Review of Parasyte: The Maxim

I think that this show had a lot of potential to be interesting but bad writing, mediocre animation, a laughably stupid soundtrack, and an ending that left me lost for words (not in a good way) makes me give this show a 4. However, if I was just rating the last few episodes, then I wouldn't be reviewing it on this site because it does not feature negative numbers as a score. Parasyte is a show about an alien species invading Earth, taking over the minds and bodies of humans, and killing us off one by one. The main character, Shinichi, is taken over by aparasite who he will later name Migi. However, something goes wrong in the process of taking over his body and Migi ends up only taking over his right arm.

This is what initially got me interested in the show. Shinichi is a regular high school student but with this parasite now connected to him and other parasites looking to kill him he must work together with Migi to survive while also hiding his existence from everyone. What makes this interesting is that Migi does not have any emotions. He thinks only with logic and his main and only goal is to survive, with or without Shinichi. Because of this Shinichi has to find ways to deal with him and convince him not to kill his friends, family and sometimes, Shinichi himself.

(Spoilers ahead)

It's a very interesting dynamic that really kept me interested in watching. Especially, when Shinichi is injured and Migi merges parts of himself with Shinichi to keep them both alive. At this point, the show starts to pick up as Shinichi stops being such a whiney bitch and actually starts doing cool stuff. With more and more parasites after him, Shinichi must work even harder to survive. Even sometimes skipping school, which is great because the scenes when he's at school trying to apologize to his girlfriend for the hundredth time over are fucking awful. Although, it seems that right when a plotline or a character starts to get interesting the writers just cut it short. Like one of the characters, Kanna, who was able to sense parasites but was killed off before they could explain why she had that power.

However, right when it seems that the show is starting to get interesting, all the writers all simultaneously get concussions that leave them with permanent brain damage. From this point on the entire story turns into a mess of... I'm running out of words to describe it. It's fucking awful like it's really fucking bad. There's a point where a cop starts suspecting that Shinichi is a parasite and right as he starts to confront him about it the writers don't know what to do so they just have him wake up from a nightmare in his house and never explain what was a dream and what wasn't. Also, the writers were so clueless on how to end the show that they literally show two different outcomes to a situation. Not even kidding they show two different scenes of Shinichi doing two different things. It's fucking ridiculous.

Honestly, most of the show was enjoyable to watch. I'd probably have rated it a 6 or 7 if it wasn't for the last few episodes. Really that abomination disguised as an ending was so bad that it felt like some kind of morally wrong thing to give this show a higher score than 4. Even if most of it was pretty decent.