Tokyo Ghoul "Jack"

 Between the first and second seasons of Tokyo Ghoul, there where some special OVA's.

And as part of my clear-up of backlog challenge, I have been watching a few of them.

The first, "Jack" starts in Tokyo's 13th ward with a violent heist being discovered.  A ghoul known as Lantern is responsible, and one night former basketball player Taishi Fura witnesses him injuring his friend and killing another.  After his baseball career was cut short, he had started a gang, then left it to return to school.

He joins with Arima, these days a fearsome Reaper, to hunt down the Lantern in the 13th ward, as he seeks revenge on the ghoul, as one of the victims was the girl he liked, Aki.  During this encounter, he witnessed the skills of Arima though for the first time. 

 

Together they start hunting minor ghouls, as they tend to work well together in their first mission, saving a girl from their class, Minami, that is being attacked by a ghoul.   Arima confides in Fura that know that he is known to be a Ghoul Investigator, he should be moving on to another place, but Fura refuses to accept this.  

Together with Minami they go hunt for the Lantern, and she deducts things correctly.  As she goes to hunt a ghoul with Amari, it turns out to be a trap as Minami is actually the Lantern ghoul and ambushes him, while another ghoul occupies Fura. 

The OVA is fun to watch in that it shows the past of Arima during his high school days, and how he and Fura knew each other before.  It's a nice watch if you are a fan of Tokyo Ghoul, but not necessarily required for the storyline to be able to follow it all.