This verse from the opening theme illustrates this perfectly:
A human baby
When will they find out
[When will they find out the true fact yeah]
that at the point they were born, we are
[we are winners]
(the) winners of Earth
I am more impressed with this show now that I have put some time between myself and the last episode. Watch this anime.
Enjoyment: 8
Overall, a good show to watch. It is an emotional and thought provoking ride that I was happy to be on.
Story: 8
The story tries to talk about what it means to be human and what it means to live as an organism in a complex ecosystem. The ideas presented in it are worth thinking about and even if the story doesn't convey everything it wants to as well as it wants to, there is plenty of food for thought.
The plot follows the traditional high school hero and throws in other one dimensional characters to help him along or offer advice. There are some very interesting elements such as the episode titles [Crime and punishment, The selfish gene], the serial killer who wears a T shirt with 'REDRUM' on it, that hint at a greater philosophy driving the story than simply Monster Battles. This makes the world well fleshed out.
The first half seems to see things from the human perspective and the second from that of the parasites. It is interesting to see how valid the arguments from both sides are.
There is also, unfortunately, the annoying feeling of having the writer try to consciously pull on my heart strings. That is well and good when I agree subconsciously to go along with the ride, but not so much when the audience knows exactly what they are trying to do, and it ends with a bogus emotional pay off.
There are also some plot holes, but the story moves at a pace that prevented me from dwelling on them too much.
Characters: 6
Character development is sketchy. One character - migi - is the only one who gets well fleshed out. Shinichi is someone I grew to dislike over the course of the show. He is the voice of exposition in some cases and coming from him, it doesn't seem believable. Migi on the other hand definitely gets the short end of the stick and still manages to stay awesome.
There is more of the casual misogyny that we have come to expect from anime.
Art: 8
Quite good. There are a few glitches here and there but the fight scenes and movement in general is good.
Sound:9
The opening and ending themes are atmosphere appropriate. I liked them a lot. The sound track is pretty good too. The voice actors are serviceable.
I watched this in a marathon session without having read the source material.
