Review of Parasyte: The Maxim

What makes a human? What makes a monster? Each of us have a bit of both in us, and it's up to you which one you want to be. Parasyte The Maxim runs along many similar themes of many species-war animes, but it stands out from other man-eating titles because of its excellent discourse and exploration on the role, purpose and meaning of humanity, in light of our world and environment. Parasyte boasts a dramatic, thrilling and gripping plot, revolving around a solid male lead and the people around him, but in the end suffers from an entire host of underdeveloped supporting characters. TL;DR Story: 8/10 Art: 7/10 Sound: 5/10 Character:6/10
Enjoyment: 10/10
Overall: 8/10 (rounded up from 7.5)

Good points:
+ Great main male lead character
+ Gripping and interesting plot
+ Meaningful plot twists along the way
+ Lengthy and deep thematic discourse
+ Great action and fighting scenes
+ Great drama, tension and emotion

Bad points:
- Many underdeveloped supporting characters
- Not very outstanding OP or ED
- Shallow characterization of main antagonist
- Some plot holes that the anime itself acknowledges

Story: 8/10

The anime is very well divided into 8 different story arcs, most of them revolving around certain characters in the anime. They are, in order: Introductory Migi Arc, Mother Arc, Hideo Arc, Kana Arc, Tamura Reiko Arc, Extermination Arc and the Gotou Arc, followed by a 1-episode epilogue. I will go through each of the arcs in order.

The story starts off by laying down its foundations, first introducing our main character Izumi, who immediately gets attacked by a parasite which burrows into his right arm, which he later names Migi. For the entirety of the first arc, Migi takes on more of the role of a narrator and does a lot of explanation for the audience as to how parasites function, kill, communicate, survive and also their general abilities. Parasites are characterized as completely rational organisms with no sense of emotion whatsoever, seeking only self-preservation. (+1 for general believable assumptions)

Izumi constantly finds himself in increasing danger of getting killed by other parasites, while Migi continues to protect him each time, saying that his host must survive to ensure his own survival. They encounter other parasites of increasing power throughout the anime, but things start to get interesting when they encounter Tamiya Ryoko, a parasite whose aim is to blend into human society and study them. (+1 for plot depth)

Everything seems fine until we hit the Mother Arc, where Izumi's mother has been taken over by a wandering parasite in need of a female host. Izumi's father barely survives and makes it to a nearby hospital. Back at the house, Izumi goes into denial mode as he encounters his mother who has obviously turned into a parasite. Unable to attack his own mother, Izumi gets stabbed in the heart, after which Migi must perform a heart reconstructive surgery on the spot to revive his beating heart.

A newly revived and powered-up Izumi now reawakens and vows to protect his father from his parasite-infested mother. Along the way, he encounters Uda, who is the only other character mentioned in the entire anime who is also half-parasite half-human. They end up working together to defeat his parasite mother, now with the new superhuman speed, senses and strength that Izumi has acquired from having Migi's parasite cells mixed into him.

Then, we get to the Hideo Arc, where Hideo, a parasite, was initially sent to Izumi's school to keep tabs on him. This eventually spirals into chaos when a student, Yuko, finds out Hideo's identity and forces him to kill her. Yuko manages to get away by splashing harmful chemicals on Hideo and causing him to go on a killing rampage around the school. Izumi is then forced to first rescue his girlfriend Murano, who is at this point terrified, and also defeat Hideo. (+1 for gripping plot)

We are then introduced to Kana, who is a female student with the innate ability to sense the wavelengths emitted by parasites. In the Kana Arc, she obsesses over Izumi, thinking that this ability to sense him means that they are fated to be together. However, Izumi quickly realizes that her ability only sense parasites, and that she could be in danger if she keeps getting into close proximity with parasites. Kana eventually dies by her own fault and Izumi in his rage, kills the parasite that killed her.

Then, we move onto the Tamura Reiko arc, which is probably the most interesting arc of the lot. Tamiya Ryoko has since changed her name to Tamura Reiko after leaving Izumi's school, and this time she hires a private investigator, Kuramori, to keep tabs on Izumi. Izumi realizes this and confronts Kuramori who is told the truth behind Reiko's identity. Kuramori, crazed over the mystery, then kidnaps Reiko's human baby and faces off with her at a park.

