Sui Ishida didn't make it easy for us. When you look at the strongest characters in Tokyo Ghoul, you aren't just looking at who can punch through a building or who has the flashiest Kagune. It’s a mess of biology, trauma, and psychological breaking points. Most fans argue about raw power, but they forget that in this universe, a character’s strength is often tied to how much of their humanity they’ve thrown into the woodchipper.
Power scaling in this series is notoriously volatile. One minute, someone is an invincible God of Fortune; the next, they’re literally a "nugget" on the floor. It’s brutal. Honestly, the hierarchy shifted so much between the original manga and Tokyo Ghoul:re that pinning down a definitive list requires looking at the absolute peak of each character's evolution.
The One-Eyed King: Ken Kaneki’s Unmatched Evolution
Kaneki is the obvious starting point. But he’s also the most complicated because his power isn't a straight line—it’s a jagged EKG. By the end of the series, specifically during the Dragon War, Kaneki isn't even strictly a Ghoul anymore. He’s something beyond that. After being consumed by and then bursting out of the Dragon husks, his RC cell count became immeasurable.
He defeated Kishou Arima. Well, sort of. Arima basically coached him through his own suicide, but Kaneki was the only one capable of standing in the ring with the White Reaper. Kaneki’s strength comes from his versatility. He has the Rize-based Kagune, which is already top-tier, but his imagination is what sets him apart. He turns his Kagune into swords, shields, and even autonomous eyes.
The Dragon form itself was a city-level threat. That's a scale we don't see anywhere else in the series. While other ghouls are fighting in hallways, Dragon Kaneki was a biological disaster. Even after he left that form, he retained enough power to dismantle Nimura Furuta, who was arguably the most dangerous strategist in the entire story. Kaneki’s final form, often called "Post-Dragon," is the undisputed ceiling of the series.
The White Reaper: Why Kishou Arima Was a Freak of Nature
Arima is the only human—well, "half-human"—who consistently makes people wonder if the Ghouls were actually the prey. He didn't have a Kagune. He had a briefcase. Or rather, several briefcases.
What makes Arima one of the strongest characters in Tokyo Ghoul is his terrifying precision. He never missed. For years, he was the CCG’s ultimate deterrent. He fought the Owl when he was basically a teenager and won. He blinded Kaneki through the eyes with a single strike from Ixa.
The tragedy of Arima is that his strength was a death sentence. Being a half-human from the Sunlit Garden meant he had incredible physical capabilities but an accelerated aging process. He was legally blind during his final fight with Kaneki and still dominated the majority of the match. If Arima had been born a full Ghoul or a successful Half-Ghoul like Eto, the series would have ended in Volume 1 because no one would have survived him.
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The King Maker: Nimura Furuta’s Chaotic Power
Furuta is annoying. He’s the guy who wins while making a joke about it, which makes him the most dangerous kind of antagonist. He’s a product of the Sunlit Garden, just like Arima, but he took it a step further by having Rize’s Kagune transplanted into him.
Furuta isn't just strong; he's efficient. He killed Eto Yoshimura off-screen. Think about that for a second. Eto, the legendary One-Eyed Owl, was treated like a warm-up. He also took down Matsuri Washuu and manipulated the entire CCG into a civil war.
In his final fight against Kaneki, Furuta revealed a Kakuja that looked like something out of a nightmare—total obsidian-black armor with eyes everywhere. He lost, but he pushed the Post-Dragon Kaneki to his absolute limit. He represents the pinnacle of "unnatural" strength—power gained through surgery and madness rather than growth.
The One-Eyed Owl: Eto Yoshimura’s Legacy
Eto is the daughter of Yoshimura (the manager of Anteiku), and for a long time, she was the scariest thing in the series. Her Kakuja is massive. We're talking a multi-story monster that can speak and regenerate entire limbs in seconds.
Eto’s power isn't just physical. She’s a genius. She built Aogiri Tree. She wrote books that changed the social fabric of the human world. In terms of raw destructive capability, her "Owl" form was the gold standard for "SSS" rank threats.
The reason she often ranks slightly lower than Kaneki or Furuta isn't that she’s weak; it’s just that the power ceiling exploded toward the end of :re. However, without her, Kaneki never becomes the King. She literally fed herself to him to ensure he would surpass her.
