Review of Parasyte: The Maxim

I believe this is an anime where the watcher must be that age to understand. It just isn't the type of thing that middle schoolers can really appreciate on more than a surface level. Many may not enjoy it for the lack of a "purpose" or antagonist but that is what I think makes this anime better than things like Servamp or Sword Art Online. It isn't like Tokyo Ghoul either in dressing up a lack of any psychological purpose or life meaning with nice graphics, sound track, and likable characters. Despite this, the series really isn't the Masterpiece some believe it to be. Itjust doesn't reach the level of deeper humane life understanding nor does it have a very intricate Masterpiece of a plot like Death Note does. Parasyte is about the simpler aspects of human nature. The story gets even a little "shounen" like which is extremely detracting. The ending was a little forced.

The art is rather average, but it is obvious that thought was put into realistic and attractive character design. The animation remains high quality throughout the entire series.

The soundtrack was excellent, a variety of music and sound effects fitting in the right moments. Not Tokyo Ghoul level but great all the same. The ending is particularly nice.

Characters were realistic, balanced. Not "cookie cutter" like Akame ga Kill and none were very annoying. However not particularly loveable either. Shinichi's character growth happened a bit too fast, we didn't get to see enough of the old him before his "change". (He really reminds me of Percy or Jason tbh)

The overall enjoyment of individual episodes varies extremely from high to very very low quality. As a person who has seen a pretty large number of anime I can say that this series is certainly better than average but really not much more than that. It just doesn't have any of the elements of a 10/10 anime. (Deeper psychological understanding of life, intricately planned plot, high enjoyment/entertainment value, or quality graphics/sound.)