Attack on Titan vs Tokyo Ghoul: A Thematic Comparison

 I recently finished the Attack on Titan manga, and it’s gotten me thinking about a lot of things. 

• About how much more mainstream anime has become since I was a kid. 

• About how rare it is to see so many people focused on and talking about just one groundbreaking series. 

• About the characteristics that make for good suspense, mystery and horror, and how difficult it is to blend all of these together. 

• And about how many of the anime I watched (or manga I read) when I was younger have undergone a sort of “evolution,” which has resulted in the public viewing it differently.

These thoughts have led me back to one of my all-time favorite series, Tokyo Ghoul. I decided to check out the manga for both Tokyo Ghoul and re: and...wow. I was completely blown away by the art, the action, the creepy atmosphere, and the slow but steady (not to mention captivating) pacing. It’s a lot of the same reasons Attack on Titan drew me in. 

Now, there are some surface-level similarities. In both series, humanity is threatened by a human-like threat (the Titans and the Ghouls) that prey on mankind. The main characters (a Titan Shifter and a One-Eyed Ghoul) occupy both worlds, are feared by all sides, and have to find their own place in this chaotic, bloody world. 

Both series combine horror and action in a relatively consistent ratio. Yet, one would never mistake the two. Tokyo Ghoul and Attack on Titan have specific brands of horror that elicit entirely different emotions. Despite surface-level commonalities, these different brands of horror fundamentally alter both series’ themes, characters and atmosphere. 

In this essay, I want to analyze the exact nature of Attack on Titan’s horror, Tokyo Ghoul’s horror, the emotions both elicit, and the idea connected to them. 

Part 1: Apocalyptic vs Psychological Horror:

Attack on Titan’s horror is, in a word, apocalyptic. 

The premise is simple. Man-eating humanoid giants have driven humanity to extinction, and the survivors are held within walls to protect themselves. 

In that one sentence, Attack on Titan touches on 4 deep, disturbing, uncomfortable ideas:

1. Gigantism. The notion that humanity is fighting an enemy that totally, unambiguously dwarfs them. 

2. Claustrophobia. The idea of being trapped in a “cage,” no one entering or leaving without severe casualties. 

3. Familiarity. Also known as the “Uncanny Valley.” The notion that the enemy we are fighting looks so much like us, but fundamentally isn’t. 

4. Extinction. The deep, horrifying idea that our species, as we know it, is about to be wiped out. 

I want to touch on that third one for a moment. Part of how Hajime Isayama achieved this terrible, unnerving “uncanny valley” with his Titan designs is because (as he’s discussed in interviews) he got the idea for the Titans by dealing with an intoxicated customer at a cafe. This led to the idea of Titans as enemies that look incredibly human, but we cannot fundamentally understand them, their motives, their behavior or their biology, just as they can’t understand us. It’s that total lack of understanding that makes them terrifying, because for most of the series, there’s no rhyme or reason to their actions besides consuming humans for unknown reasons. 

Various fantasy narratives have used one or all of these ideas in the past, but it’s Attack on Titan’s willingness to put all of them front-and-center that makes its horror so disturbing. 

At the risk of sounding cynical about Hollywood and the genre as a whole, this isn’t the kind of horror you would see in modern cinemas. (And that’s probably why the movie adaptation didn’t work.) There are no jumpscares of any kind in AOT. The designs of the Titans, for the most part, aren’t anything new or exciting. They’re just people, albeit massive, naked people that want nothing more than to eat you and everyone you know and love. 

This isn’t the sort of horror that surprises you. No, this is the sort of horror that settles under your skin and sinks into your gut. The kind that’s a bit hard to think about for too long. It’s so foreign yet so familiar to the audience it becomes terrifying. Describing it like that, Attack on Titan has some clear similarities to the works of HP Lovecraft. His stories, particularly about the Great Old Ones, touch on ancient, nearly-omnipotent deities who are bigger than we can imagine, and who could wipe out humanity in an instant.

I’d also compare the slow, unsettling (albeit a bit more hopeful) apocalyptic horror of Attack on Titan to kaiju films like Godzilla and Pacific Rims. Those are stories where humanity is in serious danger of being wiped out, but unlike the humans of Lovecraft’s stories, we are at least capable of fighting back. That’s a key theme with Attack on Titan: even in the face of overwhelming odds, we have to fight back. 

