Kiseijuu: Sei no Kakuritsu (Parasyte: The Maxim)

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Alternative Titles

Synonyms: Parasite, Parasitic Beasts, Parasyte

Japanese: 寄生獣セイの格率

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Information

Type: TV

Episodes: 24

Status: Finished Airing

Aired: Oct 9, 2014 to Mar 26, 2015

Premiered: Fall 2014

Broadcast: Thursdays at 01:29 (JST)

Producers: VAP, Nippon Television Network, Forecast Communications

Licensors: Sentai Filmworks

Studios: Madhouse

Source: Manga

Genres: Action, Horror, Sci-Fi, Suspense

Themes: Gore, Psychological

Demographic: Seinen

Duration: 23 min. per ep.

Rating: R - 17+ (violence & profanity)

Statistics

Score: 8.33¹ (scored by 1,155,139 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #233²

² based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #42

Members: 1,866,951

Favorites: 34,704

Available At

Official Site

@kiseiju_anime

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AniDB

ANN

Streaming Platforms

Crunchyroll

HIDIVE

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May be unavailable in your region.

8.33

Ranked #233Popularity #42Members 1,866,951

Episodes: /24

Synopsis

All of a sudden, they arrived: parasitic aliens that descended upon Earth and quickly infiltrated humanity by burrowing into the brains of vulnerable targets. These insatiable beings acquire full control of their host and are able to morph into a variety of forms in order to feed on unsuspecting prey.

Sixteen-year-old high school student Shinichi Izumi falls victim to one of these parasites, but it fails to take over his brain, ending up in his right hand instead. Unable to relocate, the parasite, now named Migi, has no choice but to rely on Shinichi in order to stay alive. Thus, the pair is forced into an uneasy coexistence and must defend themselves from hostile parasites that hope to eradicate this new threat to their species.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Background

The anime was simulcast by Crunchyroll outside of Asia.

Aside from the manga and anime, the series also has two live-action film adaptations.

The Chinese Ministry of Culture blacklisted Kiseijuu: Sei no Kakuritsu as well as 37 other works on June 9, 2015.

Episode Videos

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Adaptation:

Kiseijuu

More characters

Characters & Voice Actors

Izumi, Shinichi

Main

Shimazaki, Nobunaga
Japanese

Migi

Main

Hirano, Aya
Japanese

Tamiya, Ryouko

Supporting

Tanaka, Atsuko
Japanese

Kimishima, Kana

Supporting

Sawashiro, Miyuki
Japanese

Murano, Satomi

Supporting

Hanazawa, Kana
Japanese

Joe

Supporting

Murase, Ayumu
Japanese

Gotou

Supporting

Inoue, Kazuhiko
Japanese

Uragami

Supporting

Yoshino, Hiroyuki
Japanese

Hirokawa, Takeshi

Supporting

Mizushima, Yuu
Japanese

Uda, Mamoru

Supporting

Suzuki, Takuma
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Nakatani, Toshio

Producer

Shioiri, Souta

Producer

Shimizu, Kenichi

Director, Storyboard

Yamada, Chiaki

Sound Director

Edit

Opening Theme

"Let Me Hear" by Fear, and Loathing in Las Vegas (eps 1-23)

Edit

Ending Theme

"IT'S THE RIGHT TIME" by Daichi Miura (三浦大知)

Reviews

Apr 23, 2015

Decoys

Recommended

I'm the type of anime watcher that likes to wait for the anime to be completed before watching it; so I can either marathon it in one day or finish it in a few days - am I the only one who does this? Parasyte or Kiseijuu: Sei no Kakuritsu was one of those anime I've completed in a day. With the cliffhangers that leave you at the edge of your seat at the end of the episodes, to the humans that can morph into blades and mold their faces/ bodies for creating massacres; it's the perfect formula for binge watching. I would have been ... dying to wait for each episode each week if I watched this when it aired.

When speaking with others online about Parasyte, the most common piece of criticism I hear that strays away those who don't want to watch is that it's "not my genre," it's "overrated" or "it makes my stomach turn while watching some scenes." Although I agree with most of these statements, it's because of these points that people should try watching - simply because it's a genre/ story that's not seen often in this generation.

Putting that aside, the anime begins with a mini snake-like organism emerging from it's shell that fails to attempt to target a high schooler by the name of Izumi Shinichi, unable to attack Shinichi's brain to completely take over his body. However the organism develops it's own intellect in Shinichi's right arm and is named Migi (which is Japanese for right). The story is about magnitudes of these snake-like organisms taking over humans in Japan. If the brain has been successfully taken over, a parasyte is then born which then has the ability to morph body parts into blades and lengthen the human anatomy. To survive, these parastyes thrive on devouring the anterior portion of humans, killing with no second judgement. The main character Shinichi learns about this through his counter-part Migi and goes on a mission to kill any parasyte that poses a threat to society.

