with some ribs sticking out of a wound.
  • Ihei comes undone completely in the wake of Matsumae badly wounding her. She whips out her Quinque T-Human in an attempt to eradicate her foe. Mairo takes the hit, being bisected himself in the process, but still manages to unceremoniously behead Ihei. With the last of his strength he distracts Kijima long enough for Matsumae to cut straight into his head with his own chainsaw quinque.
• Torso's diary from Volume 4, which details both his Lack of Empathy and his terrifying obsession with Mutsuki.
• Chapter 50: Furuta using his comrade as a meat shield and jabbing Matsumae's eyes out with his hands.
  • Sasaki breaking down and nearly stabbing Tsukiyama through before Kanae cuts his hand off.
• Chapter 51: A monstrous kagune sprouts from Noro's dismembered body and brutally dismembers Shinji
  • This kagune looks rather similar to Eto's, which has some terrifying implications...
  • Kanae is revealed to have cut Sasaki's hand off and tries to drop him off the side of a building like he did with his hand due to his jealousy of Sasaki having Tsukiyama's attention but Sasaki decapitates him with his legs.
• Chapter 52:
  • Arima threatening to kill Kaneki/Haise again in a flashback and calling him his quinque. The implications of Kaneki having suffered repeated torture at the hands of his mentor in order to become Haise are there, and he is so distressed over the flashback that the voice within expresses a desire to kill Arima.
  • After Haise subdues Kanae, a fully transformed kakuja Eto swoops in and promptly attacks.
• Chapter 53, dear god.
  • The flashback to Kaneki's childhood, and the rather graphic shot of his mother beating him.
  • Ui walking in on the bloody aftermath of the Ihei squad vs. Tsukiyama's bodyguards]battle.
  • Shirazu is shown engaging what appears to be Noro's kagune, which appears as an absolutely massive jaw, complete with grotesque, salivating tongue and enormous teeth.
• The entirety of chapter 54 is a study in Nightmare Fuel.
  • The first thing Kaneki does upon regaining his identity is give Kanae one of the worst beatings in Re to date, all while sporting a Psychotic Smirk. To elaborate, Kaneki tears off Kanae's arm, impales him through the eye with a metal beam, and after dodging his kagune's agonized swings, he impales him from behind while pinning Kanae's remaining arm with offshoot tentacles. Meanwhile Shirazu may have pushed himself into becoming a full-fledged half-ghoul in his effort to defeat Noro.
  • On the subject of Noro, he seems to have left any semblance of a human from to become a massive, bloated kagune with two mouths and gigantic lolling tongues.
• Chapter 55 continues the nightmarish events!
  • Shirazu asking where everyone is and why no one is talking, even though Urie and Saiko are right beside him and shouting. It's because his body is starting to shut down, causing his senses to fail and this terrifies him when he realizes it.
  • Noro's true form: He's a mummified corpse, implied to have been kept going all these years by Eto's kagune.
• Chapter 56: Remember Kankeki's kakuja-induced madness in Kanou's laboratory, complete with the nonsensical ramblings and erratic behavior? Kaneki's attack on Eto drives her into a similar state, and her kakuja body begins undergoing a series of lovely mutations such as extra eyes and mouths on top of mouths. All while she pursues him across the surface of a building, spouting random and confused sentences. It turns a scene that should have been badass into pure horror.
  • Eto varies between trying to kill Kaneki and declaring her love for him while licking his eye. It doesn't help that she's naked and missing her legs.
  • The cliffhanger of the chapter, with Koori Ui discovering Kaneki feasting on the gruesome remains of Eto's discarded kakuja.
• Volume 5 contains as an extra a full poem lifted from "The Black Goats Egg". The gruesome and horrific content described is bad enough, but the implication it has towards how Kaneki connects to it create some horrifying details.
• Chapter 59 gives us Kaneki making an incredibly sinister smile while talking to Eto's manager. It's especially jarring because it's become increasingly rare to see him smile, and that the way it's drawn and the context makes it increasingly apparent that poor Ken's sanity is going down the toilet. Never mind the fact that he has been partnered with Furuta, of all people.
• After the Time Skip, Kaneki's started wearing gloves. There's a pretty good reason for that: his arm apparently grew back with scales.
