Kiseijuu: Sei no Kakuritsu

Humans are bad. They ruin the beautiful planet earth. No, wait, humans are actually good and all bad people aren’t humans. Eating meat is evil, or it’s a part of nature. Killers kill because they’re unrestrained and society is the only thing that keeps us from killing all that surrounds us. Planet earth is beautiful, and the fate of the world is in the hands of a teenage sex bomb and his, well, talking hand. Also, bass occasionally drops.

The concept isn’t bad. A talking hand gains automatic Cool Points and it doesn’t prevent the story from exploring deeper things. Having a sex bomb for a ... main character isn’t a death sentence. It’s when the anime juggles 90’s Sci-Fi weirdness with no insight or boldness. The parasites are cool at first, but not for 24 episodes. Shinichi is a good-natured sex bomb and people are evil because they’re evil, so where’s the shock value?

The problem with Parasyte isn’t that it’s stupid. The problem is that it wants to be smart. Too many times it points to a bigger idea, something about human nature and eating meat. Then it undoes every insight it has by having sex bomb characters, pornographic violence and cheap emotional manipulation. The techniques don’t match the aim of the anime.

Parasyte ends up joining the ranks of pretentious grimdark anime who think violence equals depth. The violence is fun for a while. Limbs are torn off without a second thought. The Parasytes distort the human body in Cronenberg’s favorite ways. You can’t carry an entire show based on that though. The creators quickly run out of visual ideas. Besides the blades, muscle tissue and eyeballs everywhere the Parasytes don’t have much to offer. Blood stops being shocking after a few gallons. The action scenes are hardly action scenes. A lot of fighting is simply blades clanging in the speed of light.

Clearly, the series wants to be more than a silly Sci-Fi story about bodysnatchers. It’s hard to take it seriously when the lead character is a sex bomb and nobody points out how weird it is. Every female character with a speaking role expresses interest in him. The teenage ones’ affection are clearly towards romantic. Does that sound like a harem premise to you?

The difference between this anime and other harems is that it’s serious. It never addresses the fact all the females somehow love Shinichi. Yes, it should considering it happens so much. There’s even beating up of another girl’s asshole boyfriend. From a distance, the abundance of female characters is nice since stories like these are often criticized for the lack of female presence. Then again, if the main thing they do is to stroke the main character’s ego what’s the point?

Having sex bombs for characters in such serious shows is always funny. While the anime preaches to us about how horrible the world is, how horrible humans are and how dare we eat meat it forgets losers and winners are everywhere. Sexuality isn’t some antidote to our violent nature. Sexuality and violence go hand-in-hand. Both have winners and losers, defeaters and defeated. The difference is, violence is more fair. Unless you disabled, you can use your fist. I guess the creators are all sex bombs too.

Is calling Shinichi ‘privileged’ making me look insensitive? He loses people left and right, and yet he still comes off as a boring, privileged dude. External and internal troubles are not the same thing. Although a lot of terrible things happen to Shinichi, he has no internal struggle. He has no lens through which to view the horror.

Attack on Titan is an obvious comparison. Both deal with an epic battle of humanity against another being, and in the center is a teenage superhero. Eren also loses loved ones and is knee deep in the abyss. Unlike Shinichi, he has a clear personality through which the suffering is filtered. Eren doesn’t just feel bad over his troubles. He views them in his idealistic, hero-delusional lens. In contrast, Yukki (Future Diary) and Shinji (Neon Genesis Evangelion) react to the danger with fear and avoidance. Shinichi has no such lens. He gets sad and screams in sorrow for a while.

Nothing actually drives him. Survival doesn’t count, since all organism are driven by survival (or well-being). He’s barely active in the story. Things happen to him and that’s it. The only decision he makes are whether to fight or flee. It almost sounds clever, since the anime wants to say something about how humans are still animals. Only it’s not true, of course. Humans are the only organism who are aware of their own death, of their consciousness. You need such cognitive abilities to start thinking about existence. The Parasytes start going existential, too.

Characters die all the time. The light/dark contrast is clever and will never lose its shine. Here it ends up being a cheap trick. Nearly every character that’s introduced will die. Some die in the same episode they’re introduced. Others are lucky to survive a few more episodes. The game of ‘who will die next?’ may entertain some, but that’s just gruesome RealiTV. It’s easy to recognize who will die and how. Many characters die so Shinichi can grieve over them, feel bad and then not change. He doesn’t have a personality that can change. The result is cheap manipulation of the viewer. Introduce a character, makes us relate to them and then rip their heads off.

There is a little spark, a little energy here. The anime is based on an old manga, and you can see it. The tropes and storytelling style all belongs in an older time, of moral heroes and sci-fi paranoia. It’s another thing that’s almost clever. They could’ve mixed the moral heroism/optimism of Shinichi with the 90’s techno-paranoia that gave us “Spaceman”. There’s no attempt to bridge these two, though. Shinichi is moral for convenience and the darkness is here to shock. He would’ve probably been one of Reznor’s ‘pigs’ with how bland he is, or one of Manson’s Beautiful People.

It’s nice the soundtrack keeps up with the times and gives us Bass Music of all kinds. I love Skrillex and Zomboy and Knife Party and all these. The soundtrack is so good, in fact, that I hope it will make its way to Excision’s Shambhala mixes. Sadly, the few bass drops don’t make up for a shitty story. They make it slightly more bearable.

Parasyte is crap. There’s no way around it. What starts off as fairly bizarre loses its shine quickly. It’s another grimdark anime where people die violently and this is somehow reflective of how terrible life is. Parasyte plays a little more with light and dark, but in the end it all leads back to the abyss. Don’t expect the depths you can get by going to suicide communities though. It’s so much of an abyss as it is a black wall.

1.5 bad Cronenberg movies out of 5

Me: Whats a parasite? Where do they come from?
Story Writer: Dunno lol

Essentially I liked this Anime and hated it at the same time...
It went from a cool action orientated anime about aliens that have swords for hands, to a drama filled romance anime with the main character asking himself "wat is lyfe!"

The sound is completely horrid with sound effects done by a twelve year old and a soundtrack made by Skrillex (None of the soundtrack fits). The art is alright but is nothing to write home about. The characters make me want to cry as the show constantly tries to make the characters "seem" interesting, ... but by doing so reveals just how bland and stupid these characters actually are. The Story is actually the best thing about this anime, and even that has its flaws (to go into this would lead to spoilers).

To sum it up.
Loved the Start hated the Middle and ending.
The 2 love interests are retarded.
Kana gets told to not do shit, does it anyway.
Murano is confused about everything.

This anime is literally what makes me want to throw up. Every time someone has suggested that I watch this garbage, it makes me want to tear my hair out. I don't understand how people have any love for this.

The only thing this anime has going for it is the art/animation, that shit was okay, but when it came down to the anime's story and character development, Parasyte has completely screwed itself over. Parasyte had the opportunity to be a 'good' anime, but they completely destroyed that hope after the first two episodes when there was completely miss-matching music, the dubstep just completely threw ... me off of it.

