Who Are the Owls in Tokyo Ghoul? (Explained)

In the world of Tokyo Ghoul, the Ghouls are practically the central characters. And while the hierarchy of the Ghouls was determined by the CCG, it is fact that the Ghouls themselves recognized the stronger members among them. In the world of Tokyo Ghoul, the Owls are SSS-rated Ghouls that are considered to be extremely powerful due to their powers, abilities, and strengths. In this article, we are going to present each of the four Owls and thus explain who and what they are.

1. Eto Yoshimura, the One-Eyed Owl

Eto Yoshimura is a ghoul, administrator, and the founder of the Aogiri Tree, often found alongside fellow group member Tatara. She is the One-Eyed Owl, a Ghoul-Human hybrid, who through her Kakuja becomes a repulsive single Kakugan creature. She is the daughter of a family in which her Father was Ghoul and her Mother a human. Her human identity is Sen Takatsuki, a best-selling horror novelist mentioned throughout the series.

Her relationship to the One-Eyed King is unclear, however the CCG and Nico have speculated that they are the same person. However, Eto herself admits that she is not the One-Eyed King. After Shunji Shiono revealed data that would give permission to capture her and after revealing her to be a Ghoul, Eto was arrested by the CCG and sent to the Corniculum Detention Center.

Eto has a sadistic personality, often expressing joy at the expense of others’ suffering. She has no qualms about mercilessly killing humans and Ghouls alike, and she shows happiness when she inflicts pain on others. Like her mother, Eto has a very keen intuition about people’s feelings and desires, which she exploits to the fullest when she deals with her victims and manipulates others to do her bidding.

Her twisted personality is possibly the result of struggling to stay alive during her early years in the 24th ward. Like many Ghouls, she is able to distribute her ghoul and human behavior by altering her ego with relative ease. Since she sees no value in human life, she indicates that she has a misanthropic view of humanity. Whether her views on humanity were a factor in her attacks on the CCG is still unknown.

Like Sen Takatsuki, Eto projects a childlike air around her through her actions and general demeanor. She appears to be very playful and goofy, such as when she oversleeps on the day she was supposed to do a book signing and taking photos with fans when she was banned by her manager.

According to Haise Sasaki, the profile of her is built through the analysis of her works which leads him to speculate that Eto is a woman filled with despair and hatred towards the world, having a hope completely abandoned long ago. While it is true of most of her, she strongly believes in creating a society where Ghouls will not be persecuted for existing and she will do anything to fulfill this ambition regardless of what she has to sacrifice.

2. Yoshimura, the Non-Killing Owl

Yoshimura is an SSS Ranking ghoul and the former manager of the Anteiku coffee shop. He tries to help the ghouls, especially those who can’t hunt for themselves. He takes Ken Kaneki in and teaches him how to live as a ghoul. Under the nickname “One-Eyed Owl” he tried on several occasions to cover up the identity of the real Owl. When the CCG became aware of the existence of two owls, the researchers began to call him the Non-Killing Owl.

The real “One-Eyed Owl” is revealed to be the daughter of Yoshimura and his wife Ukina. In the past, her name was Kuzen and she was a member of the mysterious organization V. A kind and generous older Ghoul, the manager shows that he is wise and reasonable even among Ghouls. People like Nishiki often question his motives as to how and why Yoshimura has become a solemn pacifist in the 20th Ward, but he is nonetheless trustworthy and great to those who serve him.

As the head of the Anteiku organization, he is not afraid to assert his authority, but his demands are mostly acceptable to the members of Anteiku. Although rare among ghouls, Yoshimura maintains a balanced relationship towards them, as well as humans. His kind and fair nature is a stark contrast to what he was in the past.

During his first few years as Kuzen, he had the mentality of a loner. He was too strong and this isolated him from others. He avoided others and closed his heart to anyone he came across. He resented his existence as a Ghoul, seeing himself as a curse that killed others in order to stay alive. After meeting Ukina, his personality had a favorable change.

He began to slowly open her heart to her and eventually came to love her immensely. It is through his relationship with Ukina that Yoshimura decided to create Anteiku and further his goal of helping those with his own past and other Ghouls or humans in need. This is best represented, with the birth of his daughter, a bridge between Ghouls and humans.

Yoshimura has shown that they have a great deal of fatherly love for his daughter. This is made evident by trying to hide her in District 24, from V’s eyes, and becoming One-Eyed Owl’s stand-in in the attack on the District 2 CCG Office. Yoshimura values ​​life and lives apart from people and Ghouls alike if they kill.

Due to his ideology, in the third “Owl” attack on the 2nd Ward Office, and even the CCG Attack on the Aogiri Base in the 11th Ward, he didn’t kill anyone, only injured in the attack. Even though he has abandoned murder since he left V, Yoshimura is clearly aware of how his past actions have caused irreversible damage to others.

As a result, Yoshimura sees himself as “evil” and is willing to accept death at the hands of his enemies, should it ever happen to him. Despite this feeling of self-hatred, he is still willing to kill in very desperate situations to protect those who are precious to him such as his subordinates.

