I’ve been watching anime for most of my life, so I can tell pretty quickly if I’m going to like something. At most it takes me 3 episodes to decide whether something is worth my time. Is the story interesting? Are the characters tolerable? I am having a good time? 3 simple questions that I somehow ignored when I came to the Parasyste anime. The series follows high schooler Izumi Shinichi, whose right hand has been taken over by a parasite. The parasite, named ‘Migi’ is one of thousands that have descended upon the world. Unfortunately, not all of them stop at the hand, with a majority taking over a host’s brain and surviving by eating humans.
Now the series on the surface has an interesting story. You’ve got a secret alien invasion, a high schooler whose trying to adjust to a cohabiting life and an alien trying to work out its purpose now that it’s stuck in said high schooler’s hand. The general animations are quite good, I was particularly impressed by the fluidity of Migi’s movements and the gruesome designs of the various parasites. But all of that can only sustain a show for so long. In my case, 12 of the 24 episodes, I made it half way. So what ruined this series for me? I couldn’t forgive how absolutely stupid every female character was. Now before you think me too harsh, just hear me out for a moment.
In the twelve episodes I watched there are five female characters of importance – Shinichi’s mum, love interest girl, glasses girl, psychic girls and the female parasite. Now, female parasite aside (as I understand she becomes a major figure later on), Shinichi’s mum was pretty interesting characters, but she only really served as plot points to push Shinichi’s development. And that’s the crux of it, all the female characters are there to only serve as puppets to show Shinichi’s character arc, there’s nothing really there for them. They’re mindless and stupid, almost purposely putting themselves in danger so Shinichi can come to the rescue and an epic fight can break out. Honestly can you imagine someone really confronting a creature they think could be a monster and telling them “oh maybe don’t kill humans anymore, pretty please?”.
Let’s not even get started on the girl who every 5 seconds needs to clarify who it is that she is talking to. Every time you see her, you know the inevitable is going to come out – “are you really Izumi?”, like a parrot repeating the same catch phrase hoping for some added effect. I know this series is based on a manga of the same name, so perhaps there wasn’t much wiggle room in terms of characterisation, but gosh they could have at least made her a bit more interesting. You may be wondering why I’ve been focusing on female characters. To be honest the male characters aren’t much better, there’s no real fleshing out besides Shinichi, but hey, at least the male characters don’t run to their deaths just for the sake of ‘plot development’.
It’s rare for me to write about a series, without having watched the entire thing. But to be honest, I think I gave it a good shot. I’m just sick of watching anime, mainly shounen, create character arcs built on the corpses of female characters. Sure, shounen is a genre aimed at a male audiences, but so what? Why can’t a series feature both strong male and female characters, without ‘shock’ plots and miserable attempts to make audiences care for our protagonist by killing off his nearest and dearest. Overall a rather dismal 6/10 , I really hoped for better.
Two Happy Cats 
Well you made it further than me though. I think I quit at about the third episode. Strange really as this is an anime that I would usually enjoy a lot storywise and especially considering the fact it contained some pretty gruesome monsters. After reading your post though, and the way you describe the female characters, I am pretty glad I dropped it. And I totally agree: why not feature both male and female strong characters. Ugh…at times things like this can make me mad. Not your post though: that was an enjoyable read as always 😊
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Yes definitely! I was pretty excited to see a really good sci-fi action series but gah it just crashed and burned. Aww thank you :D!
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Yeah, I really couldn’t stand how the female characters were handled as well. And Shinichi was quite irrational throughout the anime too. I quit at ep.19.
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Oh gosh episode 19!? That’s impressive! I wonder if the manga is any better
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Well, I know that my mom was a huge fan of the manga when she was in her 20s. I don’t know if it’s any better, but I’m not particularly motivated to go read it. XD
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I do recall the main female love interest being a bit annoying due to her repeating that dumb catchphrase. At least you gave it a shot—most people wouldn’t give it even that much after being unimpressed by the show’s lead females.
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Thanks! Haha to be honest I don’t know how I got through some of those eps, ah well, on to the next series!
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I loved this series, but I won’t force you or even try to persuade you to watch it. I agree with your defense because that’s what I wrote too when I spoke about the negatives of this series. While I loved how the series turned out in the end, I understand how you feel because I gave it a small break at ep 13. Even after that, Murano kept pissing us off, random character was introduced for no reason by the end, and my favorite character didn’t live till the end. So with that said, I think it’s completely fine if you dropped it.
However, I’ll be contradicting my second statement when I say that if you ever feel bored and have nothing to do, try to give this series a try. Or don’t if you really are done? XD Sorry, I’ll stop now
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Thank you!!! I have heard that the second part of the series starts to get a bit more philosophical ? I’ll try and save it for a rainy day :)!
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Yeah I dropped it too. Really wasn’t a fan. Props to you for getting as far as you did but don’t feel bad or feel a need to apologize for not liking something. It’s your opinion, we have the right to express it, and if people get angry because you aren’t in love with it like they are, it’s ridiculous. Also, agreed so much. Shonen anime and manga suck with female characters. Bakuman was terrible with how the female “love interest” had no goals and no personality. It was just, “derp, I’ll wait for you!” and every other female character who had agency was belittled by the two main characters because she was smart and knew things. Ugh.
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Thank you !! Oh gosh I never got too far in Bakuman and I’m glad I dropped if it, it sounds like it would have infuriated me to no end. Gah it’s so frustrating, how hard is it just to slot in a few decent female characters? The bar is so low at the moment, they literally just have to have common sense!
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It’s shonen. The whole thing is just about the fantasy. Makes sense since shojo is the same. But in both, female characters aren’t well written. Everything is an ideal. Same with other media. It stinks.
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I found this quite boring and average but I managed to watch all of it. The ending is nice but it’s a pretty bad anime in my opinion
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I think I went into it with pretty high expectations as I kept seeing it on top 10 anime lists. But yeah, it really isn’t that great
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I still havent read this one but yeah it did appear in many top 10 but currently not going to watch this one.
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Yeah, I just wrapped episode 6 and thought, “you know what? I don’t feel like I need to continue.” I love horror anime but the lack of depth concerning the female characters in particular has really rubbed me the wrong way. I’m used to 1, maybe 2, empty headed, weak and flat female characters in anime. That’s bad enough, but to see all of them behave this way… Nah. I’m good stopping here.
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Thank you for your comment! You’re a lot smarter than me, I wish I stopped at episode 6 instead of pushing on to episode 12 – so much wasted time! At one point I was tempted to read the manga to see if the characters are just as badly done but didn’t want to sink anymore time into the series. Just truly unbelievable how ridiculous the characters are
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I’ve gotten to episode 9 and it’s not that I haven’t found it interesting, with the slow-burn character development of Migi entertaining, But I’m just frustrated and bored. The series really could do with halving in length, or beefing up more characters developments to make it more than one long “Is it you, Izumi?” and lead-ups to fights with the local bullies. I haven’t been near a school in many a year so I no longer find schoolyard politics interesting anymore. I really WANT to watch this to the end, but I just find it too hard. I’m too bored. Maybe I’ll check-out the live action films, instead.
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Thank you for checking out my post! It’s been a while since I watched the show but I just remember how painfully it dragged on, I definitely agree it would have been much better if it had been shortened.
I have heard that the manga has a lot more character development, but please let me know how the live action film are when you get a chance to watch them! The story / premise is interesting but the execution of it just isn’t there in the anime
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