Parasyte, Vols. 1-2
By Hitoshi Iwaaki
Published by Del Rey
Rating: OT (16 +)
It all started on a normal night. Mysterious little pods fell from space, cracking open shortly after making landfall to reveal their wormlike passengers. The creatures quickly found hosts, crawling into their hosts’ heads and replacing them, and taking control of the entire host creature in the process. Izumi Shinichi awakens and manages to interrupt the infection process, causing one of the creatures to burrow into his right arm instead of the head. The result? He now shares his body with a highly intelligent and completely emotionless alien critter he call Migi. It may have been better for Shin if the creature had killed him, because now he knows about the creatures, and that makes him a threat.
Parasyte is a nice blend of sci-fi, horror, action, and comedy, with dashes of philosophical navel gazing here and there just for good measure. The series follows Shin, a high school student, as he attempts to come to terms with what’s happened to him and what’s happening to the world. Unlike other Body Snatchers stories, the alien parasites don’t have a master plan to enslave humanity. In fact, they know next to nothing about themselves before they began to infect humans. All they know is that they’re hungry, hungry for… well… us. They infect a life form and proceed to consume the non-infected members of that species. As murder rates around the world begin to rise with the grisly discovery of devoured human remains, Shin’s initial reaction is to try and tell the world what he knows, show them Migi so they can defend themselves. Unfortunately for him, Migi’s relentless logic and willingness to threaten Shin’s life wins out. The two strike an uneasy alliance with Migi helping and protecting Shin, while Shin keeps his mouth shut about the alien parasites.
The interplay between Migi and Shin is hilarious at times and creepy at others. Migi’s clinical coldness and poor understanding of human interaction leads to some funny scenes throughout the series, particularly when it comes to his interest in human mating. He also allows author Hitoshi Iwaaki to inject a philosophical note into the proceedings, as the parasite questions human nature and examines our role in the world. Shin’s reaction to the alien’s cannibalistic tendencies is met by Migi pointing out that his kind only kills and eats one species, while humans devour just about any living thing on the planet. Small ruminations on whether or not human reactions are contrary to our actions, or how our actions may run contrary to what should be natural, thread their way through the series.
The art work is surprisingly plain. It gets the job done, but it’s quite the departure from the flashiness and more stylized work that appears in most contemporary manga. In fact, if it wasn’t for the parasites themselves, there wouldn’t be anything particularly noteworthy about the art. Against the otherwise bland and understated artwork the scenes of unraveling heads and faces breaking apart stand out all the more, reminding readers of scenes from John Carpenters The Thing.
Parasyte is definitely an interesting and thought-provoking series with fun, likeable characters and some decent actions scenes as well. I had missed my chance to pick this series up when it was first released in the U.S. by Tokyopop, so I’m glad that Del Rey has given folks like me a second shot at it.
Volumes one and two of Parasyte are available now.
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