Parasyte, along with Gugure Kokkuri-San, are the only two shows from the last season that I’ve actually finished, and that’s actually saying quite a lot–seeing as how I haven’t been watching (much less blogging) anime at all this past season. However, I figured I should at least write a final review for Parasyte, just because it’d been such a consistent and solid series.
A lot of time in this series is spent building up Shinichi’s humanity (or rather his loss of it) as he meets a creature named Migi. It’s not even anywhere near as slow paced as Shiki, another anime similar in theme and story, but this show still puts emphasis on creating an atmosphere to draw the viewer in, and this is also what makes this show good; the contrast between surprisingly relatable characters, and the really intense scenes.
Most of the time with a lot of mediocre horror shows, the directors spend almost no time on the less significant characters, and Parasyte was no exception at first. Yet what separated this from the others was that this series fixed a lot of its initial problems very well over 24 episodes. I mentioned several months ago how Shinichi wasn’t a very good character to show the gradual loss of humanity because we didn’t know him at all before he met Migi–but as we saw more of his own humanity, we saw Shinichi turn into a much more self-reflective character for the better. In addition, his change as a character is so completely different from early on that it’s commendable that the producers did it so seamlessly. Migi, on the other hand (excuse the pun, I had to make it), was an amazing character from start to finish, and it was interesting to see his character wrestle with problems that were the exact opposite of Shinichi’s in that he gradually learns what it means to value human compassion. Because of that, the ending was great in that Migi, the initial source of Shinichi’s inhumanity, saves Satomi’s life through a spur of human compassion–a very fitting ending, I have to say.
The show has great control over every climax. It evolves very nicely as we learn what’s going on with the characters, and loves to drop random tense encounters with the Parasytes everywhere–which really spices up its scenarios. Because of this, Reiko was definitely a highlight throughout the entire series. While this show doesn’t answer everything like the lingering questions about the parasites, the closure it gives at the end does wrap things up well. So in the end, Parasyte remains a thrilling “horror” story that never really dragged on longer than it needed to.
Final Verdict: 82.5/100
| Storytelling: | 7/10 – Lots of action, and does this well, knowing how to balance it out with its plot. |
| Characters: | 10/10 – Simple, but effective and likable. |
| Production-Values: | 8/10 – Alright soundtrack. Animation has a lot of weaknesses, but still remains pretty solid for an action series. |
| Setting: | 8/10 – The backstory actually does what it needs to do to make this series interesting for a full 24 episodes. |
Ultimately, I gave this show an 82.5/100 because of all of the great qualities I’ve already raved about above–yet the fact that it fumbled the pacing of the first handful of episodes as well as the existence of Shiki, which accomplished what Parasyte did and even went above and beyond in just the span of 22 episodes (excluding the OVAs) means I just can’t see myself giving it the 9/10 I would’ve initially given it. However, it goes without saying but 8/10 is not a low score by any means, I’d recommend it to anyone.
Suggestions:
Yay, Shiki is like my favorite show ever, just realized how similar the two shows really are despite Shiki outshining this really old story. I don’t know if it was a matter of taste or not but the soundtrack is far worse than the score you gave it, because it was dubstep that wasn’t even hard hitting. Compare it to Shiki’s soundtrack which you were already comparing the show to anyway, and it jusr doesn’t measure up! I agree with the final score though, but I would’ve given it a 70/100 ir something like that.