Review of Parasyte: The Maxim

I'll be blunt about this: I have no idea whether or not I actually like this anime. Throughout the whole time I watched this, I had so many mixed feelings about this that I genuinely do not know if I liked it at all. I guess I do because of the score I'm giving it, but maybe I'm being lenient. [Story - 7] The story follows Shinichi Izumi, a typically-introverted high school upperclassman who lands himself in an unfortunate situation when his right hand is taken over by an alien called 'Migi' (or Rightie). There is no 'real' overarching plot, but rather just mini-arcs that follow howShinichi and Migi react to fellow aliens and humans. While they all work by themself just fine, I found that as a cohesive whole, it just did not come together well. It kept jumping genre from psychological horror to action sci-fi to high school romance, and while I appreciate a variety of genres in one work, it doesn't work here since it's so jarring of a shift each time. Even the final 3-4 episodes go through this, which was rather annoying. This resulted in me not quite knowing what the themes of this show were, but maybe I'm just dumber than a sack of hammers. I'd guess it would be similar to another popular 2014 horror seinen, Tokyo Ghoul, with the whole 'maybe the monsters aren't so bad + how cruel is humanity?' stuff, but it kept going back and forth on this so much that I can't say that for sure.

[Art - 7]

The art here isn't particularly stellar in my opinion, but I don't have any major complaints. While I found it lackluster at times in regards to character and background design, the level of detail for each parasite and the action scenes made up for it. If you're a gore enthusiast, you could find some good scenes here too, since there is tons of blood flying around. Another thing to note is the only example of good character design: Shinichi Izumi. His designs over the course of the show display his gradual development, which I enjoyed a lot. All in all: definitely not Madhouse's best work, but I wouldn't call it their worst.

[Sound - 6]

I honestly loathed the OP + the dubstep tracks that served as part of the OST, as I found that it just did not suit this anime at all, or were even good songs regardless. That being said, the ED + the more softer/ambient tracks were way more enjoyable in comparison, even if not particularly memorable.

The seiyuus did their job well, especially Migi's and Shinichi's. I found that they made the banter feel much more real and intriguing than if other seiyuus was cast. Other than that, no one else was memorable for me.

The SFX in this show are cool, though! Even if Migi makes weird fart sounds as he moves around, everything else sounded really fine, especially the other parasites' various movements and sounds. Definitely made the action much more awesome.

[Character - 6]

The characters in this show are rather static. While there are a few exceptions, I found that most of these characters don't really change/develop outside of their initially established traits. Most of the supporting cast stays the exact same, and the antagonists are usually not super fleshed-out outside of their power. This especially applies to most of the women in the show, who are usually damsels in distress who "don't know better" despite having big hearts. While I don't mind this initial set-up, I loathe how it persists throughout the whole 24 episodes. Even the main love interest stays (mostly) like this up until the very end, which is quite frankly ridiculous.

That being said, there /are/ some stand-out characters here. While he can be rather whiny and inconsistent at times, Shinichi is a suitable protagonist to explore this show's concepts (or bare-bone proposals of concepts). I'm aware that his characterization at the beginning is not like the manga's, but I'm guessing the writers decided to change him like that to further contrast his transformation from 'human with a monster attached' to 'human/monster hybrid'. If so, they did well as Shinichi actually does go through some development from these situations, as he has to struggle with maintaining both his new strengths and remaining humanity. Even in the last few episodes, he goes through major changes, and I was left satisfied with his arc. Another notable example is an antagonist, Tamura Reiko, a parasite who has managed to blend in with society even more so than most parasites. She goes through a rather interesting arc, where she tries to discover just WHY the parasites exist, and whether or not they can really blend in. I honestly found hers the most interesting for multiple reasons which I won't discuss because they’re spoilers, and even the conclusion to it was rather fine too.

[Enjoyment/Overall - 7/6]

All in all, this show is a VERY mixed bag. I'm not sure how some people were able to so quickly decide their opinion on it, but I guess I'm just weird. I'd recommend this if you want to see another take on 'monsters infiltrating society', and if you like your horror seinen with tons of gory action. Perhaps avoid this show if you're looking for consistent character development for the entire cast, along with stellar art + OST though.