Parasyte -the maxim- review

“We've eased each other's boredom for quite a while... It's been quite fun.” 

- Ryuk (Death Note)

First post of 2019 will belong to a rewatch of this Madhouse series. Even though I have to attend uni and everyone else has to work hard in order to move forward in life at the same harsh pace like always, let's try to make this year more fruitful than the ones that came before it, eh?

寄生獣 セイの格率, Kiseijū Sei no Kakuritsu (2014), also known as Parasyte -the MAXIM- is a 24-episode long animated sci-fi thriller produced by the infamous Madhouse, known for their fantastic, high-quality anime adaptations of series such as Death Note, HunterxHunter, Hajime no Ippo, Akagi, etc. Parasyte is originally comic book created by Hitoshi Iwaaki and it ran as serialized work from 1989 to 1995. Because of this over two decade gap between the adaptation and the original work, the animated version is heavy on modernization; computers, cars, phones, types of clothing and so on have been made more digestible for the current generation's audience, however, Madhouse did a fantastic job at modernizing the series as it does not affect the series's writing quality negatively at all.

Truth be told, while this is not the type of series I would normally be writing about, as this blog is about gathering information about how detective fiction series handle different writing styles and of course I try to be both objectively and subjectively critical at series here so I have to focus on the type of genre that I am able to critisize, which is detective fiction, I still decided to post at least something about Parasyte -the maxim- as I did a rewatch on it.

Shinichi Izumi, 16, is a high school student with arachnophobia and glasses. One day as he lays in his bed, he gets attacked by what he assumes to be a snake which then moves into Shinichi's right arm, and, after a struggle, it suddenly disappears from inside the arm. Later, as he is living his daily school life, our main character realizes that his arm is not moving the way he wants it to - almost as if it has a will of its own. When the arm all of a sudden transforms into a mutant that has eyes and can split apart, the watcher of the show can then realize that Shinichi's right arm has been taken over by a what could be called an extraterrestial being that takes a form of its own while stuck to Shinichi as if it was a symbiote, a fused parasite. This parasite gets named and is then to be known as Migi, which translates into 'right arm.'

It is instantly noticeable from the very first few seconds of the first episode that the world is being invaded by these heartless, emotionless beings that arrive to try to take over the world both violently and psychologically. Migi tells Shinichi that he was about to take him over completely, but because he could not get into the brain because of Shinichi not allowing his entrance from the right arm, Migi had to take over the right arm only. What makes these supposed body invaders interesting is that, according to Migi, they specialize in cannibalism. The parasites that take over a dog only eat dogs, and just like so, parasites that take over humans only eat humans. Invading humans is their main goal because a parasite that ate a dog mentioned that he 'failed,' just like how Migi 'failed' because it only ate Shinichi's right arm.

The main story of Parasyte the Maxim deals with Shinichi and Migi collaborating in order to fight off other parasites that get much stronger and smarter by the minute. Cruel murders happen around the globe which is caused by the invaders and the humanity is starting to make their move against them with weapons. In the backgrounds the parasite kind that have taken over humans try to invade into politics, schools, etc. so that they can try and take over the world in a way that no one could ever guess.

Kiseijuu: Parasyte -the maxim- is a fascinating series. It is thriller and slightly action-oriented with a slice of romance. The romance aspects of the series could be much better but the writing style does tell the watcher and the reader that it's been done ~30 years ago, so the slight cringiness and the rare cliches that can be spotted while following the series through, might throw some people off a bit and stop their immersion on the series, however, Parasyte stands through the test of time extremely well all-in-all. Boosted with a neat soundtrack and consistent animation and artwork, Kiseijuu ends up being a gripping and entertaining tale that does not feel like it's a braindead series filled with repetitive and copy-pasted tropes used to garner specific audiences, which is sadly a thing that a ridicilous amount of anime these days tend to do.