Reiko, faced with the possible death of her own human baby, stabs Kuramori and retrieves her own baby, showing some form of human emotion that she herself didn't think was possible. (+1 for interest) Later on, Reiko gives her life up to protect the baby and doesn't even retaliate against the police who were shooting at her. Izumi, touched by this act of human kindness, then sheds tears for the first time in a long while.

Following this incident, a task force is set up to eliminate a group of parasites led by Hirokawa found to be operating within a particular building, and we are thrown into a rather bloody Extermination Arc. Here, we are introduced to essentially the polar opposite of Tamura Reiko, Uragami, who is basically a serial killer who has killed so many people that he can differentiate humans from parasites easily, just by looking at them. While Reiko was the monster being human, Uragami is the human being a monster. (+1 for complexity in plot development)

The task force makes all the humans go through a scanning system to tell apart the parasites from the humans, then using shotgun rounds to blow apart the confirmed parasites. Things go rather well until the parasites try to counter attack, leading to some collateral damage in terms of civilian life whilst the remaining two fugitives Hirokawa and Gotou hide in the upper floors of the building. The anime at this point starts to question whether it is right to sacrifice lives in order to save others, amidst claims by the task force that such damage was "necessary" to weed out the parasites.

Later on, in the upper floors, Gotou manages to single-handedly take down an entire squad and escapes, whilst Hirokawa is surrounded by a SWAT team. Hirokawa attempts to save his life by talking about saving the environment by reducing human numbers, but is immediately shot dead. Then, there is a big reveal that Hirokawa was in fact a human working amongst parasites whom he knew were parasites, but believed in their cause in order to maintain "balance in the ecosystem" by reducing the human population, seen as a "poison" on the earth. (+1 for plot twist)

Finally we move onto the last and final arc, the Gotou Arc, where it's basically Izumi and Migi facing off against Gotou, the enemy whom Reiko earlier said was invincible because he was basically 5 parasites merged into one, giving him immense power and strength. Over the course of the extended battle though, we see Izumi basically resorting to every high-risk maneuver possible to try and defeat Gotou, all of which somehow manage to work. Eventually, they defeat Gotou but are left questioning themselves whether they should finish him off.

Migi, whom at this point has acquired some "human emotions", decides that he doesn't want to kill his own kind, whilst Izumi also would rather let fate decide whether Gotou lives, despite the numbers of people that Gotou has killed. (+1 for plot depth) In the end, self-preservation and conservation of human life prevails and they finish off Gotou. (+1 for logical sense)

In the epilogue that follows, we fast forward many months after all that has happened and Murano and Izumi are back together again. Uragami, the serial killer who has escaped in the earlier extermination arc, comes back to kidnap Murano and then questions Izumi one last time about who exactly is the human and who is the monster in the world they are living in. Izumi ultimately manages to defeat him and save Murano at the same time, thanks to Migi's help.

As for plot holes, there were a total of 9 that I found, some of them being quite major, so I can't give any bonus points for that.

In episode 7, Uda's story of becoming half-parasite is pretty amusing, save for one small problem that if Uda really fell down the cliff into the water, his body wouldn't sink as quickly as it showed in the anime. In fact, his body should in fact immediately float up within 2 seconds of hitting the water surface, and Uda should not be in any immediate danger of drowning. You could basically see that in the area where Uda was going to jump, the water was deep enough so he wouldn't die from impact on the rocks either. Also, this proves that Uda actually chose a really stupid place to commit suicide that would never have succeeded as well.

In episode 9, Yuko decides to "talk to Shimada first" after having 2 first-hand encounters of his face-changing. Even if Yuko was lovestruck before, after these 2 encounters she should definitely be afraid of Shimada Hideo and would consider him a danger especially after hearing from her brother. It makes absolutely no sense for Yuko to talk to Shimada Hideo first "just in case" he's not dangerous. This is clearly a case of a character acting unnaturally in order to create drama in the plot.

