Parasyte – 06

Reminds me of Sesame Street Martians, yip-yip-yip-yip-yip

This week isn’t turning out much better than last week, hopefully they’ll pick up soon. At least I’m not sick this week. 🙂

Changes

Satomi worries about Shinichi

So all that discussion last week about whether Shinichi and / or Migi had ‘changed’ due to their interaction was thrown out the window this week, as the dire circumstances of Shinichi’s impending death call for dire remedies. I do like the contrast between Migi’s response to Shinichi’s death blow and A-san’s response in a similar situation. With almost no hesitation, Migi sets about saving Shinichi, and by extension, itself. A-san could only think about taking over or joining with someone else, leading to his eventual death.

Migi and Shinichi are more of a pair now

But that’s something that’s seemed to be clear throughout this series: Migi is the smartest of the parasites we’ve seen, perhaps only rivaled by Ryouko. Is this because of the inherent disadvantages to his situation with Shinichi? Because it couldn’t rely on the overwhelming control over the body, it had to make up for it with cleverness and intelligence. That’s not to say the others don’t have potential intelligence, but they don’t seem to have applied it to the same extent. Also, I wonder if Migi’s perceived inferiority to the other parasites is something of a driving force for it, since it seems to be continually looked down upon by the others because it’s “just” an arm, rather than taking over the head.

Dang, that’s some nice abs there.

So in saving Shinichi, Migi ends up spreading his cells throughout Shinichi’s body, and mixing both of them together to an extent. For Shinichi, this ends up having almost all positive effects: His eyesight is fixed, he’s stronger and faster and has more endurance. I wonder if becoming totally buff was part of that process, too (damn, those are some fine abs, and I’m not afraid to say it). But Migi’s somewhat the loser in this deal: instead of ‘sleeping’ lightly like it has been, it now has to fully sleep for something like 4 hours a day. Can’t Shinichi wake it up? That’s not really explained, just “If you encounter another one of me in that time, you’ll probably die.”

There’s No Such Thing as Monsters

Thanks for explaining it, Doc.

Oh but there are! However, the insistence on the part of the police investigators that Nobuko is alive and well makes Kazuyuki start to question his own sanity, not that it was all that complete at the moment after seeing his wife killed and possessed by… something. Although the police seem rather sanguine about the whole thing, saying that the hotel staff saw her and they don’t know where she is, but they’re sure she’s alive. They don’t hint that they’re looking for her, and Kazuyuki says “she was caught up in some accident.” Who comes up with THAT explanation? Nothing about it makes sense. How could she be anything but a suspect in an attempted murder? “Hmm, her husband fell into the sea, but she came back to the hotel, said he had left on urgent business, spent the night, and then left the next day, and now is whereabouts unknown. Nothing suspicious about that, nope!”

Shinich knows what’s up, tho

We do have a lot of asymmetrical information, here, tho. I can’t really blame Kazuyuki for not believing his lying eyes after having “the truth” explained to him by the inspectors and the doctor. He doesn’t know that the monsters actually exist, something that Shinichi is all too familiar with. Kazuyuki has no factual backup for what he thought he saw, so it’s understandable that he got talked out of it. But Shinichi knows everything, and is able to act on all of it. I don’t know if the parasite that he’s found at the end of the episode is Nobuko, tho.

I hope she doesn’t end up dead from being in the wrong place at the wrong time

As always, an episode that went well, and gives us a lot to think about. I love that aspect of this show, that it presents these questions about what’s going on, who’s doing what, and what the relationships between Shinichi, Migi, other humans and other parasites are. Again this episode, I really liked the interaction between Satomi and Shinichi, where she dares to call out his given name, showing her concern for him and the closeness that she wants to develop with him. I also think that her pleading question of “You’ll come back?” soothes part of Shinichi that’s feeling monstrous and unwanted. I also really liked how Satomi seemed to catch on about Shinichi’s mother, even though he didn’t say anything about her. The other question that came up this episode was Makiko, who is at least a temporarily important character. She’s definitely interested in this kinda hot guy who shows up on their island and gets help from her, even stays at her family’s inn. I hope that she gets out of this show without any lasting pain or even death.

About Highway

Proving that you don't have to be young to love anime, I enjoy all genres and styles of shows. If it's not hurting anyone else, you should never be ashamed of what you like!