Parasyte – 12

Hey, what’s up?

Were you ready for a love triangle?

 

Trying for Power

Two different kinds of power

Parasyte doesn’t really worry too much about letting some time go by. Even if events are continuing, they give the impression that there’s a little bit of time elapsing. Which I find a bit more realistic than the usual “every event happens right on top of the other ones.” After discovering that there are some Parasites getting into politics, we get some discussions between Shinichi and Migi about the nature of the ones who would get into politics, and what their possible motivations might be. One is “he might actually be interested in politics and could actually be a good mayor.” That idea’s rejected pretty much off the bat, tho, in favor of the idea that they’re wanting to take over the local government to run interference for the Parasites in the area, providing safe houses and inhibiting investigation into disappearances. I think that may not be as easy as some think, since the mayor’s office doesn’t necessarily run the police, but it could provide a little bit of cover. And that time passing I talked about means that by the end of the episode, Hirokawa is the mayor, and now has those advantages.

Migi’s just relaxing

I do wonder why the idea that a parasite may have developed a genuine interest in politics is something that is dismissed so quickly by Shinichi? It’s the first possibility that Migi comes up with. Migi must think it’s at least some realistic possibility, because it doesn’t joke. Is Shinichi being speciesist? It certainly seems like it to me. Now maybe he’s right, but that doesn’t change the fact that he makes the decision without any basis in evidence, just on stereotype, and dismisses the possibility out of hand that there’s any better nature to a Parasite. But there is one to Migi. He’s not inducing Shinichi to go wandering around murdering people. Nor was Uda. I just wanted a little more thought about it.

The Beginning and the End

Kana wants to be with Shinichi so bad…

I think we’ve all thought that they’d play up Kana more, but I wasn’t really expecting the whole episode to be about her, and none of Satomi. Unfortunately, Kana’s too hung up on her dreams to actually listen to Shinichi, even when he goes out on a limb to explain Migi and the reason she is able to sense him (on a limb, oh ho ho). And yes, she can sense him, but despite her protestations to the contrary, she really can’t tell him from the others. And that she even develops the ability to broadcast like the Parasites, putting her in real danger of attracting the wrong kind of attention. In the end, even Migi agrees that she should have more knowledge, since she steadfastly refuses to just take his word for it.

And she’s not interested in Mitsuo at all

And it’s that refusal to believe him that eventually is her undoing, as her sixth sense leads her to another parasite in a… compromising position. And even though Shinichi was able to find her, he was just a couple seconds too late. I think we were expecting that Kana would run into trouble due to her ability, but I didn’t think that it would happen this fast, with one focus episode. That Shinichi then completely destroys the parasite that kills Kana is almost an afterthought, but the way he does it, going on the offensive, is going to be something that won’t escape notice from the new mayor.

She doesn’t make it, but thought she might

And Shinichi doesn’t let that go

Even if you were ready for a love triangle, we didn’t really get one. And Kana, for all her desperate hoping, never really makes more of an impression on Shinichi other than as someone who might foolishly get herself killed. And she really lives up to that impression, by being a dunderhead who doesn’t listen, even after Shinichi risks retribution by Migi to tell her the truth. It’s a bit of a shame, because Kana was a nice girl, and all she really wanted was to be loved by this guy that she had fallen for. I also liked how they brought Mitsuo in, and gave him a little more depth than just ‘thug’, as a person who really cared for Kana and has been really affected by her loss, something that Shinichi doesn’t appear to be. And that really has Shinichi wondering how much of his brain is still him and how much is Migi now.