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Today, I watched a brand new anime based off a manga that ran through the 80s and 90s called Parasyte. The anime is called Parastye -the maxim-, a very unique name indeed. The anime starts off with a man's head splitting apart The Thing-style and eating a woman's head... yeah. It's that kind of show. So the main character is Shinichi, an average high school student who doesn't like bugs. When we're introduced to him, it appears that something has happened to Shinichi, something to do with his right hand. After some shenanigans at school, including him pissing off his friend Murano by accidently grabbing her boob... I'm not kidding. lol This show actually has some comedy sprinkled in it by the way. Anyways, we also see his friend Tachikawa, but the big issue is again, he's having problems with his right hand for some reason. We later found out that the night before, a "snake" as he called it entered his room (the "snake" actually is some kind of alien lifeform) and tried to enter his body, but failed twice, one time in his ear and one time up his nose. Finally, the little bugger gets in through his arm, and Shinichi starts freaking out of course, trying to get it out and waking his parents, who of course, don't believe him when he says some weird "snake" crawled up into his arm. Anyways, the day goes on and eventually we see Shinichi save a little girl from getting run over; he stops the car with his right hand, which grows an eye and turning his fingers into metal claws as well. This is where Shinichi freaks out, runs home, and tries to make sense of what's going on. We find out that his right hand was "eaten" in a sense and taken over by the little alien thing that crawled into his arm; the alien is now literally his right hand, who morphs the shape of Shinichi's hand whenever it wants to speak, growing eyeballs, a mouth, and mini-hands on his fingers when doing so. We also learn that the alien can adapt and gain knowledge over time, which I guess was the point of him and his other alien buddies coming to Earth. And yes, there are more of him. He and Shinichi encounter one in the last leg of the episode; this alien took over a dog (who was found eating another dog) and the alien and Shinichi kill it by extracting its heart. Shinichi now must come to grips with this new lifeform, who like an insect in his eyes, shares no empathy for anything or anyone. At the end we get this flashback where its the night where the alien shows up in this pod outside Shinichi's house, while some dude is murdering a woman or possibly a hooker... I don't know if that is supposed to bear any significance to the story, but yeah, it's there. So verdict: this is pretty much a combination of two horror old school horror movies: The Thing and Evil Dead 2, and even though I haven't seen those movies, I know the concepts, and they are very similar to the premise of this show and since I'm looking more into horror anime, this is right up my alley, especially since this was based off an old-school property which just makes it all the more classic seeming even thought its being animated in 2014. It's also a bit more ridiculous then, say, Tokyo Ghoul, another anime I watched this year, because while it does have blood and gore, there's also a lot of body horror, with the aliens able to morph the bodies of the people they inhabit as they twist around the human anatomy. If you've seen "The Thing", you know what I'm talking about. it can be pretty messed up to some people. Still, I enjoy it and actually kind of find it a bit hilarious, so yeah. And like I said before, it does have some comedy and the animation is pretty high quality too. This is also a show that is isn't heavily censored despite all the horrific shit. So, give Paralyze -the maxim- a shot if you can. Also, along with Tokyo Ghoul, I'll definitely considering checking out the manga after -the maxim- is finished.