After watching this and reflecting on it, it's clear that the anime was trying to illustrate the question of: "can someone who does not display human-like qualities, be humanized?" The answer to this question is, yes and it's heavily drawn out through the characters. We see that as the story progresses it's clear that parasytes are depicted as blood thirty creatures. However some of the parasytes like Tamiya Ryouko, who seemingly is out to kill, becomes more human as her storyline progresses. We also see this with Migi, Migi starts off as having no empathy for humans, Shinichi included, but gradually gains affection towards them as the episodes unfold. However when looking at Shinichi, the reverse occurs to him as he loses his some emotions and becomes less humanized.

The art and animation is quite solid, and the sound stands out as one of my favourites. Although this anime is an adaptation from a manga in the 90s, I enjoyed that the art is drawn in a way that's up-to-date with the anime that's out now but yet still has that air from the art during the 90s as well. The animation is fluid but not that fluid in some regards as I hoped. For example, when we see the one-to-one combat between parastyes; the lightning speed combat with using lengthened limbs and blades are not that fluid. The OST is a stand out, one of the better ones out there against the others during the time this aired; which actually made me download the entire album. I presume everyone's favourite is probably "next to you." If you haven't heard it, youtube it, download it, listen, and enjoy.

Overall Kiseijuu: Sei no Kakuritsu was a great anime to watch. If you're looking for something that's out of your comfort zone or just looking for something new to watch, I would recommend this. I promise you that after the first episode, the cliffhangers will reel you in and possibly cause you to watch episode after episode until your done. If you made it this far reading my review.. thanks ! Feel free to shoot me a message if you have any comments about my review or want to discuss anything anime.

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Mar 30, 2015

Flawfinder

Mixed Feelings

I remember hearing a lot of hype for Parasyte when it was first announced for an anime adaptation. Apparently, it was a really popular manga in the 90s about some kid who got his hand infected by an alien parasite – hence the name I suppose, although I’m not sure why the “i” was changed into a “y” – and must now learn to live with it whilst warding off other similar infected people who had the misfortune of being killed by these beings before having their entire existence taken over. Seemed like good body horror stuff as is, but then came the influx of ... people I knew who read the manga that declared it to be the second coming of Christ and my hype for it was decent whilst not being astounding because it was being done by a Madhouse team whose only credits were to their Marvel stuff and isn’t that just another clue that they’re not the powerhouse they used to be? Well it turns out that I was right to be cautious, because not only does Parasyte not live up to the hype, but it’s knee-deep in pretty much everything I despise about Marvel stuff to boot.

You know your show with dick hands and uncensored decapitations has problems when I can think of five shows from Fall 2014 I’d rather watch over it and one of them is from KyoAni. But before I get into thrashing this show, I’ll admit that I’m glad Parasyte was made, if only because its popularity will hopefully lead to more classic manga getting adapted, thus lessening the huge surplus of LN adaptations we’ve been getting as of late. In an age where self-awareness is replacing actual humor, we really do need more manga adaptations that take themselves seriously, and this along with Attack on Titan are prime candidates for ushering in that age. So thank you Parasyte for representing a spark the animation industry desperately needs now that Kickstarter has shat the bed, but that’s not going to stop me from beating you to death with a croquet bat that has spikes nailed into it.

Parasyte, or Parasyte-the maxim if you want to be an asshole about it, is an adaptation of a 90s manga about a kid named Shinichi whose normal life is shattered when aliens land on his world and one of them infects his right hand in the process of trying to kill him, causing him to have a “mature relationship” with it, if you get what I mean. The story basically follows him and his desire to live a normal life whilst dealing with the changes going on in his life caused by his new situation like dating girls, helping his family, and fighting off others like him who had the misfortune of getting killed and controlled by their own infected diseases. I might as well be calling him Asian Peter due to how much he resembles Peter Parker from Spiderman in terms of situation and personality.

In fact, many things about Parasyte are pretty much copied wholesale from Spiderman, like the alien infections, uninteresting supervillains, incompetent police force, large sections of the plot, and even the fact that the symbiotes…er, I mean parasytes are weak to fire. The only thing it didn’t rip off was everything that made Spiderman fun like the web swinging. How cool would it have been for Asian Peter to use his right hand to swing across buildings whilst wise-cracking like a…um, actually if it means less snarky remarks, I think I’ll accept that sacrifice whilst still snarling at the twenty other things you could have included. Because as emo as Peter got at times, at least he traded in the angst for some f*cking awesome dance moves.