• Chapter 62: It turns out Eto's manager has been aware of her identity as a ghoul for quite some time. Just how did he discover this? Well, the chunks of human flesh in marked containers, including the clearly defined parts of a person's face made things pretty obvious.
• Chapter 64: Mutsuki wakes up to discover that Torso has kidnapped him. Torso declares that they are getting married, and shows Mutsuki his severed limbs.
• Chapter 65 continues this with a single glimpse of a masked, shirtless Torso looming over Mutsuki and panting heavily. The potential implications terrified the fandom, suffice to say.
• In chapter 66 Furuta is implied to have a sexual interest in Eto when he comments on her beauty, about how he likes woman like her, and says he wants to dominate her with his hand at his crotch. His inhumane personality comes into play when he says he may personally be responsible for making sure she's crushed like a piece of trash and when she insults him he gets close to her with a crazy look in his eyes and repeats "DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE" to her. He later curses her and promises to punish her good and hard.
  • There's also the shot of skulls behind Eto when Furuta tells her that she can't change anything because she leaves a lot of suffering and violence in her wake, and that she even killed her own father.
• In Chapter 67, we finally have a flashback to post-V14 events: an amnesiac Kaneki, locked up in Cochlea and completely insane. He would claw at the walls until his nails were torn off, begging to be let out because he had to "save everyone". Who did he need to save? He didn't know, he just couldn't let go of that single thought. He would regularly claw out his own eyes until they became infected, and refused any food to the extent the staff were convinced he would die soon. He didn't know who he was, or where he was, or who he needed to save....leaving him in a constant state of hysteria and self-harm, plagued by nightmares and slowly dying from self-inflicted injuries.
• Eto mocks his daddy issues, so what does Furuta do in chapter 68 to get back at her? Murders her manager, cooks him, and brings it to her in a bento purely to piss her off.
• Like he did with Matsumae Furuta tries to stab Kaneki's eyes out. Luckily, Hinami stops him. When Kaneki attacks him Furuta looses a tooth and makes a creepy face before simply putting the tooth back where it had gotten knocked out.
• Kaneki has resolved himself to die against Arima in a beautiful way so that he will be remembered and loved.
  • In chapter 73 its revealed Kaneki doesn't even want to fight Arima and secretly doesn't want to die by his hand.
  • Torso brings Mutsuki a flower crown, but gets angry when Mutsuki glares at him and won't accept his compliments. He beats Mutsuki violently while screaming insults. Mutsuki flashbacks to his father beating him up and drowning him telling him he won't stop until he gives him the praise he deserves. It's also implied Torso raped Mutsuki and Mutuski's father raped him with a parallel to Suzuka and Big Madam. Mutsuki laments being cursed from his tendency to be abused by men.
  • Also at the end of the chapter, Arima cuts off Kaneki's legs.
• In the 2016 calendar there's a picture of Torso writing Mutsuki a love letter saying that he would do his best to help Mutsuki with whatever he needed be it buying clothes, washing, or eating. He says he would help him with that because of course he would need help since he would have no arms or legs.
• In chapter 74 Arima thrusts IXA at Kaneki's eyes, and asks if this is what he wants. Kaneki panics and tries to put his legs back on, but Arima throws them away and starts berating him. Telling him that his eyes are empty like a dead person, and a person that is dead can't beat him, and he will kill Kaneki's friends if he doesn't make his choice. Kaneki imagines all his friends dead at Arima's hand, and his kakuja emerges making him appear monstrous. He shatters IXA completely. Arima calls out to someone standing in the shadows, and asks for that Quinque. He tells the person about the other ghouls going to the Control Room. Arima then prepares to use his final quinque, SSS-rated Ukaku: OWL. It was made for him as a teenager, after he drove off a Kakuja. He's never used it on a person before he says. We also have when Banjou catches up to the others in the control room, and they shut down the systems. They all start going down into the Disposal System, when it suddenly starts back up. Chaos and ghouls getting pulled into the press, while Furuta laughs hysterically in the control booth with what looks to be members of V behind him.
• Furuta being revealed to being a ghoul.
• While awesome it was also creepy to see Eto in her true form attack Furuta while telling him that the food he made of her manager was delicious and warns him that he's next on the menu.