Later on, two of the rugby students, who had just seen Yuko fall from the top floor of a building, did not even mention this happening to a teacher passing by, and they only chose to tell him about "something" in the Fine Arts room. In fact, if they've just seen a girl fall from so many storeys, the should be panicking and at least hurrying to the Fine Arts room to find out what happened, but instead they are pictured calmly walking through the halls. Also, the rugby students say nothing about the severity of the situation.

The teacher also is too accepting of the vague report that "something" is in the Fine Arts room, and he fails to ask further about what this "something" is, or looks like. Perhaps, it's so common in Japan to have students climbing and falling out of the windows of school buildings that people are already desensitized? Give me a break.

In episode 20, Hirokawa says, "How dare you point your guns at civilians?" But the soldiers around him are clearly holding their guns at high port arms, hence none of the guns are pointing at anybody.

Later on, two soldiers see a bunch of obviously-too-calm humans walking away amidst the chaos, and decide to let them go? Aren't they on like strict orders to shoot anyone who might seem suspicious on sight, or at least stop them? If this was supposed to be an extermination, these soldiers really aren't doing their jobs at all.

Halfway through the extermination, the corridors suddenly goes dark in the building they are in. Did all the lights suddenly get turned off in this building for no good reason, or was there a blackout that the audience is supposed to have presumed happened? If anything, during an extermination these lights should all be manually turned out for better targeted acquisition and shooting accuracy. The lights being turned off hence makes no sense and is just a convenient way to make the gory scenes of dead bodies more tense. Even if it's possible that the parasites turned off the lights on the upper floors, this was never actually mentioned so it's still a plot hole.

Towards the end, when Gotou tells the soldiers who encountered him to follow him, those stupid soldiers actually do so? Uragami, the man who was in charge of identifying the parasites, just ran away with fear at the first sight of Gotou. Wasn't it obvious enough that Gotou was like even more dangerous than all those they encountered before? Even if Uragami wasn't there, when every other normal human is downstairs scared to death for their lives, and suddenly you see a random guy unnaturally calmly loitering around one of the upper floors in total darkness, that's just suspicious on so many levels! Any soldier acting naturally would have immediately gunned Gotou down relentlessly with shotgun rounds without hesitation.

Finally, the anime says absolutely nothing about the origin of parasites, and even admits this. This is a major plot hole regardless of how much it is meant to symbolize how our human origins are, too, "unknown".

Overall, the plot was pretty solid and well done, save for a couple of unnatural character reactions to situations and the plot holes as listed above. Still, compared to many animes out there that I've watched, this anime has really stood out in its plot and thematic development.

Art: 7/10

OP Sequence 1: 2/2 - Pretty good
ED Sequence 2: 1/2 - Simple and artistic
Aesthetic: 2/3 - Perhaps it's meant to be a bit disturbing but I didn't like the way that the parasites were drawn. Migi was cute, but many bad ones were all kind of just the same monstrosity, it would have been better if they'd put more variants of the parasites.
Animation: 2/3 - The action scenes were definitely really nice, although definitely there was an obvious lack of special effects put into all the slashing and stuff.

Sound: 5/10

OP Theme 1: 1/2 - Everything is pretty good except that the voice has this really annoying "autotune"-like sound
ED Theme 1: 1/2 - A beautiful piece of music, but I thought it could have been better chosen, seeing as how they like to end every episode in a cliff-hanger.
Background Music: 3/4 - I generally enjoyed it, save for certain suspenseful parts where I thought the music was rather toned down and kind of drew away from the mood
Additional Themes: 0/2 - There were none, so no points here.

Character: 6/10

This is probably where the anime suffers a bit, even though the main character is pretty solid, so we'll start with him.

Izumi is the most complex main character in the anime, and with good reason, because he has a parasite in him that's completely affecting his thought processes and even emotions. We even get a glimpse of a backstory of his family, where his mother got the burn mark, but it's fair to say that he develops his backstory as the story progresses, through the loss of his mother to a parasite (+1 for a backstory). Izumi starts off weak and fearful but he is gradually strengthened by Migi's cells inside of him, making him not only stronger physically but also in mental conditioning (+1 for character growth). Also, Izumi is constantly at odds between his "parasite" and "human" parts of him. Torn between the two, Izumi eventually manages to find some middle ground towards the end of the anime, being able to be rational and still experience emotion at the same time. (+1 for character development). Definitely my favourite character as his combat skills are also pretty impressive after the second arc.