Like the Jaegers of Pacific Rim, Eren Jaeger’s ability to turn into a Titan marks a new age for humanity. It gives them a fighting chance against the Titans, and it turns the battle against their own extinction into a more even match. In fact, for many storylines, such as the Female Titan and Clash of the Titan arcs, I would argue the apocalyptic horror is almost completely overshadowed by the more personal conflicts between Eren and the people he thought were his friends: Annie, Reiner and Bertolt. So, for most of the series after Trost District, these apocalyptic horror elements move into the background...

That is, until the Rumbling. 

The final arc of the manga, wherein Eren uses the power of the Wall Titans to march on the outside world, is one of the most suspenseful arcs in any manga I’ve read. It’s horrifying without being horror. And I think it’s because, in that final arc, the main characters are once again struggling against an overwhelming force that has the power to wipe them out completely. Only, instead of the Eldians struggling, it’s the Marleyans and the rest of the world. 

The final arc of Attack on Titan, love it or hate it, feels like the ultimate return to the series’ apocalyptic horror. It takes those feelings of isolation, extinction, gigantism and familiarity from the beginning chapters, and turns them up to 11. 

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While Attack on Titan indulges in apocalyptic horror, Tokyo Ghoul excels in psychological horror. 

The two could not be more different. Whereas Attack on Titan’s horror is grandiose, and the entire fate of humanity is on the line; Tokyo Ghoul’s psychological horror is up close and personal. 

This is what makes the Ghouls so terrifying. Sui Ishida’s Ghouls seem to take inspiration from many different sources; not just ghouls of mythology, but elements of demons, zombies and vampires as well. The difference is that Ghouls blend in with society. They are not the “other,” they are the common folks. Many Ghouls have normal jobs, human friends, relationships...they just happen to also have black eyes, kagune, and an insatiable hunger for human flesh. 

The fear of the Ghouls is fundamentally different from the fear of the Titans. The latter is impersonal, incomprehensible, foreign, borderline Lovecraftian and impossibly huge. Titans are easily identifiable...But the fear of Ghouls? That’s an intimate, all-consuming fear. The fear that the people closest to you are plotting your demise, whether they be your neighbor, your schoolteacher, your boss or your best friend. 

To put another way: the Titans are terrifying, but often out of sight. The Ghouls are omnipresent in all facets of society. Titans are unstoppable, Ghouls are inescapable. 

For this reason, Sui Ishida sees no reason to move the scope of Tokyo Ghoul outside of Tokyo. Keeping both Tokyo Ghoul and re: in one single city--no matter how big it may be--adds to that intimate, fearful atmosphere. It keeps the story laser-focused on the characters, not the whole world. Look at how Attack on Titan ends compared to Tokyo Ghoul re: the former ends in a grand fight for the fate of billions, the latter ends with Kaneki battling personal demons. 

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To show you how different psychological horror is from apocalyptic horror, I want to compare the beginnings of both series. I’ll admit, in this essay so far, I’ve been using the words horror and terror interchangeably, but there’s actually a difference. Literary scholars and critics alike have debated about the difference between “horror” and “terror” for decades, but the consensus seems to be that horror is the revulsion after an act, whereas terror is the anxiety and dread that precedes the act. 

Both series have openings that are meant to grip you and get you invested in the lives of the tragic protagonists, but in completely different ways. 

• At the start of Attack on Titan, people have no reason to believe the Titans are attacking, so nobody (besides the Scouts) gives them a second thought. But then Wall Maria falls, and citizens are watching in horror as their loved ones are eaten. The horrifying sight of his mother being eaten (and the emotions he feels after) drives Eren for most of the series. 

• The opening chapter of Tokyo Ghoul is far, far different. From the audience’s perspective and the character’s perspective, Ghouls are different, because there are no walls to separate you from them. The first chapter of Tokyo Ghoul, especially Kaneki’s date with Rize, elicits terror because you know something awful is about to happen. 

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The implications of psychological and apocalyptic horror affect our main characters, Eren Jaeger and Kaneki Ken, in different ways, eliciting different emotions from the audience and characters in-universe.  

I mentioned earlier how both series had some surface-level similarities, such as Titan Shifters appearing to be similar to One-Eyed Ghouls on paper, but I think any fan who is familiar with both can agree on just how different they are. 

In Attack on Titan, as I mentioned, Eren’s ability to turn into a Titan makes the situation a little better. People are still dying, but now they have a fighting chance. Now they can win. That’s because Eren is fighting for humanity, or, at least, the Eldians. 

However, his unique powers also make him question his father, his past, and what he knows about the world. In essence, when Eren unlocks his powers in this apocalyptic horror setting, it creates optimism, but also mystery. 