The fight scenes being screwed over by the terrible dubstep and the fact that they last around 2-4 minutes at a max is an extremely bad thing.

Moral of the story, do not watch Kiseijuu: Sei no Kakuritsu/Parasyte: The Maxim or whatever the hell it's called, because it is not worth your time of 24 episodes. Just find something better and cooler to watch, you won't regret it.

[A quick note: There will be some minor spoilers here, but the source material for this show is 25+ years old so go figure. The narrative is by no means original or groundbreaking but I will avoid mentioning anything overly significant.]

So, Parasyte has finally come to a close and the adaption turned out to be simultaneously good and bad at the same time. You know, like most anime. If you haven’t heard about this show yet, it’s the one everyone is talking about with the main character who has a weird alien growing out of his hand and struggles with the implications of how this ... will affect his chronic masturbation habit, amongst other things. Or was that Midori Hibi…

On the plus side, the pacing was done pretty well (until the final arc, where Shinici lives in a small village community for a number of days as represented by mere minutes of screen-time). Parasyte did manage to sell suspense to the audience well enough as the story unfolded. However there were a few patchy parts and some of the climatic parts were often hurt by censorship.

Nonetheless, we got to see Shinichi change massively as a character – from bumbling self-conscious nerd to an existentially challenged hybrid parasyte murderer over the course of 24 episodes. And for the most part he was likable. It was interesting to watch him attempt to understand his relationship with Migi (the creature that has morphed into his hand) and the implications of playing host to such an intelligent yet wildly unpredictable and bizarrely foreign entity.

Conversely, Murano managed to single-handedly cripple the show in ways that are impossible to overlook. She is a very old-school love interest: she’s totally gorgeous, possesses the brain of a goldfish and the personality of a particularly unremarkable rock. Not even the voice talent of the omnipresent Kana Hanazawa could save such a poorly written character.

Murano is constantly at Shinichi’s side throughout the show like a sad puppy, hoping to understand his erratic behaviour despite the fact he keeps everything secret from her. I can’t count the number of times she said “Are you really Shinichi-kun?”. It was fucking mind-numbing. If she had a personality or some ambition then maybe I could connect with her but she has nothing. She simply just is. For the sake of it.

Fortunately there are a bunch of more interesting side-characters, and the relationship between Migi and Shinichi was cool.

Unfortunately, the OST was unremarkable and the action scenes were hit and miss. World-building was handled well enough but the narrative was plagued by a couple of significant hiccups, relying on Muranos selective memory (did I mention she was stupid and forgetful?) and possibly even stupider police decision-making to advance the plot. These flaws were particularly difficult for me to overlook.

An additional sin made by Parasyte came in the form of an epilogue. Shinichi treats us to a pseudo-intillectual and complentative monologue that touches on how humans are actually kind of greedy creatures themselves and, get ready for this bombshell: parasitic in nature, and that we should be nicer to each other and our environment.

In essence, Parasyte was not a bad show. Although it likes to think it’s a lot smarter than it actually is.

This anime is as bad as it is overrated, I watched all 24 episodes, and frankly I admit it was good for a little while but things got rotten when the anime hit the second half.

They call it a horror anime and one of the best anime in recent memory, I found it to be quite repetitive and lacking in anything good. The animation was pretty top notch but the characters, theme, and story were incredibly shitty and the protagonist is a bad toady version of Shinji Ikari who doesn't really change and and he keeps melting into poop because I have lost all respect ... for this anime.

They try to make the series interesting by adding themes of Environmentalism, survival, Human condition, and the complexity of morality but the painful truth is that people of the current generation overanylse everything and try to get all philosophical and shit but the anime itself is nothing but stylized action and cheap jump scares and the audience is high on weed trying to cope with the utter faliure of this anime.

The characters fail miserably to intrigue me, most of them are bland and uncolorful and the protagonist doesn't have any real character development apart from changing into a mopey whining pathetic crappy hero who is as interesting as a log of wood in the toilet. He just helps people, that all he does, he is a cliched reluctant superhero who doesn't bother to help himself, even if it turns him into an asshole. That's not my kind of hero.

Reiko Tamura, one of the villains was kinda of okay but after her so called heartbreaking death and how she learned about the value of human life really pissed me off. You think you can just redeem yourself by dying, even though you murdered dozens of people and terroized an entire nation, and then release an mass murdering super parasite on the people, no freakin way, she went the coward's way out and she gets no sympathy from me. She's a horrorible self serving asshole bitch who deserved an painful death with no restraints.

In my final paragraph, perhaps one of the worst parts of this anime is the emtional scenes, its overused and overhyped nowadays and everybody wants to cry all the time. I'm not saying that stuff is bad but when you overuse it to tighten the emtional quality, it's gets ridicious and overbearing. One of the most underhanded methods is when they try to make you cry, not just because of the intellectual factor but just to make something that's clearly sad and make you ball your eyes out. It's repugent and stupid and I find it's commonly used these days to bolster the ratings of the networks that air these shows.
You can trick my eyes into crying but my Brain knows what your really doing and your damn lucky, I won't book a flight to Japan and kick your arrogant hippy asses.

I'm out.

Dropped after episode 9. I'm no expert on the series but I'll give it my thoughts. This is a short one because I only got partway through.

Parasyte is not a good show. However, the anime community seems to believe that it is. Parasyte looks at several philosophical ideas, which are interesting in their own right, and does a reasonable job of addressing them. But a good anime has to do more than that. That being said, the positive reviews of this show don't seem to praise that and instead praise the story's pacing and character development. I just can't agree with this sentiment at ... all. The first word that comes to mind when thinking about Parasyte is 'BORING'. I would say that the show falters in pretty much every aspect. The story is poorly constructed, though that I imagine it improves slightly along the way. The art is below average, suffering often and having to maintain poor character designs and a dreadfully boring color palette. The sound is poor. And of course, the worst is the characters. Yikes. I can't even tell what this series is trying to do. It does nothing. Well, let's get into it.



[Rating]
Story: 5
Art: 4
Sound: 3
Character: 2
Enjoyment: 3
Overall: 3



[Story: 5]

To me, this is a generous rating. I expect the story to improve during the latter half of the series -- as most stories do -- but even in that case, I don't see myself enjoying Parasyte at all. The story completely lacks agency. The device by which the plot moves is Migi telling Shinichi that something is happening, and then Shinichi reacting to whatever it is. It does not feel like the protagonist, or really anyone, is moving the plot forward. Things are just happening around him and he predictably reacts to it by doing something heroic. There are villains that don't really seem like villains because they have no real attachment to Shinichi, they just exist in the world and happen to involve Shinichi for the sake of the narrative. The series tries to string along the audience cliffhangers, but even that isn't very compelling.



[Art: 4]

The art is close to average. I would say that it almost looks good, but the color palette is a big burden to uphold. Everything is muted and boring all the time. Look towards Psycho-Pass for something that has a similar style but executes much better. Beyond that, the animation just falters in general. Animation can be choppy and the characters flub pretty often. The character design is boring. If this series is trying to be action series, it fails. The action is just blades flying around. No punch. No choreography or engaging angles during fights. In my opinion, this should have strived to be animated like Psycho-Pass, and it is very far off from that.



