Hitoshi Iwaakis Parasyte
[i]Parasyte[/i] is an award-winning, early/mid 90's manga about a race of parasitic aliens that invade the Earth and take over humans. It follows a boy named Shinichi Izumi who, due to coincidence, is only partially taken over by a parasite. Along with "Migi," the parasite in his right hand, he has to maintain his normal school and family life while keeping Migi secret and avoiding/fighting other parasites.
It's hard for me to create a super concise summary that details every angle of the series, but I certainly recommend it. The parasites don't exist as an absolute source of evil, nor is fighting them the primary goal. They are emotionless creatures driven by reason, instinct, and a need to consume humans to survive. Parasites like Migi (and others shown later) have formed symbiotic bonds with their hosts, and survive off their hosts' food while sharing mental/physical benefits. This initially leads Shinichi to be a target, as a "weak" partial parasite, while later he begins to seek out and eliminate parasites that jeopardize their secret existence or human lives. Just as an example, you have two wildly different parasites in Mr. A (lacks any sense of subtlety, kills and transforms freely in public) and Reiko (calm, calculating, highly integrated into human society, and choosy about what humans she eats), the former requiring extermination while the latter is a sort Shinichi doesn't kill unless necessary.
It's a short series at 64 chapters, all of which you can find easily online or recently reprinted in English by Kodansha. Now's the perfect time to read it, as an animated adaptation should be showing up within the year, as cross-promotion for the planned live action movies in 2014/2015. Iwaaki is still being published, his ongoing series [i]Historie[/i] is a great historical drama, though obviously very different from [i]Parasyte[/i].
1 Comment • Newest first
[quote=Plenair]Hm, since it's from the 90's, is it like Berserk or something even earlier like Devilman. I never really read Devilman, but I've seen the four movies and it gets pretty twisted. Or is it just on Berserk's level, the average amount of gore for a Seinen, if this is Seinen. Kinda reminds me Gyro for some reason, that ultra creepy manga with fish robots and bloated humans.[/quote]
Parasyte is most like Birdy the Mighty, if you compare it with anything. there's very little sexual content and the gore is there but minor (e.g. all blood, no guts). i wouldn't say Parasyte even has much of an action focus, though there are parts of the series that are full of fights or tension about how to handle a certain parasite. it's really why i like the series, it's not something that falls neatly into one category. the action is done well and the daily life stuff is equally fun, because you've got an absurd situation where the MC's right arm is a shapeshifting parasite.