PARASYTE - THE MAXIM #12 Really Needs to Update

This show’s really starting to seem like it’s spinning its wheels. I’m not sure for what, though.

Maybe it’s because I just re-watched TERMINATOR at a friend’s place. One thing that really sticks out about that flick, now, is that the danger and thrills are very much defined by the technology of the 80’s. The Terminator’s hunt for Sarah Connor is limited by phone books, answering machines and pay phones, et al. And if you introduced GPS, smartphones, the internet or any number of gadgets we take for granted today, you’d have a completely different movie.

== TEASER ==

Obviously, there’s a bit of similarity between body snatching parasites and cyborg infiltrators. PARASYTE the manga isn’t that much older than TERMINATOR, either, and the show’s prided itself on being a largely faithful adaptation. As such, there are a number of points that are subtly starting to show their age...

For one, the high school setting might’ve seemed fresh when it first debuted, but it’s so commonplace in anime, now (as many of you Vicers have noted). The insistence on keeping all this action there is doubly infuriating. Likewise, Shinichi’s quick line about texting Kana in this episode hangs a lampshade on how the crew’s only superficially updated the plot beats. They’ve thrown in references to modern tech without adjusting anything around it. The whole love triangle, for instance, is largely dependent on these kids just happening to run into eachother on the sidewalk (seriously, these been almost a dozen of these moments) - - instead of, y'know, texting or tagging eachother.

That’s less consequential when put next to the public’s reaction to the invasion, of course. It makes more sense for society to be this slow to panic - - or to just accept some weird PSA about pulling your friend’s hair out - - if the number of information outlets are as limited and controlled as they were in the late 80’s. Transplantthat to today, though, and it’s a lot harder to buy that nobody would find it strange that this teenage girl would be torn apart in the same way a big chunk of Shinichi's school was. It hat to nit pick, but this plot hole is growing so wide, it's hard to focus on what the show wants me to.

Watch "Kokoro" and decide for yourself, then read my thoughts on the previous episode.

from Anime Vice Site Mashup http://www.animevice.com/news/parasyte-the-maxim-12-really-needs-to-update/7822/