The 17-year-old Izumi Shinichi lives with his mother and father in a quiet neighborhood in Tokyo. One night, worm-like aliens called Parasytes secretly invade Earth, taking over the brains of human hosts by entering through their ears or noses. One Parasytes attempts to crawl into Shinichi's ear while he sleeps, but fails since he is wearing headphones, it enters his body by burrowing into his arm instead, taking over his right hand and is named Migi.

Because Shinichi was able to prevent Migi from travelling further up into his brain, both beings retain their separate intellect and personality. As the duo encounter other Parasytes, they capitalize on their strange situation and gradually form a bond, working together to survive. This gives them an edge in battling other Parasytes who frequently attack the pair upon realization that Shinichi's human brain is still intact.

The anime surrounds teenage Izumi Shinichi and his struggle coming to terms with the alien living inside him and the trials that same being creates as it drags Izumi deeper and deeper into trouble just by existing.
All the while monsters that consume humans and hide in plain sight wander freely and mingle with society.

Where did the Parasytes come from, what is their purpose?
With this anime, the answers won’t come cheaply.

The production of Parasyte is headed by Madhouse (Death Note, Trigun, Death Parade) and licensed/distributed by Funimation.

The art of the show seems fairly average at first, it isn’t unusual, there are no apparent deviations from the seinen style. That is, quite grounded looking, without the overstatement of features such as the eyes.
The brilliance of the art here comes with the Parasytes, creatures that can morph and change appearance at will.
That can alter their very makeup to be soft and flexible or hard as steel.

The setting is mostly in suburban areas, the backgrounds are detailed, but there are no soaring skylines or oddly shaped stuctures.

Animation in Parasyte is, again like Death Parade, fluid and thorough. Madhouse don’t pass up chances to show their talent.
The real treat, again, is the Parasytes, where their morphing abilities are shown to full effect.
Parasyte stood at the top of the stack last season, it's not letting that top spot go without a fight.


Examples

The soundtrack to Parasyte is an odd one.
The OST features both dubstep and orchestrated pieces.
Mixing dubstep and techno-like music with heartfelt melodies isn’t something I thought would work and sure enough a small number of times, the wrong track choice is played for certain scenes, but overall the mixing of the genres works surprisingly well for this series.

Overall, sound is crystal clear and high in quality.
The voice acting is performed to very high standard, with almost no non-emotive tones or bored sounding actors.

The opening is well put together and doesn’t feature much in-show animation, so, while foreshadowing aplenty, it doesn’t give away any actions preformed by the cast and doesn’t reuse assets.

Parasyte was an anime that quickly built up momentum and popularity, but still remains seemingly hidden for all the attention it has gotten.
Based on a 20 year old manga, the anime is reported to be nothing but faithful for its first season.
Airing alongside names such as Psycho Pass and Fate/Stay Night, Parasyte held it’s own and came out as a top contender of the season for it’s animation and character driven plot.

The animation is well above the standard of its airing season, but the inclusion of the Parasytes and the odd way they are animated really let that facet of production shine and stay shining all through the season and into the next.

The plot is intriguing and full of mystery, with a surprising amount of character development and involvement and devoid of many of the typical character tropes.


Parasyte gets a rating of 7.5/10.

Parasyte came highly recommended to me from a trusted source, along with hearing good things about the show that pushed me to finally watch it.
And I don’t regret starting it at all.
The characters are quite relatable and come across as naturally human and the plot jumped at me with intrigue and emotion once it finally got rolling.

This is an anime I would recommend easily and with its second season currently airing, I eagerly await each new episode.