Chapter 271: Distinctive Style
The opening scene, with a terrifying humanoid monster and bloody scenes, left Kenji Tanaka stunned.
"Is it so outrageous from the start?" Kenji Tanaka wondered.
But then he realized that the author of the manga was Ren, a renowned psychopath.
Ah, that's fine.
That humanoid monster was probably the villain of the manga.
If I'm not mistaken, it might even be called a Parasyte, Kenji Tanaka guessed.
But then, the next scene suddenly changed to a high school student lying in bed.
"What a shame! I've failed! What a shame!" a dialogue bubble appeared on the screen, unknown to him.
"What? How have I failed?" muttered the male protagonist, Shinichi, in a daze.
"Shut up," the voice repeated, startling him.
However, after the startle, he woke up and got out of bed.
After washing up, Shinichi and his parents had breakfast together. However, upon seeing Shinichi, his father mocked his behavior from the previous night.
Shinichi's mother also laughed and said that Shinichi had been half-asleep the night before and had tied his arms with his headphone cables.
Shinichi felt a little helpless at his parents' laughter, but then a spider crawled across the table, startling him.
This shows that the personality of the protagonist of the manga Parasyte is completely different from that of Denji, the protagonist of Chainsaw Man.
It's even different from the personalities of the male protagonists of Ren's previous works, Edgerunners and Fire Punch.
Shinichi's personality is a bit... shy and cowardly, like a normal high school student.
The scene then returns to the opening scene of the manga, where the humanoid monster has returned to its previous form, oblivious to the pool of blood under its feet. But the monster... seems a little dazed.
The announcer's voice echoed from the television: "Recently, the relevant departments have...".
As he watched the announcer and heard his voice, his face transformed into that of the announcer.
He even repeated what he was saying: "Recently, the relevant departments have...".
It was truly chilling.
At that moment, the voice of what appeared to be the family's daughter was heard from behind the imitating monster. She said coquettishly, "Dad, where's Mom? I'm hungry...".
The monster returned to its original form and, somewhat terrifyingly, imitated his daughter's voice.
"Dad, where's Mom?".
Then he turned and went back, saying, "I'm hungry...".
Just those moments sent shivers down Kenji Tanaka's spine.
This monster... could easily imitate humans and feed on them! And it seemed that this creature was originally human?
The manga changed again, focusing on the protagonist, Shinichi, on his way to school.
He seemed lost in thought, walking in a daze, oblivious to the girl approaching swiftly from behind.
The girl looked at Shinichi from behind, smiled, and tried to hit him on the head with a chop.
"Ah!"
But then... without even turning, Shinichi's right hand caught the girl's falling hand.
However, after grabbing the girl's hand, he seemed to belatedly realize who was behind him. He was suddenly surprised and, without hiding it, called her name, "Satomi!".
"Really?" asked Satomi, angered by his expression. "You knew I was going to attack you from behind, right?".
Shinichi quickly explained, "No... no! I had no idea!".
However, the two of them froze.
Because... in the next scene, Shinichi placed his right hand on Satomi's voluminous chest.
He even squeezed it.
"Hahahahahaha..."
Kenji Tanaka let out a sudden laugh and said, "That's very in line with... Amamiya-sensei's style. This time he's getting straight to the point."
The protagonist Denji in Chainsaw Man is also like that. His biggest dream is to touch a breast.
Unfortunately, his first attempt at his dream was ruined by Power, the pad woman.
But touching Makima later made up for it, so in a way, he made up for it.
In Parasyte, on the other hand, the protagonist Shinichi fulfilled a dream that took Denji more than twenty episodes in the first one.
And seeing the size of this Satomi... She's not a pad woman like Power, but a real woman with great ambition! But just as Shinichi reacted, he apologized in a panic, saying, "Ahhhh, what's wrong? There must be something wrong? How should I say this, this...?".
However, Satomi didn't give him a chance to react and slapped him directly, even knocking off his glasses.
"Shinichi, you idiot!"
She walked away angrily.
However... Kenji Tanaka noticed something. It seems the male protagonist's right hand is out of control for some reason?
