Ningen Hyohon (2025)

Human Specimens

"In nature a repulsive caterpillar turns into a lovely butterfly. But with humans it is the other way around: a lovely butterfly turns into a repulsive caterpillar"
A quote by Anthon Chekhov that I don't agree with, but it fits this drama and its characters too well.
How was something so precious, gentle and pure twisted into something this poisonous?...

This was actually quite a deep and complex psychological thriller.
Bizarre, dark, twisted, gruesome and eerie... yet impressive, brilliant, compelling and deeply immersive. The actors all performed their roles perfectly and convincingly.

I didn't see any of these twists coming. In only five episodes, this drama explores the darkness of the human mind layer by layer, letting you see the story through foggy lenses until you realize you were looking at the mask and not the one behind it. The slow pacing didn't make it boring, but instead gave more intensity and space for emotional build up.
It contrasts all of its horrors nicely with the calmness, light and silence of nature. Despite all, the place itself remained unchanged, brimming with life, beauty and vitality.

Besides exploring the reason behind the murders, death and the way it's either feared or glorified - relationship between parents and their children, genes as a factor of how one's personality and destiny are shaped and an odd bond between childhood friends are all integral parts of this story.
There are some questions left unanswered, but it mostly connected the dots and gave the most appropriate closure. Not the one that feels pleasant, but the one that feels real.

Ultimately, I felt pity and compassion for them, because no matter how many colors they could see, they all lived in complete darkness. They were too self-absorbed and delusional to notice that the world doesn't belong only to them.
I cried watching the ending and my heart ached.
The final scene showed that sometimes it's more about what isn't told/shown then what is. There was also so much love underneath, yet it was too imperfect, weak and fragile to find its way out of the cocoon and turn into a butterfly.

Would I recommend it?
To someone who can watch difficult, heavy things with an open mind, definitely.
For others, it can be triggering and just too much to handle, because each character here has lost themselves in shadows, missing the true essence of art and beauty because they chased after something unattainable and tried to possess, persevere and capture things that were never meant to be held onto by human hands, but admired from afar, in their natural form.

There is a line between madness and genius, and this drama walks on the very edge of it, showing the obsessions, pride and cruelty taking over and forming their own artificial, grand and seemingly everlasting and just, but empty gratification.

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What the Hell Did I Just Watch: Butterflies, "Human specimens", and Absolutely No Normal People

I went in expecting a crime thriller about a serial killer and an investigation. That’s on me for not reading properly, because this is not that show at all.

It opens with a man who has murdered six boys, including his own son, turning himself in and narrating his life. Almost immediately, Shiro doesn’t feel as a killer. He comes off as maybe neurodivergent, but violent? No. By episode two, it’s already obvious that something isn’t adding up, which is way too early for a supposed mystery. At first, it feels like the show is building toward something smarter.

Then it suggests the murders might actually be Itaru’s( shiro's son) and that works. Itaru has that deeply unsettling art justifies everything vibe that makes this idea believable. That twist is disturbing in the right way and for a moment, the series feels solid. I really liked it.

Then it completely shits the bed.

Shiro taking the blame to protect his son doesn’t come off as tragic or complex it feels braindead. Instead of acting like a normal person reporting his son or stopping him he recreates the crime and turns his own child into the “specimen” (because his son asked, which is just… ew). Until then, Shiro was the closest thing this show had to a normal human being, (not considering side characters )and suddenly he’s making choices that make zero sense. WTH

The final episode goes full clown mode. First it’s not Itaru, it’s Anna. Then it turns out it was not even Anna’s idea, it was her mother Rumi’s. Itaru helping Anna after literally watching her axe someone is barely justified beyond the show endlessly chanting “art” like it excuses everything. It doesn’t. Apparently everyone wants to be Rumi’s successor, which is fucking irritating. Just because she sees more colors? Tetrachromacy doesn’t make her special, especially when her art is so ass.
Also Rumi believing Shiro would admire her murders because they were inspired by his father’s ideas is straight up delusional. At that point, every character feels detached from reality. No one reacts or thinks like an actual human being, and the show mistakes that collective insanity for depth.

I have never used this much profanity in anything before, but this series earns it. It genuinely could have been good until the last episode fucked it. By the end, Shiro’s kid is dead, the real killers walk free, and there’s no emotional payoff, just emptiness. What could have been a tight psychological drama turns into a pile of shock value twists. The more it twists, the cheaper it feels. The cinematography is good and music. That’s it. The writing overcomplicates itself until nothing lands, nothing hurts, and nothing matters.

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