I think Tokyo Ghoul Re: (as well as the original Tokyo Ghoul) is a great example of how 'quality' and 'enjoyment' are not always related. I could criticize a variety of different things from the plot, the characters, the pacing, the art etc with ease, HOWEVER...I still had a damn fun time reading this series!

(I even cried 4 times but we won't talk about that)

BUT, as a queer person, and as a woman, I would like to bring up some criticism on how this series handled it's queer and female characters.

(some slight SPOILERS ahead)

As this is a story written primarily for male readers by a cis-male author, I didn't exactly have high expectations to begin with so it’s not like I’m surprised that the representation left something to be desired.

I wanted to love the female characters in Tokyo Ghoul so bad and for a while, I did love some of them. But it was very short-lived.
Women in Tokyo Ghoul are sidelined from the beginning as there just aren’t that many of them. As a story that has 50+ characters named, I can count the number of important female characters on just two hands and all of them end up falling into fairly simple categories. Let’s break them down.
Touka: Damsel, Love Interest
Hinami: Victim
Rize: Victim, Villain, Psycho, Love Interest
Akira: Love Interest
Eto: Victim, Villain
Roma: Villain, Psycho
Itori: Villain
Mutsuki(?): Victim, Psycho
(Saiko is not on this list because she is the singular well-written female character imo)

I would like to give some credit where credit is due because, in the original Tokyo Ghoul, Touka, and Akira have fantastic stories with great character development but by the time we get to Re:, that all becomes pointless.

Touka was so strong in the first series that I couldn’t believe how weak and pointless her entire character became in Re:. She didn’t do anything to further her own character and story through the entire 16 volumes and she basically becomes a prop for Kaneki to further his story instead. Even more, her entire relationship with Kaneki is so vanilla flavor bland. Where was their romance? I don’t know. Kaneki said he’d be sad if she died once. Huh. I guess that’s all they needed to call it a romance. As I’ll mention later, Kaneki has such emotional and inspiring relationships with other (male) characters, it just showcases that Ishida has no clue how to write an engaging female character.

Akira also starts off really strong in Tokyo Ghoul. She is independent, fights her own battles, is always vocal about her opinion. However, she is only shown to have strong ties with three characters throughout the entire series; one is her dead father, and another is her love interest. And the further we get into the story the less she begins to exist outside of those relationships. It was disappointing to see her story, just like Touka’s, spiral down and become nothing more than a romance with a male character.

Now let’s talk about the absolute MESS that is Mutsuki in both the context as a female character and/or a queer character. My use of ‘and/or’ may seem a little confusing, but Mutsuki is honestly a very confusing character.
Near the beginning of the manga, I really liked Mutsuki. They were actually my favorite new character for a while, especially when it was revealed that they were trans. The problem is that by the end...I actually don't even know if they were trans or a cis-woman dressing up as a man. I say this for a couple of reasons. The most prominent being that when we learn about Mutsuki's terrible past of being abused and raped by their father. It's implied that it was this experience that led Mutsuki to present themselves as a man to begin with, aka: their trauma made them trans.
I don't think I need to explain why this is bad.
There are also moments later in the manga where Mutsuki 'comes out' and says "I'm a girl" rather than saying "I am trans" or when they have flashbacks of being found out by Kaneki to be a girl and just...Is this character actually trans or does Sui Ishida just THAT bad at writing female characters??
Which brings me to my other point. IF Mutsuki is in fact, a cis-hetero woman, their entire story arc becomes incredibly misogynistic. Because in that case, They become the stereotypical ‘scorned woman’ turn ‘psycho ex-girlfriend’. Tokyo Ghoul is a story full of psychos, but many of them are lovable, interesting, or compelling, and Mutsuki is none of those things. They are a character who suffered extensive abuse at the hands of others, fixated all of their feelings of worth to one other person to cope, and then went completely mental when they noticed that person notice someone else. It’s just so incredibly BORING and not the kind of story that should be given to a leading character that readers are supposed to like to some degree. I was just so disappointed in Mutsuki’s character completely. (ALSO, I didn’t know how to shoehorn in this point as well but, again, if Mutsuki’s character is in fact just a girl dressing up as a boy, Kanae von Rosewald has the exact same storyline as them with her ‘living as a boy’ trope. Was this scenario really needed twice??)

I would also like to briefly talk about Tsukiyama, Hide, and Nico who are all openly queer or arguably queer-coded characters.

Tsukiyama and Hide both have some very ~ q U e S t I o N a B L e ~ interest in our MC. Both characters have gone above and beyond and out of their way to assist and get closer to him. You can, of course, make the "they're just friends!" argument but...come on. Hide dedicated his life to finding, and helping Kaneki, let him literally eat his face, and straight-up said he loved him. Tsukiyama, while openly crying, begged Kaneki to not fight because he was afraid Kaneki would die, and when he thought he did die, he went mad and became a depressive recluse for two years. He also was the ONLY ONE who spoke up to defend Kaneki’s intentions to protect everyone including humanity when the ghouls were chanting to martyr Kaneki as vengefully killing humans.
It is so obvious that both of these characters have very complex and intense emotions towards the MC and I would argue that they are portrayed much more passionately and beautiful than any of the female characters like I mentioned earlier regarding Touka. I honestly don’t think Ishida wanted readers to read these characters as being romantically attracted to Kaneki but it just goes to show ONCE AGAIN Ishida’s inability to write female characters at the same level as his male characters while simultaneously shafting queer characters and their romances.

And then, last but not least, we have Nico. The only character that is directly called queer in the realm of the story. Having openly queer characters is important, BUT I shouldn't have to explain why Nico is offensive. My eyes rolled so far into the back of my head as soon as he made his first appearance. He is very obviously an Onee-stereotype in his appearance and mannerisms. He is also overly sexual when interacting with other male characters which is a boring gay stereotype. He frequently appears as a villain in the story which again is another boring gay stereotype, and then finally, he receives no love story in the end which is - you guessed it ANOTHER boring gay stereotype. (Tsukiyama and Hide also did not get love stories!)

I want to end this by saying again. I love Tokyo Ghoul. I thought it was an incredibly fun story and one that I would recommend to others easily. But just because you like something enough to recommend it, doesn’t mean you can’t be critical of it.