A week of parasites and vacancy.
Shows mentioned this week:
Parasyte, as of the finale.
Xam’d Lost Memories, as of the finale.
Clannad After Story, as of episode 17.
Manga Highlights
Parasyte
I can’t really tell what made the Parasyte manga so appealing. It’s one of those cases of the product being much greater than the sum of it’s parts. It had all the trappings of a good manga (original plot, likeable pair of protagonists, a slight mystery element) but nothing stand-out to place it in the “amazing” category. And yet, it was amazing. The conclusion was a bit too philosophical for my liking and I still wish to know where the parasites really come from (“space” is nowhere near a satisfactory answer for me) but otherwise I thoroughly enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone.
Anime Highlights
Clannad After Story
Ushio faceplant. That is all.
Xam’d Lost Memories
I’ll say something a bit less objective about Xam’d here. One of the worst facets of the show was the fact that it didn’t incorporate the wars (current or past) into the storyline nearly enough. The connection between Kakisu and Ryuzo was there but, even though it may have been clunky, a flashback to sort out some of the past would’ve been welcome. The same goes for the history of Raigyo and Ishu, as well as her part in, or inspiration for, “the Crimson Rebellion”. The extract from that book was so amazing it would’ve been nice to see what experiences caused Ishu to write it.
Ah well, minor blemishes on an otherwise fantastic series.
Don’t ask me why this is here.
Grand Punk Railroad 
Parasyte is awesome. It was a great read also for its setting: pre-cellphone era Japan. It somehow made things more urgent and suspenseful. It took effort to get in touch with people. It’s sort of like F/sN in this regard where there were no mobile phones at all either.
In any case, there’s no one great thing about it – but the relationship of the host and the parasyte is a very entertaining and fulfilling one to read.
Ushio….no!!!!!!!! 😦 That fall made my heart skip…
On another note, I think I’ll check out Parasyte. Looks awesome. Kudos for sharing.
Re Xam’d: An ‘8’ is ‘fantastic’?
@ghostlightning
Never thought of it from that angle. Never thought of any manga in the form of historical context either, for that matter.
And I probably exaggeratd by saying the show’s “fantastic”. Just downgrade that to “great” then. Still would never give it a 9 due to pacing, lack of background and past events being integrated into the storyline and the war that wasn’t explained well enough.