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Parasyte: The Maxim
Monsters Inside
Series in a Sentence
High schooler Izumi Shinichi is thrust into a battle against body-snatching alien parasites after his right hand is infected with a parasite of his own.
What I liked
My experience with Parasyte, also known as Kiseijuu, started with me finding the manga randomly online and loving it. Something about the old school character designs and story beats, which can be attributed to the series’ age, struck me as refreshing in a field of more modern series. You can imagine, then, that the announcement of an anime series a year after reading the manga both excited and worried me. Thankfully, with a few exceptions that didn’t really detract from the series, the anime delivered. The character designs were mostly faithful to source material while still being modernized in the adaptation, which allowed the anime to convey the growth of characters through different designs over time in a great way, there were some solid music tracks, the show didn’t shy away from its violent roots, and the story itself is great. Focusing on the struggle of finding out who you really are and utilizing your strength for the sake of others, Parasyte’s story of growth and self-discovery is one riddled with high-paced action as well as emotional highs and lows that really gripped me. Despite the fact that I read the manga, this series was one I looked forward to weekly.
What I Didn’t Like
If you couldn’t tell, I really loved the series so the things I didn’t like were small nitpicks in the context of a bigger picture. The first nitpick I had is one that won’t even bother most people and that is the slight change in designs for a few characters. While I praised the modernization of the series, I felt like some of the old-school charm was lost by changing some designs. Likewise, while I praised some of the music, the use of dubstep really didn’t do it for me and made some fights feel like old Call of Duty highlight reels.
Overall Feelings
For a series based on a manga published in the 90’s, Parasyte: The Maxim aged really well. Sure, there were moments where the series tried too hard in my eyes to be modern (see the dubstep music and some character design changes) but as a whole the old school charm wasn’t lost. The theme of growth and self-discovery was woven perfectly into the battle format, the violence was as over-the-top as an alien fight series should be, and the characters and character development were memorable. After watching the series, all of my doubts about whether or not it could deliver on the memories I had of the manga faded away. It was a great adaptation and I highly recommend it to anyone. Oh yeah one last thing: the opening is absolute fire. Look inside yourself and you might find something you didn’t know was there.