Chapter 272: Good Reviews at the Beginning
The first episode of Parasyte is also excellent.
Or, as always, it inherited the explosive style of Ren's initial manga. The opening scene is a chilling scene: a humanoid monster devours humans.
Then there's what happened to the male protagonist, Shinichi. His right hand seems to have undergone a mutation. Not only does it possess powerful strength, but also an independent self-awareness...
Such a powerful force that he can stop a speeding car with his bare hands. This is simply exciting for many high school manga fans.
The first episode of Parasyte also sparked heated debates among these fans, who began to discuss the subsequent plot.
"Wow, how cool! I want a right hand like that too!"
"The protagonist's right hand is invaded by that parasite, right? It seems that Ren's new manga focuses on this parasite parasitizing the human body."
"This parasite seems to be similar to Leucochloridium. Its main purpose is to parasitize the host's brain and control the entire body."
"So the host's brain is the target of these parasites, and once successfully parasitized, it becomes the so-called Parasyte monster."
"The beginning was shocking. The plot of Parasyte scared me a lot at first. It follows Ren's usual style and is full of blood and violence."
"I can only say that the protagonist is very lucky. He was listening to music with headphones when he fell asleep, so his brain was not successfully parasitized."
"Who listens to music when they fall asleep? Can you really fall asleep like that?"
"Sometimes, when I have insomnia, I listen to relaxing music to sleep, so this is not bad at all."
"Understood! From now on I will use headphones to sleep!"
"This time the protagonist does have both his parents? I'm a little surprised..."
"David, Agni, and Denji thought it was great!"
...
"Parasyte... a man-eating monster that parasitizes the human brain?" commented Yusuke Sato, who had also been closely following Ren's new work, Parasyte, after finishing it.
"It's similar to the beginning of Chainsaw Man, but unlike Chainsaw Man, where the hero is involved in a fierce battle from the beginning," commented his assistant, Tang Wei.
In fact, the beginnings of Chainsaw Man and Parasyte are quite similar, both in establishing the premise and the hero's character in the first episode.
However, the hero of Parasyte, Shinichi, is clearly not as miserable as Denji, and his personality is relatively closer to ordinary people, seeming a bit shy.
Like the hero of Yusuke Sato's The Gods, both have quite common personalities, even seeming somewhat shyer than Hiroki.
But one advantage of Shinichi over Hiroki is that he has friends, one of whom is a beautiful female classmate.
Furthermore, his parents are still alive, so he doesn't start as an orphan or disappear.
This is a great victory over Hiroki.
Speaking of which, of Ren's four current manga, the protagonists of the first three, Edgerunners, Fire Punch, and Chainsaw Man, start as orphans.
Agni, the protagonist of Fire Punch, and Denji, the protagonist of Chainsaw Man, start without parents: one depends on his sister, the other, in an even worse situation, on the demonic dog Pochita.
David, the protagonist of Edgerunners, comes from a single-parent family. He seems to be much better off than Agni and Denji, right? But David's mother, Gloria, dies within five chapters...
What a joke!
But look at Shinichi, the protagonist of Parasyte. He has his parents and they care deeply for him.
These kinds of protagonists start out as incredibly normal and ordinary people.
"His manga always start great," replied Yusuke Sato calmly. "I just don't know what will happen next. I hope he doesn't run away again this time."
In fact, he was a little annoyed that Ren had suspended Chainsaw Man to start a new series.
If that's the case, even if the third installment of The Gods is truly exceptional, his victory over Ren's new work is unfair.
After all, the popularity of The Gods has been built on a long fan base.
Compared to Parasyte, that advantage is enormous.
While Parasyte is Ren's new work, and can undoubtedly leverage his fame to attract attention, Parasyte and Chainsaw Man are, ultimately, two different works.
Fans who liked Chainsaw Man might not necessarily like Parasyte as well, even though they were drawn by the same artist.
The plots, settings, and themes are different.
Just like Edgerunners and Chainsaw Man, although both were drawn by Ren, some of the original fans of Edgerunners drifted away, not attracted to Chainsaw Man by Ren's fame.
For example, Kenji Tanaka's original science fiction fan chat group was initially made up of people who liked and commented on Edgerunners.
But then, no one talked about Chainsaw Man.
The main reason is that the audience is different.
