Parasyte: The Grey

I came into this expecting a live action adaptation of the manga/anime, but they ended up using new characters and a new setting to tell a different story. At first I was just going to cut the show off, but I decided to give it a chance and honestly..

It's not bad. They stick to the rules that were developed inside of the book and show pretty well, the only thing that concerned me was the head swapping. There is 1 parasite that swaps bodies a lot but in the source material, swapping bodies was regarded as pretty dangerous. I also don't understand why they'd swap bodies when they had the ability to change the way their faces looked in the book/show.

I'm not a film critic and I am not going to pretend to be like other reviewers. The show is a decent watch for fans of the series. It's not as deep in terms of philosophy and character development as the book/show but it's a good time passer. If you've never seen the source material, the show might seem a little goofy.

Let me come back here and as just this in a few hours. Because I will binge the rest immediately. Parasyte The Maxim is one of my top three favorite animes of all time. I did not think for a second that telling a different story in that universe would be as impactful, and maybe it won't fully be when it is over. But this starts absolutely fantastic. From the music, the camera work, the acting, the effects, the twist in how the mutation work. I just hope this manages to touch on some of the big questions that the original anime did. So far it is very promising to where it leads. After seeing some of my favorite books having a solid iteration on Netflix in 3 Body Problem it certainly seems to me that Netflix is in a new creative peak. Bravo!

As someone who saw the anime almost a decade ago, which was an adaptation of a manga by the same name, I was very curious how this story could possibly be adapted into live action without looking very silly (see the Japanese live adaptation films).

Without spoiling anything, The Grey is not another live-adaptation of the manga, nor is it a sequel to it. It's more like a spin-off. The events that happen in Parasyte, in the original material, we only saw what happened in Japan. The Grey looks at what happens when the parasytes affects a different country. In this sense, you don't have to read the manga or watch the anime, as the TV series cover the worldbuilding fairly well.

Now, the big question is, did it end up looking as silly as the films? No. I'd say the special effects in The Grey were awesome. Probably the best parts of the show. It will no doubt look a bit cartoonish still but I was very impressed. How much of it was practical effects? How much was it VFX? They have blended it very well.

However, the shaky cam definitely didn't do the show any favours. Maybe it was a necessary evil to make the VFX looks as real as it did, but I rather have the camera stationary so we can focus on the fights, because some of the fights were pretty insane. But again, it might be because the cuts and shaky cams hid a lot of glaring issues and is why it was used.

Still, Parasyte was and still is an interesting series just because it asks some interesting questions about humanity, survival, and morality. I don't think the philosophy was as in-depth as the manga or anime, given there were only 6 episodes, but there is enough to ponder here and definitely makes me want to watch the anime again (highly recommended but also has its fair share of flaws). For those who knew the source material, the last couple minutes in this show was super cool to see.

In summary, Parasyte has an interesting premise and the TV series did an excellent job adapting it as a live action. Slowly, I think Netflix is producing more and more quality live adaptations which had been known for a long time to be a joke (Cowboy Bebop and Death Note is still a joke but Alice in Wonderland and One Piece was very good).

Considered to be a sequel to the famous Anime, Parasyte: The maxim, this show has a very different plot then the original anime itself. Maybe that is what makes it unique in the way, it tells a science-fiction story in such a normalised way. The VFX work is really excellent and it is good to see Korean shows coming with much better stories and beautiful background music. What I felt was that, it was missing the emotional touch, which they tried by exploring some of the relations, but still could not touch at that level. Overall, it is a decent watch for a weekend and I am excited for the next season as it has a hidden surprise for all us anime fans.

I have an understandable fear when it comes to anime live action adaptation, especially when we talk about shows where CGI is required, but this was executed relatively well.

The story is good, but not perfect. It can be seen that it uses similar topics compared to the original, when the series elaborate on what being a human means, but the series definitely made those topics its own with its own plot points. Pacing-wise - because the story tries to be a bit more complex at certain points - the first half can feel a bit slow.

For the characters, the main cast is much more unique personality-wise. Like from acting you could tell who has a bigger role in the series. I wouldn't call it bad and it made the characters interesting and less boring, but sometimes it was like that the main cast are the players in a game and everyone else is an NPC. The main cast was good and their characters felt real and developed with the story.

About the technical aspects, the sound directing and OST were good. Nothing exceptional, but worked perfectly.

Directing and editing, again it was good overall, nothing exceptional. There was one really good chase scene without a single cut.

About the CGI and effects, errr... it look good, there was maybe one scene where it looked a bit funny, but even in daylight it looked okay. One little complaint maybe about the blood. They surprisingly low amount of blood. I mean people got beheaded and there wasn't a lot of blood there.

And I would say the weakest part was the choreography. When it comes to normal hand to hand or weapon to weapon combat there are some really good scene out there. We spent decades on creating good looking fights, but here they should have developed a new fight, because the parasites head could shapeshift into a tentacle monster. I believe they failed to do that.

In many cases, while the tentacle fights look cool in a close up, but from a bit afar it looks like they are tied to bodies and their bodies don't do anything just stand there. Imagine a rock with a tentacle, the rock sits in one place while the tentacle fight.

They could have came up with some more unique or interesting fights.

All in all, good to watch, at least once. It is not as good as the original anime, but not as bad as I was expected to be.