#but yeah locking those book 2 saves has been kinda eye opening for me re getting to know my detectives better

[fellhellion]

Wow the old adage rlly is true (you will, by no fault of ur own, create M-mancing detectives with trust/commitment issues)

[otakween]

Parasite Eve (The Novel) - Review

And now, for something completely different. I realized that with my main Project Alpha (watching all anime in alphabetical order) I would be missing out on somethings that don’t have anime but are still otaku related. Therefore, I will be doing two side projects for A. video games that don’t have anime and B. manga that don’t have anime. I’ll probably add other projects as I go. 

First game alphabetically on my list for video games is Parasite Eve (thanks to 3rd Birthday). Turns out, the game is actually a sequel to a novel. Instead of reading it and then writing a review, I decided to review as-I-go so this post will be pretty lengthy.

Thoughts:

Part 1 Prologue & Development)

-The vibes I’m getting from this are Frankenstein combined with Junji Ito (yes, I know he adapted that recently). The mysterious heat thing feels distinctly J-horror. Maybe because they’re so into body horror?

-I’m still not sure if “Parasite Eve” is supposed to refer to a woman or an event. Maybe that’s the point?

-So main “villain” is kind of omnipresent microorganism who can control minds? I hope they explain how it works eventually

-Holy research, Batman! All of the medical and scientific scenes are really impressive to me. They feel like they were written by a real doctor. I want a “making of” feature lol.

-Creepiest bits so far are the opening car accident (reminded me of Bird Box a little) and the extremely in-depth surgery descriptions definitely had me feeling squeamish

-The characters already feel well-developed and distinct. I can tell because I’m having no trouble remembering their names lol

-I know it’s all medical necessity but the transplant scenes did feel very violating. It was also creepy that the author chose to describe a braindead woman’s body in vaguely sexual terms

-The politics about braindead bodies in Japan vs. America adds a really interesting layer to the story. Also, the feelings of people who experience failed transplants. These are both things I had never really considered. It’s attention to detail like this that makes this story feel more realistic and immersive.

-I’m wondering how the “villain” will manifest herself? Is it going to be like Tomie where she grows put of the organs? Is she going to possess the donors or become a clone of Kiyomi. We’ll see!

Part 2 (Symbiosis)

-Okay, now I have a much better idea of how “Eve” works. The descriptions of her taking over her host’s body and mind were nice and creepy. The horror of the situation is that it’s not really something you could report or ask for help without seeming crazy and being locked up or put on drugs.

-I said the first part reminded me of Junji Ito and Frankenstein. This second part reminded me of Get Out, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and Saya no Uta. I guess I could throw in Brain on Fire as well with all the memory lapses.

-I much prefer the subtle horror of the novel to the monster-attack style horror. I found the scene where Asakura is attacked by Eve just felt really cheesy. It was one of those horror scenes where the victim is being attacked by a very slow moving creature and they probably could have escaped like a million times. Her immediately kneeling down on a mug she shattered also felt pretty silly.

-So Eve is mitochondria? I guess? And she’s existed since the beginning of time but needed science to progress to where it is today to help her evolve. That’s creative but pretty out there. It’s confusing because she obviously has to be more than one mitochondrion at once and she also refers to other mitochondrion as her sisters even though they both came from Kiyomi. I guess I’ll just try not to overthink things…

-Things suddenly got very sexual at the end of part 2 and I cannot unsee certain things D: I’m not really sure what Eve’s end goal is here. Is it just to be all yandere for Toshiaki or does she want to take over the world as a new species or something?

-I really enjoy how much insight we’re getting into Mariko and Kiyomi’s characters. Horror is always more effective when you care about the characters and understand who they were before everything went wrong.

-Pretty stupid of Mariko to not take her pills, it’s kinda hard to see her side of things on that one. It’s interesting to see her dad and the doctor grappling with this trouble child.When they called her behavior “autistic” it was kind of jarring though. Not sure how I feel about that.

Part 3 (Evolution)

-Oh…OH. Okay. I was warned that this book is trippy and this is where stuff starts to go DOWN. Where’s my brain bleach…

-F’real though, the 3rd part was basically nonstop madness and body horror. I was on the edge of my seat but also cringing throughout the whole thing. I must have been quite the sight reading this on the train, I could just feel my eyes widening at some of the more out-there scenes.

-So it gets extremely sexual and there’s some rape going on which of course is always hard to read. It makes sense for the plot tho so I was ok with it. Logically, Eve 1 would need to “evolve” through reproducing. Some of the descriptions made me kind of side-eye the author tho like “Are you enjoying this a little too much?” I dunno. it was just a lot.

-Really intense body horror. The descriptions of people slowly dying by fire were especially lovingly crafted (lol). I liked that they explained the logic behind mitochondria having that ability and compared it to spontaneous human combustion

-Team Toshiaki was pretty badass at the end there, working together to save Mariko. I’d be on the next plane out of the country lol

-I’m glad Toshiaki was redeemed in the end. It’s not like he really did anything wrong since he was basically brainwashed.

-I wonder if any book characters will appear in the games? I don’t know how far apart the stories are but it would be fun to get some cameos. I wanna see Mariko come back for revenge lol

-What crazy person thought this would make a good video game??? I mean, good for them, but if I didn’t know already about the franchise I would not be reading this thinking “mm yeah. Awesome game material right here.” It’s mainly science and practically all-powerful mitochondria monsters. And you fight those with guns or something? Okaaay…

Epilogue

-Dang! Major jealousy feels. I wish I was graduating grad school rn (but 6 years…damn. I could never be a research student).

-Of course it ends with a super complicated scientific explanation. I’m really glad it did though. I didn’t really understand what was going on with the male-female thing.

-Typical horror movie sting foreshadowing sequels at the end. Creeeeepy.

-It’s pretty hilarious how Asakura is like “man, what a year amirite??” YOU CAUGHT FIRE AND WERE ATTACKED BY A MITOCHONDRIA BLOB THAT KILLED YOUR MENTOR!

-Oh snap. The book has a bibliography. Mad props to the author who of course has his PhD in pharmacology. It’s always great when super smart people create something like this for us plebes.

I’m super glad I read this! I don’t read a ton of horror (even though I’m a big horror movie fan) and this was a great re-introduction into the genre. Although I found it a little over-the-top at times (borderline cheesy) it was super smartly written and refreshingly original. I can’t wait to see what the rest of the franchise has in store for me!

I give Parasite Eve a 8.5 out of 10