Parasyte
| Review of episode 1-4. The Intro In my reviews, the main focus is on storytelling, characterizations and character interactions. Because I think that’s the strength of manga Parasyte. Music, CGI, Animation qualities and etc, those stuff are not that important in my point of view. The intro of Parasyte is very chill despite having some visual shocks. It’s interesting but not something you haven’t seen before. According to Iwaaki’s interview(1), David Paul Cronenberg’s movie “The Fly(1986)”, the movie “John Carpenter's The Thing(1982)” and Go Nagai’s manga “Devilman(1972)” were the crucial inspiration to write Parasyte(1988). The Fly  "If there were a parasyte live action movie, it might be interesting to have Cronenberg to make it" Iwaaki answerd in a interview. The Thing  Iwaaki's tribute to Devilman, "NeoDevilman"  Iwaaki also stated that Parasyte was suppose to be a one shot of a short story. Therefore the intro of Parasyte has similarities with these movies and manga. Especially Devilman’s influence can not be missed in the story. Also there were anime airing right before Parasyte that has been influenced by it, say Yoshihiro Togashi’s “Hunter x Hunter(2011)” and Sui Ishida’s “Tokyo Ghoul(2014)”. Madhouse slipped in Shinichi’s glasses to pay homage to Stan Lee’s “Spiderman” to evoke more deja vu for the viewers. Thus we can say that Parasyte has a rather cliched start for the viewers. The horror of Paraytes and the comical interaction between them and Shinichi is what that pulls us into the story. I think the anime did a brilliant job with the intro (episode1-4, chapter1-8.) Iy seemed like Madhouse was trying to make it more suspenseful and dramatic. That is what you expect from a anime adaptation. The story moved fast as expected from a 24 episode show. The boob grab, Car stopping scene and Yuko being a osananajimi(old friend) made me realize that Parasyte became an anime. (minor stuff : Car stopping. I assume they replaced the lion with a car. The meaning of the lion in the manga was to just show Parasites are BIOLOGICALY the strongest being on earth. Maybe the lion escaping the zoo was too surreal, but the car stopping is illogical as well.). Also anime Shinichi is in 12th grade (end of high school) while manga Shinichi is in 10th grade (beginning of high school). This had almost no significance in the Intro but kind of comes back to confuse the viewers from episode 5. Shinishi felt a bit more wimpy and whiny than the manga Shinichi, mainly because of the voice acting, body languages and his interaction with Murano and Yuko. Maybe the glasses make him look like a typical nerd that seems to found only in fiction. Shinichi’s changed from a normal high school boy to a timid guy was the biggest letdown for me in the first 4 episodes. Some might say, “he’s gonna change soon anyway so I don’t care”. But you know, to be honest the anime pre-transformation Shinichi felt really annoying at times. One again, the intro of Parasyte is pretty plain for a body horror show so they should have been careful with building a likable protagonist. Anime Shinichi (infulenced by Sadamoto?)  Manga Shinichi  References 1) Iwaaki’s interview on the manga magazine “Afternoon” published around 1990. Republished on the Japanese “Kiseijuu” complete edition. |
DancewithEmbryoDec 17, 2014 10:37 PM
| Makiko’s existence Q : Is Makiko an important character? A : Not really. Q : Should we omit her? A : No you can’t do that because she has two important scenes. 1. She needs to be surprised at Shinichi’s superhuman jump. Having a witness piss her pants instead for the viewers is always cool. Take a look at the panel in the manga. awesomeness  This scene can not be done without her. 2. She is the first person to point out Shinichi’s remorse. “It’s like you are crying without tears!” You can actually change that to Murano’s line but it is an interesting scene. It has to be somebody who deeply cares for Shinichi to say this words, but sadly Madhouse didn’t have enough time to show Maki built her affections for Shinichi, this scene failed and it was plain awkward. And the whole sequence telling Shinichi to come back was out of the place too. There is a psychological phenomenon called the “mere-exposure effect” or “familiarity principle” in social psychology to explain this. According to that you need a certain amount of scenes to make Shinichi and Makiko’s relation reasonable. I’m sure Madhouse wanted to leave Makiko in the story for various reasons but I also felt temptation to just wipe her existence away from the cast. As a consiquence they added one more meaningless girl to Shinichi's harem. |
