The purpose of this paper is to initiate a theory concerning the dynamics of asymptotically holomorphic polynomial-like maps. Our maps arise naturally as deep renormalizations of asymptotically holomorphic extensions of $C^r$ ($r>3$) unimodal maps that are infinitely renormalizable of bounded type. Here we prove a version of the Fatou–Julia–Sullivan theorem and a topological straightening theorem in this setting. In particular, these maps do not have wandering domains and their Julia sets are locally connected.