3. Seidou Takizawa, the T-OWL or Owl

Seidou Takizawa is a CCG Rank 2 Ex-Ghoul Investigator. He was a classmate of Akira Mado at the CCG Academy, and later teamed up with Kousuke Houji and they were assigned to investigate the Gourmet Ghoul in the 20th Ward. Although he is a big fan of the likes of investigators Koutarou Amon and Kishou Arima, this only exposes him as someone inexperienced, and because of this he was in conflict with his companions.

At the end of Operation Owl Suppression, he confronted Tatara alongside Koutarou Amon and was later reported dead by the CCG. Later, in Tokyo Ghoul:re, it is revealed that he has survived as a One-Eyed Artificial Ghoul and became a member of the Aogiri Tree, where he is known as Owl.

After becoming a Half-Ghoul, Takizawa’s personality changed dramatically; from a pure, kind, responsible, and somewhat neurotic personality to a twisted, macabre, and corrupt personality. He apparently suffered similar or worse torture than Kaneki’s, since he suffers from a strong psychological trauma that makes him enjoy pain and see people as mere toys for fun or delicious food.

He readily accepted the twisted ideology of the Aogiri Tree, became sarcastic and extremely cruel, and totally abandoned morality and feelings of guilt when killing; he is a ruthless killer who lost respect for life, furthermore, he states that he enjoys killing and seeing the “jelly oozing from the wounds”. He clearly retains all memories of him as a human, but is barely fazed by remembering his old self.

He is very talkative and likes to philosophize on topics like life and death or fear of the unknown, he refers to himself as a monster. He is teasing and loves to taunt others with a ghoulish, sarcastic smile. As such, underneath his arrogant demeanor, his insecurities remain and have been exploited to make Kaneki look like a rival.

He also expresses feelings of resentment towards the CCG, hinting that he believes that he has been used and abandoned by them. The irony is that when meeting important people from his past like Akira, he seems to feel ashamed of himself, which he manifests by covering his face so that they do not recognize him.

Despite demonstrating these drastic changes, during the Invasion of Ru Island it is revealed that deep down he is still the same insecure investigator in need of praise. Going so far to prove his worth to the CCG by killing Tatara (getting revenge on him).

After failing to receive approval from his former superior Houji and being attacked by the CCG, he slaughters them showing zero regard for his lives, then again showing his savagery by trying to strangle Akira. However, Akira brought him to his senses by protecting him from Tooru Mutsuki and acknowledging Amon’s determination to save him.

4. Koutarou Amon, the A-OWL

Koutarou Amon is a former First Class Ghoul Investigator. After his supposed death, he was promoted to Special Class for his distinguished service. He was a partner of Kureo Mado. His last partner was Akira Mado, before he was declared dead. Due to a personal experience as an orphan during his childhood, Amon has come to the conclusion that this world is wrong, so he has made it his task to change the world.

He believes that ghouls are twisting the world and sees their eradication as a way to fix it. After being forgiven by Ken Kaneki, Amon has begun to question the righteousness of his crusade. He has some interest in ghouls like “Rabbit” and “Patch”. At the end of Operation Owl Suppression, he faced Tatara alongside Seidou Takizawa.

Later, he gave himself the CCG casualty report, in which he was listed as declared dead. Sometime after the Tsukiyama Extermination, he reappears as a One-Eyed Artificial Ghoul. At heart, Amon is a nice young man, with a great sense of justice and dedicated to his cause. It seems that his hatred for Ghouls came when his adoptive father, Donato Porpora, revealed to him that he was a Ghoul.

This incident led Amon to believe that the Ghouls contribute to the wrong world. He feels responsible for the death of his partner, Kureo Mado. After Amon transformed into a Half-Ghoul, his worldview underwent a gradual transformation. Since he had become part of what he himself despised and vowed to destroy, Amon could no longer hold on to the rage and hatred that had once fueled his life’s purpose.

As a result, Amon was consumed by feelings of emptiness, feeling that the time he spent in the CCG was a waste and he could no longer see a place for himself in the world. It was only after embracing the void as a “feeling” in itself that Amon regained a sense of direction in his life. Amon’s transformation was accompanied by further insight into himself, his past, and his lifelong beliefs about the world.

Since he became a Half-Ghoul, Amon could no longer see Ghouls as abominations that prey on humans, but rather as individuals who exhibit human qualities such as benevolence and hatred; emotions that had once fueled Amon’s life. This change is best exemplified by Amon’s neutral yet friendly stance towards Touka Kirishima despite her being the person who killed his mentor.

As Amon lives and fights as a Half-Ghoul, he realizes that while the Ghouls are one of the causes that create a “wrong” world, he himself was a contributing factor in this distortion. This was caused by the fact that he refused to acknowledge that the latent hatred he had felt for the Ghouls was actually his own manipulation of his parental feelings by his adoptive father of his Ghoul, Donato Porpora. Once Amon was able to accept this fact, he was able to make peace with himself and his depraved adoptive father.