Akihiro Kanou

Akihiro Kanou is a character from Tokyo Ghoul and is the secret major antagonist in the series. He's a surgeon at Kanou General Hospital and is responsible for turning Kaneki into a ghoul.

Manga
Kanou appears in Chapter 1 where he has helped Kaneki recover after being attacked by Rize Kamishiro and acts as if he's oblivious to what had happened before. However, he had secretly transplanted Rize's organs into Kaneki officially turning him into an Artificial One-Eyed Ghoul without Kaneki even knowing. Kanou would soon become a reoccuringg character in the manga as he would see Kaneki on routinlyy checkups about his body post-rize encounter. Tatara eventually confesses how Kanou is responsible for transplanting a kakuhou into Kaneki making him a ghoul and he was able to escape the Aogiri Tree during that time.

Kanou appears again when his lab is being raided and he is soon confronted by Kaneki and he soon began to reveal his true intensions. He told Kaneki how he was his "ultimate creation" and that he wanted to "save" Kaneki from his "birdcage". Kanou reveals how he believes that despite bieng a human, humans are weak and inferior creatures and believes that they are unfit and won't survive in the duture. So he has dedicated himself to turning humans into ghouls so they can survive in a theoretical all-ghoul world and tells Kaneki to join him and Aogiri even going far as to state that Yoshimura was responsible for the creation of Aogiri in the first place. Kaneki almost joins by Yomo rescues Rize from his lab and Kanou escapes to yet be seen again.

After the Anteiku Raid, Kanou is seen talking to Eto where he has Yoshimura in a liqudd tank where he is going to use him to create even more ghouls to "replace" Kaneki.

Anime
In the anime he appears in the first episode where he is talking to Kaneki about his conditions. Just like the manga, he has put Rize's organs in Kaneki's body and is unaware of Kanou's Operation. Kanou then lets Kaneki go and is soon responsible for all of Kaneki's breakdowns after his operation on him. He appears again in Season 2 where it is revealed that he has two one-eyed ghouls as his personal bodyguards known as Kurona and Nashiro Yasuhisa that help assist him with his goals. He examines the destruction of the Aogiri Hideout at the hands of the C.C.G. during its raid of the compound.

Appearance
Kanou appears to be an average middle-aged doctor with frey hair, white shirt and white coat with a black tie. He always smiles when around patients.

Personality
Kanou appears to be nice and kindhearted at first but in reality it is false. In reality Kanou is a cruel, manipulative, and viel individual who seeks to turn every human patient he comes across into a ghoul to acomplishh fanatical beliefs. He believes that humans are weak and inferior compared to ghouls and seeks to turn every single one of them into one-eyed ghouls in order to escape whta he calls a birdcage.

Trivia

 * Kanou and Nico have often stated that they believe that both the One Eyed King and Yoshimura are somehow connected.
 * Kanou is the only known human member of Aogiri and is major since the Aogiri Tree is a fanatcial anti-human ghoul supremacsit organization.
 * This could be due to his anti-human beliefs that he's allowed into the organization.