| Oh dear god if people look so deep into things they will never enjoy anything. the anime is a perfect adaptation for this day and age and I believe that it is only going to get better. |
| But expecting something to be perfect is dumb, nothing will ever be perfect, the show is as good as it gets for this day and age is what im saying, they couldnt of got a better studio to make it and they are telling the story in a fine way. the only issue i have had with it is that the girl he met on the fairy that one time when he was off to see his dad in the hospital got barly any dialog but thats fine because the show made up for it in other ways |
| Wow, you're one dedicated fan. |
| Parasyte republished for the second time. Recommendation messages from the other mangaka. I said previously that Parasyte sold 11,000,000 copies total, but that is merely the total of the first two editions published in Japan. I don’t know how much it sold in the U.S. or other countries. As we finally get a anime and a movie, Parasyte was republished for the second time this year.  If the number of copies is not enough to convince you how big it is in the manga industry, take a look at the various mangaka’s recommendation messages they wrote on the wraparound band that comes with the book. volume1 : Hajime, Isayama known for Attack on Titan “Shinichi throwing a rock and defeating (Shimada) without a shout of a special move name was seriously cool.” volume2 : Hiroya,Oku known for Gantz “Parasyte is a must-read. Many young mangaka including myself were influenced by it” volume3 : Chika,Umino known for Honey and Clover and 3-gatsu no lion “An unforgettable line from the last chapter has been encouraging me for 20 years, it's like Migi to me. ” volume4 : Kentarou, Miura known for Berserk “I wonder what happened to the parasites after the end. Parasyte revived my sense of fear” volume5 : Rumiko, Takahashi known for InuYasha “The realism scared me, but the enjoyment made my heart dance.” volume6 : Hiroaki, Samura known for Blade of the Immortal “Even if I had five more lifes as a mangaka, I can’t image myself writing something better than Parasyte” volume7 : Akira, Hiramoto known for Me and the Devil Blues and Kangoku Gakuen “I believe Parasyte is one of the pinnacle a manga managed to reach” rough translation by DancewithEmbryo |
DancewithEmbryoDec 20, 2014 5:02 PM
The book covers I translated.  |
| Review of episode 8-10. Shimada’s ark score 8/10 The anime did a pretty good job building the suspense. I liked the snipping scene too. A solid adaptation, but there were some really weird storytelling from this ark and cutting corners in animation. You know, I don’t want to go over nitpicking but some parts were plain weird to ignore. If you found any of the following stuff weird, you are a good manga reader or anime viewer 1. Yuuko’s stupidity Yes. Yuuko’s actions to confront Shimada by herself raised a controversy over the internet. People never stopped calling her stupid. The reason why this happened in the anime and not in the manga is because the anime completely cut out Yuuko’s thought process. And hold on a second, Yuuko likes Shimada? Why?? (I didn’t like how this screen writer or director prefer to overuse the “drove by love” plot. All explain this later.) Chapter 21-22 shows us why Yuuko came up with her plan. She takes a bit more drastic measures to find out Shimada is a parasite by herself and actually plans to help her brother to capture a parasite. She carelessly confronts to confirm he is a parasite but plans to bring a bottle of acid. It doesn’t change the consequence of anything but it makes her a lot more believable. It makes you kind of root for her because she seems to be smart.  Since she planed it ahead she can protect herself with an easel too.  2. Shinichi’s mysterious evacuation In the first half of episode 10, Shinichi just takes his time to wander around the school and eventually evacuate with his class with no big reason, leaving Shimada behind. WTF? I really got confused at this part how Shinichi looked like an idiot. I actually had to go back and check the manga as I did to check Yuuko’s stupidity. As I thought there was a small scene that didn’t make it to the anime but was important to understand Shinichi’s logic. His teacher slaps in the face for leaving the class and to put him back in the line to evacuate.  