I’ve been looking forward to this show since I heard it was being made a few months ago. I’ve been a fan of Hitoshi Iwaaki’s original manga ever since I read Shaenon Garrity’s review of it (http://shaenon.livejournal.com/40665.html#cutid1) way back when and was excited about seeing an anime adaptation. Surprised, since you don’t see a lot of 90s manga getting adapted in this day in age, but excited non-the-less. As a result, I had some expectation for the show when I started watching the first episode.
Of course, those expectations consisted of:
1. There would be lots of horrifying body transformations and violence
2. There would be weird humor involving the sentient hand-thing
And I was not disappointed.
1. There would be lots of horrifying body transformations and violence
2. There would be weird humor involving the sentient hand-thing
And I was not disappointed.
For those who haven’t seen the show or read the comic, Parasyte is about Shinichi, a Japanese teenager, who wakes up one day to find that an alien parasite has burrowed into his right hand and taken control of it, allowing said parasite to turn the hand into whatever amorphous blob it needs said hand to be. Shinichi is, understandably, a little off put by this, but puts up with it for the sake of not being taken in by the authorities or having to chop off his hand. Sadly, the parasite doesn’t know what exactly its deal is, other than it was planning to take over Shinichi’s brain rather than his limb and tries to find another one of his species in order to get some answers. This ends…interestingly.
My first thought on seeing the show was that all the character designs had been updated and cleaner up some, as Iwaaki, while an excellent artist when it comes to body horror and similar grotesquities, is only okay at drawing people. Admittedly, these redesigns weren’t as major as I thought they were, but everything a little nicer looking regardless. Happily, the more gross parts of the show are still done in the same wonderful style as the manga, which means stuff like this:
It’s great.
I’m also just happy to see that this show (at least for this episode) has at least a pretty good budget. All the a animation for the parasite stuff is great to look at and I REALY hope that it maintains this level of quality for the rest of the episodes.
As it is, it’s been a while since I read any part of the manga, so I can’t comment to much on how the story’s being adapted and such, but I had fun and, frankly, that’s all that they part of me that still think’s John Carpenter’s The Thing is mankind’s greatest achievement wanted. So here’s hoping I like next week’s too.
(Awww. It's cute. Sorta)
