Parasyte - the Maxim

Parasyte – the Maxim is a unique series about strange non-human parasite creatures that just appear one day and begin killing and/or taking over humans.  They are kind of slimy-bug-worm looking in their natural form.  They burrow into humans, if possible through the ear or nose, and try to take over the brain.  If they succeed, the human is dead and the parasite has a human appearance and begins killing and eating other humans indiscriminately. Some of the parasites mistakenly take over animals instead of humans and don’t do well.  And a few manage to burrow into humans but don’t succeed in taking over the brain.  They can then only control that part of the body they take over.

The story plot line follows a middle school boy named Izumi Shinichi who has a parasite take over his right hand.  He calls the parasite Migi (right), and a lot of the plot involves the two of them coming to terms with each other.  Early on they discover they must work together to survive, as other parasites who have taken over humans completely try to kill them.  So they learn and discover each other’s strengths and weaknesses.  In addition, Migi learns a lot about human values, and Shinichi learns that human values may not apply to all creatures.

 

Early in the series the parasites simply take over humans and then kill and eat other humans.  But as the story progresses, they begin to try to fit into human society.  Early on Shinichi’s Mom is taken over by a parasite, and she kills Shinichi by a thrust through the heart.   Shinichi lives because Migi enters his bloodstream and repairs his heart using some of Migi’s flesh.  This causes Migi and Shinichi to integrate together, with Shinichi gaining extra-human abilities in the form of speed, agility and strength, and no longer needing glasses.

Shinichi and Migi spend a lot of time avoiding the parasites that come after them trying to kill them.  They also learn to work together and they fight a number of parasites, defeating them when by rights the fully integrated parasites should be stronger.  Shinichi and Migi befriend another parasite-human mix who helps them kill Shinichi’s Mom.

They also interact repeatedly with a parasite named Tamura Reiko.  Reiko is a logical and somewhat scientific parasite who has been trying to figure out what the parasites are, why they exist and how they can co-exist with humans.  She and a parasite who has taken over a male have sex and Reiko gives birth to a baby, who is completely human.  So she determines the parasites are fragile beings with no apparent ability to reproduce.  She deplores the parasites killing humans for food, as they draw attention by doing that and they are vulnerable.  The authorities already know of the parasite’s existence and they target and kill Reiko, who chooses to protect her human baby over her own life.

After Reiko’s death at the hands of the authorities, a parasite extermination is planned and carried out, but the exterminating military forces are wiped out by an insanely strong parasite named Gotou.   Gotou was created by Reiko and is actually many parasites controlling different body parts, and all controlled by one parasite in the brain.  Gotou has almost no vulnerabilities.  He decides he must kill Shinichi in order to move on.  Shinichi and Migi run from him, but are forced to face and fight him eventually.  Part of their strategy is to separate (which Migi can do for brief periods of time) and tackle him separately since he cannot sense Shinichi when Migi is not part of Shinichi’s body. 

Their plot almost succeeds, but Migi is killed and Shinichi runs.  He then realizes he must face the Gotou and try to prevent it from killing more people.  So he returns and manages to stab the monster with a toxic piece of metal he grabbed from a toxic waste dump.  At the height of the conflict, Migi, who was absorbed into Gotou’s monster body, returns to Shinichi as the parasite in Gotou's brain loses control of the parasites in his body.   Migi and Shinichi finally kill him and return to Shinichi’s everyday school life.

Throughout the series there is also a budding love story between Shinichi and his childhood friend Murano Satomi, which has its ups and downs.  The love between them is hampered by Shinichi dealing with the parasite in his body and Satomi not liking him being so weird and secretive.  The relationship does go forward though.  At the end of the series Migi gives Shinichi back his right hand fully and disappears into Shinichi’s body and subconscious.  Shinichi struggles to deal with the loss of his “friend” but discovers Migi isn’t permanently gone, as he shows up to help rescue Satomi at the last.

This is a really unique series, and despite it being fairly bloody, I liked it a lot.  It got a little preachy at times about human hubris and being top of the food chain at the expense of everything else on earth, but overall it was very much worth watching.  