[Sound: 3]

The voice acting is bad. Specifically Shinichi's mom, but several characters don't make the cut. There aren't really any character themes. There is maybe one good song in the score, but there are others that are just confusing. The show seems to often adopt fast-paced electronic themes in 'intense' moments, which doesn't mesh with the aesthetic of the show and just falls flat. My guess is that it tries for this direction because of the (first?) OP, which is pretty decent. But I think we should expect better of our anime than to base the show content off an OP track. The effects are lacking and don't provide any punch or excitement.



[Character: 2]

Are there any characters? The minor characters are all bad. I think Kana has some potential but that's just me hoping there is something redeemable about the characters. You would expect Murano to be a big character in the series but she is completely worthless thusfar. The villains are poor and really stick around Shinichi 'just because'. It seems many of the positive reviews seem to highly value the development made by Shinichi and Migi. From what I've seen so far, this is just misplaced. OK, Shinichi goes from a wimp to a manly man. That can be a great development, but the show doesn't execute well at all. Shinichi just goes from a boring baby (a shitty character) to AoT's Eren Yeager (another shitty character) overnight. Why is this exciting? It doesn't feel real because it just 'happens', and the outcome character is still beyond boring. Furthermore, he doesn't go through any emotional development like a normal human would to get to this point, something biological happens to his body. The audience cannot relate to this. I've read some plot synopses that indicate that Shinichi and Migi begin to understand their differences as species and begin to come to a more unified understanding on how they should value other people, and that sounds potentially good. But I have no reason to believe that show will execute it in a way that improves the characters at all, because it has failed to do so thusfar.



[Enjoyment: 3]

Cliffhangers are the only 'enjoyable' part. I thought the series was going to take a great turn at episode 6, but it disappointed me. Again. The show is just boring. Poor action, poor tension, and very poor drama and characters, which the show does devote a lot of effort into. I can't tell you what this show tries to be because it fails at everything. Serious, the best thing it does it cliffhang (poorly) and can't maintain that because the plot and characters suck.



[Overall: 3]

Boring. Do not recommend watching. Offers nothing of value from what I have seen. I don't know what this show is going for, but it isn't doing it well.

I held out for so long on expressing my thoughts about this show. I figured, "Hey, maybe there was some underlying meaning in it all along," so I kept that at the back of my head and tried to think about Parasyte as a thought-provoking anime about human behavior and the threats of survival—

Which in my pure and honest belief, themes that aren't that strong to even save a crippling plot progression for the second half.

It may have been a few months since I watched Parasyte, but oh boy, do I remember distinctly how I felt like everything became a waste of time when I ... finished watching it.

Let's go straight ahead with the plot and execution. Shinichi Izumi is one of the victims of the silent invasion of extraterrestrial parasitic beings called Parasytes (may be, may be not, but for the sake of this review let's assume they're called such). However, he manages to prevent the complete invasion of the Parasyte inside him and traps the alien inside his right hand. The being turns out to have eaten his right hand and replaced it, and together they learn to co-exist as a team in order to survive against other hosts of the same race which varies on either neutrality or hostility.

Pretty simple for an entry in the science fiction. However, what Parasyte suffers from is not the cliché premise nor the straightforward outline—it's the fact that it's not a good show.

Despite a simple Point A to Point B storyline, the show never really knows what's it supposed to be—which I would like to call the Sword Art Online syndrome. It has romance, it has angst, it has sex jokes, it has blood, it has politics, it has ethics—but how the fuck do you cram that within 24 episodes and not look like a mess?

Well, it's not exactly the problem. The problem is Parasyte has terrible balancing of these genres. You have similar shows of roughly the same length like Evangelion that may be debatable on its plot progression and themes, but still pulls off the same tone all throughout. It had comedy, it had seriousness—but it never feels so overpowering and the show knows when it should stop.

Granted, that the show actually gets more serious in the later episodes of the series, with certain characters getting entangled in Shinichi's mess and the grief of maintaining a romantic relationship because of intergalactic affairs, but here comes the underlying problem of getting nowhere—not the genres this time, but the plot.

I did not understand what the hell was going on in the last couple of episodes. Everything had poorly-paced narratives, and not enough explanations were given on why they were doing this and why they were doing that. I wish I can elaborate more, but the more I tried to wrap my head around it, it fucking rips into pieces. The show starts off as a psychological sci-fi shounen-like first half, and the next episodes were a goddamn political and morally questioning thriller—which, mind you, should definitely be the direction it was taking, but there was no absolute reason why these situations are being thrown around suddenly!

I'm sure I've repeated myself in different phrases, but the pacing in this show is terrible, and makes me wonder how much content Madhouse had to cut off from the manga.

What's the next thing to dislike about Parasyte? Its poorly-written characters.

For the love of God do I not understand Shinichi's character development. He starts off as a wimp, then after [the thing which must not be spoiled] he turns into a badass with a nice hairdo. Then, after another shift in the final arc of the story, he's suddenly reverted to this wimping coward who just realized how he's scared for his life? Like no shit! And you may claim that the situations he's in are enough to make someone regress into cowardice, but the point stands that the bad pacing of this show ruins any semblance of notable character development.

Migi was okay, but I didn't feel anything special about him as much as he feels for humans. Murano, aside from being voiced by KanaHana, has nothing to go for as the main girl. And Kana, aside from being voiced by Sawashiro, has nothing to go for at all. I mean, why do people like this character? Just because she's some clingy bitch who can't even listen? She's just as poorly written as much as Murano is. The only character I have at least a little bit empathy for was Ryouko, and that's not saying much, considering how little her involvement was in Shinichi's arc aside from discussing philosophy and handing over a baby.

A lot of the praise to the show goes from its animation studio Madhouse, a long-standing behemoth of consistent quality and a role model for good production values—and I couldn't agree more. For Parasyte, however...

It's not to say that Parasyte had bad animation, per se, but I didn't feel as much sakuga as I expected. To top it off, there isn't enough gore as I felt it should have, coming from a show that has aliens preying on humans. I guess it's the thing with the show feeling more like a shounen than a seinen—which were my expectations. And the fight scenes were honestly boring—I felt more hyped watching JoJo fights where it's mostly oraoraoras.

If there's one thing I will always remember about Parasyte that was great, its the wonderfully animated OP that brings me goosebumps every time I hear it that also blends greatly with its song. The ED is a calming song after a long hard day at alien work and suits Shinichi's character nicely. The rest of the soundtrack—forgettable. I'd be fine with the dubstep if they didn't put it in every goddamn insert.

Was Parasyte deep, though? In some ways, I think it is. However, these themes are not well-explored and while the show would have been a good metaphor for racism and other heinous human acts, its execution really undersells its message.

