One night an unidentified creature tries to enter the body of a high school student named Shinichi Izumi. It was aiming for the brain, was blocked by an earphone cord, went in through the arm instead, and took up residence where his right hand used to be. Shinichi stayed human. His right hand acquired a separate intelligence.
That failure sets the terms. The other parasites take over human heads, pass as people, and eat people. To them humans are food and the judgement carries no guilt. Only Shinichi and Migi are two species sharing one body and talking, which is why the arguments in this manga happen between roommates rather than between a human and a monster.
The reason it still gets quoted is that Shinichi does not stay human. As Migiโs cells mix into him he startles less, cries less, wavers less. Growing stronger is drawn as loss rather than as growth. The more he fights to protect people, the further he gets from being one.
Hitoshi Iwaaki serialised it at Kodansha from 22 November 1989 to 23 December 1995: 64 chapters, ten volumes. It is over thirty years old and short enough to finish in a day or two.
Madhouse produced Parasyte: The Maxim, 24 episodes from 9 October 2014. The adaptation moves the setting to the year it aired, so mobile phones appear where the manga had none.
The question it poses has not aged. What exactly separates the way humans eat other species from the way the parasites eat humans is something the manga presses to the end without answering.