Kaichou wa Maid-Sama

Kaichou wa Maid-Sama is a slice of life anime series adapted from a manga.  It’s a romantic comedy centered around a high school girl and boy, Ayuzawa Misaki and Usui Takumi.  Misaki is an all-star student who is also the student council president of a rough, mostly male, high school called Seika High.  Seika High used to be male only, and has a reputation for being rough and unsafe.  Misaki’s primary goal as student council president is to rein the school in, making it safer for girls and less rough and tumble.  As such, Misaki is adored by the instructors and her female student friends.  However, she is mostly feared by the male student population as a boy-hating, rule-following, cold, demon student council president.

Misaki’s family is poor and she has a part-time job to help out.  Her personality is straight-forward and aggressive at school, and her secret is that her part time job is at a maid café where she works as a maid.   Because this job is so at odds with the tough, boy-hating persona she wears at school, Misaki keeps it a secret.  Usui discovers the secret in the first episode and begins to frequent the café.

Usui Takumi is a somewhat mysterious, good-looking, smart, athletic and popular boy, and he is attracted to Misaki from the very beginning of the series.  So basically this series is their love story, as he works to bring her around to accepting him.  Once he discovers her secret, he uses it to get closer to her, but he basically spends all his time supporting and protecting her. 

The story line is not much more than that.  It follows their everyday lives, including what’s going on in the maid café, at the school, and in the lives of their friends and family.   Misaki gains a following along the way and even when some of the boys learn her secret, they keep it for her.   Some episodes focus on Misaki’s family, some on Usui’s family, and some focus on things their various friends are doing.  And of course, during the series, a love rival for Misaki’s affection shows up.

There are some plot elements added by a rivalry with an upper-class high school and its snobby students.   Misaki is offered a scholarship to the upper-class school, which her friends worry that she will take.  Along the way, the upper class high school’s student council president, Igarashi Tora, discovers Misaki’s maid secret, and then tries to take advantage of her when he gets her alone.   When she refuses him and his school, he tries to force her.

This is one of the several times that Usui rescues Misaki.  In fact he spends a lot of time pulling her out of tight spots.  At the end of the series he finally gets her to admit that she wants to be with him, even if she doesn’t fully understand her feelings for him.  

This series is definitely not one with a fast-paced, intense plot line.  There are no cliff-hanger episodes, no twisty, unexpected plot devices.  It's just a nice, even-paced love story, following two main characters with fairly normal teenage lives.  The animation and character style is really pretty though, so it's nice to watch.  Plus nobody dies and the main characters get together.  As a slice of life life anime, it's worth watching.

Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso

Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso,  also known as Your Lie in April, is a slice-of-life anime, which follows a few months in the lives of some teenage-friends.  The main characters include three friends who have grown up together, and another girl who enters their lives.  The friends are Arima Kousei, who is a glasses-wearing, virtuoso pianist, Watari Ryouta, a boy who is captain of the soccer team and extremely popular with all the girls, and Sawabe Tsubaki, an athletic girl who is on the softball club and is Kousei’s next-door neighbor and been protecting him like a little brother since childhood.  The character who enters their lives is Miyazono Kaori, an out-going girl who is also a violinist.

Like most slice of life anime, this series is a mixture of everyone having a crush on everyone else.  Kaori is dating Watari, and refers to Kousei as “friend A”.  Kousei is in love with Kaori, and Tsubaki has realized she loves Kousei.  So the series spends time with everyone juggling their feelings around everyone else and coming to terms with their various feelings.   

There’s lots of deep story here though and lots of tragedy.  Kousei was taught to play piano by his pianist mother, who physically brutalized him while training him.  When Kousei is eleven they have a falling out and she then dies of her illness, leaving him unable to play the piano and with lots of issues that he hasn’t dealt with.  At the start of the current story he’s not playing the piano, being unable to hear himself play.  He meets Kaori and she sets out to change that and get him to play again, at first by badgering him into becoming her accompanist when she plays the violin. 

