Review of Parasyte: The Maxim

(Spoiler Free!) Parasyte, an anime about parasitic aliens invading earth and taking over the human race. The only person who knows about the invasion is a 17 year old boy called Shinichi, whose arm has a parasyte in it. Based on the phenomenal manga made in 1988, "Parasyte" adapts its manga with accuracy while changing the setting from old times to modern age. Produced by Madhouse, this anime could be seen as a modern day masterpiece. (There may be some bias due to this series being the one which got me into anime...) Story - 9/10 As I said before, this anime adapts its manga faithfully, without any majorcurves. And there is only one thing that I can say about the story, it is great. Not perfect, but great. It follows the normal structure of a story, and has a smooth way of carrying it. The pacing is perfect, not slow nor fast. It sucks you straight in from the start until the very end. The story also includes some surprising morals, which will sink right into you when you finish the anime. There are times when the story seems a bit off, but there are only a few of these moments, and apart from that the story is great. Character introductions are very natural, so that we already know a lot about the character once they interact with Shinichi.

Art - 10/10

The artwork is amazing, and I would expect no less from Madhouse. The art style is different to the manga, since the anime received a visual update due to the year gap between the adaption. To be honest with you, I actually prefer the anime's art style more than the manga's due to its appealing and realistic style. As far as I could tell, there weren't any frame skips and the animation is quite fluid, as expected of madhouse studios. Even the special effects were amazing. There were a few cgi scenes, but that was to be expected due to the budget.

Sound - 10/10

The sound of Parasyte is amazing. All of the voice actors had suitable voices, I really liked Migi's voice. The foley sounds were also great, especially the clashing sounds. I found the opening song really fitting to the anime, and the opening animations were AMAZING. The ending song was beautiful and the high quality OST was actually quite nice. Ranging from dubstep to orchestral songs, the OST was fitting and unique.

Character - 9/10

Personally, I found the characters in Parasyte to be unique and fun to watch. Apart from a few annoying characters who I won't mention, I found myself to become hooked to the characters. Shinichi's character development was my favourite. He changed from a nerdy geek to a bad-ass avenger in half an episode's time. I liked the romance in the story, but I found the complex a bit annoying to watch. Apart from this, I found Migi to be enjoyable and humorous and I actually liked the way human emotions affected Ryouko.

Enjoyment - 10/10

At first, I was a bit disgusted by the gore, but I began to love this show when I completed the first episode. From unexpected humour to badass battles, I found Parasyte extremely enjoyable. The fact that the dark elements of the show were battled by the humour in it made the show even more enjoyable.

Overall - 10/10

This may not seem like a fair score to you, but I believe that Parasyte well deserved a 10/10. The author had said that the idea was "what would happen if humans faced a stronger organism?" And it seems that humans would still win, because of the amount of damage done to the earth...

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