20 Best Anime TV Series Of All Time

By Andrew Dilks / January 23, 2018

19. Parasyte -The Maxim-

At first, Parasyte -The Maxim- feels a little too much like a generic shnen anime, as a young student's arm is taken over by a sentient parasite who reveals that similar parasites have taken over the brains of seemingly ordinary people.

Parasyte is, of course, similar to shnen in a great many respects (and there are some excellent purely shnen ahime out there, as we will see) but the sophisticated philosophical musings on the nature of identity and the strong character development (which includes dealing with alcoholism among its themes) makes it more in the vein of seinen, aimed at a more mature audience.

That said, there's plenty of excitement and spectacle here for fans of action anime, and some of the transformation sequences are clearly inspired by great body horror movies, particularly John Carpenter's The Thing.