I didn't hate Parasyte, but I feel like its writing is an insult to aspiring writers like me, who value pacing as an importance out of all things, and it strikes the heart how something like this is highly rated on MAL. People like Parasyte for the wrong reasons, because it's supposedly an "edgy" show for the cool kids. Parasyte is likable because it explores these themes that can be likened to other exceptional sci-fi shows with depth—which should be valued more as opposed to this heaping pile of mess.

For what it is, Parasyte is a good entry-level anime. But it's not even the best in being one. There are better shows out there that are worth your time, with the same level of impressiveness and theme explorations that do not slip on its own pace.

Parasyte...

is an interesting show, a good concept in paper but honestly this is one of the worst series I have ever seen. I will give my points on why this series is so dreadful to watch and describe some story bits here and there so yeah expect spoilers because they need to be told for some parts.

Story = 3

The story starts very simple, you have this ordinary and normal world, no magic, no superpowers, nothing out of the ordinary when suddenly these creatures from outerspace looking blobs show up and start invading living beings bodies ,from Humans to dogs. When we meet our main character ... Shinichi which is infected by one of them, so he tries to understand this fusion within his body and try to live a normal life but also understand this blob looking thing which they agree to call Migi.

The story starts very simple, trying to keep going in life and not make such a fuss about this invasion of new creatures, but the fusion Migi tried to do with Shinichi fails because he could not reach his brain and now lives as part of his right arm. At first the story explains how these creatures survive by killing humans and killing other parasytes alike among other things that incllude when they decide to attack and some of their natural instincts they have. After the introduction is explained then the story makes a big 180 with a plot of revenge against these creatures because Shinichi loses someone important in his life because another parasytes kills that person. So he decides to protect and defend humanity against them and also exterminate every single one of them. Continuing with that then it is obvious that these creatures showing up and leaving death bodies in every corner around gets attention from the government and then we go with this philosophical cliche dilemmas if parasytes are good or bad beings, and why humanity is bad because they are the destroyers of everything surround him to later end that parasytes adapted and now live within the humans that they killed using their bodies as the human they are possessing

This show's story in simple words doesn't know what it wants to be, they throw these ideas out of the blue just because reasons. The actions that drive the story are so poorly done, the dialogue is sometimes very lame, the actions and the characters are very idiotic to drive the story. But more of that later, because that's what affects the story more. Also the story tries way too hard to play with your feelings in such cheap and crappy way. Because again the characters that die in this show are so low on energy and simply not memorable at all except for the first death that is related to Shinichi. Also also this show throws super powers out of the nowhere because reasons. They establish that the setting is a normal and mundane world and only parasytes grant you super abilities but for some reason we have characters that become clairvoyants because.... yes again reasons and nothing is explained on how those super powers exist.

Character = 2

If there are no characters there is no story but honestly I could not find characters at all except for 2, the main protagonists Shinichi and Migi.

Migi is the best out of both, because it shows how it is very antihuman in nature like not understanding human feelings, reasons and emotional drives everyone has. Also with a mentality of surviving no matter what and in mind that he has to cooperate with Shinichi to achieve that. Migi does the job done of being the creature that wants to understand the human society but that fails to comprehend at all seeing that as waste of time even as something as basic of having a name. It is just that but is so well portraited that you get to understand and care for the hanging arm.

Shinichi is also very well portraited, he is afraid of all this chaos and rampage that is invading his life and the others. But with Migi being part of him he loses the sense of being human and goes in a very cold tone in many ways but also trying to not lose his soul and heart.

These 2 are very basic characters but the actions and relations they have to just keep living complements each other and actually make a good pair that transform them into one solid character if you can say that because share the same body but for the rest.. hoo boy I have a lot to say.

First Murano is one of the dumbest and ridiculous characters I have ever seen, she is in constantly in love with Shinichi but starts to notice that he has changed but she still talks to him and tries to hit him and make him notice her. But when she talks to him and sees some of his actions she gets sad for seeing the drastic changes Shunichi has, but when she tries to accept him and sees that he is good in nature, she accepts him until another wrong action happens with him and we go into a infinite loop of "I love you but you changed, but I accept you, but I hate you because you change". Can this girl decide if he is good or not jeez? the unnecessary whining is so idiotic. Also she is a big airhead because along the story there is a part where Shinichi saves her by him falling with HER from like a 10 floor bulding and then him jumping through a barricade of like 4 meters and believe he was drived by the moment. I mean what kind of stupidity you have to be believing that a normal human can do that. Again this is a normal and mundane, no magic nothing like that at all setting, so no human is possible to do that simply 0% at all and to believe that it's because of the adrenaline rushing through your body is simply lazy, playing and making a fool out of the users watching. There is no characteristic besides that from her, she is useless and doesn't add anything to the series except of Shinichi wanting to protect her from the parasytes.

Then we have Kana, oh another useless character, she for some reasons has wet dreams with Shinichi, after she being part of thugs that assault Shinichi and touches him, she gets this superpower of sensing parasytes. Then with her it is just that wet dream, meeting with shinichi and use of her power, repeat the loop. It is not explained at all how this power came to be, it is just there because............. yeah again no explanation. She uses this power to attract Shinichi but for what? Just to get killed because the dumbass doesn't know that it makes her sense other human eating parasytes around the area. So knowing that she just risks her life like an idiot just to see if her wet dream of Shinichi and her making babies comes true and it is just that. She doesn't serve another purpose than being another person Shinichi must protect. This character could be cut from the show and you don't miss anything at all.

Then the human population as a whole is simply more retarded. There is one episode when a parasyte invades the school Murano and Shinichi go and shows that is a threat and danger to everyone around. Later they have a parasyte camouflage as a student and after getting poisoned and can't return to a human form,then it starts attacking everyone that is around it, just to show the students happily joking and KNOWING the threat like that already happened and that killing teachers and other students is not a big deal. But for some reason this is lovely goofy trick and prank of some sorts to them when it is clearly that is not something like that. Yeah I will be laughing my ass knowing that my life is in danger after hearing many news of brutal deaths of local citizens around my city. So normal right???

Also when the government gets the inside of what these creatures are and tell the population on how to detect them, noboby questions how to protect yourself from them in such case to say at least, when they report that the parasyte that they found and made test on him that he killed students, teachers and police reinforcements during the moment they tried to stop it. What they say is that they have to pull part of your hair and if some cells are moving after doing it they demostrate that they are parasyte and you defend with nothing, because you are already dead. Honestly is this society so stupid to don't question things like that? The show just go and roll with it because again reasons unknown. So yeah the government is horrendous at this but also the citizens not questioning nothing at all contribute to this idiotic way of life.

Finally the other parasytes, they are simply bland. The only ones that have some traits are Ryouko and Parasite. Ryouko with its understanding more about the humans, like doing sexual acts and raising a child as it is in a woman body but just that. Parasite would have been a great character to add with the dilemma of parasites adapting to its human partner and not controlling him/her completely but it is wasted because Shinichi and his owner Uda are the only ones that achieve this cooperation. The rest of the parasytes in the show are your typical villain of the week showing up and trying to devour everything in their path, even the last parasyte form called Gotou is just that, a multiple parasytes body created by Ryouko just to see how it goes with this social experiment until they die. Nothing more than that.

