Parasyte the Maxim

    

Parasyte the Maxim was one of the great new anime that came out in America recently. I saw it on the website crunchyroll, which has tons of Japanese anime with subtitles. This anime is about a teenage boy named Shinichi Izumi, who lives in a quiet neighborhood in Tokyo. One night a worm-like parasite tries to burrow through Shinichi's ears to get to his brain, but because he was wearing headphones, makes an attempt to go his arm instead. So Migi, the parasyte takes over Shinichi's right hand and they attempt to coexist and talk, and help each other out to survive in this world where parasites have become commonplace in Tokyo. Not only have they become commonplace, but they are man-eating killers who can disguise themselves as humans. A lot of stuff happens in this anime, I'll try to break it down.
     First, the main thing that happens in the beginning is that a parasite attacks Shinichi at school, killing tons of his classmates, in an attempt to kill Shinichi. Shinichi and Migi have to work together to kill their foe, and they end up killing him. This anime is not for the light-hearted, its very gory and bloody.
      Next, another main part of the storyline was when Shinichi learns that his mother was killed by a parasite while she was out on vacation with Shinichi's father. What happens is the parasite actually figures out where Shinichi lives and stabs Shinichi right through the heart, killing Shinichi instantly. But he doesn't die there. Migi does something to grow a part of him where Shinichi's heart used to be. It was quite something. If Migi didn't do it, he would've died. The parasite Migi plays an important role in this anime, and he's just as important as Shinichi.
    Then, Shinichi finds out that one of his teachers at his school Ryoko Tamiya is a parasite but she says she doesn't want to fight, that she wants to join forces with him and be friends. Little does Shinichi know, that she is part of an elite parasite group where they make decisions about human feeding grounds, and other nefarious parasite stuff. Eventually their club gets wiped out and Shinichi has to fight for his life against their leader, Gotou.
     In addition, there's more to this anime than just fighting parasites and bloody bodies. There are other important characters like Shinichi's girl friend Satomi Murano. The more Shinichi gets caught in the world of parasites, the more he becomes cold, less human, and out of touch with Samtomi. Also, there is another girl who gets infatuated with Shinichi. However, she ends up getting killed by a parasite and Shinichi ends up killing the parasite in a fit of rage. Then, there is the loss of his mother. And Ryoko ends up getting killed protecting her baby in her arms. She gets shot by the cops despite holding a human baby in her hands. Despite her being a parasite, her baby ended up somehow human, which I never quite understood. Also, the relationship between Shinichi and Migi was like brothers. Despite Migi being a burden on him, Shinichi ended up loving Migi.
     Lastly, the fights in this anime are intense. They keep the anime interesting and on your toes while watching. The last fight at the end versus Gotou is an incredible anime fight, where Shinichi barely wins because he doesn't have Migi to help him. Instead he ends up stabbing Gotou with a stick, a stick that has poison in it, thus weakening his state. He didn't know that the stick would poison Gotou, so he thought he was going to die, but fought him anyway, pretty cool right? He did it because he wanted to weaken Gotou before he got to kill any more people. The police end up raiding Tokyo and killing most of the parasites but the main question that doesn't get answered in the end of the show is where do the parasites come from? And what is their purpose of existence? This is kind of only answered through the dialogue of Ryoko. But we never truly learn if the parasites are aliens or what. All in all it was a great anime and I'd highly recommend it to any anime man. The latest anime that I've been watching is Darker than Black, I'm on the second season and it is fantastic.