With help from his friends and his mother’s colleague, Kousei finally comes to terms with his past and begins playing piano again during the story,  At first that’s because Kaori pushes him until he does, but then he begins to play for her.  Kaori, for her own part, plays the violin with abandon, and teaches Kousei not to give up.  So along with the regular slice of life story, there are also interactions with a boy and a girl paino players, Aiza Takeshi and Igawa Emi, who compete with Kousei in piano concerts, and learn their own life lessons along the way. 

And the deeper story is that no matter how full of life and whole-hearted Kaori is, she is also very ill and doesn’t have long to live.  She does everything to the full extent because she knows she won’t be able to do it for long.  So Kousei loses his mother, who he was playing for as a child, and then loses Kaori who he started playing again for.  At the story climax, Kousei realizes Kaori will die and decides never to play piano again.  Kaori tells him that she’s going to have one last surgery to maybe extend her life and play violin again, and if she’s going to keep trying, he has to keep trying.  

So Kousei plays the contest and while he’s playing Kaori dies in surgery.   In his trance while playing, he and Kaori say good bye through his music.  Kaori leaves him a letter explaining that she lied in April, that she used Watari to get to know Kousei, because she always wanted to play violin accompanied by him on the piano.  Kousei comes to terms with her death and goes forward with his life, continuing to play for her sake.  

The series is all about coming of age, growing past limitations and keeping on trying, even at the worst times.  It’s also about friendships and relationships.  The series is overall very tragic, but has nice renditions of various classical music pieces throughout in the various contests. And it’s a beautiful series, with a very colorful and pretty animation style.  I’m glad to have watched it although I could wish Kaori had survived.

Uchouten Kazoku

Uchouten Kazoku (the eccentric family) is an anime series with a pretty unique premise.  The basic premise is that supernatural beings live among and mix with humans routinely.  Among those supernatural beings are various tengu (demons) and a fair number of tanuki.  Tanuki are raccoon-like creatures, and in this series they have the ability to shape-shift and become pretty much anything they want.

The series takes place in Kyoto and follows one tanuki family in particular, the Shimogamo.  This family contains a Mom and four sons.  Their father was killed a few years before the story begins, although he plays a large role in the story.  The eldest son, Yaichirou, is an upstanding member of the tanuki community and hopes to lead it, as their father did before his death.  The second son, Yajirou, spends his time as a frog in the bottom of a well, giving random advice to random people who stop by.  

The third son and main character of the series is Yasaburou.  He leads his life mostly transformed into either a teenage boy or girl and looking for entertaining things to do.  He’s mostly carefree, but has a talent for getting into trouble.  The youngest son is Yashirou.  He’s shy and frightens easily, at which time his tanuki tail pops out.  Mom takes care of all of them, and when in human form she goes around as a good-looking male “prince”.  She’s also deathly afraid of lightning and thunder.

The other main tanuki family in the series is the Ebisugawa family.  They are related to Yasaburou-tachi, with the head of the Ebisugawa's, Suoun, being the brother of the deceased father of the Shimogamo family.  The Ebisugawa also include a pair of twin sons and a daughter.  The Ebisugawa are the bad guys, with the father also trying to lead the tanuki clan, and the sons creating as much evil and havoc as they can.  The daughter, Kaisei, was at one time engaged to Yasaburou, and she tends to side with and help the Shimogamos whenever she can.

Two other characters are integral to the story.  One is an old tengu named Akadama, who Yasaburou both takes lessons from and tends to when he gets drunk.  The other is Benten, a young human woman.  Benton was kidnapped by Akadama as a young girl and he taught her tengu magic.  She left him and leads her own life, using her magic for her own ends.  She’s moderately friendly with Yasaburou, who’s a little hooked on her.  She helps him out several times in the series.  She’s also a member of a syndicate called the Friday Fellows.

This series starts out like it is intended to be a comedy, but actually most of it is drama, and a lot of it is tragic as hell.  The Friday Fellows have an annual meeting/celebration in which they eat a tanuki as a hotpot, which is how Yasaburou’s father died.  Through the course of the story it comes out that Suoun set up his brother to die that way, because he was jealous and wanted both Mom and the tanuki leadership.  Benten helped capture Dad and kept him caged until they ate him.  Yajirou lives as a frog in the bottom of a well, because he and Dad went out drinking the night Dad died, and he left his Dad alone and drunk and went off by himself.

