Ajin

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.

Once you've gotten over the animation style, which obviously takes some time getting used to, Ajin tells a really interesting story about a boy for whom everything suddenly changes from one moment to the next and he begins to doubt his humanity.

The main character goes through a phase of self-discovery.

The fight between Ajins and humans is also interesting and raises the question of what actually makes a human a human.

Ajins just want to be accepted as human beings, but the authorities, are just interested in one thing and that is to solve the mystery behind the humans who can't die, which leads to an enmity between the Ajins and humans.

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.

Really enjoyed the anime, it is a shounen anime (aimed primarily at a young male audience, typically characterized by action-filled plots). It had its share of issues but overall a good watch.

Storyline: Standard run of the mill story of Human vs Something Unnatural, Ajin in this case, a human which can't be killed, they also have a ghost-like companion which they can call to do there bidding. What it had working for it was the constant development of characters focused plot and the fast-paced storytelling, time was not wasted on useless drawn out fight sequences. Love a Shounen anime which is story driven. (8/10) Animation: Unlike other anime, this was a 3D CGI, would say decent most of the time, but at first it felt too erratic and took time to get used to, most of the times the body movements felt slow and unnatural, only during action sequences there was smooth flow. The biggest reason why people will not like the anime is the animation. (4/10) Action: Really enjoyed it, the fight sequences were tactical based and not simply overpowering someone mindlessly. Good use of mind games, strategy, ability and modern weapons. (8/10) Characters: One of the few anime where the bad guy was more interesting and intriguing than the supposed lead. There is no clear good vs bad here, survival, self-motivation is the biggest driven forces. (8/10)

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.