Sound = 5

The sound is a mixed bag. Some tunes are great some are just meh. The main ones being Next to You and Speak. But the Dubstep included in fight scenes is so out of place. They just throw it to put an ost there and I like dubstep music but it is just inserted because the scene needs music but it doesn't have something good to it, when they changed to the more instrumental and dramatic tunes for the fight scenes it got better. The opening and ending for me feel out of place. The opening is just your typical screamo autotune edge song that is required in your show if it has some gore in it and the ending is like meh, the song is not bad but it feels out of place when you see a head being cut from its body and tons of blood to this relaxed song coming up, it feels weird. The transition that they do is so sudden after a brutal scene happened. The voice actors do a great job, they portrait the characters really good even when some are just lifeless characters in the show but they bring out the little heart and soul they have,

Art=9

Simply outstanding. The character design is so well done. There aren't any weird frames when you pause an episode, the highspeed of the parasytes attacking each other is fabulous and exciting to watch. Everything is so fluid in this show and so amazing to watch and appreciate. The only thing I would criticize is the CGI in large crowds. Holy cow this tendency keeps going. They just look weird and like those early 3D videogames attempts but with HD resolution. They look bad honestly but other than that the production Madhouse did simply surpasses a lot other shows that do animate even to this day (2019)

Enjoyment = 3

Many things bugged me with this show. So many inconsistent things going with the story, the changed of the plot is horrible and the crappy superpower without explanation was tough to watch without questioning every single time. I couldn't entertain myself with this besides the battles and the AMV I did for this thing.

Overall = 2

This show is simply dumb, they treat the spectator as an idiot with their crappy plot points and inconsistent direction. Besides the battles and wanting to find how will end, I don't see the appeal of this, it is so basic but the basicness of it lacks a lot of elements that could be improved even if is adapted from an 80s manga and change the setting to this 2010s world,

Well thanks for reading this review. Enjoy whatever you are doing and see you around this site. Take care.

I haven't watched to the end yet but feel that I've watched a sufficient amount to share my thoughts

To be honest, I tried watching it before and couldn't get past how silly Migi looked. But recently I fancied some body horror, I kinda cycle through phases of horror genre, so I stuck it on.

After two days of binge-watching I kinda can't help but feel disappointed. The show started strongly enough. Although not the most original premise the designs of the infested humans are cool and the animation is really nice.

Unfortunately, that leads me to my first criticism. Because of the way it's animated ... the bodies look rubbery, you don't get a sense of the visceral horror of heads splitting apart. It all looks like putty. This can't really be helped though due to the constraints of the medium.

But despite my snobbery I continued watching, I hoped that the story would distract me from the almost Loony Toon quality of Migi. Now I can't say that the story is bad, it's pretty standard stuff; a high schooler being flung into crazy circumstances is hardly ground-breaking. But the body horror aspect really appealed to me. Unfortunately, this seems to take a back seat to the incredibly generic romance of the main two characters.

It made for some frustrating viewing; genuinely interesting plot threads were just glanced over in favour of some generic drama occurring in the MC's life.

That leads me to my last point; nothing had any weight to it because the characters have no substance. Or more accurately all the main characters have no substance. In this series stuff just happens and people just roll with it. After each tragedy at the school all we get it 'and after a short while the school reopened'.
Characters witness terrifying stuff but by the next episode they're fine. Nothing has any impact; massive developments occur and then are never addressed again.

By the end of the anime I got the distinct impression that the writers realised that they'd wasted a load of time and tried to cram in as much intrigue and action as possible. They introduce politics, the police, different parasite factions. But at six or so episodes to the end I can't but question why they even bothered.

Since Parasyte an action anime with underlaying ideas, reason behind watching it can be different based on what they are ire interested in, is it the action, fight scenes and the gore or how Show discuses and explores ideas of human interaction with rest of eco system, overpopulation and morality? While viewer should be interested in both aspects to fully enjoy the show, I have good knows for those who don’t. It is that whether you only like story or action you will be equally disappointed in shows poor executing of both halves.

Show tries do dive into complex topic of humanity and our interaction ... with rest of the world and in 24 episodes it does fuck all to actually develop a thought process or give an interesting way of looking at the issue, instead it resorts to low effort , surface level moral preaching and virtue signaling.

Show wants parasites to seen as product of ecosystem and human actions, so that their goal of human extinction is Humanity’s fault . Problem is though neither of it is true, it’s never truly shown there they came from, but they clearly aren’t from earth rather some alien species who happened to land on our planet.
So, unless our planet sent out some wuju signals to invite them over for cup of tea and human intestines, trying to portray them anything over them alien invaders seem silly.
Secondly , parasites are supposedly have a drive to exterminate humanity, yeah alright but that’s a lie, early on we see parasite who attached to a dog killing dogs so, drive is to kill species which parasite inhabited, ones who happen to take control over humans have driven to kill humans. If that wasn’t enough parasites seem to only really kill then they need to eat, and on top of that it is shown that parasites can survive solely on human food and some do implying they don’t even kill human’s but exist in their society.
So, show undermines its main idea with it whatever it was trying to build on top of it.

Even if you were to miss all of that, show does awful job of exploring human over population, our morality and etc.
You see most if not all good works of fiction can be viewed and enjoyed at different depths. This is true for almost any semi decent work of literature and its same with anime and I will give you few examples.

Demi-chan wa Kataritai can be viewed as a Moe slice of life show about few high schoolers and they teachers and its fucking great show. But it can also be seen as a commentary of how individuals with special needs try to function with rest of society and how support, love and care can help them overcome life’s challenges.

One punch man is a show of awesome super here punching the shit out of monsters, but it also explores themes of human happiness and how overcoming challenges, difficulties is as important for human happiness as our hobbies.

Psycopass is show about detective squad who try and catch terrorist in future dystopian japan, but it’s also about human conciseness, how much of us do we really have control over or if we even have any control over our actions and desires.

This are 3 but there are hundreds of not thousand examples.
Now how does Parasyte manage with this,

Well animation is adequate, it’s not good but its good enough not to be called shitty, fight scenes aren’t creative nor have interesting choreography, there seems to be only 2 osts show has slow melody for “feel” moments and some dubstep/hip hop mix for action sequences.
Voice actions was weak and none of character’s left an impression on me, main and side heroines only really exist so that protagonist to project security and safety over and get mad when they get hurt, rest of cast is even more insignificant.
Story itself is disappointing, it had strong start combining gore, horror and mysterious degraded as show went on with very uninspired final antagonist

Well that half is shit but my its commentary is better, I hear you asking in dishopefull voice, unfortunate aside from few interesting dialogs in first few episodes show has nothing give aside from excuse that was final narration where it does shiftiest moral preaching of most cookie cutter opinions and ideas. Either show thinks its viewers are 3rd graders and need to have premise of the show chewed out and presented for them to understand or it released how horrible it handled rest of episodes and stuffed final commentary as hail marry to salvage the mess.