This is the back story and all comes out as everyone is living their everyday lives.  The plot of the series is that Yaichirou is trying to become the tanuki leader and Suoun and sons are trying to finish destroying the rest of the Shimogamo family.  A lot of plots and cross-plots and scheming goes on.  In the end when things look worst for the Shimogamo's, Yajirou leaves his well and helps to rescue of the various other family members.  

So in the end everyone gets pretty much what they want.  But still, a lot is left up in the air.   Benten’s motives are never explained.  She alternately helps Yasaburou and threatens to feed him to the Friday Fellows, and it all seems to be mostly whim on her part.   She's one of the more interesting characters, but never really delved into.  Still, this is a short, 13-episode series, so as you can see, a lot happens very quickly.  The series is moderately entertaining, with all that’s going on, but also very sad in places.  If you watch it, be prepared for the tragedy.     

07-Ghost

07-Ghost is an anime series adapted from a manga by the same name.  The story takes place in a universe where in recent history one country, Barstag, broke the peace and attacked and pretty much destroyed the neighboring Raggs empire.  The war between these countries continues, with the Church the only place of asylum for people from either side.

The Church history is integral to the plot and goes like this: the God of Death, Verloren, escaped to earth after some misdeed in Heaven and inhabits all people’s hearts, causing them to despair.  The head God sent seven “ghosts” to earth to punish and seal Verloren and act as guardians for people.  Verloren can still influence people through his minions, the Kor.  When people make a contract with Verloren and turn to evil, a mark appears on their chest.  Only Church Bishops can remove this “Verloren’s curse”.   The 07 Ghosts are essentially immortal, living as people, and reincarnated with each death and retaining memories of their past lives.

Some of the people in this series have the ability to use magic or a supernatural power, which they refer to as zaiphon.  These are special people who are either snapped up and trained by the military or become members of the Church.  And of course the reincarnated 07 Ghosts can use these magical powers.  Along with these magics, there are two magic talismans, one in each kingdom, called the Eye of Mikhail and the Eye of Raphael, which are stones which inhabit the body of their wielder and give him the extraordinary power of either the Archangel Mikhail or Raphael.

The main character in this series is a young boy named Tate Klein, who is a student in the military academy at the start of the story along with his best friend, Mikage.  Tate has amnesia and doesn’t remember anything before being raised as an orphan by the Church prior to becoming a military cadet.  In the first episode Tate runs afoul of a military commander named Ayanami, who he suddenly remembers as the person who killed his father.  Tate attacks Ayanami and is taken into custody but escapes with Mikage’s help. Tate flees, but is injured while escaping.  He is found and taken in by Bishops of the Church in District 7, which has sanctuary laws.  There he meets the three Bishops who help him out.  They are: Frau, who is also the Ghost Zehel and wields Verloren’s Scythe, Castor, who is also the Ghost Fest, and Labrador, who is also the Ghost Profe.

 

Along the way the Bishops and Ayanami (who is also the bad guy, reincarnated Verloren) discover that Tate is not only the prince of the Raggs empire, but he holds the Eye of Mikhail and can wield Mikhail’s powers.  Needless to say, Ayanami and the military want Tate, and try to get him throughout the series without obviously breaking the sanctuary laws.  Tate essentially ends up between Verloren and his Kor (Ayanami-tachi) and the 07 Ghosts (Bishops), and throughout the series, the bad guys make plays for him, and the good guys work to protect him.

 

During the course of the series, Mikage joins them at the Church, but dies due to his treatment by Ayanami.  His spirit stays with Tate though in the form of a small pink dragon.  Tate for his part is loath to make friends having lost Mikage.  He is safe in the Church and eventually starts training to become a clergyman.  He is mentored mostly by Frau and protected by everyone, including a fellow student named Hakuren, who befriends him.  Tate and Hakuren take and pass the Bishop exam together.  And the series ends.

