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Exploring existential themes in any series marketed towards a more "mature" audience has become trite at this point. There can be so many explorations of what makes people humans and what makes the earth neat. That doesn't stop from industry executives pointing towards a potential adaptation and saying, "That one." Then proceeding to throw a few hundred thousand at a studio who just so happens to enjoy drawing cartoons and then you get a show. Not just any show, though. An edgy show. With blood, existential themes, and very vague sex scenes. There are monsters that have sharp teeth, too. What you get is one of many. There are plenty of shows that have everything I listed. As it has been proven time and time again, criticizing something due to a base set of tropes that it uses is like criticizing a piece of beef for having too much beef.
Tropes are the lifeblood of any kind of entertainment. Whether you like or dislike the idea of a trope, you will need to use them to tell your story. The problem is, pretty much every conceivable kind of story has been told before. So what you, as a creative, are left with is the thousands of tools left behind by previous storytellers. You eye these tools and find the best way to put them together. Now don't be hasty, make sure that the configuration of these tools is nice and original or you'll get something we call "unoriginal". Because honestly, that is all stories are now a day; An amalgamation of different elements smushed together to create something that might be unique. Out of the thousands of tools, there must be a combination that hasn't been done before.
Parasyte isn't one of those combinations. I haven't seen much anime, however, a lot of the archetypes and patterns in anime have become really apparent to me for whatever reason. Maybe it's because the industry lacks an incredibly diverse pool of entertainment, maybe I'm just not looking hard enough. All I know is that there are an abundance of overlapping tropes and clichés being used in many different series' that undergo virtually no changes. Which is inherently bad. Every show, as I’ve said, uses a certain set of tropes. However, it is how that show utilizes those tropes and puts that extra little bit of spice into them that makes them stand out and surprise you. This is what separates generic with exemplary.
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[Stage 1]
An idea infects you. It wriggles into your bloodstream and tries to permeate throughout the entirety of your body, but not before accessing your brain. Overriding every key piece with thoughts about said idea. That is what a great show can do. It introduces concepts that you may have seen before and presents them in ways that interest you. They make you question ideas that you’ve encountered before already by introducing concepts that you haven’t thought of. Parasyte attempts this respectably. Most late-game episodes include heavy motifs and themes that resonate with just about every character in the show. While it is not immune from the infection that is forced thematic drivel which, unfortunately, a lot of anime is plagued with. You do get a clear goal with Parasyte’s thematic narrative. That isn’t the impression the show gave off at first, though.
The beginning was unquestionably existential, but that existentialism was quickly undermined with some generic school setting in a generic little suburb with generic happy-go-lucky school characters. Our protagonist, Shinichi Izumi, a spiky-haired boy that is shouldering the weight of all the archetypical clichés he must project. Shy boy who’s bad around girls. Is kind of just “there”. It’s all something we’ve seen before, even in western projects. We know these kinds of characters because, well, it is a superhero backstory. If you know anything about me, too, I dislike superhero’s and their backstories. It isn’t my kind of story. Hearing that this is pretty much just edgy Spiderman turned me off the show before I even began watching it. That being said, the first episode left me in a more intrigued state of mind that I expected. Expecting nothing, I was left semi-impressed.
Shinichi of course gets infected by an alien parasite, one of the many that lands in Japan. This plays as an interesting gray situation for him. On one hand he can retain his humanity and not become some bloodthirsty creature, on the other hand, he literally has a parasite. It morphs into an oddly cute little guy by the name of Migi, or “hand”, in Japanese. A creature that can also morph himself into various kinds of weapons and generally any shape he wants. He is also an uncompromising and fully-logic-oriented monster that’s entire purpose is to survive, and since he is now viewed as a “failure” for only being able to capture a single part of a human host, and not the brain, Shinichi and Migi are off on a journey of survival.
Like many anime before it, Parasyte doesn’t shy away from moralizing and over-explaining simple themes. This bogs down the first half of the show. I found myself constantly getting beaten over the head with easy-to-grasp motifs which are obvious on their own, not even considering the monologues we need to endure to “understand” what these characters are thinking. Throughout the first half there is also an obnoxious focus on school-life that does nothing, in my opinion. The class-threats are so hollow and the different characters introduced within Parasyte’s first twelve episodes are generally just uninteresting.
There is also an infuriating love triangle that left me ripping my hair out. I despise melodramatic love-triangles and this one was just about as melodramatic as they can get. The protagonist only likes the main girl in the show, however, she thinks he likes another girl that clearly likes him because she keeps seeing them at inopportune times. It is so clichéd. There were three separate scenes where the girl he isn’t interested in talks to him and the other girl overhears and just so happens to be standing around that area. One is already bad, since that cliché is as bad as they get. But three?
With the aggressive moralizing as well as blunt thematic narrative, you are left feeling kind of beaten down by this show for quite a while. Similar to something like Your Lie In April, a theme is brought up, obviously explained in a stilted way, and then addressed directly the characters not two scenes after it happened. The idea of losing your humanity has never been this unengaging simply because it doesn’t feel like a person is going through this. I saw metaphoric checkboxes being ticked every time this theme was addressed. They followed the, “existential dread of losing your humanity” trope to the T. With that trope there is also the enchanted love-interest which, thankfully, has a nice little subversion towards the end of that arc. Although, there are also these “psychics” introduced within the story that can sense the presence of the parasites. These abilities never were explained.
