Parasyte: The Grey

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!

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.

Filled with action and cliffhangers.

It's not often I watch these sort of gore fest action show. This show was engaging from start to finish, it's common for shows to have lows and highs but this is a stable high show that exceeded my expectations. The designs of the characters and their surroundings is unique and plays a role throughout the show. Everything in the show is intertwined and in the end the plot is naturally engaging without any over the top elements. However there's nothing to really analyse, there's no deeper meaning and overall it's more of a time crunch than a movie you learn something from.

Plot

A group of humans wage war against the rising evil of unidentified parasitic life-forms that live off of human hosts and strive to grow their power

Cast

Written by Hotishi Iwaaki (As it should have been) and starring various folks who you'll recognize from various comparable shows and movies.

Verdict

We've had quite a bit of Parasyte, from animated series to live action movies and not one bit of it has been bad despite it not being a fan of the Manga. You know what else has consistently been great over the last few years? All things South Korea, I don't know what's happened but they've been on form for quite a while now and therefore a Korean Parasyte most certainly got my attention as soon as it dropped on Netflix.

Initially you notice it looks great, as it needs to being Parasyte. It needs fantastic gory visuals and it delivers, though arguably the gore is quite light here. It tells a story revolving around a person comparable with Shinichi but delivers a very different bigger scale story. The trouble is we only have 6 episodes so is it able to deliver?

Well, mostly but I still found it lacking. It looks solid, it has decent characters and the plot is passable but as with any 6 episode tv show it's difficult to really pace it correctly and get much character development done.

The Grey is enjoyable and a welcome addition to the Parasyte universe, I'm also looking forward to season 2. But something is missing, and it feels pretty integral.

Rants

I feel as though we need a Parasyte horror movie, no real depth, no real connection to the canon universe but a 90 minute movie that grabs hold of the horror elements of Parasyte with both hands and really delivers. Can you imagine how genuinely unnerving, creepy and intense it could be? Seriously, if they can do a horror movie with Bambi, Mickey Mouse and Winnie the Pooh I'm pretty sure we could get a Parasyte one!

The Good

Looks great Solid character

The Bad

Plot could be better Feels rushed.

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).