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Darwin Jihen was simultaneously the most interesting anime to follow from its season but also one of the silliest for me, which is why I was somewhat engaged with it at the beginning, but lost interest and got bored by it as it went on.
The premise is definitely weird but for the same reason interesting, as it could potentially elevate to topics regarding science, ethics and philosophy. Instead, it chooses to focus on sociopolitical aspects and perspectives, mainly vegans versus, well, non-vegans, but also people advocating for animal rights. It could perfectly work with those themes as well, and on paper the discussions provide some food for thought and are interesting to follow.
On execution, however, the theme exploration falls flat on its face because of how extreme and over the top it is. The anime pretends to be multi-layered and neutral by presenting different perspectives, and to its credit it does have some neutral people, vegans or not, but it mostly relies on crazy characters and monologues to present its points. The bullies at school playing the victim and blaming Charlie in front of everyone, that one kid that became a murderer, the antagonists who are either cold as robots or complete madmen, especially the main villain who seems more insane the more he talks. Besides Charlie’s foster parents who are normal vegans, and the congresswoman who wants to use him for the sake of animal rights, everyone else makes it hard to take the themes seriously with how crazy they talk, sound, and look.
Theme exploration aside, the writing can also be very questionable, mainly due to the either crazy or illogical reactions of the characters, or lack thereof, to everything that happens, and by that I don’t mean just the crazy facial expressions and yelling that I already mentioned. Charlie is a sentient non-human living organism, it’s crazy to think that there wouldn’t be laws regarding his existence, that he wouldn’t have any lawyers, that he wouldn’t have the mass media all over him, that his house would be left alone by the police after the attacks it suffered, that his parents would be so dumb to keep living in there. More instances can be seen in the backstory, such as kids being left completely alone and unattended by a pool, where a tragedy could happen, and in fact, it almost did.
Part of the premise is hard to accept in general because what do you mean terrorists for veganism and animal rights? Did something remotely similar ever happen and I’m just clueless about it? It feels like a bad attempt at criticizing progressive ideas and activism. And also, at some point the villain is searched internationally, how can he go around so freely and where does he get his resources from?
Without spoiling, the final twist was somewhat anticipated if one considers a certain information from the early episodes, but kind of makes no sense when you think about it. Why did the villain organization search so crazily for Charlie then? And the character himself seems so petty.
Want to talk about characterization? Everybody that is an antagonist or against Charlie is or seems to be out of their minds, and most people from the side of Charlie are passive to everything. The protagonist himself, although he is more proactive, sees everything from a logical standpoint to the point he seems to be unaffected by anything, and even when is affected by something, he remains almost expressionless in both his face and voice. He does show emotion sometimes but it’s mostly thanks to the directing and sound design than the character himself. In action scenes he is always at advantage, since he combines intellect and strength of both human and chimpanzees, and he even powers up near the end of the season.
Since there wouldn’t be a point in using Charlie for explanations and discussing perspectives, the series smartly introduces Lucy, a seemingly normal girl that enters his and his parents' lives, and is occasionally attacked by the villains. She is there to help, question everything, be in need of rescue so Charlie has an excuse to go into action and look badass, and eventually become the love interest. Oh yes, the anime starts to become that kind of story, and you may already know how I feel about interspecies relationships. The issue with this girl is, why the hell would the rest tell her everything, in the case of the support cast, or leave her be, in the case of the antagonists? To have someone in series to excuse the exposition, that’s why.
The only character that somewhat changes is a police officer that’s initially an antagonist and later becomes an ally, but even then he only changes perspectives, no personality.
Visually the anime is fine to good. The artwork and backgrounds are mostly solid, though sometimes they look plain. The lighting and shading are well done and the anime knows how to display scenes in darker sceneries and times of the day. The problem is that sometimes it uses questionable CGI for smokes and vehicles. The character designs are kind of unique, they combine a semi realistic look and kind of crazy expressions, with vibes that make them seem like they came out of Banana Fish. And also, well, in what other series will you see a human/chimpanzee hybrid? The actual animation is a bit whatever a lot of the time but fine in the action scenes, although those don’t really last long, as the protagonist is clearly stronger than everyone else. Also, shot out to Ilutv for appearing in here.
As for the audio, the sound effects are good, the voice acting is ok, even though the villains sound crazy and Charlie sounds monotonous, and the music is fine, it has that needed thrilling vibe, but it can get a bit repetitive and used in a bit of unfitting ways for the scenes that are playing. The opening and ending are strangely upbeat in a way that doesn't fit the anime. The former is a funky jpop song, and the latter is a slow, soft spoken almost to the point of being whispered pop song with some parts of rap in I don’t know what language in it. Although the anime has some, in my opinion, bad light moments, it’s mostly thriller or sociopolitical drama, what are these songs doing in it? Their lyrics are also romantic and that creeps me out, should have seen the romantic element coming I guess.
Like I said in the beginning, the anime is interesting in themes and ideas, but the execution and presentation of them leave a lot to be desired, and the characterization doesn’t help the series either. One to check out for its weird premise and ambitious topics or to see what madness is going to happen next, but not much else. There’s nothing quite like it, that’s for sure, but even then I would pick up other series about terrorism, and perhaps Parasyte for part of its themes instead.
4/10
