Darwin Jihen
The Darwin Incident

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JUNE 2023 EDIT: The version of Darwin I read was a truly horrendous MTL (as someone in the forums put it, it's borderline unreadable). The following review is reflective of that, and I will update when I can access a better version. I'm bumping the score up a few points based on that, and will leave the original review up for transparency.

I unfortunately cannot read Japanese to be able to interpret the original text myself, and am not sure which parts of what I read were present in the Japanese version or not, especially given that the manga is set in America and discusses ... real-world issues (which the MTL handles with all of the nuance, subtlety, and sensitivity of a Captain Planet episode).

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Darwin Jihen isn't good.

It wants to present the same flavor of ethical or philosophical questions that heavy-hitting series like Monster do, but lacks the subtlety and nuance required to pull it off. Instead, every few pages, there will be an unhinged rant by some sort of strawman, followed by an equally unhinged counterpoint, and perhaps the main character being cool and detached, for he belongs to neither side.

Despite the amount of strawmen, however, there is no thesis statement to this series. In its refusal to take a side on its issues beyond "probably in favor of animal rights", it strays even further from what it seems to want to be. The vegan terrorists who bomb city blocks and the high school bully decrying veganism as an impractical lifestyle are treated with equal weight and drama, and for what? There is no room for the reader to think; you're just hurried along to the next unhinged rant.

But maybe that's not what you're here for. Maybe you just want to see a chimp-human hybrid get cool action scenes. There are a number of those, and they're even well-drawn! But this also fails as an action / thriller / dumb fun, because again, it's almost entirely ranting. A unique art style and setting are just about the only thing the series has going for it. I do like the fact that the main character is drawn in a different art style, and setting a manga series in a rural Missouri town is a fascinating choice, but the true value of Darwin Jihen is in the unintended absurdity of it.

Darwin Jihen is, in some ways, a commendable effort; the odd talking points of the series are very clearly real-world ones, and even some I've personally had to contend with.

But if the writer can research these topics enough to portray them, the writer can likewise research these topics enough portray them well.