Asian Peter on the other hand can’t even do awesome fight moves. For something that’s supposed to be one of the major draws of the show, why does every single fight scene look like it was choreographed by Yuen-Woo Ping on the set of Cradle 2 the Grave? Whenever an action scene occurred, it would always consist of boring blade spam or five minutes of Asian Peter conversing with his hand followed by five seconds of actual action at best and two seconds of embarrassment that would make Kill la Kill laugh out loud at worst, which isn’t exciting in the least. It also doesn’t help that the music in this show is so f*cking mismatched to what’s going on that the supposed horror vibe this show coasts on is about as existent as an American-made Silent Hill game with a heavy metal soundtrack. For all that work put into having the violence uncensored and having good animation, you sure didn’t do a good job of putting some actual flair on-screen, did you Marvel director? Although considering your credits and the state of the action we get in those films, it’s kind of apropos.

However, the biggest flaw that Parasyte - along with said Marvel films – has is that it doesn’t seem to have a story at all, always heading in one direction before bailing halfway through to focus on another in a round robin that would make Spiderman 3 confused. We start off with Asian Peter basically imitating what makes Spiderman great by getting going through puberty whilst dealing with the consequences of his new-found powers, so I figured that Parasyte was going to be a coming-of-age story. But after he gets turned into a superhuman, that story is put to the side to have him turn into a monster and deal with a love triangle between Asian Mary Jane and Asian Gwen Stacy that ends with the latter’s tragic death to showcase his change. So Parasyte is a story about how having powers turns you into a jerk that will hurt your loved ones?

Nope. After said tragedy, Asian Peter suddenly stops acting like a monster and instead angsts about how he can’t protect anyone whilst other humans start getting involved, culminating in a sort-of-sympathetic character getting killed off in order to teach us about discrimination and how there are good people amongst the parasites just as there are bad people amongst the humans and thus they’re no different from each other when you get down to it. So your story is about how overcoming discrimination is hard, especially when you factor in the different natures of humans and non-humans, but it’s not impossible? Wrong! The real story is that “humanity is a flawed species who will always fight for themselves at the end of the day”. And even that’s mishandled badly, as leaving aside that they showcase this fact by having a bunch of stupid soldiers shoot up a building, culminating in Asian Peter killing off a super-strong experimental parasyte that’s basically the love child of Doc Ock and Venom in order to prevent more deaths, it tries to compromise by delivering the same environmental stuff that made Princess Mononoke so good. Y’know, how humans and animals are just fighting for themselves and the only reason they protect the environment at the end of the day is because they’ll die if they don’t?

But it completely falls flat because it can’t seem to make up its mind regarding whether parasytes should be compared more to humans or lions, and it fails at providing a strong case for either side. The show makes a big point about how parasytes were sent to Earth in order to cleanse humanity for its crimes, so if they are comparable to humans, it’d be one of those PETA nuts channeling Jeffrey Dahmer. And if they’re supposed to be compared to lions, that fails too because last I checked, lions can’t blend in with humans much less eat at Burger King without having eyes and shotguns pointed in its direction. Not to mention, if lions really are living amongst us, killing people in secret like the parasytes have done, I say we make those motherf*ckers extinct.

Parasyte’s core message regarding humanity and its relationship with the world is a good idea on paper, but the way it comments on it really leaves a lot to be desired. If the show had focused on centering Asian Peter and his right hand as an ironic victim akin to the protagonist in District 9 or as the failed mediator between two species akin to Caesar in the Planet of the Apes reboot, this might have worked. But instead, it meanders with repetitive philosophy that anyone out of middle school would know, can’t make up its mind regarding whether Asian Peter is growing and how he’s growing, indulges in really shitty shonen action cliches, and it doesn’t help that the ending doesn’t make any goddamn sense. I’ve heard a lot of people talk up how perfect it is, but all it did was have Asian Symbiote-less Carnage kidnapping Asian Mary Jane in order to confirm what we already knew, which is about as mundane an ending as you can possibly get in a philosophical narrative.

Am I being too hard on an anime whose source material dates back to before the environmental trend was really a thing? Maybe, but that didn’t stop the original Persona game from getting thrashed when it got re-released, so why shouldn’t I criticize Parasyte for basically arriving way too late to have any impact on me? Plus, if it was really as good as people said, time would be kinder to it than this. But that’s irrelevant, because I’m judging the anime on its own. And on its own, Parasyte is just not a good show. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s a bad one, but I can’t really say I’ll be watching it again anytime soon.

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Jun 16, 2016

TheBrainintheJar

Not Recommended

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 ...

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Kiseijuu: Sei no Kakuritsu

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Izumi, Shinichi

Migi

Tamiya, Ryouko

Kimishima, Kana

Murano, Satomi

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Kiseijuu: Sei no Kakuritsu

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