Anime Review Roundup

Let’s keep things short and sweet this week, easy as there was only the one ‘new’ anime review, as I double-dipped on Parasyte the Maxim Part 1 to get the Blu-ray. Of course modern anime shows look better in HD, but I was pleasantly reminded of just how good the characters are and the storytelling is in Parasyte the Maxim. It’s a strange world where parasites suddenly appear, trying to take over human brains, and use those bodies to devour other humans. Circumstances stopped one parasite from completely taking over Shinichi’s body, and now he has an intelligent ‘alien’ disguised as his right hand. When he talks to the hand, the hand talks back. They have to form a symbiotic relationship to co-exist, and fight the other parasites that think that their combination is freakish, and are coincidentally attacking Shinichi’s friends and family. It’s a vintage story given an effective modern remake in the anime. Click on the review to read more.

Paprika. I’ve just spent far longer than I’m comfortable with, trying to contemplate and understand a film full of metaphor and dream like symbolism, to fashion some sort of review, and I’m still not happy with what I wrote. On the other hand, the late great Satoshi Kon explicitly made a film about dreams, and he came up with an indisputable masterpiece. It’s a story set in a near future world where they are developing the technology to see into people’s dreams, something that would be revolutionary for psychotherapy. But when the technology is stolen, and worse misused, the very fabric of reality is threatened. Visually astounding, and an obvious influence or at least precursor to Christopher Nolan’s Inception, Paprika is a thriller that gets better with each viewing.