Manga Highlight: Kiseijuu
Title: Kiseijuu, Parasite, Parasyte
Original Title: 寄生獣 (Parasitic Beasts)
Author: Hitoshi Iwaaki (story & art)
Genre: Action, Drama, Horror, Psychological, Sci-fi, Seinen
Status: Complete (10 volumes)
Scanlation: Complete
Description: They arrive in silence and darkness. They descend from the skies. They have a hunger for human flesh. They are everywhere. They are parasites, alien creatures who must invade – and take control of – a human host to survive. And once they have infected their victims, they can assume any deadly form they choose: monsters with giant teeth, winged demons, creatures with blades for hands. But most have chosen to conceal their lethal purpose behind ordinary human faces. So no one knows their secret – except an ordinary high school student. Shin is battling for control of his own body against an alien parasite, but can he find a way to warn humanity of the horrors to come? (taken from Baka-updates Manga)
At first, I wasn’t too tempted by the story. If there’s one thing that I don’t want in a Sci-fi series, it’s “alien”. Also, the way the summary sounds is too similar to Animorph (google it if you don’t know what it is). It stays true to some extent, with all the talk about kill and being killed, who holds the right to judge, etc but at the very least there’s gore to see and there’s no UFO. Anyway, the point is that the overall story is okay, not really impressive but not bad either. What really held me up with the series is character development, particularly the parasyte Migi. The main character is fine, but pretty standard I should say.
The art, well, it’s Hitoshi Iwaaki so there’s nothing else except “boring”. Worse than Historie but not unberable. It stays more or less consistent from the beginning to the end, but gets better as the series progress, of course.
Now, even though this one is actually pretty high on my “recommend list”, I’m making it sound like it’s a boring standard one. The reason is that I read this a long time a go so all the emotions kind of dried up now. None of the aspects (art, story, narrative, etc.) really stands out but combined together it’s a very good read. Try it if you like “Historie” or you want a series with some gore, action, psychology. It’s easier to read than “Historie” (less words!!!)
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