HighWire: [First Impression] Parasyte -the maxim-

*sigh* I wonder what is wrong with me. By all logical accounts, Parasyte -the minimum- should be something right up my alley: a gift of dark gritty, good old fashioned dark supernatural goodness. And indeed, if you go way, way back to when I was talking about which anime I would be watching in the Fall 2014 anime season, Parasyte -the maximum- was one of the anime I was most looking forward to. For whatever reason, I at some point decided(mostly due to the urging of those watching) that Parasyte -the marauder- would be something I'd rather ingest all at once rather than weekly. And so I did, and as I devoured many, many anime from that same season, I saw the acclaim for the series grow, until by the end, many were calling it one of the best anime of 2014.
Not that that is hard to do(I'm pretty sure I've already made my stance on how much of a sh*tty year 2014 was for anime), but all the same, something that could supposedly rival the works of WIXOSS, Your Lie in April or Ping Pong was most likely checking out. After all, Parasyte -the masquerade- is a work by Studio Madhouse, who, granted, aren't gods, but might as well be when they walk among such as Studio Deen or 8bit. And yet... 3 episodes in, Parasyte -the mirax-... has done little to impress me.
Hello people of "The Wired", my name is Quan,, I hope you are having a decent day, and welcome to a brand new First Impression of Parasyte -the maxim-(yes, I do know what it's called). Now then, let's get started.

So here's the gist. Shinichi Izumi: a shy, glasses-wielding highschooler lives a simple life with his mother and father. He goes to school, hangs out with friends, and is constantly wavering between the line of "friends", and "more than friends" with a female classmate named Murano. But little does Shinichi know, his entire life is about to change, in ways he probably won't approve of.
Practically overnight, hundreds of mysterious "parasites" fall from the sky, crawl through the nearest person's ear or nose, and infect their brain; basically completely taking over the conscious of the host without anyone the wiser. And of course, these parasitic life-forms need nutrients to survive, and like any good invading flood of bloodsucking leeches, human blood, brains and the such seem to be the only thing that will keep them alive. One parasite attempts to crawl into Shinichi's ear while he sleeps, but thanks to the incredible defensive mechanism known only as "headphones", it is unable, and thus opts instead for burrowing into his right hand. This creates a rather unique situation for the two, both Shinichi and the parasite(named Migi) retain their separate personalities, but now thanks to Migi eating and replacing his hand, said hand inherits the parasites' unique ability to morph body parts into grotesque shapes to use as weapons.
Forced to coexist, Shinichi and Migi must learn how to survive in a situation that basically equates to Japan's version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, as they must find and defeat the parasites that are savagely roaming through the country, while at the same time, still keep up the appearance of a normal highschool life to Shinichi's parents and friends, especially Murano. But as the line between him and Migi becomes increasingly blurred. Shinichi must not only wage a war against the parasites, but also against the forces inside himself that will eventually turn him into something that is not Shinichi Izumi.

An example of a parasite's transformation.

Yet, despite how cool all of that sounds, I find myself strangely indifferent 3 episodes into Parasyte, yet there's no good reason why that is. Parasyte hasn't really done anything wrong; sure it's slowly paced, but that's not a problem, it's a preference. If we're talking technicality here, well, the characters seem ready to develop, the plot seems to be moving forward without too much problem, and there's plenty of promise of interesting things happening down the line. Yet I have a strange premonition that none of those things will actually happen.
I think the biggest problem I have is that I just don't see how the anime is going to go on from here, and hell, I've only watched 3 episodes of 24. Currently, it's just Shinichi being constantly attacked by different parasites, and it's not like they can drag that on for too long. Worse case scenario, this turns into just another bullsh*t battle shounen, and while, truly, that is something I most definitely do not want, what else is there to explore plot-wise? Meaningfully, I mean. The only other direction I can see the plot taking is if it decides to go with the stupid environmental message, about how humans are the real monsters since they cause pollution and blah blah blah. I don't have anything against something like that, but its been played out so tiresomely often in both Holloywood and anime that I don't think I have enough patience for Parasyte, which at first was promising a return to form for horror anime in the original PV's, to go down that same route. The only thing I can really see being expanded upon is the genesis of the parasites, because my, there is a lot of questions to cover and only so much time. Luckily, I think we'll be getting some of those questions answered soon in later episodes.

I know I've been hard on Parasyte thus far, and maybe that's because of the immense hype the series has, so, to round off this First Impressions, I'm going to end it by talking about what I actually really like about the anime. Namely: the characters. They're great thus far. Shinichi's fight to retain his own humanity is being pulled off basically without a hitch right now, the anime is handling it perfectly by showing just how gradually yet dramatically having Migi in his hand is changing the character. I really hope they can keep the conflict interesting, and not end up oversimplifying everything in the end to focus on other bullsh*t. I also quite like Murano: the love interest, mostly because she doesn't seem to be a total idiot. She notices immediately that Shinichi is acting less than normal(because apparently nobody else can detect when a parasitic alien hand occupies their friend), and the dynamic should only get more interesting as things progress... in theory. Ultimately, I think how much I'm going to enjoy Parasyte is going to boil down to how much I'm enjoying those two, because to be honest, it's the most prominent and interesting thing the anime has going for it, as ironic as that is. So, this is the verdict. If Parasyte messes up those two characters, I'm probably going to hate it. If it pulls them off with a perfect 10... well... we'll see then. Goodbye for now guys.

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