Ajin
Ajin: Demi-Human

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A psychological character-driven action manga with underlying elements of horror, Ajin is surely not a story for everyone. But for those with suitable leaning it may very well come nothing short of a masterpiece.

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Whilst the anime adaption of this manga did a great job setting the tone, handled their cgi with surprisingly high quality and produced some absolutely outstanding music, they dropped the manga's story only a few episodes in and continued the show with an original plot and ending. For anyone who might still be confused about this and or thus hold preconceptions about Ajin because of that, know simply that beyond the initial ... episodes the two works branch out to become vastly different from one another.
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From the very in your face action scenes varying from a personal scale to the governmental one, the mystery of the demi-humans; what they are and where they come from, to the story onto and behind each character the story revolves around, Ajin plays on a beautiful balance between each element to really tell its full story. Sometimes the scenes are big and bombastic, sometimes they're silent and subtle, but what they all have in common is this eerie feeling that they could be real. Or should I say, that they deal with elements we all carry close to us, all think about and ponder at one point or another, all experience in our own time and ways, that as we read them we know they are real. And that is what makes it so intriguing, so gritty, emotional and scary.

I truly cannot empathise enough the extent Ajin has gone to forge its characters into actual individuals. Characters who are so authentically thought-through and who quite in truth do realistically exist all around us, with real personality-cues which we as a society more often than not shun upon speaking or making mention of. In fact, a large portion of the cast are all like this; individuals with a mask, in one form or another, hiding their true selves away because of society's neglect or even enmity towards what is not seen as normal- despite most of us carrying these very traits or experiences to one degree or another. Despite all of us already knowing this.

When he writes, the author is clearly self-aware, and never inputs a loose string, hint or an element without cause or reason. There is always something to say, always something to be found or to happen, and always a sense of respect towards the readers who are dedicating their time and effort to this piece of work.
Ajin really uses each of its element for a reason; the demi-humans aren't so much a plot point as one might expect; the continous attempts of taking the antagonist down and putting and end to his havoc really isn't what the show is actually about, and the characters' own motivations and history are essentially irrelevant whilst viewed as standalone. It is however precisely because they are all conciously and deliberately woven together, that they are able to create the impact, intrigue and value that they do.


So what's the TLDR, really?
Ajin is an action-packed and deeply psychological manga sure to draw you in and grab you on the hook. Hand to hand combat, guns blazing and explosions? We've got you, fam. Undying humans who restore themselves in the most eerie ways every time they die and spawn violent, inhuman beings who may or may not attack everything they see? Oh you'll like this. And lastly, realistic characters who are all so uniquely real and deal with elements most fiction doesn't even dare to step close to? Oh we've got that too.

- Not to mention the art develops incredibly throughout the span of the series, truly becoming and forging an identity for Ajin of its own.


Altough Ajin might be a masterpiece for a potentially small crowd, I stand by that Ajin is nonetheless a definite masterpiece.

Ajin was an enjoyable ride,but I cannot say that I liked it as much as I expected me to do.
The story was ok ,but I didn't like the execution as much.There was not a single moment that I was like ''WHAT'S GONNA HAPPEN NEXT?''.

The art is really nice ,I really like the character designs of Ajin and the designs of Ibms.

The cast had some nice characters and a lot of one dimensional ones. Kei and Sato were probably the best among them, their rivalry was pretty interesting and as individuals (especially Sato), they were intriguing. I didn't like the side characters at all except for ... Tanaka and Tosaki ,who were underused in my opinion,but still they were nice .The author was confused with the cast at the beginning, as he just kicked some characters like Kai and Kei's sister completely out of the story,although they seemed that they would be important and that was kinda annoying.

Overall,Ajin is a fun series ,I would recommend it to anyone who wants a simple and chill reading experience

I think this manga reflects a lot about the Japanese tendencies to think that everyone is plotting against them and paranoia of the author than anything else.

Sorry, allow me to rephrase that. Ajin is torture porn, the end.

To clarify, it is a torture porn without the porn part, The entire thing showed its brain damage the moment the Ajin were used as car crash dummy, yeah how one dimensional of you mr. bad guy. And I think the author misunderstood the meaning of "grey vs grey", and we got 1-dimensional bad guys (the big bad corporation guy) vs 1-dimensional bad guys (the big bad Ajin ... terrorist guy), leading to me not caring who wins because both sides are black cardboards.

And the MC, talk about a apathetic character, Tatsuya-stu has more personality than him and Tatsuya- stu is a robot with no feelings. There is something seriously wrong with your show when your characters brings out this much apathy both in-universe and by the readers.

Whatever ideas or morals or whatever the author is trying to communicate, is completely lost or perhaps never existed in the first place.

It is torture without converting a point, besides "human are bastards" and even that idea comes off as more of the authors paranoia when the characters act so evil it is questionable how the hell do they even function normally in society.