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Parasyte -the maxim-
Episode 16

by Nick Creamer,

Parasyte finally regained some momentum this week, as Shinichi confronted the super-parasite in a battle that consumed the first half of the episode. After making a few unwelcome discoveries and a lucky escape, Shinichi returned to the city, where the private investigator Kuwamori was just learning his family had been murdered. The episode's last act moved players into position for more confrontations next week, as Shinichi contacted his father, Kuwamori hunted Tamiya, and Tamiya moved to confront the parasites that have lost faith in her loyalty to the cause.

We started off this week with the Big Fight, Shinichi versus the mysterious multi-parasite Miki. Miki's personality was a welcome change from the dour rest of the cast - with Parasyte's jabs at random comedy having been abandoned around the time of Kana's death, it was nice to see someone smile and trip and act silly for once. And though this fight started off with the usual arm-spam antics that have grown pretty stale, it quickly moved into a far more engaging sequence of Migi attempting to probe Miki for tactical weaknesses. Migi's solution was a smart riff on the fight variables as presented - because Miki isn't totally synchronized in his movements, and is actually more or less using two other parasites as “weapons” instead of extensions of himself, Migi is able to use the delay in time between his instincts and responses to create a window of attack. The visual execution of the attack was solid (some dynamic camera angles, decent animation), and the consequences immediately exciting - it turns out Miki is just one of two detachable heads for the parasite-monster, and the other head is far better at controlling his limbs.

This reveal led to a chase sequence that unfortunately returned to a Parasyte weakness I thought we'd left behind - the show's occasionally inappropriate music. The synthy, videogame-style track for Shinichi's escape was both a mismatch for the scene's tone and far too attention-grabbing, but fortunately, the base narrative beats of Shinichi's escape were still fast-paced and exciting. It wasn't perfect, but this episode's big fight did a lot of work to jumpstart my flagging engagement in Parasyte's drama.

The second half of this episode was much slower, and relied on the unfortunate impetus of the parasites killing even more side characters to motivate private investigator Kuwamori. As with Shinichi's identity issues, there's ultimately always a ceiling on how often a show can manipulate some dramatic trick for meaningful effect, and in a post-Mom, post-Kana world, killing Kuwamori's family really just prompts more of a sigh than anything else. Kuwamori isn't really much of a character himself, and so the two key consequences of this act are in giving the police information about Tamiya and prompting a breakdown in Tamiya's relations with her fellow parasites.

It's looking like those consequences will reap immediate drama next episode, as Tamiya's already the next target on her former companions' kill list. It seems likely that this is the end for her, which I frankly see as a shame - she's easily one of the show's most interesting variables, and the show will have to introduce some pretty engaging replacement actors if it wants to replace what she adds to the plot. Overall, while this episode didn't signal a return to the peaks of the first season, it was still a marked improvement over the show's recent stretch in pacing and content. Hopefully Parasyte will continue to ramp up from here through the end.

Rating: B+

Parasyte -the maxim- is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Nick writes about anime, storytelling, and the meaning of life at Wrong Every Time.


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