The same goes for Parasyte. It won't necessarily inherit all the fans of Chainsaw Man.
So, even if The Gods ultimately surpasses Parasyte, Yusuke Sato feels it's an undeserved and unfair victory.
Faced with Yusuke Sato's disapproving tone, Tang Wei shrank, afraid to speak.
...
After finishing Parasyte, Kenji Tanaka read the rest of the manga magazine.
Only then did he turn his attention to the manga Uzumaki that he had just bought along with the Akatsuki magazine.
"A horror manga?" said Kenji Tanaka, instantly filled with curiosity. "I'd like to see what Ren's manga is like."
He opened the manga Uzumaki and began to flip through it.
The strange events in Black Vortex Town in the first episode, the strange and fanatical love of Shuichi's father for vortices, even his exasperating eye movement in the middle of the story, and finally... his body twisted into a vortex before being placed in a barrel, with his bones broken and dying...
The strange plot of the first episode and the shockingly distorted images were enough to horrify Kenji Tanaka.
For a moment, he hesitated to continue reading.
But...
"I already bought it, and it's just this manga."
Kenji Tanaka's pride won out, and he continued to read the second episode.
Over the crematorium, the black smoke from the burning of Shuichi's father's body rose from the chimney, forming a huge black vortex in the sky.
And that's not all...
"Look... the front of the smoke is descending!" the villagers shouted in horror. "It's descending... and it's landing in that pond... It's true! That's Dragonfly Pond!"
"That pond is right in the center of town..."
"Why is this happening?"
Kirie listened to the villagers' conversations while observing the column of black smoke. This was clearly a violation of normal conduct.
Then, an idea occurred to her:
"That dragonfly pond is right behind my house."
Just then, Shuichi's mother, observing the scene in the sky, screamed in horror, "Ah!"
"Husband! Stop!"
She grabbed her head and shouted, "Don't do that!".
Then, to the bewilderment of Shuichi and the others, she said to him, "That's your father...".
"It's just a coincidence!" exclaimed Shuichi quickly.
Shuichi's mother pointed upwards in horror, "But... look!".
Everyone immediately looked up, and there it was... a twisted vortex of black smoke concentrated and dissipated in the sky, forming a faint and distorted human face... It was Shuichi's father!
Seeing that distorted face, fear invaded Kenji Tanaka's heart. This... was definitely not normal!
Shuichi's father must have been cursed to be able to create such horrible scenes even after death! It was truly terrifying...
Kenji Tanaka's eyes filled with horror and he swallowed hard, but he continued to watch.
Shuichi's mother was also deeply shocked and was rushed to the hospital.
But upon seeing the bun that swirled behind the nurse's head, she jumped out of bed like a frightened bird.
From then on, Shuichi's mother also developed a fear of whirlpools.
During her hospital stay, she was terrified of the whirlpools in the IVs during injections and the patterns her hair formed when she rolled it into a ball.
That's why she shaved her head completely.
In the end, she even noticed that the prints on her ten fingers were swirling, so she used scissors to cut them all off her hands and feet.
"My God! What the hell is this filthy thing!"
Kenji Tanaka's head was tingling with fear; his fear of vortices was so intense that he resorted to self-harm.
Seeing the bloody fingers of Shuichi's mother in the manga horrified him.
A normal person, so terrified of vortices, was clearly like Shuichi's father... affected by a supernatural force! And yet, nothing had been discovered about the cause of Shuichi's drastic family disorder.
"What the hell is this?".
Kenji Tanaka continued to read patiently, even experiencing phantom pains while observing Shuichi's frantic self-harm in the manga.
But then, the vortex patterns on Shuichi's mother's body disappeared.
Shuichi, the doctors, and the nurses at the hospital did everything they could to prevent him from seeing them.
But then, Shuichi was horrified to discover... that Shuichi's mother still had a vortex!
It was the cochlea, located in the human ear canal!
If his mother knew, it would undoubtedly trigger her self-harm again.
So Shuichi hid it from his mother from then on, sharing it only with Kirie.
This terrified her.
Just as Shuichi was struggling to hide it...
In the hospital, late at night.
Shuichi's mother was lying in bed, sleeping peacefully, but at that moment... a rustling sound was heard next to her, and a centipede silently crawled onto her bed, waking her up.
- - - - - -
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