'Tokyo Ghoul' Creator Wraps Series With One Weighty Afterword

For years, Tokyo Ghoul has stood as one of anime's top titles, and its horror roots helped re-popularize the genre for all. Now, creator Sui Ishida has brought the series to its close, and the artist has shared a lengthy afterword with fans thanking them for their support.

So, if you are ready to get a bit weepy over Ken Keneki, then you're ready to read on. Just be sure to have some tissues at hand.

Recently, the final volume of Tokyo Ghoul:re went live in Japan after its last chapter went public. The release came with an afterword from Ishida, which fans began sharing, and a translator via Reddit made sure English-speaking fans could read the note as well.

According to Kenkamishiro, the first piece of afterword delves into how Ishida feels now that Tokyo Ghoul is over after it was first serialized in September 2011.

"7 years have passed since then. My life has revolved around chasing the deadline, week after week. I felt that if I took a break I wouldn't be able to bring myself to draw again, so I refused to give myself a break. Now that the series has ended, I'm finally living a life where I haven't had a deadline looming over me for the first time in 7 years," Ishida writes.

Continuing, the creator goes on to explain that Tokyo Ghoul was both a blessing and a curse. Ishida says it was more bad than good as his creation wreaked havoc on his personal life and health.

"Tokyo Ghoul has been something that was intimately intertwined with my life, something that dominated my time and emotions, and something that changed my relationships with other people," the artist explains.

"There was good that came with it, but oftentimes there was more bad than good. Because of this, I felt like I was finally being released from a cage after being trapped in it for so long," he adds.

You can read the entire afterword here as Ishida continues to break down his time spent with Tokyo Ghoul. While Ishida says he had to suffer himself to write Ken faithfully, his takeaways from the series are positive for the most part. With a hugely popular franchise under his control, Ishida has set himself up as one of Japan's most recognizable creators, and fans are eager to see what the artist will do next.

For those unfamiliar with Tokyo Ghoul, the series was original created by Sui Ishida. The story follows Ken Kaneki, a student who survives an encounter with his date, who turns out to be a ghoul. Kaneki's world is filled with Ghouls — beings who eat humans — and they've been living among humans in secret. After surviving this attack, he wakes up to realize that he himself has become a ghoul because of a surgery that implanted organs from the ghoul who attacked him. In order to live a somewhat normal life, Kaneki needs to eat human flesh to survive. Luckily, he's taken in by a group of ghouls at the cafe Anteiku, who help him reintegrate into society.

Are you sad knowing that Tokyo Ghoul has come to an end? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @MeganPetersCB to talk all things comics and anime!