This series was interesting enough to watch, but the plot was slow, never went anywhere, and the ending was pathetic.  Basically there was no ending and the story line was just dropped where it stood.  The character style and animation was pretty though, and the music was pretty decent.  For those things I enjoyed watching it, but I was completely let down by the total lack of anything resembling closure, or any tying up of the half a million loose plot ends.  The series needed either another season to be complete, or faster plot movement toward some sort of ending.        

Sword Art Online II - second half

This post finishes up the second season of Sword Art Online.   After the Gun Gale Online arc with essentially only Kirito and Sinon participating, the second half of the SAO II season brings the rest of the original SAO cast back into the picture.   There is a short arc in which Kirito and Asuna and friends, plus Sinon, take on an afternoon quest in Elfhame Online.  It involves the whole gang and retrieving a magic sword, as well as restoring a dead and mostly abandoned land to life.  Leafa and Klein have slightly more roles in this arc than in other arcs, and Liz and Silica are also part of the questing team.  Of course, the gang wins the quest and Kirito gets another sword.  This little quest is a filler quest and doesn’t occur in the SAO light novels.

The last of the second season is the arc called Mother Rosario.  It begins with challenge fights between a mysterious fighter in Elfhame who sets up and offers a chance to win a prize to anyone who can challenge the fighter and win.  Most of the people in Elfhame Online give it a try, but no one can beat the fighter.  Asuna gives it a try and they battle essentially to a draw, at which point the fighter grabs Asuna and drags her away to talk.  The fighter turns out to be a girl named Yuuki who is a member of a guild called the Sleeping Knights. 

The Sleeping Knights have a goal to beat a level boss and win that level.  If a single guild beats a level boss, they get their individual names inscribed on a great memorial wall in Elfhame’s primary city.  If more than one Guild beats the boss together, only the guild names are inscribed.  The Sleeping Knights are going to have to stop playing Elfhame Online, so they want their names inscribed on the wall before they go.  The problem is that there are only 6 of them, a number of players which normally cannot beat a boss.  They have decided to recruit one person who can beat their strongest fighter, Yuuki – and that person is Asuna.

Asuna agrees to help Yuuki and the Sleeping Knights.  They become friends while training and discussing strategy.  They try a boss level for practice and fail, but they discover that they failed an earlier attempt because a bigger Guild is spying on them and using their experience to plan and defeat the boss before they can get back to it.  When Asuna realizes this bit of information, she encourages the Sleeping Knights to go immediately and try this boss again.  They do, only to find their way blocked by members of the bigger guild who are there to keep anyone from trying until the big guild all gets there and takes the boss.  Asuna and Yuuki-tachi fight their way through the guild members, aided in the nick of time by Kirito, who holds off the big guild while Asuna-tachi tackle the boss.

 

Asuna, Yuuki and the Sleeping Knights succeed in defeating the boss and get their names on the Wall.  During the celebration at Asuna’s Elfhame house, Asuna says she wants to stay friends with the guild and learn more about them.  Yuuki gets upset and logs out.  Asuna begins searching for her in both virtual reality (VR) and real life (RL).

With Kirito’s help Asuna locates Yuuki, who is dying from a virus she got at birth.  In fact she’s been dying since birth, and is the last of her family alive.  It turns out all the Sleeping Knights have terminal illnesses, which is why they wanted so much to win their quest and have their names memorialized on the wall. 

The last three episodes of this season are TRAGIC.  Really TRAGIC, with Yuuki dying in Asuna's arms at the end, and leaving Asuna her sword skill, Mother Rosario.  Be prepared to cry.  Despite the tragedy, I enjoyed this season of SAO almost as much as the first season.   The characters are still fun to follow as they deal with both RL and VR and come to terms with their hangups.  Asuna’s mother has been trying to get her to give up online gaming and switch to a better school, so along the way in this arc Asuna and her mother manage to come to terms, thanks to Yuuki.

Sword Art Online, both seasons, have been following the light novels fairly closely.  This second season ends at the end pf the 7th volume of the light novels.  Despite the ending of this season being pretty definitive, I'm kind of hoping they do another season of SAO, because the story and characters are interesting and fun to follow.  

