I read this anthology, Neo Parasyte f, before Parasyte, but I have seen the anime. I assumed that would be enough to be able to comprehend and judge this work. There was quite a time gap between me finishing the anime and reading this manga, but I believe I didn’t forget anything necessary to understand these stories.

Neo Parasyte f is the sister manga to Neo Parasyte. Both of these are one-off tribute anthologies collecting stories from various manga authors based in the Parasyte world. Both came out after the manga ended, and Neo Parasyte f references the entirety of the storyline’s major plot beats in some way or another. Neo Parasyte compiled stories by manga authors aiming at a male demographic, while Neo Parasyte f featured manga authors aiming for a female demographic.

My local library happened to carry this one, so I dove in. Y’all, don’t sleep on your local libraries for manga (or anything, frankly). I’m far from opposed to digital reading, but there’s something to be said for physical texture of a book, as well as the fact you’re not spending 24/7 looking at a screen. Cost is a huge impediment to physical media, but with libraries, you can circumvent that at the expense of ownership and potential shelf wear.

You can even request libraries order something you want to read! For free! They’re like, your slaves (but please, always be super nice to them). While browsing my library’s manga selections, I saw Neo Parasyte f, and it was in such good condition and felt so great to hold in my hands, that I couldn’t resist renting it. I’ve now read something I might never have otherwise, and it was a wonderful change of pace. PSA over, folks.

I’m not going to review each individual story in Neo Parasyte f. It took me over a month to finish this relatively large volume. Because of how brief the stories typically are, I only remember vague details of ones from the beginning. If you’ve never read an anthology manga based on an established property before, you’re usually not missing out on much.

It’s nobody’s fault, really, but the format is inherently limited. Generally, an author has up to the length of one standard manga chapter to tell an original story about a topic with bespoke character and world concepts. From here, typically one of two paths are chosen.

One is to compensate for the lack of space needed to develop original characters and settings by using the same ones from the source property, which readers of the anthology will already be familiar with. If the author tells a story about Shinichi and Migi, it may not be “canon,” but the reader will still apply their previous history and affection for the characters to pull deeper meaning from the limited story space. This carries the risk of being redundant, as authors typically don’t want to contradict the original story elements out of respect, which can result in telling a less-defined, weaker variation of a theme present in the source.

The second path is to use the basic premise of the original manga, in this case, aliens possessing human hosts, and then put their own spin on it. This can be creative and refreshing, but risks missing the values of the original work and telling a detrimentally simple story because of the limited amount of pages they have to set up every element.

Which is preferred depends entirely on the reader, but Neo Parasyte f‘s stories are comprised of about 25% of the former and 75% of the latter. In other words, the focus is on the guest authors running wild with Parasyte‘s premise.

Typically, anthologies lean towards comedic stories, as it’s easier to set up and finish a joke in a scant amount of pages than it is to complete a character drama. In my opinion, this collection’s star story is “The Royal Prince,” as I believe it to the most uncompromised. In this story—one of the longer ones—a daydreaming, romantic high school girl finds herself possessed by a parasite that educates itself by reading her romance manga. The parasite imitates her favorite “pretty boy” characters, and the two form an awkward, affectionate relationship.

It’s a funny, absurd premise to a normal person, but the main character is set up as enough of a ditz for you to believe she could actually fall in love with a parasite. And anyone who’s seen the original story of Parasyte knows how parasites can behave naïvely and bizarrely. Not only does it have gags, the story also manages to drop hints of drama throughout that culminate into a decent twist and horrific tragedy that’s appropriate for the source material. It’s different from the original work, but also recognizes the genre formula that made it compelling.

On the other hand, most of Neo Parasyte f ranges from forgettable to downright cringe-worthy. One story revolves around Migi arousing Shinichi with talk of female high schoolers’ gym bloomers, ending with Migi turning himself into bloomers so Shinichi can wear him. Another stars an insufferably annoying character utterly obsessed with gay male romances.

There are a few stories that only need the “shape-shifting monster” element of Parasyte to be told, and though it’s been some time since I’ve watched the anime, I feel like a lot of the Parasite characters represented are completely out-of-character. While this may be the fault of the translation (or me, to be fair), I found a few storylines and their characters to be confusing, awkward, and difficult to understand.

The greatest delight of reading this was all of the fantastic artwork on display, and I’m inclined to check out many of these authors’ own works to get more of their captivating styles. For that reason, Neo Parasyte f may have ended up as something worth reading. For others, however, I can’t really recommend it. It’s too restricted to add anything to the original manga, and those same restrictions prevent it from capturing what made the anime and (presumably) manga’s story so great.

Ranking:

The Royal Prince
The Telepathist and the Parasite
The God of Never Never
Secret Library
A New One
First Contact
The Taste of Palm
Always With You
Parasite Love
Because I Love It
Macabre Goods
After School Danger
Parasite Food
Forbidden Fun
How Have You Been Since Then?