Review of Parasyte: The Maxim

This review contains a spoiler! The first I first watched Parasyte a very long time ago, I was not in the right place for judgment or appreciation. I was still wet behind the ears and didn't understand the full picture of what Parasyte is trying to convey to us. To the noobie me, it was a full-on action anime with a war between humans and this sentinel organism from outer space. I did understand it was trying to tell more, but I was unable to put it into words and feel a sense of security in what I am saying. But rewatching once again, made merealize Parasyte is whole more than meets the eye. It's a story that relies heavily on the philosophical aspect to tell both a deep and complex story. It asks questions that would make your brain hurts under normal circumstances. You know, things like what are humans, and what does it mean to be one? Who are the real devils, the parasites or the humans? When is it right to take another life? What really is right and wrong?

These are some of the core questions that are brought up through our journey in Parasyte. It throws one into a deep state of thinking. It makes you whack your brain to a point to see an actual logical, satisfying, and fair answer can come to mind. Even if it does not, since of course, it's a rather heavy topic that not mere words and deep thought can give your resolution to. In Parasyte, we see such examples on display both with the actions of humans and the parasites themself. It explores these erudite issues in-depth and shows it to you in a way you can understand both sides, the parasites, and the humans. We see both of their evil and likewise the kind side that shooks you to your very core with emotions. Parasyte first stars Shinichi, who is just your average boy who doesn't excel at anything. He is rather timid, shy, and easily scared of bugs. One day by pure coincidence, he gets attacked by a snake-like alien creature who tries to take over his head but ultimately fails. But Shinichi loses his right hand to the snake, and the arm is no longer his own.

Parasyte uses both Shinichi and his companion Migi to explore all of the questions I've mentioned above and so much more. Migi starts out with somewhat a bland personality, lacking any emotions, empathy, and is only focused on his own survival. Still, since Shinichi is bounded to his life, they both must learn to live together. As Shinichi and Migi overcome multitudes of precarious situations, close life-death calls, they start to develop a bond of friendship. At one point, Migi saves Shinichi from a certain death situation sacrificing 30% of his own being. When that happens, Shinichi slowly starts to lose his humanity. He can't even mourn for his losses and becomes emotionless unable to exhibit any kind of feelings. This is the result of Migi becoming a part of him. Since Migi already lacks those kinds of emotions, so it starts to affect Shinichi. The Migi, which is part of his heart anyway since the Migi on his hands, is beginning to develop an understanding of things and a sense of humanity.

While Shinichi loses his own as his mother is killed and so is driven by vengeance and anger to the point, it affects him negatively. Shinichi's path to ruin as he slowly loses himself is executed so brilliantly, and you learn to really understand him. He also knows both sides, the parasites and the humans, and where both are coming from. This was only possible through going hell and back and experiencing, witnessing many sides of the parasites and the humans. When it comes to deep questions, Parasyte brings up. There is one in particular that never ceases to make me into a sobbing mess. I am talking about Reiko's growth going from a parasite to a human and then finally into a mother. That scene where she is getting gunned down as she walks to Shinichi as she is protecting her child is absolutely beautiful and very meaningful. Who are the real devils, humans or the parasites? In my case, this goes to the humans since they were fully aware of the child and still gunned Reiko down without batting an eye. It's such an awful, tragedic moment, but it runs deep with symbolism, and it makes it so much more impactful when you realize that's the moment Shinichi comes back from the abyss.

It's where he finally regains his humanity again and can mourn for his mother. That whole scene doesn't only show the supposed enemies can be gentle too, but it also adds much-deserved respect to every mother out there. For those reasons alone, I have no qualms in saying I consider that episode, especially a masterpiece. Another proof of where the humans are the bad guys are during when they intervened in the conference building. At first, they used a sensible approach to differentiate humans from parasites. Before shit went to hell, and they gunned down anyone who was in their vicinity. It didn't matter if they were humans or not. They just wanted to completely destroy the parasites off the face of the earth without a damn trace. That's, of course, the logical course of actions, and I am not saying the humans are wrong to think that way. I am just saying surely there could be a different way? Just like humans, the parasites also have both the bad and the good guys when they get to mature to that level. The best example we saw by far was Reiko, Migi and of course Joe. Parasyte is honestly naive and children-like. They don't know what's right from wrong, like Migi said.