Overall, I found Parasyte waste of time to watch, far from something I would recommend.
But sitting at 8.47 its clear that a lot of people have enjoyed the show immensely so it is up to you to decide who to believe.
Final Score 3/10

At the time of selecting this to watch, Parasyte was top 20 on the "top 100 anime" list I had on hand. "Seems promising," I had thought. I should've known better.

Parasyte is a messy conglomeration of Death Note, Attack on Titan, and more that I can't think of at the moment.

SPOILERS AHEAD

1. Death Note: What is true justice? -> What is true environmentalism?
2. Attack on Titan: Gotou's (the boss) final form??? His neck is his weak spot!!

Why does the MC Shinichi swoon over his right hand Migi more than his girlfriend? Why didn't his girlfriend break up with him immediately after he threw a ... dead dog into a trash can? Why is there no further explanation about parasites???

Is this anime really as critically acclaimed as animes such as Death Note? Parasyte is just so comically bad. The most emotionally stimulated I felt during this watch was when Shinichi threw the dead dog in the trash, and when I thought his girlfriend finally died.

This anime was so dry I had to switch it up between dub, sub, all on 2x speed.

I’m going to cover both the anime and the manga of Parasyte in this review. So, pretty much, Kiseijuu vs. Kiseijuu: Sei no Kakuritsu. To preface, Hitoshi Iwaaki is one of the most prolific names in Japanese horror comics, Parasyte being his most referenced and revered work. His historical work, Historie, has a lot of fans as well but not nearly as many followers as the people who follow his ever trending, cult classic Parasyte.

• Iwaaki’s art style is very distinctive and he’s even made cameos in famous short story compilations like Neo Devilman, a love letter to Go Nagai more or less with ... many artists interpretations, though with all of the erotic shorts, I think it should be considered a doujinshi. There was even a compilation collection, like Devilman, for Parasyte, called Neo Parasyte.

• Since Devilman went on to influence Berserk’s Kentarou Miura and Evangelion’s Hideaki Anno, and for Iwaaki you can plainly see Parasyte’s effect on the anime horror genre, he’s even had a tremendous influence on the works of Junji Ito though Ito was mostly, verbatim, influenced by Kazuo Umezu, I think that it speaks volumes if they can both inspire so many people that there’s anthology short story collection for both of them.

• You get my point, Parasyte is a very important manga! To be frank, I thought the manga was good and the anime was garbage. I may be biased, since I had read the manga years before the anime aired and I know many people love the animated version, but I, for one, couldn’t get behind it. The animation was inconsistent, if you watch the trailer for the first episode and then compare the animation quality, it’s obvious that they just used all of the well-animated scenes in the promotional material.

• The music was awful, save for the opening because Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas are my jams; there was tone-deaf dubstep playing at inappropriate moments. The comedic timing in the show is horrendous. I know it’s not meant to be a funny show, but the manga had relatively campy humor, like the penis hand and the parasite woman jogging with her top half effaced.

• The panel layout for the penis hand scene actually made it seem in good taste, where the anime version was clunky and weird. I thought the voice acting mostly sounded amateurish in the Japanese audio as well, other than Migi’s voice. I give a thumbs up to his voice actress.

• I didn’t like that Shinichi’s character was adapted in the anime to be a geek that becomes a badass, because is incredibly cliché, and it wasn’t a thing in the manga. When I first saw the character designs, I thought it might be okay, but the anime portrays him as an unlikable perverted loser rather than what he was in the manga: an average 80’s kid.

• The series is chalk full of plot conveniences and stupidity, while the manga is shorter and so, these flaws are practically non-existent. The anime is not a faithful adaptation; there are many artistic liberties taken. The plot is very shaky and unfocused. I believe anything good about Kiseijuu that you want can be found in the manga.

• Overall, don’t watch the anime adaptation. I had the same kind of clairvoyance at the ending of the Kiseijuu manga that I did when I read a good novel, like with The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao written by Junot Diaz, not quite the heightened emotional reaction I got from Nabokov’s Lolita, but a feeling that had me walking outside and the sky seeming more vibrant than usual because of my enlightenment from reading something spectacular. Like aーI’m satisfied being a human feeling.

• I don’t know if any of you can relate to that, but please read the manga instead of watching the anime, so you can actually contract some kind of feeling from an otherwise empty waste of garbage. Parasyte: The Maxim is one of the worst animated adaptations, if not the worst, in anime history. I give Kiseijuu: the manga a 8/10 and the anime a 2/10.

I think that this show had a lot of potential to be interesting but bad writing, mediocre animation, a laughably stupid soundtrack, and an ending that left me lost for words (not in a good way) makes me give this show a 4. However, if I was just rating the last few episodes, then I wouldn't be reviewing it on this site because it does not feature negative numbers as a score.

Parasyte is a show about an alien species invading Earth, taking over the minds and bodies of humans, and killing us off one by one. The main character, Shinichi, is taken over by a ... parasite who he will later name Migi. However, something goes wrong in the process of taking over his body and Migi ends up only taking over his right arm.

This is what initially got me interested in the show. Shinichi is a regular high school student but with this parasite now connected to him and other parasites looking to kill him he must work together with Migi to survive while also hiding his existence from everyone. What makes this interesting is that Migi does not have any emotions. He thinks only with logic and his main and only goal is to survive, with or without Shinichi. Because of this Shinichi has to find ways to deal with him and convince him not to kill his friends, family and sometimes, Shinichi himself.

(Spoilers ahead)

It's a very interesting dynamic that really kept me interested in watching. Especially, when Shinichi is injured and Migi merges parts of himself with Shinichi to keep them both alive. At this point, the show starts to pick up as Shinichi stops being such a whiney bitch and actually starts doing cool stuff. With more and more parasites after him, Shinichi must work even harder to survive. Even sometimes skipping school, which is great because the scenes when he's at school trying to apologize to his girlfriend for the hundredth time over are fucking awful. Although, it seems that right when a plotline or a character starts to get interesting the writers just cut it short. Like one of the characters, Kanna, who was able to sense parasites but was killed off before they could explain why she had that power.

However, right when it seems that the show is starting to get interesting, all the writers all simultaneously get concussions that leave them with permanent brain damage. From this point on the entire story turns into a mess of... I'm running out of words to describe it. It's fucking awful like it's really fucking bad. There's a point where a cop starts suspecting that Shinichi is a parasite and right as he starts to confront him about it the writers don't know what to do so they just have him wake up from a nightmare in his house and never explain what was a dream and what wasn't. Also, the writers were so clueless on how to end the show that they literally show two different outcomes to a situation. Not even kidding they show two different scenes of Shinichi doing two different things. It's fucking ridiculous.

Honestly, most of the show was enjoyable to watch. I'd probably have rated it a 6 or 7 if it wasn't for the last few episodes. Really that abomination disguised as an ending was so bad that it felt like some kind of morally wrong thing to give this show a higher score than 4. Even if most of it was pretty decent.

