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.

I watched the Ajin anime when it aired, and I loved it despite the weird graphics. It was a great concept, with a very nice execution. Its characters were awesome, and I was looking forward to reading the manga once it would be finished.
Sadly, it didn't live up to my expectations...


STORY
Ajins are immortal beings. They revive as soon as they die. Of course, such a phenomenon would be the target of governments around the world. They capture known Ajins, and experiment on them.
One day, Kei gets run over by a truck. But he doesn't die. Everyone now knows he's an Ajin. He has to run ... away to keep his freedom. He'll be quickly contacted by Sato, another Japanese Ajin who plans to make drastic changes in the History of Ajins.

This is all great. This manga is packed with a lot of story revolving Ajins, while displaying great action scenes. The way it uses the Ajin power was brillant.

It has a nice balance between plot and action... up until the second half of the manga.
Basically, Sato's plan consists of three waves of terrorism. While the first two waves are intelligent and well balanced, the third one lasts too long and is way too straightforward. There isn't any twist, there isn't any plot-evolving event. That final battle is just a bunch of fights and explosions. It's spectacular... but way too long. And the plot suffers from that.
It doesn't help that everything is thrown out. The final confrontation consists of a single stare on a bridge... People leave the story at random times (through death or not), and all those endings feel like they were thrown just because the author got sick of writing it.

I just don't feel like this ending was really conclusive. The entire manga is great, but only feels like a beginning rushed into an ending because the author got bored of what he wrote. Frankly, I prefer the end of the anime.


ART
I really like the drawings. It's rare that action scenes work in a manga, but in this one, it works brillantly.


CHARACTER
This is the strong point of Ajin. Kei's morality is genius: as a rational person, he keeps pretending he doesn't care about anyone, but he actually does. That results in conflicts between his dialogues and his true thoughts. This was brillantly used, and a perfect example on how to play with a character's morality.

Sato, of course, is the best character in this story. He's charismatic, he's intelligent, he's badass, he's insane, and he has a nice story. The way he views the real world as a videogame was brillant: for an Ajin, who revives after he dies, real life really is just game.

The two mains are awesome, but the support cast is great too!

I love Kai, he's the best of best friends. It's a shame his role never get really big... I also loved Kei's family. They're not very important to the plot, but their few scenes are interesting.

Tosaki and his assistant were a nice combination. Somehow I feel like their complicity was better in the anime.

And of course, there's Tanaka. That one is awesome too! In my opinion, he carries this series on his shoulders for a while. His inner conflict was a nice story to follow, and his relationship with other characters were interesting.


ENJOYMENT
The final arc utterly ruins this manga imo. But Ajin is still a very interesting story! I recommend watching the anime, you won't be left on an unsatisfying note. If you really want more after that, then you carn read it, there's a few interesting cut content.

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.