They are just now coming into life and are just now tasting all forms of situations, emotions, actions, consequences, and so forth. Compared to humans, they are terrifyingly strong children who can easily kill you. I hope anyone gets what I am implying with this reasoning. It took Reiko a while before she became a genuinely good person. We remember how she had that funny time where she was going around laughing in a crazy voice? Now that's comedy gold. Just think if you saw a human with teeth of a head running around laughing in that kind of voice? Yeah, now that I think about it would be terrifying. She first realized these sensations when that dorky investigator slipped and fell in the restaurant. Afterward, she went on a lecture on the human psyche and experimented on her own time. Before she gradually changed for the better and started to care about the child to the point, she sacrificed her own life, when she could easily escape. It's no doubt that Reiko was powerful and could easily come out of that situation unscratched.

Just like how, when a child is born first, don't know what's right or wrong. They learn that from their parents or through experience or realizing that there are consequences for their actions. For instance, when a child calls you some words, you rather not say. It's not untill much later when they are older that they realize how awful it is what they are saying. How much it hurts their parents and the people around them and so forth. There are many examples, but this should hopefully get the point across. So what does it mean to be humans? For me, that's to be happy, depressed, sad, angry. To love or hate someone. It's a connection like family or experience pain from an injury, stress from school-life not treating you well, and to put simply to live. It's more or less our entire being, the yin, and yang. This could also be said for the concept of life itself. Of course, people might have some different viewpoints, but here you have at least my.

Regardless of the things I have explained about, Parasyte tries to explore and show. There is more it adds beliefs to, like how fragile the humans are because of emotions and concern. But to cut to the chase, for me, that's an advantage since it means we can be flexible when it comes to feelings, and that once again makes us human and really alive. No humans are the same either, because of the concept of empathy and the broad topic of personality to mention some. As you can see, Parasyte has really made me question a lot of things, and thus it's been a genuine pleasure to experience it once again. It was on a whim, but I couldn't be happier to see all these things I couldn't see before and actually put words to the ideas it's trying to show and tell us. Parasyte is arguably one of the few stories that I would say has the qualities of a masterpiece. It would not be wrong to call it that either since it has more than enough proved itself.

Sadly, Parasyte is not without flaws. First off, what was the point of Kana besides making Shinichi realize he can't feel emotions? And also, add fuel to the fire to make sure Shinichi gets thrown even further into the deep abyss? When his mom died, he only experienced anger and longed for vengeance and ultimately lost himself when he was forced to kill his own mother in appearance, wearing the mask of the devil. It was not before Kana's death he got the time to realize he is not crying, even a lick. Anyway, for me, Kana was honestly a waste of potential. Sure, she is lovely and a sight for sore eyes. No doubt, my best girl of Parasyte. Still, you can't deny she set up for her own death and was way over her head. That said, it does not make the death any less impactful. I cried when Kana died, and I am still salty about how they handled her story. I saw potential in how Shinichi and Kana's relationship could grow since both had an understanding of the unknown in some way. Plus, Shinichi felt more secure about telling Kana of his secret friend than Satomi, who was all over the place.

When I first time saw Parasyte, I didn't even care about Satomi, and I was all about Kana, and honestly still am. But I can also understand where Satomi is coming from now. Regardless of what Shinichi went through, she had no idea. That was honestly her fault and our main male, who felt insecure about telling her the truth. There where multiple times where her behavior changed at the drop of a hat, from wanting to know to not wanting to know Shinichi's predicament. On top of that, there is that thing with the whole romance side plot. It was not as fleshed out as I liked, and it moved way too fast for my liking. In fact, Parasyte might be one of the best shows I have seen. But I won't deny the pacing did feel awkwardly timed at certain moments throughout the course. In other words, some things felt appropriately paced and executed like Shinichi's path to doom, before liberation and maturity. On the other end, there was not as much Shinichi and Migi interactions as one would like. It felt slightly thin and I would love to have seen it more of that. Now, don't get me wrong I still love the relationship between those two.