The Unkillable Beast: Koutarou Amon and Seidou Takizawa
You can't talk about the strongest characters in Tokyo Ghoul without mentioning the "Owl" experiments. Amon and Takizawa were both turned into Ghouls against their will using Yoshimura’s DNA.
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Takizawa, as "T-Owl," was a walking massacre. He wiped out high-ranking CCG investigators like they were nothing. His Kakuja is fast, sleek, and incredibly violent. He’s the definition of a glass cannon that eventually learned how to be a tank.
Amon, on the other hand, became a massive, hulking brute. His RC cell count was so high that it was considered "unstable," leading to a kakuja form that looked more like a giant monster than a person. When these two clashed, it was less like a fight and more like a natural disaster. While neither quite reaches the level of Kaneki or Arima, they are comfortably in the top five of the series' combatants.
Donato Porpora and the Power of the Clowns
Donato is often overlooked, but the Russian "Priest" was a monster. He could control clones of himself using his Kagune. Imagine fighting someone who can be in five places at once, and each clone is as strong as an SS-rank Ghoul.
He was the one who taught Amon how to fight, and his death was one of the few moments where we saw just how much raw skill he possessed. He wasn't just a brawler; he was a precision killer who used the Clowns to orchestrate the downfall of the CCG from the shadows.
Why the Ranking Isn't Just About Kagune
People love to debate stats. They want to know "Who would win: Renji Yomo or Uta?" The truth is, Tokyo Ghoul doesn't work that way. Strength is dictated by mental state.
- Regeneration: Characters like Kaneki and Nimura have "Rize-type" regeneration, which is basically a cheat code. You can cut them in half, and they’ll just stand back up.
- Intelligence: Arima and Furuta prove that a smart fighter with a plan will almost always beat a strong fighter with a grudge.
- The Sunlit Garden Factor: Most of the strongest "humans" in the series aren't actually human. They are hybrids with short lifespans and explosive physical stats.
The Final Verdict on the Top Tiers
If you had to pick a "God Tier," it’s a three-way tie between Dragon-form Kaneki, Prime Arima, and Nimura Furuta. Everyone else, from Juuzou Suzuya (who is incredible with his Arata armor) to Ayato Kirishima, falls into the next tier down.
Juuzou deserves a special mention here. He is the only true human who reached the level of the Ghouls without having surgery. Wearing the Arata Joker armor, he was able to go toe-to-toe with Kaneki. That’s insane. It shows that while biological Kagunes are the dominant force, human ingenuity and sheer crazy-person willpower can bridge the gap.
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How to Scale Your Own Rankings
If you're trying to figure out where your favorite character sits, look at their feats against SSS-rated threats. Did they survive an encounter with the Owl? Can they regenerate a head? If the answer is no, they aren't in the top ten.
The series ends with a world where the line between human and ghoul is blurred, and the "strongest" are those who managed to keep their sanity while their bodies turned into weapons.
To really get the full picture, you should look back at the "Rose" arc and the "Rushima Landing" arc. These are the points where the power levels transitioned from "street-level fighting" to "supernatural warfare." Comparing a character's performance in the early manga to their end-of-series stats is basically comparing a firecracker to a nuke.
Keep an eye on the "Dragon Orphans" in the final chapters as well. They represent the lingering biological remnants of Kaneki's power, proving that even after the main story ends, the ripples of the strongest characters still define the world's safety.
Next Steps for Fans and Analysts
- Review the Manga Art: Sui Ishida hides power cues in the way Kagunes are drawn. Look for "eyes" on the Kagune; more eyes usually correlate with higher RC cell intelligence and Kakuja maturity.
- Compare the "Arata" Versions: Trace the evolution of the Arata quinque from its first appearance to the "Joker" version used by Juuzou. It’s the best way to see how the CCG tried to keep up with the scaling.
- Study the Sunlit Garden Lore: Re-read the sections regarding the Washuu family tree. Understanding their genetics explains why certain characters like Rize, Furuta, and Arima are fundamentally on a different level than "natural" Ghouls.
The power scaling in this series is a tragedy as much as it is an action trope. Every power-up cost someone their soul, and the strongest characters are the ones who paid the highest price.