Parasyte, written and illustrated by Hitoshi Iwaaki and published during 1988 – 1995 was later adapted into an anime television series by Madhouse. The story is based around a high school senior Shinichi Izumi, who narrowly misses a parasyte organism taking over his brain but resulting in the parasyte taking over his right arm, the two develop a bond as two organisms trying to exist as one.
The story revolves around their journey of learning to coexist with one another while also protecting themselves from parasytes which have completely taken over the brains of other humans and are secretly coexisting with normal humans while feeding off them for sustance. But what makes this sensation of an anime banned in certain countries? Especially in China? Read on to find out.
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The Story
Shinichi Izumi was a regular 17-year-old boy who lived with is parents in a quiet neighborhood in Tokyo. One fateful night, creatures that looked like worms descended onto planet earth scattering all over, taking over unwary humans by entering their bodies through their ear canals or noses to take over their brains. Luckily for Shinichi, he was able to avoid this happening to him as he wore earphones while sleeping, preventing the creature from entering his body, his sudden awakening startled the creature which resulted in it entering his body through Shinichi's right arm. The parasyte is then later given the name 'Migi' after getting to know it better.
Being an alien life form Migi was unable to comprehend humanistic values and theories, as an alien being with superior intellect, Migi found most of the things dear to Shinichi rather trivial. However, since Migi had only taken over Shinichi's right hand, the two were able to maintain their own thought processes and values and had to resort to coexisting as one. The other parasytes which did manage to take over humans used humans as a disguise while dwelling in their brains, they devoured humans for sustance and were able to morph parts of their human bodies into sharp blades.
Shinichi eventually makes it his life goal to battle these parasytes which were killing humans, and with the help of Migi (who he later builds a closely knit bond with) takes on various parasytes at different levels of strengths all while trying to live his life like a regular teenager.
Themes And Concepts
Parayste focuses on a lot of underling themes, one of them being philosophically directed towards what it meant to be human. Just like how humans hunt animals as a source of sustance, did it make them any different to the parasytes who dwelled on devouring humans to survive? Who were the real monsters? In one of the scenes towards the latter part of the show, a SWAT team is involved in weeding out Parasytes from a building, as they were unable to identify or tell apart the humans from parasytes (as the parasytes were within the human bodies) takes out a few civilians. The SWAT leader then asks a murderer who was capable of telling the two apart to come with him to identify the monsters to which the murderer quietly states to the agent next to him "look who's talking, right?" This statement strikes the minds of viewers and questions the real fact of the matter? Who were the real monsters?
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There are also the themes of growing as an individual as Shinichi steps out of his shell of being a timid boy to a complete opposite transformation as a monster slayer. His growth is portrayed throughout the series from his personality changes and his behavior and his character before and after Migi takes over his right hand.
The Ban in China
Although the show was a sensation worldwide, on June 12th, 2015, China's Ministry of Culture added Parasyte to the list of 38 other anime and manga titles banned in mainland China. Although the reason for the ban is not evident, the understanding is that the anime consisted of gruesome and graphic violence, which was probably the main reason Parasyte was banned. This could also be the reason why it could possibly be banned in other parts of the world.