Migi is easily one of the best friends anyone could ask for, no doubt. I just want to tell you all my feelings on both the good and the not so good sides. Then there is the final villain, Gotoh, who started out with a rather complex, deep, frightening personality. Someone you wanted to learn more about. Then regressed back to a state of one-dimensional, boring, and mediocre villain who tried to kill Shinichi for being bested by a human. Now Reiko was a great example of how to write a villain character and then truly make you fall in love with her. Although, in the end, she became a good person. No, I am not trying to excuse her wrong decisions in the past. I am looking at the result and not the path she took to get from A to B. In that way, Gotoh also had the potential for greater things. It would make more sense to actually live up to her creator's values and beliefs in some way. Now Reiko learned to value human connection, understand what's right and wrong. What it means to be human. What it means to be a mother.

So how about Gotoh instead of going that path could try to better the life of his kinds and indeed seem like a caring leader who wants a better future for his brethren? That would honestly make for a better story than what we ended up getting. It would put emphasis on what Parasyte is trying to showcase and deliver a more satisfying conclusion. This is just a basic scope of my idea, and I have more to go on, but it should tell you more than enough to know where I am coming from. That may be what they were going for actually, now that I think about. But, the author decided to sadly cut the story short, so that story direction didn't get across as profoundly as the other themes of Parasyte. Not to mention, the ending left more to be desired. I would love to have seen how the parasites stopped hunting humans for food and went on to fully live amongst the humans without spilling an unnecessary drop of blood anymore. We still don't even know the full origin of them either, but that's probably intentional. Since the philosophical and character-driven aspect is the heart of Parasyte. The parasites are among others, just there to prove a point and to explore, assess, and justify the elaborate questions.

Let's discuss shortly the production of Parasyte, which is as you would expect from Madhouse top-notch. The animation is damn fluid, and the action scenes are depicted with the utmost intensity and emotions. It makes the experience even better with that gorgeous, and absolutely masterpiece of a soundtrack, which blesses our ears and the show to a greater height. All of the action scenes are so amazingly choreographed, are fast-paced, and gives you an adrenaline rush of excitement. Not to mention, those with dialogue. To put it into perspective, that beautiful last episode of Reiko was breathtakingly executed and direction. As a result of the passion, the staff put into the scenes as they worked rigorously, probably to the point of exhaustion to make sure to deliver an ultimate experience and burst of emotions. Art-style is beautifully drawn, and Madhouse can genuinely convey any forms of emotions without a hiccup to the viewers. There is also a ton of gore, and Parasyte is not for the faint of heart. Expect to see dismembered bodies, intestines in full view. It's very violent, bloody and is not afraid to show some horrifying and scary sights. Lastly, I just wanna say the OP is very catchy, addicting, and immensely bop inducing. While the ED is so soothing, beautiful, and it gives you a sense of comfort as the episodes come to an end.

Overall, I would like to say that Parasyte definitely is one of the few shows I can consider having the qualities of a masterpiece and not feel as insecure about it. It asks tons of difficult questions and adds support for them by showing and telling. Shinichi is a great example of how a real person might change in attitude as they experience hardships and more. Plus, he goes to show us how fickle, fragile, and even flexible the human race is who can change for the better or worse if given the time. I would honestly say Parasyte, for me, falls in the category of must-watch at one point in your life. It's truly a very memorable, meaningful, thought-provoking, exciting, heart-crushing, and a liberating journey you can't miss out on, or you'll be doing yourself a disservice. I highly suggest Parasyte to everyone and can't recommend it enough.