Sword Art Online II - first half

Sword Art Online II is the second season of Sword Art Online (SAO).   Like the first season of SAO, this 24-episode season is split into two halves, essentially completing one plot line midway through the series.  The first half of the season is the story arc with the two characters from these pictures, and the second half is two shorter story arcs.  In this post, I'll talk about the story in the first half of SAO II.  I talked about the first season of Sword Art Online in a post two years ago (http://alter-ego-reality.blogspot.com/2013/01/sword-art-online.html).  

This season picks up where the last season left off, with Kirito, Asuna, Kirito’s sister, Suguha, and all their various friends from both Aincrad and Elfhame Online, including Yui, Liz, Silica and Klein.  All these guys are continuing with their lives in the real world and also in the virtual world, continuing to play the virtual reality (VR) game of Elfhame Online with their full-dive gear whenever they have time. 

The series begins by adding another VR game, Gun Gale Online or GGO.  GGO is mostly played by males because it is a shoot and kill game.  Everyone is very fixated on various types of guns and shooting skills, and although I think you can hunt monsters in the game, most people hunt each other.  There is a big yearly tournament in GGO where the 30 top shooters are dropped into a VR world and the last person left alive is the winner.  This tournament is called the Ballet of Bullets, and everyone who plays GGO tries to qualify for it. 

The main character added for this story arc is Sinon.  Sinon is a girl who is terrified of guns in the real world because she killed a man with one when she was very little.  In GGO however, she’s one of the top shooters.  Her reason for playing GGO and her ultimate goal is to become strong enough in GGO to face guns in the real world, and in order to do that she’s determined to win the Ballet of Bullets.

Also at the start of the series, a mysterious GGO player begins shooting people in GGO and they die at the same time in the real world.    Investigators in the real world tap Kirito to play GGO and see if he can figure out what’s happening.   Kirito agrees, but since the bad guy only kills top players, Kirito needs to be a top player, basically needs to qualify for a place in the Ballet of Bullets.  When Kirito logs in to GGO, his avatar isn't big and muscled and burly like nearly every other guy’s avatar in GGO.  It’s more in line with his Aincrad and Elfhame avatars, being smaller and more delicate and has long hair.  So everyone, Sinon included, assumes he’s a girl.  He asks Sinon for help getting started in GGO, and because she thinks he’s a girl, she helps him out.  She helps him pick a gun, and he does use a handgun, but predominately Kirito uses a laser sword.  Yes, only Kirito would bring a sword to a gunfight.  Because his reflexes are so damn fast though, it actually works.

Sinon and Kirito fight each other in the qualifying rounds, reach an understanding, and both make it into the Ballet of Bullets.  During the qualifiers also, Kirito realizes that the GGO killer is a former member of Laughing Coffin, a guild from Aincrad that went around actually killing people.  Once the Ballet starts, Kirito and Sinon end up teaming up to figure out who the killer is, to fight him and to keep each other safe.  During the tournament, Kirito figures out that the way the GGO killer is killing people in the real world is that he has a real world accomplice.  This accomplice in the real world kills the person with a drug at the same time he is shot in GGO.  The GGO killer has been trying to kill Sinon, so his real world helper is probably at Sinon’s house, which is really creepy since Sinon lives alone.

In the end Kirito and Sinon beat the GGO killer and are the last two shooters left alive in the Ballet of Bullets.  Because the tournament won’t end unless only one of them is left alive, Sinon blows them both up and they end up both winning.  Back in the real world, Sinon’s friend who started her playing GGO turns out to be the killer’s accomplice and attacks Sinon.  Kirito shows up and helps and everything works out okay.  Kirito and Asuna then set up a meeting with Sinon and the people whose lives she saved by killing the guy when she was little, and Sinon begins to be able to live with her past.

The GGO arc takes up the first half of the second season of SAO.  I enjoyed it almost as much as I enjoyed the first season of SAO, although the only original SAO player that gets much screen time is Kirito.  The rest of the gang watch the Ballet of Bullets from a bar in Elfhame Online, and have a marginal presence.  They figure much more in the second half of the season, which I'll talk about in a later post.