Spoilers ahead

Parasyte the maxim: notes
Main character is unlikeable. "dickhead" arc lasts too many episodes and happens too early. He's an asshole. They even changed his hair and took off the glasses to make him more of a dick

Love interest does nothing for first half of the series. Not interested

All the plot points about the aliens are contrived and they just gain powers when it suits the plot

Half the characters spend all episode trying to get themselves killed and it's annoying.
...
Pro: they kill off the useless secondary love interest early.

MC can't even notice the detective following him around for a week

My favourite character, Uda-san, only appeared in two episodes. Deus ex machina saved his life at least

Plot makes little sense at times. Two mass killings in the same school and nobody bats an eye the second time? Or the first time?

Teens having sex just for the lols

Father is useless character. Ryoko dies too early.

After Shinichi gains the ability to cry again, he remains boring. MC has no charisma at all

The story tries to make us sympathize with the monsters who murdered thousands of humans just because... we eat animals? Who knows. But it's very stupid and knocks the rating down at least by 2

Environmental moral makes no sense. Advocating for human extermination is fucked up.

Music is atrocious

Why is the lesson of the final story that the MC learns it's okay for the parasites to eat humans because that's how life works?

Well, looks like I watched this one well after all the hype died down, and I think my opinion will be all the more balanced for it. I can see why it would have generated hype during airing; the action, the twisting plot, main character becoming more and more assertive etc. But do I recommend that anyone watch it now? No, not at all. This is a mediocre anime that gets by on it's flashiness. If you are considering watching I encourage you to continue reading my no spoiler review.

This anime commits one of the ultimate crimes a story can commit in my eyes, it ... is aimless and meandering. There is no real through line that links the beginning to the end. The final challenges faced by titular character Izumi have no real link to the beginning of the show. Every rushed "arc" feels like a separate story, which can be done well (see Hunter x Hunter- although that does have much stronger through-lines and recurring characters), but in this case it was not. The main enemy of the story, the final boss if you will, was only introduced about a quarter of the way into the show, and only really given any proper screen time half way into the show.

Another annoying aspect is this weirdly forced environmental message, which is very trite and says nothing above a primary school level of environmental understanding. Izumi just sort of goes on these environmental tangents and it threw me off every time. His love interest- I can't remember her name and it isn't important- was incredibly annoying, doing nothing but crying and complaining at Izumi for the whole show. Their "romance" was worse than Anakin and Padme from the prequels and should not have been implemented in an already rushed show. Honestly, the pacing is so bad, it feels rushed in the interesting parts, and the boring romance and slice of life shit is dragged out. WHY WHY WHY? The secondary love interest was far more engaging, even though she didn't have much going on either.

I know this is more a rant than a review, so... positives? The art is OK, the dubstep stuff in the OST is interesting for an anime and fits the action scenes well. I liked the relationship between Izumi and the symbiote. The show started off interesting when I thought it was going somewhere... Yeah, that about does it. I was gonna give this show a 5/10 but on reflection throughout writing this, 4/10 makes more sense. This is a below average show with flashy animation and action that hides how hollow it is. Please do not waste your time with it.

I came in watching this because I found the initial idea of a symbiotic relationship between a parasite and a human pretty interesting and it looked like the fight scenes were going to be fun. Needless to say I came away very disappointed after only 7 episodes in.

Story (4/10):
This anime starts off as the classic fish-out-of-water scenario with Shinchi as the fish whose worldview is completely turned upside down when an alien parasite attaches to his right hand and reveals that humans are merely fodder for its species. This is fine and all, but the problem is Shinchi continues to be a fish ... and things have to be constantly explained to him (thus us the viewers) by mostly his parasite Migi or other parasites in long drawn out monotone lectures. Literally anything new or unexpected that happens is almost immediately explained by a parasite. "Show, don't tell" is the golden rule of a story telling experience and this anime does a whole lot of telling instead of showing.

This is particularly annoying when the anime tries to invoke deeper messages about the nature of humans and humanity itself relative to other organisms. There is clearly a "right" way of thinking about these kinds of topics because the anime tells us as much in its laughably cliche morality scenes. Also Shinchi even calls himself a "morally-upright high schooler", which means every time he ponders about a moral issue, the side he takes is correct. This is just lazy story-telling.

Beyond that, the story just isn't very interesting at all compared to its premise. Migi, in a span of what I can only guess is a week, is not only able to learn the entirely of the Japanese language but also have a mastery of biology and various other subjects. Tamiya is another parasite that is able to completely impersonate a person to the extent of keeping her host's original social standing as a calculus teacher in Shinchi's highschool. So these parasites are able to learn at inhumane speeds and even integrate into human society with little to no problem whatsoever. However, the greatest aspiration of any parasite I've seen so far is its own survival. [Spoilers] Tamiya may be an exception because she seems interested in studying human society and interaction. So you are telling me these hyper-intelligent shape-shifting parasites with no morality other than survival of the fittest have no other goals than just surviving? What's the point of making them super intelligent if they only want to survive? The heavy implications of such creatures existing in our society is never explored and really is a missed opportunity.

Art (4/10):
The art is fairly ok, there's not much to say about it other than it looks like every other generic anime other than for the parasites. The designs for the parasites are generally pretty unique, I have to give it that. However, this makes their fight scenes disappointing in comparison. The extent of the fight scenes in this anime are the two opposing parasites standing across from each other and using their tendrils with blades at the end to whip and stab at each other at light speeds. Its just a bunch of whip noises and blade clashing sounds while the two characters do a staring contest with a bunch of blurry blades hitting each other in the air. Incredibly unimaginative and a real snoozefest. For a battle between shapeshifting super aliens, there's less action than in a children's card game.

Sound (3/10):
Honestly I have no idea what the director of this anime was thinking when he put in some of these tracks. A great majority of the music is some form of dubstep, but really quiet. The whole point of dubstep is that its dance music. You'll be hard pressed to find any dubstep track thats effective in building tension or reflecting the character's emotional state. The tracks they used definitely do not fit whatsoever and generally detract from the scene that they are put in. Seriously, just watch the first episode when Shinchi meets the dog parasite. The music is so laughably inappropriate that shitty AMV's look like masterpieces compared to that scene.

Character (3/10):
Boring 2D cardboard characters all around except for Shinchi and Migi. And even then, Shinchi is a generic retarded moron nerd that has to get spoonfed everything. Migi is literally a robot with a monotone voice 90% of the time and almost no emotion. Clearly Migi is going to have some development into turning more human as a result of Shinchi's dumbass morality and human qualities. And he'll end up caring about Shinchi because that's how these kinds of animes go. But as of now there is no endearing relationship between the two characters. Or anything at all besides Shinchi (in Migi's words) thinking of Migi as a mild nuisance and Migi needing Shinchi to survive. Seriously? You don't have any overarching stronger emotions regarding an alien whose species eats humans and has threatened to make you blind and deaf? Shinchi freaks out for like half an episode about the whole thing and I guess gets tired of harboring strong emotions. Which is not how a real human would react. The thing about real humans is that it takes a long time to build trust. Longer time if you start off the wrong foot... which having your hand being replaced by a sentient hostile parasite is most definitely a couple of wrong foots there. And the longest if who you're trying to connect with shows no discernible signs of emotion, personality, or empathy. I am just under 1/3 of the way through and there is no development between the two characters other than the generic "you saved me and I saved you and we're both in this together so we must be friends". That's not how humans work. That's just generic anime bullshit.

