Parasyte 8
Posted: August 5, 2009 Filed under: Parasyte 10 Comments »Hitoshi Iwaaki – Del Rey – 2009 – 8 volumes
Wow. Just… wow. That was certainly the best ending I’ve read all year, or maybe the past several years. I’m pretty happy with fairly superficial endings sometimes, but this one exists and is powerful because it literally draws on everything established throughout the series, states its final thoughts and what it had been getting at all this time, and commits a few final shocking acts that left me tearing through the volume to find out what happens.
I especially appreciated the moralizing, oddly enough. Normally I hate when a manga sets out to deliver an Important Message, because frequently the message is convoluted and lost in the story or is repeated so many times that you feel insulted for reading it. Not so with Parasyte. It is certainly heavy-handed throughout. There are several points where you can see the message is that humans are just as savage as any creature, and morals are somewhat arbitrary when it comes to the greater circle of life. The speech from the mayor a volume or so ago sums all this up best, and I liked that speech. It did blatantly hand you everything that was going on with the series, but it was in a moment where the themes were illustrated best, and it really did have to be said in order to end things there.
With that in the past, I wasn’t really expecting a reiteration in the ending. It was there anyway, in conversations between Migi and Shinichi that, again, had to happen before the story could finish. I couldn’t believe how eloquently the messages were put into words, and then illustrated and carried out through the actions of the characters. There are three major incidents that end the series, and each one is equally amazing. Each also has something different to say.
And the messages are worthwhile in the end, too. It’s hard to deny the power in the absolutely maddening scene where Migi and Shinichi debate over whether it’s right to kill a parasyte. The conversation, and its ultimate conclusion, would have been my favorite moment of all in the series, had the first chapter not happened. Something somewhat less thematically important, but more emotionally powerful happens right away in the book. It was also completely unexpected, and I was reading in a complete state of shock right up to the other scene I described, which was a good 2/3rds of the book. The final scene is, of course, the expected reunion with Uragami, which was all sorts of insane.
Absolutely nothing finished up even remotely how I had imagined it. I enjoyed being preached to, and I loved that the message of the book was that mourning the loss of life is really a waste since life is lost every day, but on the other hand, that’s what makes humans wonderful.
I can’t adequately describe just how moved I was by the series as a whole. It runs a gamut of ambitious moral questions that take a great deal of subtlety and storytelling finesse to pull off properly, and it achieves everything it set out to do. I will be thinking about Parasyte for a long time, and I will re-read it many times in the years to come. What was an excellent series has been propelled into one of my favorites of all time by a spectacular ending.
If you were thinking of reading this series, by all means, please do. Just know that when you start, the slicing and dicing weirdness really does have a story to tell in the end. A fantastic story that is very much worth reading.
I should also point out that the back of the volume contains several more letters columns and an essay or two on Hitoshi Iwaaki. All of it is worth reading. The man is a genius.
[...] Club (Manga Life) Johanna Draper Carlson on vol. 8 of Parasyte (Comics Worth Reading) Connie on vol. 8 of Parasyte (Slightly Biased Manga) Phil Guie on vols. 5 and 6 of Puri Puri (Manga Recon) Tiamat’s [...]
“Wow. Just… wow. That was certainly the best ending I’ve read all year, or maybe the past several years.”
Better than Banana Fish, eh? I probably will pick this up eventually.
Parasyte is one of my favourite manga series of all time and, with it, Iwaaki became one of my favourite authors.
The concept was interesting enough from the very beginning, but there were some shocking revelations along the way, like Miki-Goto connection, or the nature of Hirokawa.
The ending is one of the best I have experienced in manga. I completely agree on that. All loose threads were connected there.
I love Parasyte. I thought it was a great ending as well. Hitoshi Iwaaki is fantastic! Now if only they’d get to licensing Historie…
Sara K.: Yeah, I do think it was better than Banana Fish, mostly. I was more emotionally involved in Banana Fish’s ending, and Parasyte didn’t have a scene anything like that last page of Banana Fish’s story, but it came pretty close anyway, and had a lot of other stuff going for it that Banana Fish did not.
ridiculus: The Migi-Goto connection was a complete shock, since I had completely come to terms with that situation by that point. I don’t think I would have forgiven that plot twist in any other series, but I was pretty happy with the way things turned out in Parasyte all the same. The same with Hirokawa, I couldn’t get over that particular revelation. It was too perfect. The ending really made me sit back and think about everything that had happened throughout the series and how Migi, Shinichi, and the others changed themselves and were changed by everything that was going on.
For those who haven’t read the ending of Parasyte …
THIS IS A HUGE SPOILER WARNING!
I was less satisfied with the ending than you. Mainly because of the cheat on Migi’s death. It shocked me, and yes I was sort of hoping that he would come back, and that part of me was pleased to see his return … but I read fiction partially to get those feelings, and I feel that bringing back a character takes those feelings away. Ultimately, whatever was gained by Migi’s return did not compensate for losing that feeling, at least not for me. I agree about the other two scenes which you found powerful, and yet I think those scenes could have been powerful without Migi’s presence.
Hmmm, what was the best ending I’ve read all year?
Yeah, I agree with you, Migi’s death was a big part of what made that ending great, and I felt a little cheated when he came back. If I was disappointed with anything, it was probably the way he stayed with Shinichi without actually staying with him, that he was somehow changed and just wasn’t going to be a part of Shinichi’s life anymore, but was going to be there all the same. The way he came back to save Shinichi at the end was a little too predictable too, after everything else that had happened. But the conversation between Migi and Shinichi about killing that Parasyte mostly made up for his return for me.
What’s the difference between Parasyte and Banana Fish?
I haven’t read banana fish
They’re completely different. Banana Fish has no horror, it’s kind of a gang action/drama with some romance thrown in. I liked it a lot, but it’s nothing like Parasyte.