Parasyte -the maxim-

Episode 24

Well, that was… an ending. With Gotou dead and all the show's major conflicts concluded, we were largely in epilogue mode this week, as Shinichi gave us an unnecessarily extended version of last episode's final points before the show went over a cliffnotes version of all the prior themes. The show needed more than last episode's very abrupt climax, but I can't say I'm happy with this ending - it did what it had to, but wasn't particularly graceful about it.

The first segment of this episode covered Migi's goodbye, as he explained his plan to go into some kind of long-term hibernation. Having vastly expanded his information base and thinking capacity while in Gotou's body, as well as having learned to appreciate some elements of human psychology, Migi apparently wants to think more about his own place in existence. This was all fairly abrupt, but his meditation retreat did make some sense - Migi's always been more of a deep thinker than Shinichi, and I can understand how having his original philosophy of animal instinct be replaced might prompt some self-reflection. This choice also doubled as one more inherent expression of Migi's movement towards “human” nature, as his wish to let Shinichi live a normal life put him in the same unselfish category as characters like Shinichi's mother.

That sequence was already somewhat on-the-nose and graceless, but things got significantly worse in the next section, as Shinichi spent some time monologuing about how he's come to understand the impossibility of understanding between species, and that humanity working for its own self-preservation is something he can live with. We didn't need any of this, frankly - the last few minutes of last week's episode explained all of this in a few graceful contrasting sentences, and this repeat of all that felt drawn out and overly sentimental. This segment did have some randomly nice cuts of animation (Murano's lively movements here felt almost like an apology for how little she's had to do this series), but that was a small consolation for a segment that ultimately just undercut last week's material.

The last segment of this episode brought back our old friend Uragami for one last standoff, with Murano's life on the line. With a knife at Murano's neck, Uragami laid out his own philosophy of human nature, saying that it was our instinct to kill each other that made us most human. This sequence brought up one more old conflict - Shinichi's fraught relationship with his own humanity. Uragami sneered at him for being a half-human but Shinichi proved he'd come to terms with that, reflecting on Tamiya's final words and even getting some support from Murano. And of course, in the end Migi took a brief break from his retreat to help save the two of them, letting everything come full circle with one more “you're Shinichi-kun” from the ever-perceptive Murano.

Overall, this was just a very flat finale. The final confrontation with Uragami possessed none of the narrative or thematic grace of Tamiya's arc, the characters explained their positions far too often, and nothing that happened really possessed much energy. Many of the points that needed to be hit were reached, but the overall construction left a lot to be desired.

Which works well enough as a metaphor for Parasyte in general, I suppose - full of theoretically strong concepts, but sometimes better on paper than in practice. There was an excellent show somewhere inside Parasyte, but it would have required bolder decisions than this adaptation made to find it. Tighten the last act, possibly cut Kana entirely, focus more on Migi's development to make sure his final character beats land… it wouldn't have required a wholesale restructuring, but there are plenty of places the show could have used a couple more revisions. I enjoyed my time with Parasyte, but I can't say I'm too sad to see it go.

Rating: C

Parasyte -the maxim- is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

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