The other very interesting character is of course Migi, Izumi's companion who starts off completely rational and straightforward with things. He initially cannot understand human thinking and constantly mocks human emotion, but eventually, after mixing with Izumi's heart, begins to comprehend how human emotions work, and at the end, even decides to spare Gotou's life on grounds of not killing one's own kind (+1 for character growth). Though his ability to develop as a character is limited, since he is a parasite and is non-human, the fact that he shows this growth is interesting.

In the same way, Tamura Reiko also experiences this human emotional change. Going from just a parasite who is interested in learning about humans, to becoming the epitome of human love - giving up her own life for her child, is no mean feat at all (+1 for character growth). Throughout the anime, she is also very peculiar, even by parasite standards, as her obsession with her baby and her long-term insight into the survival of the parasite species seems to be very rare (+1 for character development).

Unfortunately, we have to mention the useless Murano here, who is Izumi's girlfriend in the show. Murano's only role in this anime was honestly to try and help Izumi realize that he was become less and less "human", and Murano constantly struggles as she comes to terms with how Izumi "has changed". Throughout the anime, she incessantly bickers and whines about how Izumi is not the same as before and is completely fickle-minded when she decides to stay or not to stay with Izumi. She has no backstory and it's sad that her entire existence of a character is meaningless without Izumi. Plus the fact that she basically bears no relevance to the overall plot makes her sub-par as a main character. Though she eventually grows to accept Izumi as a human for who he is, this is hardly expanded upon.

Kana is the other Izumi-obsessed girl who basically fails to achieve anything from the start and all the way up to the end. She only causes trouble for Izumi, either by getting into a trouble with parasites, or by getting in the way of Izumi and Murano's relationship. She's honestly a pest and it was almost a relief to see her brutally killed by a parasite, no kidding. She has no backstory, and even less development than Murano. The only thing keeping me from hating her is that she is probably the prettiest girl in the anime.

The rest of the characters are even less memorable. Gotou, the main antagonist, is strong, but other than that, he has zero character, and hardly any motives worth mentioning anyway. Other key, interesting figures like Hirokawa, Uragami, Kuramori and Hirama all fail completely in terms of character development, and are basically just there so the plot can keep moving.

As such, only a few characters actually stood out, and most of the characters were easily forgotten and many who died didn't mean much at all to the plot or to the audience.

Enjoyment: 10/10

Excitement: 3/3
The action scenes really hit it where it mattered, and it was a real treat to see parasites battling out, and even better when we see Izumi kicking ass with his superhuman-like strength. All the blood and gore also helped a bit to make the scenes more dark and serious.

Emotion: 2/3
Quite a lot of emotion was put into the anime, notably the relationship between Murano and Izumi, which was really back and forth throughout the whole anime, and it seemed like an endless struggle of push-and-pull (Izumi trying to pull and Murano pushing him away). Also, the Tamura Reiko arc was simply brimming with emotion, putting me close to tears at the end of it.

Humour: 1/3
Although not known for its humour, the anime also pulls several slapstick stunts off using Uda, as well as Migi when he makes blunt remarks and morphs into very funny things.

Pacing: 3/3
The story does very well in creating suspense by making many of their episodes end in cliff-hangers so that you essentially never stop watching the show. Also, it had a satisfactory resolution which wrapped up most of the loose ends it introduced, leading to a happy ending. It was also gripping and exciting straight from the beginning, as well as at the start of every episode where they also show random people getting killed by parasites to add tension and drama.

This anime gets 1 bonus point for having no filler episodes! (+1) It's honestly been awhile since I've given a 10 for enjoyment, and I'm glad this anime managed to deliver.

Overall: 7.5 / 10 (rounded up to 8)

I chose to round this anime up to an 8 by sheer merit of the delivery of its themes and plot. It was an exciting, thrill ride, as well as a lengthy discourse on humanity and the human condition. It grips you, challenges you to think and asks questions that pierce to the very heart of the human soul, and it may not be for everyone, given the maturity of such themes.