So, what happened this episode? Well, a lot and yet nothing at all. Overall this was a sort of mundane episode while still cramming a lot of plot into this episode.
We pick up where we left off, with Kana dead and Shinichi suffering the fall out from her death. Murano’s response to his seemingly cold reaction to Kana being dead is a core point of what happens in this episode. Also, we see the return of Ryoko and her now born human baby. Ryoko [not her name anymore but too lazy to change what I call her.] has hired a guy to tail Shinichi and report back to her on him.
She’s also trying to raise her child fairly normally with the help of human nannies, but uh, I think she might of scared this one off. Telling you kid to go quiet like that and saying you have him “Trained well” is not a normal human thing. She’s good at blending into human society, better then most of the other Parasites in the series but she still has a long way to go to understanding humans completely.
This guy, who’s name I don’t know so I will call him Raye Penber for the rest of the review is tailing Shinichi through the entire episode and about mid-episode sees something he should never of seen. Migi, he sees Migi. Who immediately and with good reason decides that Raye needs to die.
Shinichi however, sticks to his guns and insists that he won’t let Migi kill this guy. So now, now someone knows about Migi. This guy, he knows and he could tell people at any time.
A rather freaky part of this episode is Shinichi’s daydream at school about everyone knowing about him. Calling him a freak, asking if he’s eaten people, screaming that he’s not human. This dream sequence is rather horrifying to look at, the way everyone is distorted. The things they’re saying direct reflections of things he’s thought about himself. It’s fear, pure fear, fear of being treated as a freak or as a lab subject. He’s looking all over like there are enemies around every corner.
It’s honestly a really nice look into Shinichi’s psyche on the whole situation and I’d personally like to see a lot more like it.
Now let’s talk about the part of this episode that pissed me off the most and this might turn into a large rant so I’m sorry ahead of time. A large focus in this episode is Murano and Shinichi’s relationship. It’s subtle moments through most of it until the end where he calls her out to the park to talk to her, most likely with the intent of telling her everything about what’s going on.
However, as he goes to tell her. Migi wakes up and he has to hold back from telling her. I get it, you’re trying to prolong this romance plot as long as you can writer but it’s just frustrating as a viewer. They love each other, that much is clear. She’s been with him through this whole thing despite the huge change in his personality and some hiccups but like….
How much more can this girl go through before realistically she’d give up? I can’t imagine her wanting to put up with his wishy-washy, “Oh, nothings wrong.” much longer when I was an intelligent young lady who could tell with ease that he’s telling a bold-faced lie to me. No girl wants to be lied to by the guy she is in love with.
I get it from his end, he’s just trying to protect her. He knows that Migi might try to kill her the same way that he tried to kill Raye but, I just, I can’t understand her character if this goes on for much longer. Murano, baby, you’re intelligent and cute and I know Shinichi is awesome, cares about you and is trying his best to protect….wow my argument is falling apart fast. The point is, nobody would blame you if you gave up sweetie.
At the same time, if Murano left him, what’s left to tie him to humanity? He’s slipped further and further away from those around him and with Murano slipping away from him. He’s seriously loosing a grip on the people in his life and I hope he can reel that back in and find some of that humanity he’s loosing.
I wish I knew where this story was going for Shinichi!!!! At the same time though, I’m glad to be blind so I can see the character development unravel in front of me.
As I said at the start of this review, a lot happened in this episode despite being low on action and that’s honestly a good thing. Even though the episode is focused on character’s anxieties mostly it never got boring and I never felt the urge to skip any part of the episode. It’s a good character focus on Murano’s worries, Shinichi’s anxieties and Ryoko’s understanding of the human race.
Now onto episode 14.
~Midnight
“How much more can this girl go through before realistically she’d give up?”
Actually, the episode ended on literally the exact moment she did.
I can NOT help but wonder why Izumi doesn’t just present the same reasoning to Migi for Murano as he did for Kana. They agreed that Kana could be dismissed as a paranoid school girl, scared because of the recent murder at a high school. That can easily be applied to Murano too, in fact, it’s even easier with Murano since she doesn’t have that special sixth sense that Kana did.
On a happier note, I’m quite glad to see Ryoko again! I wonder just how she’ll raise her child and even what she’ll learn about being human from the littlun. You know, the aliens always think they can be us without truly being us to any extent. It’s almost impossible if you’re going to mimic us so thoroughly. I’ll put this in a spoiler tag in case you don’t watch the previews: [spoiler] It looks as the Ryoko will be meeting the other Parasyte lady from the opening! [/spoiler]
Migi’s too on edge because of the detective for that to work – there’s already one witness to worry about, and the last thing he wants is a second that could corroborate their story.
That’s very possible. Who knows if that investigator has actually saw Izumi talking to Murano that night. However, I’m just wondering why Izumi won’t suggest it again. Getting Migi to agree was a huge breakthrough, but maybe the author will employ that again later on in the story… Right now I really am worried about if that investigator saw Izumi making the claw behind Murano ._.