To sprinkle even more frustration over all this, the habit in anime to make their girls too childish is prevalent within Parasyte as well. A lot of the female characters are just a mixture of blushes, compliments, and tears. I’m not even asking for depth at this point. Just make them act their age. This inherent need to market characters while still restricting yourself within a realistic color pallet makes for this odd juxtaposing characterization within the narrative. None of them are overtly cartoony looking, yet they act like cartoons. I’m using “cartoon” in the colloquial sense, don’t read into that.
With all that said, Parasyte still managed to have an engaging main story. All of these issues could be described as a secondary story to the main shows plot and thankfully, the more predominant story was engaging throughout most of the show. Thanks in part due to the well-designed parasites and well-tread existential humanist trope which is done quite well within the show. While the main character going through the concept of losing his humanity could’ve been done well, but ultimately didn’t leave me impressed; this shows handling of the parasites growing into the human culture was handled very well and I grew to enjoy having the main parasites on screen. Especially Reiko Tamura, who is the forefront of development provides an interesting look at the established trope.
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[Stage 2]
Captivating an audience with spectacle isn’t something new to anime. It is also something I’ve grown to dislike in a lot of anime. I understand that I’m pretty much the buzz-killiest of all buzz-killers, but understand that I take the narrative concept of dramatic rising of stakes seriously. The stakes being risen to certain heights is a necessity for any kind of story, however, it needs to be believable. Many anime just throw that kind of notion out of the window and just go for the most unbelievable climax that breaks all kinds of verisimilitude. I was delighted to see that Parasyte denied that. The climax, and all the stakes, to be honest, felt very naturally heightened. Since the outbreak felt relatively controlled, in the sense that it wasn’t spreading around the world, there was no need for a worldwide panic and gargantuan conclusion. In line with the story, we got something more personal.
Another idea in captivating an audience is the use of shock and gore to send a bolt of energy throughout an entire episode, if not show. Many shows do this badly, many shows do this well. For every Hannibal we have a Walking Dead. I wouldn’t go far out and say that Parasyte is all too shocking with its gore, it is, similar to most television anime, quite tame even in its most extreme parts. But, for what it does it does well. It does its best to sell the psychological anguish that comes with witnessing something horrific, even if it drops the ball a bit on some characters in that regard.
Continuing on the idea of spectacle, we get fight scenes that, while not anything jaw-dropping, supplement the story well. A lot of the fight scenes are generally your everyday shounen fair with a hideous amount of monologuing and strategizing as well as constant stream of flying razor-sharp limb-knives. It didn’t leave me impressed as much as it left me semi-entertained throughout the majority of that. However, some action scenes were better than others. Whereas the narrative and characters picked up traction towards the beginning of the second half, after the appalling love triangle was finally resolved, the action scenes were more interesting earlier on in the show since they often didn’t last as long.
I’m always in favor of short and sweet action to extended over-dramatized anime action that loses steam and struggles to retain any kind of tension. There was a particular yakuza-related action scene that really impressed me in this show. It was by far the most well-animated, choreographed, and satisfying action scene in the show and it was hardly an important one, which was so weird. It felt like a complete non-sequitur in terms of visuals and style.
On a final note, the music added the final piece of spectacle to this series. Thankfully, the music was pretty great in Parasyte overall. There was an emphasize of winding EDM and Dubstep that thumped and whizzed into your ear. It was a nice change of pace from the usual anime soundtracks. Even the more commonly used dramatic stings sounded nice in this series. It was all backed up by a decent OP and ED that, while well-constructed, weren’t my style of music.
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[Stage 3]
Studio Madhouse had a nice grip over the entire show in terms of visuals. While there was a slight dip in fidelity in the last eight episodes, it wasn’t noticeable enough to detract from the viewing experience all too much. The style of the show also retained a more realistic look and the usual “flawless”-looking characters that are very common in modern anime were thankfully left to a minimum. This sense of grounded art helped elevate the dramatic tension within the modern tension as it sold the blend of character and scenery well.
The character designs were skirting the line between good and great. Certain characters, such as the imposing and badass Gotou and menacing Reiko Tamura were standouts. While Shinichi was fine, none of his more secondary friends really had overly memorable designs. Talking design though, I must mention the parasites themselves which had a nice creepy vibe to them. If I had one complaint was that in the first half, each individual parasite looked and felt wholly unique, while in the second half, many of them ended up getting blended together.
Overall, the visuals were holistically solid. Nothing that I consider incredible, but good enough to sustain the kind of story being told. Keeping things grounded, visually, in just about every sense kept the atmosphere in the show almost always realistic in the world created. The verisimilitude was kept admirably and I found myself believing the kind of logic the world was built around.
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[Conclusion]
All in all, Parasyte provides enough intrigue to make up for the lackluster secondary story being told in first half of the series. The twists, while a bit too fake-out oriented, still were semi-shocking and the character motivations never really felt too confusing for any character that wasn’t a part of the abhorrent love triangle. Furthermore, the world-building and engaging thematic progress created for a solidly above-average show that left me satisfied, while not necessarily craving any more. This may be in part due to the lackluster finale which felt tacked onto the true climax of the show.
Parasyte’s memorable soundtrack and solid animation elevated this series, visually, from many of its competitors. Also, its exploration of existential tropes was handled well, for the most part. The unfolding story between the parasites eclipsed the humans, however, it all lead to a climax which, although not exhilarating, felt earned.
There is a knack for building in entertainment. You take two archetypes and you form something original. You craft an entire story with predetermined ideas and themes that have been explored before, but by adding a new kind of element, however minor, can sprout new questions that infiltrate your mind and endlessly poke at your curiosity. Parasyte achieves half of that. An exploration that just lifts its toes off the shallow end of the pool and begins to venture just a few inches deep enough to give its viewers something worthy of a intriguing, engaging watch.
