The Origins of the Tokyo Ghouls: How Ken Kaneki Became a Half-Ghoul

Kaneki felt he’d found a girlfriend when he met Rize in Tokyo Ghoul. Instead, he was entering the ghouls’ dark and violent world.

 Ordinary college student Ken Kaneki was drawn into the cruel and unforgiving world of ghouls, but not by invitation, at the start of Tokyo Ghoul. Dr. Kano had something planned for him.

 Ghouls were all over the news, and CCG investigators were a regular sight on the streets, so Ken knew what they were. Ken was certain that ghouls had nothing to do with him, but when he encountered the lovely Rize Kamishiro, he became entangled in a plot well beyond his wildest dreams.

A Bad First Date

When Ken Kaneki saw a lovely young woman his age in the cafe Anteiku, his friend Hideyoshi urged him to approach her and try to set up a date with her. Ken was a little shy at first, but he pulled it off, and Rize was overjoyed to see him again. They quickly bonded over their shared love of books and literary research during their date, and as night fell, Rize became nervous. She was aware that ghouls liked to prowl the streets at night, and she wanted Ken to stay close to her. Ken agreed, and the two of them soon found themselves alone near a construction site. Ken, always upbeat, complimented Rize on how well the date went and how he felt a genuine bond with her. Rize had similar thoughts and wanted to do something about it.

She bared her teeth and sank them into Ken’s back, her eyes turning crimson. As Rize manifested her kagune, a quartet of tentacles, and assaulted him with it, Ken could only respond with numb shock. Ken couldn’t believe it; Rize was a ghoul, and she didn’t want Ken to get away. She inflicted a severe abdominal injury on him and towered over him, ready to devour him. That’s when a set of steel beams on the construction site came loose and fell on her, a wound that not even a ghoul could withstand. Ken’s life was spared, or so it seemed, by a miracle.He passed out, oblivious to the fact that an ambulance was on its way, and even more so to the fact that Dr. Akihiro Kano was in charge of the situation.

The Test Subject

Ken Kaneki awakened with one ghoul eye and a peculiar lack of appetite in the hospital. Of course, he couldn’t see his own eye, but he knew he couldn’t eat human food any longer. He wasn’t really human anymore. Dr. Kano had personally transplanted some of Rize’s organs into him, transforming him into a one-eyed ghoul that was both rare and artificial. Such ghouls are more strong than ordinary ghouls, and Dr. Kano hoped that ghouls like Ken would understand their true potential and assist him in breaking free from the world’s “cage.” Rize wasn’t even alive, despite Ken’s belief that she had died.Ken now possessed Rize’s kakuho, allowing him to manifest her kagune and fight at her level of power, if not greater. There was no turning back at this stage.

This wasn’t the first time Dr. Kano had acted in this manner. After being fired from the CCG’s medical branch for experimenting with human and ghoul bodies, he went rogue and founded his own lab (and associated with Aogiri Tree and its resources). Kurona and Nashiro, like Ken, were artificial one-eyed ghouls, but unlike Ken, they were devoted to Dr. Kano and his quest. Dr. Kano was excited to see how much Ken would go now that he was a part of the plan. Dr. Kano would get his response months later when Ken, Shu Tsukiyama, Banjo, and others stormed Dr. Kano’s remote lab