Ajin

The theme of "special" or "evolved" humans being feared and hunted by society has been done many times before. A. E. van Vogt's novel SLAN comes to mind, as does Marvel's X-Men.

AJIN is a fresh take on the subject. It blends the standard "everybody is against us special humans" theme with terrorism, violence, spectral beings, torture, and Japanese anime's almost standard negativity about Americans.

The basis for the fear of the Ajin is that they cannot be killed and have the ability to summon dark wraith-like spectral beings to do their bidding.

We follow one young man through his self-discovery as an Ajin, his pursuit by the authorities bent on cruel scientific research on his body, and his attempts to separate himself from Ajin that have decided to employ terrorism in their battle against the state's repression.

By now it should be obvious that AJIN is nothing like anime series that focus on adolescent high school pranks, supernatural hi-jinks, and fan service. AJIN is more like an urban war story and morality tale that, for the most part, succeeds. Emotions are raw, characters are very well developed with excellent (Japanese) voice acting, and the story takes some fascinating and at times amazing twists and turns.

Where AJIN falls down is in the animation which mixes realistic settings, vehicles, and weapons with twitchy character animation and an annoying mix of characters with natural facial features with those that possess anime's stereotypical over-sized round eyes.

The twitchy character movement may be related to an over-reliance on character movement control software that doesn't allow for the randomness of normal body movement. When not running, the main characters seem to walk and move around at the same speed with the frame to frame differences in the drawings just barely visible. Key characters like Sato are very naturally drawn, have realistic facial features, yet move unrealistically. It's distracting given how realistically everything else is done.

The other annoying feature I found to be the mix of characters with realistic eye shapes with the exaggerated round large eyes common to so much anime. The mixture of the two styles was confusing for me at first and I was wondering in this particular anime if one of the characteristics of the Ajin is that some have evolved larger and rounder eyes than "normal" humans. I've watched a lot of anime over the years and this was actually the first time I was put off by the large round eyes. I attribute that reaction to the fact that so much of the animation here is realistic and sometimes disconcertingly so in some of the amazing action scenes.

That said, I highly recommend this series if you can get past the violence and some of the animation features. Overall it's quite impressive and an excellent example of how good animated science fiction can be.

Not gonna lie. This is my (supposedly) first anime series I've ever watched until the end. The story was decent and animation is great, despite people hating it because of the 3d animation. Although, people said that this anime did not stay true to the manga so they discontinued after season 2. I was pretty sad, but it is understanable. Good anime nonetheless. i watched this back around ocotber 2017 and finished it around december.

Normally 2D and 3D don't mix well together in western cartoons that I've watched from the past. However, this anime surprised me because I actually didn't mind both 2D and 3D blending in together!

Anyways I thought this anime series was quite good for a change. I wasn't really finding it scary but it had intense scenes where Kei and Kaito were trying to escape from the government from getting arrested and being tortured for experimentation. Mostly they really wanted Kei because they basically discovered he is an "Ajin" where his kind is said to be types of monsters with invisible powers. Although the boy didn't even know himself that he was an ajin so it does add the tension to the story.

The anime is not really the best in my personal opinion but it does the job in bringing good thrilling entertainment especially having great English Dub actors such as Johnny Yong Bosch and Bryce Papenbrook.

Most of the Ajin-Manga fans hate the 3D-Style the new Ajin-anime has. Especially the younger fan base cant understand the importance of this type of animation. A Seinen-anime like Ajin doesn't need a child-comfortable animation, it needs the 3D to create his unique fight-scenes which are that great that the action of common-known anime like One Piece looks cheap and frumpy. Of course, the face expressions of the characters suffer because of the 3D, but it doesn't matter in an action-splatter anime.

The action is not the only thing that sets this series on fire: The great idea and the well considered plot are hilarious. Its about Japan from where we stand with only one difference: Everyone knows about the existence of Ajin. Ajin are ordinary people from the outside, but they have some supernatural abilities, and the most important is that they are not able to die. If an Ajin gets killed, he will restore his life to full health. So only the humans, who die accidentally, by sickness or by murder and revive immediately, get to know what they really are. Exactly this is what happens to the protagonist, an ordinary high-school student who gets in a deadly accident in front of his friends and a lot of strangers. He revives before their eyes and needs to run away after; because there is a bounty of hundred millions yen for reporting an Ajin that leads to his arrest. So the big hunt begins, police officers, special forces, bounty hunters and other Ajin appears during the plot fighting each other, without the scheme of good and evil, in this anime every party has some good points to fight for. This plot is also really into details, so it doesn't let space for any plot holes and all explanations for supernatural stuff doesn't appeal appropriate at any point. The characters are like the plot: Special and well thought out. The protagonist looks in the first place like the anime stereotype: a regular student who gets some abilities and turn into a hero. The first two things match, the third point is argueable, because he gets more and more selfish and helps only himself. He is smart at some points and he learns from his mistakes which makes him to an understandable, real character. But the protagonist is not an exception, all of the leading characters are extraordinary, but to describe them would spoil a lot.

For all those fans of action and splatter and good plots, especially for fans from Parasyte, Tokyo Ghoul or God Eater is Ajin a big MUST. Same as the mentioned anime Ajin takes u on a trip you cant stop until the series is over, a trip where u will go on a ride through action, blood, drama and some cool patter without losing its speed, so u don't get the time to feel bored at any episode.

The only bad thing about this series is, that there is only a small chance of getting a second season, because 3D-animation are not that popular and gets a lot of hate from the community.

It is sad that these people will never appreciate this masterpiece without even watching it. I can just say that u better don't judge an anime by its unusual type of animation, being different is not equal with being bad.

Really good story. Excellent gun noises. Good characters. The drawing/artwork/animation is absolutely first class.

My review is based on Japanese audio with Subtitles