Ajin: Semihumano

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.

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)

So right off the bat the first thing I have to say is this show is produced by Polygon Pictures, the same company that produced "Knights of Sidonia" so that means its 100% CG animation. Now my first impression was I didn't really like it(the animation), but I got use to it fairly quickly and as the series progressed theirs definitely quite a few epic scenes where it looks really good. So the story is about immortal people, if they die they basically instantly revive 100% fine & reconfigured. For me the story itself is pretty fresh, I haven't seen to many shows that involve immortals or at the very least they don't express the immortal aspects as the main focus as this show does, so its quite interesting. So the story is quite unique and expresses realistically how it would be if we discovered immortals in the real world, they'd be hunted like animals for research etc. It does a really good job about how people would view and react to things, they give you just enough information to understand and leave you with so many questions, it definitely leaves you wanting more. The animation, as I said is 100% CG. I know most people wont even give this a chance just because of this, but this show is pretty bad ass. From episode 1-10 I was enjoying it but what pushed me from a 7<8 was the last 3 episodes, they were EPIC, so bad ass lol. So if the idea of immortals sounds awesome (like it does to me) then just stick it out and watch cause you'll definitely get into it but for the love of god don't quit before the last 2 they make the hole show so epic. The music seemed pretty good, my first listen to the OP & ED I wasn't really into it but on my second listen it really grew on me & I found it quite enjoyable. All the music during the show matched fine as well. The English dub was pretty good, I didn't necessarily dislike any of them. So if your into action, blood, & bullets with a bit of mystery I think you'll enjoy it, just give the CG a chance its not so bad.

4/5 Why? Its a pretty intriguing story, it hasn't been done a hundred times and theirs things about it that separate it from typical immortal stories (not gonna go into spoilers though). The animation although its different from your typical anime its actually quite good (some parts clearly better than others but as a hole its good). The dub & music match well, nothing really feels off or missing. If your into action, blood, epic fights check this out. If you watch it to the end you'll be happy you did, my favorite episodes are the last two. Give the CG a chance!!

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