Enjoyment (4/10):
This was just terrible all around. Enjoyment is definitely not something I got out of this anime. I would say Bewilderment (8/10), Boredom (7/10), Cringe (9/10), Waste of Time (10/10). Seriously there's a lot better than this garbage.

Parasyte works on the gimmick of raising the question of what it means to be human, and our place in the world as a species. Well it falls flat because the author probably never interacted with a real human being in his whole life. That's why the most interesting and expressive characters in the show are the parasites, specially Migi.
There is no contrast from the parasites' disregard for human life and lack of emotions, when the fucking characters also have none. For example, let's look at the MC, he has some semblance of a person in the beginning, then, because of some events he ... becomes more alien to humanity, outside and inside.
He gets much stronger, physically and emotionally, thus he struggles to connect with his fellow human beings. Which could make for an interesting concept if it didn't fall flat because of the lack of character building.
First, we barely got to see which kind of person he was before he turned into an alien. And after that, the supporting cast also doesn't have a fucking clue to which kind of person he was, because all they can say is "MC you changed! Me no like you anymore".
The show also gives him two females to fuck. That's the only way of describing the romance. It has no impact because the only "personality" his love interests have are loving him, that's it.
Remember Steins Gate? The anime that shows a man's descent into madness as he tries to save his lover and his best friend multiple times through time travel? Both which are great characters, specially the lover, which makes you empathize with and understand the MC's struggle.
None of that here, in the end I was rooting for the girl to just fucking die because of her sheer stupidity and blandness.
Speaking of stupidity, do you know how the show makes the aliens look smart? By making human beings the literal incarnation of stupidity. Every one in this fucking show is retarded aside from some parasites.
There's also a gigantic plot hole that involves the government being able to distinguish aliens from humans, telling everyone how to do it, and the next episodes it just fucking fades. Because the mayor was an alien and the author didn't want to scrap this story line he just threw aside a gigantic plot point. When Devilman Crybaby did the same the author actually had guts to throw the story in another wild direction, I'll give him that.
The show is NOTHING more than a teenage power fantasy with a stupid ecological advertising that parades as something deep. Everything falls on top of the MC's lap so he can beat the bullies and kiss the girls. And then the show tries to convince me it's deep cus "human bad he throws trash in earth and kills other animal".
This show is nothing more than a Devilman Crybaby ripoff with a happy ending.

This anime was totally ridiculous.
There was almost no character development, the plot made literally no sense at all, and it just was terrible in general.

The music sounded kind of like some mishmash of annoying xylophone + piano elementary concert number, and the last panel of the opening was a literal jumpscare; I will be having nightmares.

Shinichi Izumi relied only on Migi and was more attached to it than his girlfriend and his 'new him' persona was just so cringey that I almost combusted from how hard my stomach clenched every five seconds of watching this absolute garbage.

Take a brainless amoeba's stupidity and multiply it ... by ten. Add a few mental disorders and you should get Murano Satomi's personality.

Kana can choke on my balls.

Tamura Reiko is a total girlboss, I'll give you that.

Migi is way too overpowered.

I like everyone the same. Which means I hate them all equally.


Overall, my favorite scene in this entire anime was when Shinichi tossed that dead dog into a trash can - or when that little kid cried in front of him and wished that their own mother was dead.

If this anime's genre was comedy, it would rank number one.

Wtf am I watching, and why can't I stop?
This show is extremely frustrating. I really wanted spooky freaky horror thriller, and I'm getting unironic harem with a dash of drama. The whole story is just girls being so unbelievably stupid I can't stop shouting at my screen. The harem is so absurd, I dissociate every time the romance subplot shows up. Also, so many things don't add up and only happen for plot convenience. This show fails on every front.
And yet, I keep watching out of a hopeless desire to get the story I wanted this to be. I know I will be disappointed, but ... it's too late now.

Parasyte is a beautiful show that poses several questions regarding the nature of humanity and what it means to be evil. Unfortunately, the fact that it never actually answers any of these questions combined with it's awful character progression makes this show a headache to watch.

Story
The story is relatively interesting and absolutely kills in the first 7-8 episodes. As the world is built up and the driving character dynamic between Migi and Shinichi is developed, you get a sense of momentum similar to that of Death Note. The rest of the show is typical shounen, cool fights, slow in between scenes, and flat plot lines. ... However, it spends a lot of time on trying to convey a philosophical message regarding human nature and the self. Ryouko's arc specifically is relatively satisfying, but that only covers about 4/5 episodes where she is the focus. The other 50% of the show is a jumble of random superficial questions about what it means to be alive but fails to answer any of them. Some people may think this is a good thing, its up to the viewer to make their own conclusions. However, most people already have their own beliefs and thoughts on the subject, what they want is a different perspective. Parasyte fails to provide anything interesting in that sense. Besides the beginning and Ryouko, almost 50% of the show has barely any contingency and just jumps from flashy fight scene to flashy fight scene.

Art
It's really good, nothing bad to say here. I could complain about how generic the action is. However it deserves credit for the genuinely grotesque visuals of monsters and aliens. If you like really creepy stuff then this is perfect.

Characters
I don't think I've ever seen worse supporting characters in any anime than Parasyte. Most of them just die or get eaten because they're idiots. The one love interest that stays throughout the entire show could literally be replaced with a concrete slab and it wouldn't change in the slightest. Although there isn't a consistent main antagonist, they all make similar nihilistic points that lend to survival of the fittest. Which fittingly mirrors the surface level themes presented by the show. Shinichi is interesting at first, sort of like Astra from black clover, annoying but lovable. However unlike Astra, none of his development is earned. It's explained with some sci-fi stuff (cool I guess) but from a raw character development perspective he basically just skips everything, which makes the rest of the show boring when the literal main character never develops and is just there to carry around Migi. Migi is alright, the robotic pragmatist turned open-minded idealist is always an interesting dynamic. However, it's certainly not enough to drive 24 episodes.

Enjoyment
It's really not awful, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone over the age of 15 but its okay. Ultimately, the problem is that it's just not that interesting. Most people have already thought about the questions and themes it poses. Since it fails to build on any of them they fall flat. On top of that very few of the characters have any significance to an already fragmented and lazy story. If you only care for good animation, flashy fights, and a few mediocre shock scenes sprinkled in then this is an 8/10. but overall...

Overall 4/10
As a work of art, Parasyte is externally fantastic, like a $10,000 inflatable pool is pretty to look at and might be just enough to cool you down in the summer. Unfortunately, it's just not that deep and ultimately not really worth your time.