What They Say:
They arrived in silence and darkness, descending from the skies with a hunger for human flesh. Parasites – alien creatures who must invade and take control of a human host to survive – have come to Earth. No one knows their secret except high school student, Shinichi Izumi, who’s right hand has been invaded by an alien parasite. Shinichi and Migi, the parasite in his hand, begrudgingly form a friendship and find themselves caught in the middle of a war between humans and parasites.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
After an arc about the slow humanization of one of our parasite characters, Parasyte decides to follow up with an arc about how humans can also be unspeakably cruel. We’ve seen this before in a lot of “who is the REAL monster?” horror works, including great anime like Shiki. What really helps in pulling it off is giving the viewer what happens and letting them draw their own conclusions.
Not like the Parasyte anime, which essentially states out loud “PARASYTES CAN BE GOOD, NOW LET US SHOW YOU HUMANS BEING WORSE THAN PARASYTES.” If that sounds like an overstatement, dialogue in one moment was changed to have Shinichi say “Tamiya Ryoko healed the hole in my heart,” something the manga left entirely to subtext.
After the fracas in the park, Shinichi is taken to a special lab where they’re running tests on a serial killer, Uragami, who you might remember from the very, very end of episode 1. Like Kana, he seems to have the power to detect Parasytes in human disguise. Unlike Kana, he seems to have developed this ability from his cruel, animalistic survival instincts. Uragami is presented with a few so-called psychics, and asked if any of them are parasytes, or if they have powers similar to Uragami’s own. This is merely a test, as we see Shinichi is being saved as the last test subject. The police have suspected he had something to do with Parasytes all the way back to Kana’s murder, but Kuramori’s note mentioning a collaborator and Tamiya’s giving Shinichi her baby have raised suspicions through the roof. He is to be tested to see if he is human.
Perhaps because Migi is asleep, Shinichi is undetected by serial killer Uragami. Shinichi and Migi go upstairs to muse about subtext out loud, in case viewers are not able to make up their own mind about the events that are happening, and then Shinichi is released back to school. But not for long, because after a strike to destroy the Parasytes is planned for city hall, the detective comes to fetch Shinichi, causing a maudlin breakdown from ever-put-upon Murano.
As you might expect, the crackdown involving a SWAT team in an office building goes horribly awry. I had hoped the anime could carry off the action competently, and aside from some awful looking CGI civilians and riot cops, it does its job. What I didn’t expect is that the show would dumb itself down to make the action more ridiculous. The x-ray machine used to detect parasites (parasites have no bones, right? Clever) is changed to some goofy sci-fi device, the “bad cop” who goes rogue in the fog of war is an action cliche, with battle scars and an attitude, and the serial killer gives running commentary on the ongoing massacre. “Help us identify the monsters,” a cop yells, and the killer responds “look who’s talking!” Ghastly writing.
The episode ends with Gotoh dispatching an attack squadron and another facing down the Mayor in the city council room. In the manga, the mayor had had a lot of characterization at this point, in speaking with his team of confederates. In the anime, he is shown as isolated with Gotoh as his only companion. Almost all of the scenes demonstrating his leadership and concerns are gone, and his characterization is gutted. Who knows if what follows will have impact when the mayor is an empty suit?
In Summary:
Stating subtext in dialogue is always awful, but here it disguises how intelligent the original Parasyte really was. This is grade Z horror, and there isn’t even enough emotional investment to pull of the action. Wretched stuff, and it makes me fear for the series’ final arc, which will require some skill to pull off well.
Grade: D
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony VAIO 20″
0 comments