I know corporal punishment isn’t accepable thing today compared to the ‘80s, but isn’t this scene kind of crucial for the viewers to understand what or hero is thinking? By the way, I hate Parasyte scanlations but I left my books at my families house so I'm borrowing a couple frames. Shinji was never official (Shinichi and Shin are). 3. Surrealistic jokes lost in anime The anime version seems to care about the drama. Breezing through the material with intense music and leaving out the slice of life part makes it more dramatic than the manga. One of the reason why the atmosphere is very different from the manga is that they also excluded almost all the surrealistic jokes Iwaaki loves to use. It aims to relieve the tension but since it’s a joke not all people are able to catch it. In episode 10 the scenario writer leaves this joke in from many.  The manga and anime has a completely different feel, it’s too late to add a scene like this. I would have trimmed it out like they did in Mother's ark. 4. Cutting corners When the chief officer apologized for collecting hair from his colleagues, a guy with a tommy gun kicks in.  It’s a small scene, maybe about a second, but enough to show the seriousness. |
DancewithEmbryoDec 27, 2014 4:14 PM
| Review of episode11-12. Kana’s ark Disappointment: score 5/10 As I said before I hate the anime Kana. Almost every character has a step down in this anime compared to the manga but Kana’s character change went too far it atrociously deformed the beauty of Parasyte. I won’t hold back on Madhouse this time and call them stupid. And so as the people who say things like “Oh, I like the anime Kana better because she’s cute”. That’s bullshit. I hope those people stop reading stories. I hesitate to call this anime a adaptation. What is Kana? Before I begin, I want you to answer the question, “what is Kana?”. At least in the manga, she was a “normal person”. She was a delinquent, a girl with sensing powers, and an outlaw. But she was one of those people who tried to live while struggling to find a place in society. (Maybe clasical but a orthodox depiction of delinquents.) She was real. There are always people like her around you or maybe you are like Kana. That’s why she was great in this story. She is easy to sympathize with. Her death is extremely powerful because you can tell she starts to move on from her position leaded by her feelings towards Shinichi. It felt like she dies without fully experiencing happiness in her life. That is Kana.  What is anime Kana? Sadly she is just another anime character to me. Soulless, anime generic, and unreal. It’s one of those characters I can’t stand. How are you supposed to sympathize with her death when the scenario writer telling you “This bitch is plain crazy. That's why she dies, you know”. I really can’t reach to the anime Kana’s heart. Manga and anime Kana’s action is based on different reasons. In the manga, Kana is stronger that Shinichi in their relationship so Kana takes Shinichi’s words lightly. On the contrary, in the anime she is too obsessed with Shinichi, she losses her common sense and takes action as a girl demented girl. If you didn’t catch the difference read the manga again. In the manga, Kana wakes up from the dream with knight Shinichi and burst out laughing in ridiculousness. She had common sense. The anime Kana kind of crossed the line with the hair charm thing. WTF Madhouse.  |
| wait, theres a manga? is it going to be done before the anime finishes or will i have to wait for it to catch up? |
| Women in Parasyte the maxim After Yuuko struck, I’ve seen many people start hating on the women cast in Parasyte. Even a thread was made "Girls of Kiseijuu" . I didn’t have any problems while I was reading the manga but as countlessly said in the anime the characterization isn’t really working. Every character, even migi seems more boring to me. So it’s not actually the problem with the girls. I think this is the most negative effect of skipping small scenes from the manga. Especially Murano suffers. I can't say she was likeable at this point in the manga but still. She is like a parakeet saying the same line with the same OST played in the background. Actually the women cast in this anime suffer from a different problem too. The scenario writer is overusing them as a plot tool, “Women drove by Love”. I made a relationship diagram according to what the characters stated. The vertical axis is to show us who is above whom in their relationship. Anime  Manga  Do you see my point? The girls in this anime is just crazy with their love stories, it gets annoying at a point. And look, we still have one more anime original character Akiho which will not have any depth and never be likable. I’d say it again. Is the scenario writer f**king stupid? Why did they it will be interesting to see Kana go through the same plot Yuuko did? Also I wanted to point out that from a feministic point of view that Kana was important to balance the power between Male and Female casts. Kana was strong willed that Shinichi has a hard time to keep her safe. Mitsuo was more like her servant (He is dorky big guy).One again, She wasn’t a psychopath that ignores Shinichi’s words. When I think of a strong realistic female character I imagined Kana would be one but I guess not any more. RIP Kana. |