• At the end of chapter 77 Urie comes across a horrid smell and supposedly finds where Mutsuki is being held. He finds a headless limbless torso under a sheet.
• Ch. 78 doles it out, thanks to being a Torso-centric chapter.
  • His Freudian Excuse, having grown up in complete isolation while being abused by his father, and witnessing his father dismember and eat his Only Friend. He then is implied to have killed his father for this.
    • When they were without food his father ate his mother.
  • The final page of the chapter, with Torso looming over Mutsuki in a pose that shows off how thin and creepy-looking he is and his freakishly long Noodle Person arms.
• Ch. 79 continues to up the ante on horror.
  • The chapter focuses primarily on Mutsuki's Tomato in the Mirror sequence, as he watches memories of himself killing his family with an axe, killing a cat while at the Academy, digging up a jar of organs he hid in the woods outside the Academy, and eating a dead Investigator at the Auction. Horrified, he calls himself disgusting and decides that he should just allow Torso to kill him.....but comes back to his senses, fully healed. Mutsuki discovers Torso's mutilated remains, and remembers killing him before having a complete mental breakdown.
  • Torso's fate, graphically described by an Investigator's report. It is perhaps the most gruesome killing in the entire series, with Mutsuki mutilating and abusing the corpse before leaving it on display for Urie to later find.
• Chapter 80 contains a heavy dose of Body Horror.
  • The chapter switches the focus to Hanbee's situation. He is defeated by Kuro, and saved at the last minute by Juuzou. Kuro celebrates that she can show her sister a "suffering Rei", and Juuzou is confused because he was sure that Shiro had died of her wounds. Kuro is angry at him being rude by ignoring her sister, and pulls open her cloak to reveal a horrific skull-like face merged into her stomach that is speaking quietly. Kuro and Shiro have apparently been merged into some kind of horrific monster.
• Chapter 83: The shot of Yoshitoki Washuu lunging at Marude with gaping mouth, active kakugan, and a bullet lodged in his forehead.
• Furuta appears to win his fight against Eto and leaves her in her horrifically maimed state for death while stating he's got a lot more people to fuck up.
• Chapter 88 treats us to many extremely graphic, close-up shots of Red Shirts being killed in a horrifying fashion. In a series filled with gruesome deaths, these are perhaps the most nightmarish, as the hapless soldiers are essentially doused with napalm, melting their gear to their faces or vaporizing pieces of their skulls in "loving" detail. Their screaming and struggling as they die only makes it worse. War Is Hell indeed.
• Chapter 90 once again ups the ante, with copious doses of Medical Horror. Graphically detailing the OWL experiments, the chapter shows how Takizawa was changed from the Plucky Comic Relief into a deranged One-Man Army. Dr. Kanou personally oversaw his experiment's progress, cheerfully explaining his situation to him before announcing a variety of experiments would be carried out once he stabilized. Extensive torture is portrayed, with Kanou utterly detached from the horror he's inflicting to strengthen his new subject.....and medical rape is casually mentioned as well.
• Kanou's army of Quinx are nightmarish, but not the same way as his previous batch of experiments. While both groups involve copious amounts of Full-Frontal Assault, the former were misshapen creatures with limited intelligence or awareness. In contrast, the new creations are an army of very naked, well-built men that relentlessly pursue their target in a Zerg Rush akin to a horde of aggressive zombies.....but turn out to be fully conscious and indicate that they're being forced to obey Kanou. What must have happened to them, to force a group of perfectly normal people to behave like animals and completely disregard social taboos concerning nudity and personal space?
• Chapter 98 sees the battle with Amon take a sudden and horrific turn. In the midst of being consumed by Urie's Ginkui, the former investigator undergoes a sudden mutation into a smaller version of Eto's kakuja body, it's worst feature being his grimacing and wide-eyed head twisted into an unnatural angle at the end of the creature's "neck". Seeing Amon of all people turn into something so alien and without any warning whatsoever is beyond jarring. Not to mention that his retaliation is so fast, brutal and one-sided that it's all the shocked Quinx can do to survive.
