The world premier screening of animated film AJIN: DEMI‐HUMAN-Compel was held on October 28 at Tokyo’s TOHO CINEMAS Roppongi Hills as part of the 28th Tokyo International Film Festival’s Panorama section. Supervising director Hiroyuki Seshita and director Hiroaki Ando appeared to present the film together with main character Kei Nagai’s voice actor Mamoru Miyano, Yoshimasa Hosoya (who plays Kaito), Takahiro Sakurai (playing Yu Tosaki), Daisuke Hirakawa (Koji Tanaka), Mikako Komatsu (Izumi Shimomura) and Aya Suzaki (Eriko Nagai).
 
The film is based on Gamon Sakurai’s original comic with the same name, which is currently being serialized in “good! Afternoon” (KODANSHA Ltd). It depicts the struggle of high school student Kei Nagai who is killed in a traffic accident. He wakes up to find that he is an undying new form of human called Ajin which are being hunted by the Japanese government. There will be a total of three installments of animated films, beginning with DEMI‐HUMAN-Compel which will be screened for only two weeks beginning November 27. A TV anime series is also in the works and to be aired on TBS, MBS and other stations beginning January 15, 2016.
 
Miyano said about playing Kei the Ajin “It was very painful to gain an immortal body, suddenly be targeted and then injured by different people. As an experiment, there are of course physical injuries but there are also the mental injuries inflicted also by family and friends. I tried to express that pain as much as possible.” Komatsu spoke about the highlights of the recording sessions. “Apparently, there are scenes where they used a camera during voice recordings and the expressions on our faces were used in the anime. I’d like people to see how realistic the performance is.”
 
Supervising director Seshita and director Hiroaki spoke of how they expected a positive outcome. “We used a technique called ‘pre-scoring’ where the lines are recorded before the images were drawn. We created our image by reflecting the characters that the cast members have already created. With the actors’ powerful acting, we were able to create images that we can be proud of.”
 
Seishita appealed to the audience “Even though the main character Kei has a special power, he’s not out to save the world. He’s an ordinary boy. For humans, death may be meant to be a final relief. However, his death had been snatched away. Literary, he struggles and tries to find out the real meaning of ‘life’. We’d like viewers to enjoy his way of life.”
 

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