MANGA MANIA: PARASYTE VOL 8 by Hiroshi Iwaaki

A thoroughly satisfying installment. In fact, it tied up some many loose ends that I assumed the series was over. Turns out to be at least three more volumes. 

I don't know where Iwaaki can take it from here. He must know of a restart button that slipped past me.

Goto: Good looking but very dangerous parasyte infected human

Migi: Alien, fighter, hero, friend

MANGA MANIA: PARASYTE Vol 7 by Hitoshi Iwaaki

Another volume, another blood bath. This time it does not involve a high school. Humans are onto the parasyte infiltration of municipal government, and they plan a raid to determine just who is infected. For some reason they think it is a good idea to bring in a necrophiliac serial killer with a talent for spotting aliens to help. But you just can't trust those necrophiliac serial killers. 

We also learn that not all parasytes are created equal. Some are tougher than others, especially those who look like a G.I. Joe. They can absorb bullets and spit them back at you. 

In the concluding portions of this volume, at last love comes to Shinichi. And Migi, the parasyte inhabiting his right hand, has been sleeping more than usual but wakes up to work out a spectacular escape for the climax.

MANGA MADNESS: PARASYTE VOL 6 by HItoshi Iwaaki

After an installment that consisted mostly of one long, cinematic fight sequence, Iwaaki gets back to the plot. In-fighting among the parasytes, plots against family members and humans in the know. Of any of the manga I have read or am currently reading, this series is the only one that has me genuinely hooked on a story, not just its weirdness or wildness.

MANGA MANIA: PARASYTE VOL 3 by Hitoshi Iwaaki

Parasyte, Volume 3 by Hitoshi Iwaaki
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The presence of flesh eating parasites inhabiting a certain proportion of the population is becoming more difficult for the authorities to cover up. Shin is fortunate that Migi, the parasite possessing his right hand, is an easy-going sort. The others, like the one that ate Shin's mother or the one posing as a new kid at school, are a different matter entirely,

In Volume 3 of Iwaaki's manga, secrecy begins to break down. Shin discovers the mild superpowers he is developing with Migi's presence in his body. Shimada, the new parasite student, goes on a killing spree at the school. And Shin continues to have girlfriend trouble.

Iwaaki's visual style comes to life only when he depicts the aliens' fantastic transformations. His human characters tend to open their mouths into enormous gashes when screaming, which they do a lot, and the least to the most extreme situations make them break out in globules of sweat.

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MANGA MANIA: PARASYTE VOL 1 by Hitoshi Iwaaki

Parasyte, Volume 1 by Hitoshi Iwaaki
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Puffballs from outer space drift to earth, parasitic worms emerge, they crawl into human orifices, they take over human brains. Teenager Sinichi luckily wakes up as one tries to enter his nose. He fights it off but it burrows into  his arm. A tourniquet keeps it from traveling further, but now Sinichi has an alien for a right hand.


Unlike the murky atmosphere that pervades much horror manga, Iwaaki's story has the clean,, crisp lines appropriate to its contemporary setting, and the situations he sets up are as much about teenage anxiety as world domination by alien life forms. Sinichi's resident alien can create embarrassing situations -- in a pubic toilet it asks in a loud, clear voice, "Make you genitals erect. I wan to see them."--but it also makes Sinichi a basketball star and very able to take care of himself in a fight. It can change shape at will, and many of Iwaaki's best panels are single images of Migi, the name Sinichi gives his hand, simply pondering the peculiar world of humans.


Migi is charming but ruthless, completely amoral in its desire to for self-preservation. Meanwhile across the globe other alien-infersted humans are chowing down on family and strangers at  an alarming rate. The story becomes repetitive, but since it will run for 11 volumes there is no telling where Iwaaki will take it.


Are deeper meanings implied to this story of adolescent possession. Let's see, what organ does a fifteen-year-old boy have the least control over? His brain is probably the correct answer, but I think you get the idea.

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