• Chapter 101 gives us more to shudder over. Furuta discusses the setup of the Sunlit Garden in more detail, revealing how certain children there are used as breeding slaves. Rize was one of such child, but he helped her escape because he didn't want his own father to someday rape the girl he loved. But he didn't do this for altruistic reasons, but because he's a Crazy Jealous Guy that wants to make her his wife and personal Baby Factory.
• Chapter 105 opens with a street festival, and the common sight of a Clown handing a small child a balloon. On the following page, the balloon explodes and blows both apart, splattering the horrified mother with pieces of her own child.
• Donato clearly enjoys mutilating Higemaru in front of Urie and brutalizing the latter. He may be old, but is still absolutely terrifying.
• Chapter 110: Uta, or No-Face, employs the same trick against Suzuya which he also used against Hirako during the auction. He initially and much to Suzuya's confusion allows himself to be beaten up, only to lose his mask, revealing Shinohara's face underneath. It is unclear if he sounds like the investigator (though the anime gives him Shinohara's voice during the trick), but his impersonation takes Suzuya's will to fight away instantly. In a following panel we see Uta hugging the frozen Suzuya while still impersonating his mentor. As he does so, his nightmarish kagune resembling fleshy, spider-like limbs with hooks emerge from his back and loom over Suzuya. Fortunately, his squad comes to save him.
• Chapter 111 brings several cases to the plate.
  • A flashback reveals Amon's time under Dr. Kanou's....."care". Namely, a session of Force Feeding with Amon strapped to a table and a tube shoved down his throat while Kanou joked about making Foie gras.
  • Urie in the "Framed Out" state, with his kagune crawling across his face and completely overtaking his body.
• Chapter 114: Kakuja Takizawa and Amon fighting. Not to mention the reveal and demonstration of the depth of Mutsuki's special feelings towards Kaneki and his jealousy and murderous intentions towards Touka the one who has Kaneki's love.
• Chapter 118 begins with Furuta's nightmarish "party" to celebrate his victory. It begins with several people being executed by a team of Child Soldiers, and Furuta giving a New Era Speech to a crowd of demoralized and traumatized Investigators that end up being swept up into the madness. All while the named members of the CCG look on in horror, with Ui in particular realizing that he's doomed the CCG.
• Chapter 122 sees Furuta dishing out more, putting on a gruesome public demonstration for the people of Tokyo. This involves him standing on top of a pile of corpses, with several mangled corpses impaled on spikes, and the Oggai standing in a circle around the pile while holding up severed heads as trophies. Even more horrifying than his display is the public reaction: reporters discussing the event call him "effective" if a bit extreme, and show a shot of teenage girls screaming for him and waving merchandise. Not only is Furuta's gruesome show accepted by the public, he's been CHEERED for it and is being treated like an Idol.
• Chapter 123 gives us an Ax-Crazy Mitsuki showing Touka part of a hand, which lacks multiple fingers and has a bone sticking out but is wearing an engagement ring - in other words Yoriko is being punished simply for once having ties to Touka, and, in addition to the mutilation, she may already be dead.
  • Everything about that chapter was nightmarish as it focused on how far Mutsuki's fallen from the innocent and sweet investigator he once appeared as. Knowing of his Ax-Crazy tendencies and murderous intentions towards Touka for simply having Kaneki's love as well as his nightmarish facial expressions and how well he planned ahead of time in order to not only capture Kaneki, but also how far he is willing to go to make Touka suffer as much as possible for "stealing" him from him.
• Chapter 134 has an entire group of Oggai frame-out, becoming insane, screaming berserkers strongly resembling Kaneki's half-Kakuja from the Tokyo Ghoul manga in both appearance (same kagune) and behaviour. Meanwhile, Mutsuki oversees the situation and craves the oncoming bloodshed.
• In chapter 135, Roma is revealed to not only be the founder of the Clowns, but possessing an SSS-rate Kakuja form as well. Its appearance resembles a massive, bloated humanoid with multiple arms, thick clown lips and a rather unnerving lamprey-like mouth.