| So so far, out of 10. how well do you guys think they are adapting the manga? In terms of pacing, storytelling, animation quality(im real big on this) etc. |
SolvitePriest said: wait, theres a manga? is it going to be done before the anime finishes or will i have to wait for it to catch up? The manga already finished like 20 years ago. |
Sorry, I forgot to add one of Akiho’s arrows. What will Akiho bring to the show? The anime gets an 7 for story and a 10 for the action scenes for me. The director Kenichi Shimizu is more like an animator than a director. All the action scenes so far are extremely well done. And it's getting better. |
DancewithEmbryo said: Haha, Kiseijuu is actually a harem when you look at it like that (since Mitsuo and shimada aren't very important). Well, it's the best harem ever then.Sorry, I forgot to add one of Akiho’s arrows. What will Akiho bring to the show? |
Agafin said: DancewithEmbryo said: Haha, Kiseijuu is actually a harem when you look at it like that (since Mitsuo and shimada aren't very important). Well, it's the best harem ever then.Sorry, I forgot to add one of Akiho’s arrows. What will Akiho bring to the show? Exactly. It's crazy. The real question is why dose every school life anime needs to be a harem? |
ababab777 said: Just wanted to say - DancewithEmbryo, thanks for all your posts. I've actually really been wanting to see what opinions other people had on essentially the same things. I largely agree with you, though I think you're a bit extreme (especially the harshness w.r.t. changes to Kana). I don't have time now to post as complete of an analysis as you did, but I'd like to mention that there are also plenty of changes to Murano that you mention but don't go into with very much detail. She is better fleshed out in the manga at this point in the plot, and it's not only those little details/ tiny scenes being omitted, but I think her character has been significantly changed. She's more easy going in the manga, and while (as you said) this is true for many characters, it has the biggest impact on Murano. She is more held back and reserved in the anime, but this causes a lack of characterization and as a result, she is more secondary than in the manga. Maybe later when I have time, I'll add more (with some specific manga panels) and add more about Kana. I agree that they made her too "creepy" and overdependent on Shinichi in the anime, but I still think it succeeds in a way. It is definitely very different though. Thanks for taking time reading my posts. I'm happy to see a person who cherish the manga personalities. I agree with everything you said. Characterization is done by accumulating layers of scenes so the further the show goes, I assume the gap between the manga and anime personalities just become bigger and bigger. This anime doesn't have enough time for characterizations. I'm trying to deal with it. However, I had a problem with Kana from the start so my irritation towards her kinda grew more than the others. I had a problem picturing someone like her (and Mitsuo) to exist in real life. I'll explain if I my anger won't ease. Kana was a woman who gives a middle finger to sexists, but now she is a walking sex appeal. Why do they downgrade the personality in this anime? Do people love hot high school girls in miniskirts that much?  The reason I was holding back to write about Murano is because her story is ongoing. Murano is my favorite character, so I'll write about her for sure, but it may be at the end of the anime. It saddens me how Murano and Shinichi lack chemistry in the anime. In the relationship diagram, I placed anime Murano a lot lower than Shinichi compared to the manga counterpart. The reason for that is exactly the same as what you said. Why did this anime make women so weak? |
DancewithEmbryoDec 28, 2014 5:38 PM
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