In Tokyo Ghoul, Kaneki becoming a One-Eyed Ghoul is the worst thing that can happen to him. He doesn’t know who he’s fighting for; he has far more in common with Ghouls than humans, despite technically just being a human with Ghoul organs. One side wants to hunt him and kill him; the other wants to devour him. Throughout both the original series and re:, Kaneki never quite shakes this feeling that danger could be lurking around the corner in any form. 

Nishio, a classmate of his friend? Tries to kill him. 

Tsukiyama, the friendly Ghoul in the neighborhood? Tries to eat him. 

The CCG? Tries to kill him. 

His mentor, Arima? Tries to kill him. 

That’s what makes Tokyo Ghoul an effective psychological horror story: nothing is safe, and nothing is sacred. There is no easily-identifiable threat, because everyone is a threat. Kaneki becoming a One-Eyed Ghoul doesn’t create optimism or mystery like with Eren so much as it creates overwhelming, deep-seated paranoia. 

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None of this is to say that Ghoul and Titan only use one specific subgenre of horror. Like I already said above, the Female Titan and Clash of the Titans arcs of AOT rely heavily on the shock of Annie, Reiner and Bertolt betraying our heroes; and the final arc of Tokyo Ghoul re: with Kaneki turning into a massive kaiju certainly has shades of apocalyptic horror. 

I’m just saying, in the early stages of both series, they tended to favor one over the other, which clearly influenced the direction: Eren’s story is about struggling against destructive overwhelming odds; whereas Kaneki’s is about deception, secrets and losing your sanity. 

Part 2: Xenophobia, Racial Conflicts, Revenge, Morally-Grey Characters:

Reading both manga, one of the biggest themes that stuck out to me was the idea of xenophobia, intense fear towards or hatred of other groups of people. 

Both series have xenophobia in spades, and both hammer home the theme that xenophobia only leads to destructive cycles of violence that accomplish nothing. Basically, they advocate burying the hatchet, although to different degrees. For Attack on Titan, this xenophobia doesn’t come until later in the story when the true nature of the world is revealed and the Eldia-Marley conflict takes center-stage, but it was always present in Tokyo Ghoul in the war between the CCG and the Ghouls. Both series begin with a powerful group oppressing a powerless species, but the roles frequently change in who is oppressing who. 

In Tokyo Ghoul, we are led to believe from the very beginning that Ghouls prey on defenseless humans, and in many cases, that holds true. Though, early on, we’re introduced to Ghoul investigators like the elder Mado, who view Ghouls as subhuman trash and delight in killing them; here, the lines begin to blur. Adding fuel to the fire is that Ghouls aren’t homogenized: some believe in total extermination of humans, some are apathetic to humans, others love humanity and live among them. Hell, you can even say the same for humans: some despise Ghouls with all their being, others are willing to have relationships with them. 

In essence, both sides fail to understand the nuance of the other, and they are equally responsible for the war between them. They stereotype, misinterpret situations, and seek revenge for their losses, spurring the other side to take revenge, and so forth. 

Looking at the Doves arc early in the manga is a great example of this. If viewed with the full context of the entire series, it creates a full picture where neither side is totally blameless. Amon is seeking revenge for the death of his colleague, who was killed by Touka, who seeks revenge for the death of Hinami’s parents, who were killed by Mado, who takes his anger out on all ghouls after the Owl killed his wife, but the Owl was actually Yoshimura trying to protect his own half-human daughter. 

Over time, the once-simplistic human-Ghoul conflict is totally destroyed by several characters, who either fit into both categories, or behave in ways that resemble the opposing species. 

• Our main protagonist, of course, is a human-turned-Ghoul. 

• Eto Yoshimura is the daughter of a Ghoul and a human. 

• Kishou Arima fights alongside humanity, and is human for all intents and purposes, but was a failed half-Ghoul, giving him incredible supernatural powers in exchange for accelerated aging. 

• The Quinx squad in re: are all humans with kagune. 

• There’s even the revelation that the Washuu clan, the overall antagonists of the series, are Ghouls who founded the CCG. 

• I would even argue that we see this Ghoul/human dichotomy destroyed with characters like Juuzo, who is a human without the morality of most humans due to being raised by a Ghoul. 

In Attack on Titan, Titans are initially powerful threats oppressing humanity, but it’s eventually revealed that the Titans are only tools of the Marleyans, a powerful military nation across the sea. This would naturally implicate the Marleyans as oppressors, and Eldians as the oppressed, right? 

