Books: Parasyte Graphic Novel 2

It’s always a pleasure to pick up the second volume of a series you’ve had great expectations for and not feel like you’ve had the rug jerked out from under you. The first volume of Parasyte kicked off what promised to be a great premise, and the second volume doesn’t just rehash what we know; it boldly moves the story forward into new territory. Author and artist Hitoshi Iwaaki was clearly not content to just take the situation he’d set up and beat it to death, and I’m grateful as both a critic and a fan that he decided to stick his neck out a bit.

The second book deals with roughly three intertwined plot threads — school teen Shinichi’s relationship with the alien (?) parasite that’s cohabitating with him in his body; Shin’s mother falling victim to one of the parasites; and Shin’s on-again-off-again relationship with two different girls around his age. The first two are the most important, while the third is just a real-world leavener — a kind of bookend for the main action this time around, a reminder that the world outside of Shin’s increasingly bizarre life is at least halfway normal. Just because your arm’s been turned into a protean monster doesn’t mean you are going to automatically give up on feeling

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