Review of Parasyte: The Maxim

This is the one genre in anime that I'm least familiar with. Body horror or horror in general is a genre that I don't always watch especially in anime. The only horror based anime Ive seen is Hellsing and believe it or not I heavily enjoyed it. Parasyte is a series that centers around science fiction and body horror. So going in I knew I was gonna encounter gore scenes and disturbing character design, and as expected I did. The main reason what got me into Parasyte is that it has received much praise and from what I heard has little to no filler episodesthanks to being a faithful adaptation. So after completed this series here's what I thought.***contains MINOR spoilers***

Story:8/10
Very well paced and an interesting premise. The main themes used here are "the meaning of life" and "what makes a human," and the series does a solid job explaining these. As Shinichi encounters many conflicts that effect him it makes him question his human nature. The story has a lot of drama, fights, deaths, and it has you ask who are the real monsters ?? There are a few flaws however for example, there was a love triangle that went on and it wasn't executed well. The main flaw is that it suffered from exposition as we were left with some unanswered questions. The origins of the parasites and how some humans can sense parasites were never fully explained.

Art:9/10
Has any Madhouse series ever looked bad ?? Parasyte of course has stellar animation and a good look to it. But of course it contains gore and blood that makes it mature. It also looks very modern with the way the characters dress and its technology use like tablets and headphones. The fight scenes were well animated and the face transformations were good enough to disturb some viewers. The visuals have a strong horror frame to it but at times can look dry.

Sound:9/10
The voice acting here was spot on. Adam Gibbs who's a VA that I never heard before puts on a great performance as Shinichi, making him sound very natural. There was one voice that bothered me and that was the elderly woman Mitsuyo but she was only in a few episodes. The soundtrack was very solid, it used a good mix of piano and electronic dubstep. My favorite song being its ending theme "Its the Right Time" as it sounded so beautiful, it also contained numerous background music that set the tone for its scenes. However I wasn't crazy about its op song "Let Me Hear" as it never grew on me and people might bash me on this cuz it seems a lot of fans enjoyed it.

Character:7/10
Have to be honest I was disappointed with the cast. Shinichi isn't a dominant protagonist by any means as he comes across bland but he relationship with Migi is imo the best part of the series. Watching their character growth was so intriguing and seeing them cooperate and undergo personality changes with each other was gold. Unfortunately the side characters weren't handled well. Other than Reiko Tamura most of the characters were either poorly written or given no development. For example Murano was given good screen time but it was mainly cuz she was Shinichi's love interest. I wish she was given more of a backstory to help make her more interesting.

Final Verdict

I'm sorry to say this but Parasyte fell below my expectations. While it had great production values the cast kept it from being a great series. The duo between Shinichi and Migi was by far the best part and although the storyline had a great concept it doesn't answer all its questions. It is however still a very solid series but with all its praise I was expecting more. I recommend this to fans of the horror genre as well as sci-fi fans and to people who hate filler. Lastly this is NOT for kids or for people who get easily disturbed.

Sub or Dub Recommendation: Sub