Oneshot

The story opens on a talk show where a guest activist discusses a string of recent killings blamed on a flesh eater. Attention shifts to Ken Kaneki, a ghoul earning a living as a waiter beside his coworker Touka. When their manager offers both of them sandwiches at lunch, Touka begs off by citing a diet, leaving Kaneki with no such cover. He forces the food down, then rushes to a restroom to bring it back up, since his body cannot process it. The ghoul investigator Yukinori Shinohara clocks the odd behavior.

Back home, Kaneki keeps a stash of victims to feed on and consumes a severed arm before heading to a cafe. There he runs into Shinohara again, is pressured into eating another sandwich, and vomits it onto the table. Humiliated and enraged, he resolves to kill the investigator.

Touka spots Kaneki tailing Shinohara and follows out of curiosity. In a deserted stretch of a station, Kaneki tries a surprise strike but is completely outmatched and overpowered. Touka steps in to shield him, and Kaneki seizes her as a hostage to buy his escape. Shinohara, convinced that one human life is a fair trade for a dead ghoul, presses the attack anyway. Touka then rakes his face, exposing herself as a ghoul too, and it comes out that she is the one behind the recent murders rather than Kaneki. She keeps the investigator occupied while Kaneki lands the killing blow.

The chapter closes with the two waiters wondering whether their employer Yoshimura suspects what they are. The final panels answer the question by showing Yoshimura himself feeding on the corpse of the activist from the broadcast, revealing him as another ghoul. This pilot ran in Miracle Jump on March 15, 2011, spanned 36 pages, and directly preceded the serialized Chapter 1. Its cast are early, standalone takes on characters who would be reworked for the main manga.