Ajin is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Gamon Sakurai. And it is really, really good. It is nothing more than a straight up action-horror manga with smart writing and cinematic art. It is built onan interesting premise, that certain people are starting to appear globally that simply regenerate back to life when they die, and supernatural creatures are involved.

It has one of the most intelligent and terrifying villains I have seen in a while. Dude is pretty much Joker – but written as someone who is actually smart, capable, and intelligent, the kind of person who who meticulously sets up plans and carries them out with ruthless efficiency. He doesn’t appear crazy or random in anything, except for the utter chaos his actions cause (though the more you get to know him, the more you start to realize just how unhinged he really is).

But what got me interested in the manga in the first place is I had heard the military, unlike how they’re shown in most media not directly about the military, is legitimately a force to be reckoned with rather than nameless mooks who exist make the powered people look powerful. One of the best examples of this is about halfway through the series, a military force tries to take out the villain. They had a great plan, executed it well, and then things go completely sideways. In most horror-adjacent media this would be the place where they all die, showing the villain to be truly the one in control. Instead, the military guys adapt, improvise, and… take him down. The dude can’t die because he just keeps resurrecting, but they capture him nonetheless. Obviously things happen in order to get the villain back out into the world doing dastardly deeds, but it showed that all the players in this story are smart, driven people and the villain is still fallible and capable of being defeated. It is an excellent game of cat and mouse, and I highly recommend it.

I’ve heard the anime is pretty terrible or at least forgettable, so I haven’t bothered to try it.