This review contains spoilers for season 1, so if you haven’t watched it then please beware. Also, this review is mainly about the anime adaptation, I won‘t include manga here.
Anyway here‘s my review:
STORY 9
The story starts with the „did nothing wrong“ guy whose life gets ruined once he and everyone else around him realises he‘s and Ajin. The dude then tries to run away with his best friend and contact other Ajin so he could get tips on how to live in peace without getting caught, but oh boy what a mistake he made... the story is quite unpredictable I‘d say, you should see it
...
for yourself.
ART STYLE 9
I‘M TALKING ABOUT THE ART ONLY, NOT THE ANIMATION HERE! So the artstyle is actually pretty good, I love that they don‘t have any stupid rainbow hair and apple-size eyes (Shimomura might be an exception), I‘m not a fan of these things anymore so it‘s a relief. The character design looks pretty simple, yet it‘s understandable why, our main character Kei is a genius who prefers a boring, peaceful life over other fancy things, so he sure looks plain himself. His bestfriend Kaito‘s design is dope asf, the hairstyle and the outfit is cool in my opinion, Tosaki and Shimomura look like they should – dressed up with suits that match their profession. Same thing applies for Satou & Tanaka – Satou looks like an innocent, calm, grandpa and Tanaka like someone who just got released from the prison. Black Ghosts looked cool too.
ANIMATION 7,5
Honestly, this is probably the weakest point of Ajin, it’s not terrible, but it could have been better IMO. So the main 2 problems I have with the animation are: 1. The framerate – sometimes it was smooth, everything was fine with it, but at some moments it would drop to, like, 13fps? Or so?? And it looked really laggy… I quite get why they don’t want to make everything too smooth – it’s so the movements would look more similar to the traditional 2D animation, but it still could’ve been better. 2. The shading. (not sure if this belong to the art or animation category, but anyway…) Like the framerate thing, it was cool, smooth but at some moments the shading was too plain, the characters kinda blend to the background and it becomes harder to see them clearly, it’s mostly too sharp, I think the best shading was mostly in the daylight. The special effects were cool, I didn’t have problem with them at all.
SOUND 10
Probably the best part about Ajin, both the opening, the ending and the anime soundtracks were very cool and memorable.
CHARACTERS 8,5
Honestly Ajin has one of the most conflicted characters out there (like Nagai Kei, Tosaki, Tanaka, Satou, heck even Eriko) but there are also some who are just one/two-dimensional like Kaito and Kou. Kaito is just a good guy because he is a good guy, that’s it, that’s his personality. Tho I personally like Kaito and his design, I think he needed more personalisation. Kou... Kou is just the „stupid, but strong, good person“ trope, like mostly shonen anime has for their protagonist, so I‘m glad that Kou isn‘t the main character and Kei is. Kei on the other hand, is an unique main character, like Light Yagami from Death Note, Kei isn‘t just some happy, heroic plain protagonist, he actually gives almost 0 fucks about others, he is rational, cold, selfish jerk who mostly cares about himself. Imagine the main villain doing shit to your country, to people and the main character just sits on the floor with the cup of tea and cookies and just watches it without doing anything – yes, that‘s who Kei is. i I get that he can be very unlikeable, but atleast he‘s interesting to watch. Probably fandom‘s favorite is Satou – honestly the dude, unlike the MC, is so enthusiastic, happy, persistent dude, sometimes it makes it look like he and the MC changed some personality traits, except the fact that the villain is a psychopathic murderer and Kei is not. Tosaki was great too, at first he looks like someone who does bad things because he wants money and that‘s it but later on you realise why is he doing that and you actually low-key gain sympathy for him, because you realise how miserable his life is. Shimomura might also look like a two-dimensional character but I think she‘s okay and pretty cool too, she gets more fleshed out in S2.
ENJOYMENT 9
Despite what I said above this, I actually enjoyed the series very much to the point where it became one of my top 5 favorite animes of all time. It‘s good :)
OVERALL 9
Ajin is something most people look down onto because of it being CGI, but I don‘t recommend you doing that, and atleast try to give this show a chance, because it really is cool.
Feb 7, 2021
This review contains spoilers for season 1, so if you haven’t watched it then please beware. Also, this review is mainly about the anime adaptation, I won‘t include manga here.
Anyway here‘s my review: STORY 9 The story starts with the „did nothing wrong“ guy whose life gets ruined once he and everyone else around him realises he‘s and Ajin. The dude then tries to run away with his best friend and contact other Ajin so he could get tips on how to live in peace without getting caught, but oh boy what a mistake he made... the story is quite unpredictable I‘d say, you should see it ... |