• Chapter 144: The Return of "Centipede"
  • To elaborate, it pretty much demonstrates that forcing Kaneki to fight to survive again is still a bad idea, especially now that he decides to drop all of this ethical restraints. As in he kills every single Oggai near-effortlessly once he has absolutely no choice but to come back from the brink of death to eliminate every single threat in his path, even starting this off by eating Hajime's face to boot. And shortly thereafter, he becomes what can only be considered the closest the series has come yet to Eldritch Abomination, as a gigantic mass of berserk, sentient kagune flesh tearing through a city block like it's nothing.
  • It also shows how psychologically unhinged Kaneki's really become by this point in the series. He literally argues with multiple facets of his personality, each one based off of himself from different points in the series. As in, each time Kaneki's had Character Development, he considered the previous Kaneki a completely different individual and isolated it into his mind. The one thing they can all agree on ultimately? Solely focusing on saving Touka as they disregard anything else to kill their enemy.
  • The best part? This was all part of Furuta's plan as he declares he won as Kaneki eats his upper half.
• Chapter 145: A No-Dialogue Episode as the results of the previous chapter come to bare: Kaneki is now pretty much a full-on Eldritch Abomination befitting of the title "Dragon", with massive glowing kakugan eyes the size of buildings. The entire city is in a Mass "Oh, Crap!", and the context heavily implies that this is the epitome that things like the One-Eyed Owl were mere stepping stones towards; a monstrosity that could wipe out the entire capital city if it isn't stopped, because in only a handful of pages, it's strongly implied that Kaneki has devoured massive amounts of Tokyo's population right off the streets as they scream and try to flee in terror.
  • One particular shot emphasizes this when a young man working on a paper turns his head to the window and sees a Kaiju-sized kakugan staring back at him through his apartment window.
• Chapter 161: Dragon collapsing? Hooray. Dragon releasing spores across Tokyo which turns humans into full-fledged ghouls upon contact as it does so? Uh-oh.
• Chapter 165/166: An uncanny parallel with the Anteiku raid arc. The CCG/Goat alliance appears to have the situation under control as they slaughter their way through the V soldiers. Then Kaiko steps out of the shadows and offers the investigators a tough fight. Right as this happens, a massive kakuja resembling Eto's "Owl" form drops from the sky and begins assaulting the allied forces. After a short yet desperate fight in which many allied forces are killed or injured, Kaiko and the "Owl" are both critically injured... Seemingly. As the kakuja's head falls, what's revealed inside is the headless form of what appears to be Eto, with a cross sticking out of her neck. As the forces watch in bewilderment, Kaiko simply regenerates his head and announces that it's time for round two, after which the headless Owl continues its brutal assault.
  • The zombie Owl's appearance. It still mostly looks the same, except for the head. Where the horned, one-eyed head once was there is now an owl-mask stitched to the neck stump. There's even trickles of blood flowing from the stitches.
  • The opening narration for chapter 166
  Chapter 166: Ruin comes.
• Chapter 167:
  • The zombie owl continues its assault and seems impossible to stop. Koori Ui also quickly finds out that the main body's regeneration is still top notch. Then a whistle is blown, signalling all V members to retreat, after which the zombie owl gets on all fours, produces an extra number of appendages and releases a powerful shockwave that decimates the investigators in front of it.
  • Ayato and Kaneki's expedition towards the root of the kagune mass. As they find the monsters that have the ghoulification toxins in them, said monsters seemingly notice them and begin crawling from their egg-sacks.

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Tokyo Ghoul √A:

• The beginning of the raid on the Ghoul Prison. Staff gather on the catwalks and open the upper blast doors, only to notice dozens of red eyes peering down at them from the darkness. Later on, several guards are trapped as the cells begin opening and the very hungry Ghoul prisoners emerge from their cells....
• At the conclusion of episode 4, Kaneki is thrown into a large chamber. This is where dead prisoners are dumped, with piles of skulls everywhere. Though the screen is blurry as he fades in and out of consciousness, several piles of fresh corpses can be glimpsed briefly.
• The appearance of the One-Eyed Owl in episode 5. Akira and Amon hear a strange noise, only for bodies to start raining down from the upper levels. Then a pair of massive claws pry open the blast doors and an enormous armored head emerges through the opening, dripping with blood.
• The erratically plinking and banging piano notes that play during the infamous scene during Kaneki's torture with the centipede somehow manages to make the situation more terrifying than it already is.