Okay, so I promised myself I wasn't gonna give :re the pleasure of having its own review, but I got some OPINIONS I need to spill about this garbage excuse for a sequel and I'm sure I would regret it for the rest of my life if I didn't vent it all out now. So, without further ado, here goes:

[Spoilers for TG part 1 ahead]

Story: 3/10

The plot of :re goes as follows: after Kaneki gets owned by Arima at the end of part 1, he is supposedly brainwashed through some unknown means and resurfaces as Haise Sasaki, an investigator for the CCG. He has none of Kaneki's memories and the story revolves around Sasaki rediscovering and regaining his former identity. Or at least, it should. There's just so much other shit going on at the same time that I can hardly bring myself to care! Every arc is a long, drawn-out battle that feels like it's being overly violent just for the hell of it, and any actual character moments to be had are forcefully shoved in while that character is getting their limbs torn from their bodies or whatever, so it all feels very jarring. The 2 year timeskip between the end of the first series and the beginning of :re isn't exactly smooth either, and details that definitely should have been made clear in part 1 are only touched upon briefly, such that it feels like Ishida's saying "oh shit I forgot uhhh...there! That should keep em busy". At the end of the day, it feels like a shonen that's trying way too hard to be a seinen, which is only punctuated by the forced feel-good ending where humans and ghouls are suddenly at peace (and also fighting a convenient non-sentient common enemy). Yeah, Kaneki deserved to be happy in the end, but the way it was executed felt like a massive copout.

Art: 9/10

No complaints here. Ishida really grew into his own in the drawing department if not writing, and he does a great job at expressing the insanity that too many of his characters are suffering.

Character: 2/10

Jesus H Christ, where to fucking START. Let's unpack Kaneki/Sasaki first. We already know from the first series that Kaneki, like most college freshmen, is in the midst of an identity crisis. :re takes this to another level with Sasaki, which is all well and good, but THEN has him undergo roughly 15 other personality changes over the course of the story (I'm exaggerating, but who counted?) He goes from kind, to ruthless, to psychotic and back again ad nauseum. This would have been a great opportunity to have him develop some sort of DID, especially since at one point it's implied that all these different facets of himself are aware of each other. However, I don't really trust Ishida to write that in a respectful manner, if we're being honest. So, Kaneki remains a parody of himself.

:re introduces several important characters into the mix, the most notable being the Quinx, Sasaki's half-ghoul squadmates who are studying under him. For the most part, I actually liked them, with one exception being Mutsuki. Mutsuki I was at first pleasantly surprised by since, you know, CANON TRANS MAN REP, but then Ishida completely mishandles him by making him go full yandere for Sasaki for no reason other than ow the edge. Also he seemingly decides to live as a girl by the end but I just brushed that off as a dysphoria episode. Urie started off as a little shit but he gradually grew into one of my favorites, and Saiko's a sweetheart, so I have no complaints about them, but I will complain about Shirazu dying because fuck it was too soon.

As for everyone else...nothing remarkable. Most of them are either one-dimensional red shirt cops who get way more screentime than they deserve or a 14-year-old's idea of what a psychopath is, and god am I ever grateful that I didn't discover the series at that age. The more likeable characters are either sidelined completely (like Touka, Nishio, Ayato, etc.) or are involved in so many different factions that I can't be fucked to care. Seriously, all of this worldbuilding would have been really helpful to know about in part 1!

And last but certainly not least, OH GOD DEFINITELY NOT LEAST, is best boy Hideyoshi Nagachika. After showing up as a hallucination multiple times and generally being an ever-present reminder of Kaneki's gay yearning, he finally shows up literally 75% of the way through (actually rounds up to 76%. I calculated.) and proves to be WAY MORE INTERESTING than any of the other humans in the story without even trying. I wanna hear the story of how he managed to masquerade as a ghoul for 4 WHOLE YEARS all while evading capture from the Bureau Chief of the CCG AND gathering information from ghouls who would be able to tell instantly that he was human. All for Kaneki. Hide, you are fucking awesome, and I don't care what Ishida thinks of you. Seriously, Ishida? You only choose to reveal his backstory in the FUCKING EPILOGUE? Even the anime gave him more dignity when they killed him off so his crying fangirls could give them free advertising via hundreds of sadboy AMVs.

And yea, since this was a hotly contested subject while :re was still being written: Kanehide should have been canon. 100%. Touka had no chemistry with Kaneki and the part where she tells Hide when she fell in love with him is a glaringly obvious retcon. I wouldn't have even cared that they got together if there was any buildup AT ALL, but nope. They have sloppy friends-with-benefits sex in an abandoned warehouse, then when it turns out Kaneki knocked her up they decide to get married like they're goddamn Catholics or something. Kanehide, on the other hand, has a solid foundation and PLENTY of homoeroticism to boot. There is a clear choice here. That is all.

Enjoyment: 3/10

Dear lord, this was a fucking slog after around chapter 50 or so. Even the action didn't do it for me after this point. I lost track of who was in what faction after a while so I quite frankly didn't care about who was fighting who, not to mention there was little characterization in between. I would have dropped somewhere around the 90 mark if it wasn't for the promise of Hide content. God, I love that boy to death. I'm sorry Ishida did you so dirty.

Overall: 3/10

Could have very easily been worse.