Parasyte the Maxim (2014), Humanity is What Makes Us Human

Based on the manga of the same name, Parasyte by Iwasaki Hitoshi, tells the story of a world where parasite like-aliens infiltrate its human host and turn them into a zombie exists among humans, the only thing that differentiates humans and parasites is what the aliens don’t have – humanity and empathy.

One night, a boy named Shinchi encountered a parasyte and attempted to take over his body however to no success as it failed to penetrate his brain. The Parasyte however, still lives within him – alive and even talking. The curious case of the boy becomes the plot of the anime Parasyte as a Parastye and its human host co-exist and try to tolerate each other since their behavior and thought process are completely opposites.

A classic anime, pretty sure everyone has at least heard of this one yet there are many aspects of the anime which personally makes it a very worth it anime to invest time into.

But before that, a fun fact of the anime is that since it’s adapted from a 1990s manga which some might say, has an outdated art style, Studio Madhouse ended up redesigning the characters to better fit the now more modern art style so visually, characters in the anime are quite different from the original manga design. Personally, the anime character design looks better.

Now onto the aspects that make this anime great.

First off, the main spotlight of this show personally for me is the immaculate and engaging character development. The main character, Shinchi undergoes a very drastic yet realistic change of character as the show progresses and it’s really amusing to see how he has changed and just as the title states – Humanity is what makes us human. It’s quite sad that the longer Shinchi grows accustomed to his parasyte “friend” Migi, the more he loses his humanity..

And great character development doesn’t only apply to Shinchi. A parasyte by the name of Tamiya Ryouko seeks what it means to be human despite being a different species. Throughout the anime, we were fed with great development for her too and ultimately ending in Ryouko doing something a Parasyte could never do. Not going to spoil it though, so if curious, go check out the anime.

There’s one aspect that’s arguably, a hit or miss and that’s the soundtrack. I’m not talking about the openings and endings since they’re both a bop especially the opening soundtrack (Let Me Hear by Loathing in Las Vegas) I’m talking about the background songs. They incorporated EDM music into a horror sci-fi genre and it could have gone wrong – which thankfully didn’t end up that way.

Now that out of the way, it was sort of disappointing how the final arc was played and at one point approaching the end of the arc, it was quite confusing since the direction of how the ending will go. The however, redeemed itself as the final episode was a great one to close the book for good – no cliffhanger or anything of that sort, just a strong and sharp ending.

A timeless classic with decent character design, unique soundtrack, great character development and an incredibly strong first episode (albeit an arguably slightly messy ending) makes up for a strong candidate for probably one of the best animes out there even in 2022 and is definitely one that’s guaranteed to glue viewer’s eyes to the screen and stay on the edge of their seats.

Score – 9/10

Title: Parasyte
Studio: Studio Madhouse
Director: Shimizu Kenichi
Voice Actors: Shimazaki Nobunaga, Hirano Aya