—Kel McKnight, B1Daily

Let’s get something straight before we even start: if you’re still looping the same five manga like it’s a comfort playlist, you’re actively dodging one of the most creative, unhinged series running right now. Choujin X isn’t hiding. It’s not buried. It’s just being ignored by people who claim they want something new but panic when “new” actually shows up.

Yes, this is from Sui Ishida, the GOAT and the same mind behind Tokyo Ghoul. And instead of playing it safe, he came back with something deliberately stranger, sharper, and far less interested in holding your hand. Somehow, a chunk of the anime community is still asleep at the wheel.

On paper, Choujin X looks familiar enough to trick you. Two friends, a dangerous encounter, sudden powers. It reads like the standard shonen starter kit until it swerves hard. The story centers on Tokio, a kid so passive he barely registers in his own life, who becomes a “Choujin,” a human with volatile, often grotesque abilities. But this isn’t a power fantasy. It’s a slow unraveling. Strength doesn’t stabilize him, it destabilizes everything. Identity fractures, control slips, and the idea of “power” starts looking less like a gift and more like a loaded weapon with no safety.

That shift is where Ishida’s fingerprints get loud. After the grind of Tokyo Ghoul, he clearly decided he was done coloring inside the lines. The result is a series that jumps genres like it’s allergic to predictability. Comedy bleeds into horror without warning. Scenes start off absurd and end somewhere deeply uncomfortable. Critics calling it “weird” or “chaotic” aren’t wrong, they’re just underselling the intent. This is controlled chaos. It’s messy on purpose. And if it leaves you slightly disoriented, that’s not a flaw, that’s the design working.

What makes the current moment around Choujin X strange is that it’s not exactly struggling. By 2022, the manga had already surpassed a million copies in circulation. That’s not niche territory. That’s momentum. Readers who actually give it time tend to land in the same place: impressed, slightly shaken, and wondering why it isn’t bigger. The pattern repeats across fan discussions. Slow start, then it escalates into something memorable. People who read it are in. People who don’t keep scrolling like it’s optional.

It’s not optional. It’s just not spoon-feeding you.

And that’s the real friction point. A lot of fans say they want innovation, then retreat the second a story refuses to follow a clean formula. Choujin X doesn’t line up neat arcs or predictable pacing. It builds characters who don’t fit tidy archetypes and treats power less like a reward and more like psychological fallout. It’s uneven in places, sure, but that unevenness comes from risk, not laziness.

Part of what allows that risk is its release structure. Unlike weekly grind titles, Choujin X runs on an irregular schedule. That breathing room shows up in the art, in the pacing, and in the willingness to experiment. It feels less like a product being pushed out on a deadline and more like a creator actually taking swings because he can.

If Tokyo Ghoul was Ishida proving he could succeed within the system, Choujin X is him stepping outside of it and building something looser, stranger, and more unpredictable. The question isn’t whether the series is doing something interesting. It is. The real question is whether the audience is willing to meet it halfway.

Right now, a lot of people aren’t. And that’s their loss.

—Kel McKnight, B1Daily