Parasyte -the maxim- Episode 1 [First Impressions]

Parasye -the maxim- Is literally the anime I never knew I was waiting for but I’ve been waiting for. A little backstory on my history with this series is my vague memories of reading it in the TokyoPop magazine [at the name it was Mixxzine.] I got to read Sailor Moon and Magic Knights of Rayearth. I can barely remember how old I was, I can barely remember the last time this magazine was published! [Upon further re-search, this magazine stopped being published in the year 2000.]
So here I sit, older then I’d like to admit looking at the anime of the season and I spot this show and all I can ask myself is….”REALLY? DOES ANYONE EVEN REMEMBER THIS MANGA?”

Stage 1: Metamorphosis

Shinichi Izumi has lost control of his right hand, to what, and why and how? Well that’s what we find out in this episode. The first glaring major difference between the anime and the manga is Shinichi himself, it’s been noted from the very moment they brought out the trailers that the main character was changed.
The anime made him into a lot more of a nerd, with the glasses and all, who’s afraid of bugs…was that a thing in the manga? Fuzzy pre-2000 memories are fuzzy. Let’s not focus on the manga for now. Let’s talk about what the first episode had to offer.

The episode’s problem lies in it’s process of story telling, jumping around from past to future to past. It’s not a major problem but it could be jarring to some viewers. We see early in the episode a Parasyte killing a woman and trying to learn human speech. We cut to Shinichi who has been having troubles with his right hand since the night before. It isn’t until half an episode later we even cut back TO the night before.

He goes to school, accidently grabs a girls boob, gets caught playing with his smart phone in class. You know, typical school life…when your right hand is doing things you didn’t tell it too. He decides he’s not feeling well and wants to head home, so he talks with the teacher and gets dismissed from school.

We flash back to the night before when he was asleeping, a strange worm like thing goes to crawl into his nose. [it was his ear in the manga] and he sneezes it out and wakes up. Thinking it’s a snake he goes to attack it, it burrow’s itself into his arm and he immediately takes his headphones cord and wraps them around his arm.
His parents rush in but there is nothing strange about his hand by the time they get there, his Dad jokes about him being on drugs and it’s left to fall to the wayside.

Now on his way home, he sees a girl about to be hit by a car and runs out and stops the car…with only his right arm. Because, you know, that’s normal. LOGICALLY, he freaks the fuck out and runs home.
Now he finds out that he is not alone in his body anymore, but the parasyte can’t speak very well right now and falls asleep quickly before he can get any answers.

When he’s sleeping, the parasyte studies, learning about earth and such. It knows not where it came from but that it’s sad about it’s current circumstances of being unable to take over Shinichi’s brain. I can kind of understand that, it would have to be a pain to share a body with a teenage boy, in particular having to be his right hand I mean how awkward would alone time be?
Oh well, their only choice is for both of them to accept this arrangement. The parasyte needs his blood and such to live and he sort of needs his right arm. So they make a sort of agreement and move along their merry way.

Then there is this, you know, the ‘plot’ or so to say of having to live with other parasyte creatures in the area. There was a rash of murders caused by parasytes in the area. On his way to school, the one in his arm leads him to another one of his kind. This one invading a dog.
They fight, Shinichi and his hand buddy win. Good times all around. However, it seems like other parasytes aren’t going to take kindly to the fact that Shinichi is still human. So problems will arise from now on.

THIS SHOW IS SO BLOODY, then again, that’s exactly the way I remember it from when it was in the magazine. I would not reccomend this for people with weak stomachs or people who get confused by flashing back and forward between times. That might of just been a first episode thing but it could get kind of annoying if it carries on for too long.

Shinichi is played by Nobunaga Shimazaki most people who follow recent anime would know that’s the guy who played Haruka Nanase in Free!, The parasyte in his right hand who for all intensive purposes because this is how it was done in the manga we’ll call “Migi” is voiced by the ever popular Aya Hirano. So just from those two alone we can expect some pretty solid seiyuu work in this series.
The opening is “Let me hear” and it’s fantastic. It’s a sort of scream rock opening but isn’t so bad that it loses any of it’s charm and it gets you really pumped up for the episode.

You’ve got my interest Parasyte -The Maxim-, now let’s see if you can keep it and see if this really is subconciously the anime I’ve always wanted but never knew I did.

~Midnight