Darwin Jihen; Winter 2026

Ok.. Where to begin haha............... I picked this one up randomly with my husband, neither of us knowing what to expect, ESPECIALLY because of this anime being set in the modern US of A which is ripe territory for cringe and many things going wrong, but also endless meme potential. In my case, the latter turned out to be true. This anime is very unintentionally funny at times.

Darwin Jihen is an anime about a human-chimpanzee (humanzee!) hybrid, Charlie, whose life is closely tied to an extremist vegan organization ALA, due to them initially being the ones to rescue his pregnant chimpanzee mother from a facility and now in present day trying to get Charlie on their side in order to further their goals.

Once I watched the first episode I got really curious as to how this anime will portray a topic as controversial as vegan extremism, veganism and meat eating. Will it be cheap or fair, will it do some insanely insensitive racist shit, where would it take us... I must say, all in all, it wasn't as bad as I expected. The vegan extremist group is probably the most ridiculous viewpoint, but sure, it's not like these worldviews are completely absent from our society, and really, it seems like the leader of the group isn't really a vegan extremist at all, just some kind of a nutso accelerationist guy that wants to see the world burn. Outside of this, everyone has pretty normal viewpoints, and nobody outside of the villains is acting like a totally insane and out of place caricature. The cheesiness and the unintentional funnies come from the story being set in modern day 'murrica, and I think this stuff is simply inescapable when portrayed by an outsider despite the fact that evidently the attention to detail is there.

I was mostly surprised by the main character, Charlie. He's taking a very neutral and selfish stance in all of this which is both out of place for an anime moralfag protagonist (to be fair, not anymore, but it definitely doesn't feel stale yet), and out of place when it comes to stories about animal hybrids or general figures that seem to be one of a kind and special. Design wise, I find Charlie to be extremely uncanny but also sometimes cute from certain angles. He looks like a personification of the :> smiley. That said, his design does seem too cartoony compared to all of the humans and actual chimps in the anime (refer to this image of his mom and him on the left), but it's a memorable animal hybrid design nonetheless. The biggest issue is that he's very emotionless when apes are supposed to be pretty expressive, so it only adds to the freakiness.

Now to talk about the controversial part, that I'll be spoilering because it's technically a plot spoiler for episode 12 and some future manga chapters. Oh also, bestiality talk

In episode 12, we're told Charlie is going through puberty. Keep in mind, while being a humanzee Charlie is like, supernatural. He's stronger and more intelligent than both humans and chimps, and so far we really don't know the circumstances under which he has been conceived and if his father messed around with his genes and how it all plays into him being so above both humans and chimps. Now that he's going through puberty, he's getting even more intelligent and strong. And naturally.... He begins to have feelings for his one and only best friend Lucy... And he asks her to have sex with him. And she says yes. And while the anime didn't get to that yet, it happened in the manga and we all know because people make sure to spam those manga panels everywhere online.
I don't know if I'm a degenerate desensitized freak, but I'm not really that bothered by this? I don't see it as pure bestiality because Charlie is half human while also possessing superhuman abilities. Idk, I don't see it as something much worse than humans and Neanderthals mating in the past lmao. Usually bestiality freaks get off on animals that don't resemble humans. Besides I feel like books and animation are perfect environments in which to experiment with fringe/problematique ideas like these because no real people and animals or animal hybrids are being hurt and exploited... therefore idk. I don't see this as something so insane. There's the added factor of Charlie's design that goes in my favor here too, he's just so cartoony and compared to an actual chimp in the same anime he doesn't look like they're from the same universe. This also makes the whole "animal/bestiality" angle way less pronounced imo, more pushing it into some monsterfucking territory. For what it's worth I stay out of gooner furry spaces so I have no idea how popular monke sexualization is, maybe my pov is more innocent than it should it be. Either way, while a bit cringe and uncomfortable for everyone involved, it was obvious the story would touch that topic eventually.

Watching this anime was an experience, which is why I'll likely continue with season 2 if it comes out. It's one of those anime that gain a lot from shitposting online as it's coming out so watching it seasonally adds to it.

Just as I finished writing this, while looking for an image of Charlie and his mom, I found a pretty good review mentioning how off the portrayal of the midwest is (the reviewer actually being from there unlike me lmao), and how Charlie is more portrayed as an alien, both viewpoints I agree with. It's definitely an anime/manga that's interesting to talk about due to how it chooses to tackle certain themes...