Ajin: Demi-Human - Review

I learned about Ajin in a youtube video talking about how great the villain is, i put on the video to watch while i eat and oh boy. It took me no time to stop the video and get the manga.

Snapshot

The title Ajin in the manga is a human that cannot die for whatever reason, killed, sickness, suicide. None of it is permanent. So of course th world will take advantage of that.

The world of Ajin is a cynic one, A big pharmaceutical company decided that it wanted to cut cost and use the never dying humans to test the always kills you drug, and the result was the most powerful company in the world.

However they wanted to kill any attempt to sympathize with Demis so at the same time they started a campaign to de-humanize the Ajins.

The result is the first chapter of the manga, a brilliant boy got killed in a traffic accident and to the dismay of himself, it din’t actually die. So now their friends, family and whole country turned on him because now that it does not die, his body means money (and why should they care? Demis are not human after all).

The first tome

This manga was originally made by two people, Gamon Sakurai as the artist, and Tsuina Miura as the author. But it looks like it was a editorial mandate more than a voluntary partnership because after tome 2 and onwards Gamon Sakurai took over the rest of the series as the sole artist and author.

It a bit jarring seeing the art change so fast, and both of them are incredibly good artist that put an obscene amount of detail to everything, the kind that made you worry if they have a good sleep schedule.

Tome 1:

Rest of the series:

It changed the stylized usual anime style for a more realistic and detailed one.

More interesting there are thinks like Demis being able to “Command” people with their voices that was slowly forgotten. And I must say, the way it faded out was very natural, with Demis vs Demis being the center of combat, and the voice power being useless against Demis, it came to a point where it was basically useless in any situation.

Then we have the Black Ghost, a sort of manifestation that Demis can make. You get first introduced to them while they fight, and it is obvious to me that they where intended to be the main way of fighting. Think of Jojo’s Stands but more grounded.

And i can say that with the change of authors, Black Ghost’s (or IBM’s) got used pretty well despite not being the center anymore.

The rest of the series

The series i feel like is more like a battle manga that got turned into a tactical militar battle manga (?). That is to say, at first you see Kei running away with a friend and escaping the city, this sequence is package full of action and is very interesting, then you see two IMB’s dunking each other.

It was clear to me that they wanted the action since the chapter 1 and were specially interested in fighting. Now, after Vol.1 the action turned into “what can a man who is immortal do to win against an army” and “how can an army win against an immortal” and it goes into detail about the two of those questions.

Its very interesting how the immortal uses their immortality to “reset” at any significant damage, and its very interesting that the human faction uses sleep darts to capture demis without killing them.

Sato

The main villain, is a demi-human who decided to destroy japan. And is very good at that.

Sato is the second most interesting thing in this manga, it feels like a larger than life individual. He knows more about Demis than any other Demi, to the point that Sato does something and makes the protagonist scratch their head for a bit until figuring out what it was.

From the moment it started moving, it made the whole cast move against him, because an immortal like him would not stop at japan.

And Sato is by far the most of any character, the smartest, strongest, bravest. Anything he does, the rest figures out after the first hit.

And damn the writing made this possible. Iv’e kinda spoiled this but the way the story shows his might is that he does something, the protagonist thinks this is the way he does it, and after a while he notices something is off.

A part of the plan is suboptimal, something does not make sense, “Why did he do this thing this way instead of this other, better way?” The answer is revealed to us and them when the “second hit” comes.

For example, when Demis get their limb cut off, they try to re-attach them to their body, but if it’s too far they just grow a new limb.

But what happens when the space to grow that limb is non-existent? if your legs get’s erased and you’re upright on the floor? Do you get pushed up?

No, the space below you is erased to make space for your legs.

And we get to know this because Sato breaks into an impossible safe room, and after a while the protagonist explains it to us.

Thats the dynamic between this manga and the villain. In that way it kinda make me feel like i was reading the payoff of a lupin story.

In the end

The society of Akin is one where everything is shit and for that you expect the worst of everyone. And the more you read into it you start to notice how interacting with each other makes them develop the humanity that we thought it was lost.

Highly recommended, the way its short too. However i wish the where less action and more strategizing. Kinda like in the end with the anti-demi-squad, that was the best part for me, above Sato.