But, like with Ghoul, the roles flip often enough that no one can say that with certainty. For example, the first real conflict post-time skip features the Scouts and Eren absolutely decimating a Marleyan city, killing global leaders, military generals, the Warhammer Titan, and thousands of innocents. Even late into the manga, as the Marleyans prepare for a counterattack, it becomes more and more apparent the two sides are actually quite evenly matched, as both have acquired a fair amount of advanced technology, Titan shifters and skilled warriors. 

While prejudice is abundant on both sides, nuance exists in this conflict. We come to sympathize with Marley’s Titan shifters just as much as we do the Scouts. Some Marleyans are sympathetic to Eldians and vice versa. Some Eldians believe they deserve to be mistreated, and are even appointed as “Honorary Marleyans.” And in the final arc, characters from both sides even team up to take down a common threat, working together as ambassadors in the end. 

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Another way that the series plays with ideas of racial conflicts and xenophobia is by creating a main character on a downward spiral, and introducing a deuteragonist from the opposite side to serve as both a foil and antagonist. 

In Attack on Titan, for example, that character is Reiner Braun. Despite initially appearing as an ally, Reiner soon reveals himself to be a spy for the Maryleyans (though he doesn’t label them as such at the time). He and Eren are bitter enemies, and in most large-scale conflicts, they usually ignore all other threats to target each other. 

As Eren breaks the conventions we’ve come to expect from the heroes, Reiner does the same for the villains. Marleyans are supposed to be bloodthirsty imperialists, so why does Reiner break down crying and fall to his knees at the thought of the atrocities he’s committed? Eren is supposed to be a good guy, so why (in the same episode no less) does he go on a murderous rampage and kill an entire city? These scenes deconstruct the dichotomy that we’ve come to expect, reminding us that Eren and Reiner are their own people whose thoughts and goals might not necessarily gel with nations they represent. 

I mentioned both Kaneki and Juuzou as characters who destroy the normal Ghoul-human dichotomy, and I want to touch on that for a moment, because their relationship mirrors the relationship Eren and Reiner have in Attack on Titan. 

Kaneki is a human who was turned into a Ghoul, and as a result, he understands the social norms of humanity better than most while nonetheless having the powers of a Ghoul. He has the moral compass of a human, and he possesses compassion and sympathy for both sides. On the other hand, Juuzo is a human raised by Ghouls; he has no knowledge of human social norms, no moral compass at the start of the story, and he’s utterly apathetic to both sides of the conflict. Each of them defies what we would expect from both sides, destroying any idea that this is a black-and-white conflict. 

Speaking of which, after he is tortured, Kaneki’s hair turns white, symbolizing his descent into madness and his increasing cruelty. Yet, it’s made increasingly clear that his cruelty doesn’t exist in spite of his compassion, but because of his compassion. Meanwhile, Juuzou dyes his hair black between Tokyo Ghoul and re: to symbolize how he’s a more nuanced, emotionally well-rounded individual; yet this newfound empathy for humanity does not infringe on the more violent sides of his personality in any way. Again, we are reminded that neither Ghouls or humans are a hive mind: Kaneki exists as a unique presence in Ghoul society, just as Juuzou exists as a unique presence in human society. 

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By creating series with a heavy focus on prejudice and xenophobia, making both sides sympathetic, and adding nuance to the cast, Sui Ishida and Hajime Isayama encouraged a similar path for their protagonists. 

Both Eren Jaeger and Kaneki Ken become morally ambiguous anti-heroes, who break away and form their own organizations outside of their respective dichotomies for the purpose of changing the status quo, a cycle of revenge. 

The difference is that Kaneki was able to abandon any black-and-white thinking, embrace change and create a world where Ghouls and humans lived in peace. He chose to end the cycle of violence by advocating for peace, communication and understanding. 

On the other hand, Eren Jaeger stayed fixed in his black-and-white mindset, eventually deciding that the only way to end the cycle of violence was to destroy one side completely. His violent, close-minded view of the world became so warped that he implicated everyone as being “on the other side” of the conflict, and decided to destroy the whole world. This still led to an Eldian-Marleyan compromise: not because his actions fostered peace, but because he became a threat so large it forced the world to team up just to have a chance. 

In conclusion, I just wanted to reiterate that I love both of these shows, and I’m amazed by both their similarities and differences. I had a great time writing this essay and analyzing how both shows took similar ideas and went in completely separate ways with them. I love Attack on Titan and Tokyo Ghoul with all my heart, and I highly encourage anyone who loves morally gray, nuanced, well-developed characters and conflicts to check both of them out.