And the reason is definitely related to the experience he had last night.
Then, just as he was drowsy in class, the experience from the previous night reappeared.
Last night, while Shinichi was sleeping with his headphones on, a pale yellow slug with a pink drill head approached his ear. Apparently, the headphones had blocked his ear, so the slug crawled into Shinichi's nostril and sank into it.
However, Shinichi felt a nasal discomfort in his sleep and sneezed, startlingly expelling the slug, waking him up.
He was paralyzed for an instant upon seeing the slug and then jumped out of bed, terrified.
After all, Shinichi was terrified of bugs.
"Bugs!" he screamed in fear.
The slug disappeared before his eyes.
Just as he was holding a rolled-up book, fearful of the disappeared slug, it suddenly emerged and sank into Shinichi's right hand, which he had been using to block.
A pale yellow light emanated from the skin of Shinichi's right hand, traveling up his arm towards... Shinichi's head? "Ahhhhhh! It's going up!"
Shinichi panicked, grabbed the headphone cable, and tied it tightly around his arm. He woke up his parents, who were still sleeping.
"What's wrong, Shinichi?" Shinichi's father's voice echoed from the other side of the door.
Shinichi was tightly tying the headphone cable around his arm to prevent the insect from climbing up.
Then, when Shinichi's parents hurriedly opened his room, they saw Shinichi's arm tightly bound with the cable, with his entire right hand reddened from suffocation.
But then, after Shinichi's parents entered, the insect seemed to disappear.
Even the hole it had made in his hand disappeared.
It seemed like a hallucination of Shinichi's.
However, the fans knew it was not an illusion, but a real event happening to the protagonist.
Furthermore, the protagonist's right hand had changed, which suggested... most likely... that the insect had infested it.
Remembering the opening scene, it seems the insect was trying to infest the human brain.
And that's how humans were parasitized and transformed into monsters!
Thanks to Ren's previous interview with the trematode Leucochloridium, Makima's prototype, his fans now know that there are parasites in the world that can manipulate the behavior of their hosts.
So... could this also be the origin of the monsters in Parasyte?
The flashback ends, and Shinichi wants to apologize to his classmate, Satomi, with whom he had a "misunderstanding" that morning. He asks his friend Yuji to do it.
Then he says goodbye, citing an illness as the cause.
Shinichi walks home, apparently still reflecting on the strange events of the previous night and today.
He walks towards the sidewalk, but just then, a red car is speeding towards him, apparently paying no attention to the pedestrians.
Shinichi immediately steps back, but a little girl on the other side of the sidewalk is chasing a ball.
The car honks, and she, suddenly, notices it and panics.
But at that moment... Shinichi runs out from the opposite side, unexpectedly extending his right hand to block the speeding car!
The car's hood was even caught in his right hand, denting it and causing the engine to stall.
Shinichi managed to save the little girl.
"Ghost!" exclaimed Kenji Tanaka with wide eyes. "This is Superman!".
At that moment, in the manga, Shinichi looked at his right hand in horror.
Clearly, he had noticed that something was wrong.
He saw... an eye appeared on the back of his right hand, staring at him, and his fingers transformed into a mixture of steel and flesh!
But then, in an instant, his right hand returned to its original form.
Still, Shinichi was completely horrified!
"End of chapter."
After reading this chapter, Kenji Tanaka still had many questions.
He seemed to understand something, but he also seemed to understand nothing.
This was because the beginning of Parasyte was different from that of Ren's previous three manga.
The fundamental background of the world and the setting of Edgerunners, Fire Punch, and Chainsaw Man were presented to the fans in the first chapter.
For example, the background of Night City and the cybernetic transformation system of Edgerunners, the blessing skill system and the snowy world background of Fire Punch, and the setting of devils and devil hunters in Chainsaw Man.
All these elements were drawn in the first episode.
On the contrary, the first episode of Parasyte seemed to have drawn a lot, but also nothing.
Still, Kenji Tanaka was still very excited after reading it.
"Wow! Can the right hand become like that?" he exclaimed excitedly. "It's really cool!".
After all, who can refuse a right hand with such a powerful and unique power?
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