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"Keep it up, everyone! Parasyte is only one step away from the top spot."
"Push, push, push!"
"Vote it up! Let's get Parasyte to the summit."
"The recent chapters are getting better and better, but it is such a shame that the tankobon volumes haven't been released yet. It feels like the popularity hasn't had a chance to truly spread to the wider public."
"It should be soon. I heard the first volume will go on sale at the end of February."
"I heard this work is supposed to wrap up around April, though. That feels a bit sudden, doesn't it?"
"Who said Parasyte is ending in April?"
"Shiori Sensei mentioned it in an interview with Kiyozawa Library. The video is in the archives on their official website if you are curious enough to go look for it."
"That fast?"
"I actually think it is a good thing. Sensei has this great quality where he finishes his stories cleanly without dragging them out."
"Why do you think Azure Sigil was transferred from the flagship Kiyozawa to Azure Kiyozawa? It was because after a certain story arc, the author couldn't bear to end such a commercially valuable series.He forced the protagonist's adventure to continue, which eventually caused the popularity to drop by nearly half. It went from being the sixth-ranked hit in Kiyozawa to being on the verge of being surpassed by Parasyte here in Azure Kiyozawa."
"Instead of dragging out a series with tedious, overlong plotlines, it is better to just end it decisively. The world-building of Parasyte isn't massive to begin with, and human society isn't helpless. Once the government learned of these creatures, they started taking action. After all, no matter how strong an individual parasite is, a small number of them can't stand against the combined might of billions of humans. In the competition between species, numbers are the absolute deciding factor. The parasite species has potential, but we will have to see if their numbers ever grow. I expect the upcoming plot will focus on humanity's extermination of them."
"Suddenly, I feel a bit reluctant to let it go."
"Me too. It has been five or six years since I have read a novel that captivated me this much. It is a pity the plot isn't a 'power fantasy' though."
"Classmates die, friends die, even the protagonist's mother dies."
"A lot of people probably find these heart wrenching developments hard to stomach. Plus, the themes are so deep that a lot of casual readers might feel excluded."
"But even so, this book is about to take the top spot in Azure Kiyozawa."
---
In early February, the plot of Parasyte reached another major climax.
There was a very unique parasite in the series, the teacher of the protagonist, Shinichi.
She had appeared in earlier chapters and was pregnant; moreover, she was actually starting to be influenced and assimilated by human emotions.
In this arc, she successfully gave birth to her child. However, her identity as a parasite was discovered by a private detective. To force her into the open, the detective kidnapped the child of the teacher.
He arranged a meeting in a park with the intent of killing the child in front of her, wanting this blood-stained monster to feel the same agony that humans feel.
Of course, this was a feint. The threat to kill the infant was merely a bluff to make Tamura panic and reveal her true, monstrous form. But the detective paid for that bluff with his life. Tamura, in her effort to protect her child, ended up exposing her identity to a group of government operatives.
This was the plot of the seventeenth chapter. On this day, the latest issue of Azure Kiyozawa was released.
Mizuki, a female reader, purchased the magazine immediately after the bookstore opened and quickly flipped to the eighteenth chapter.
Tamura knew that once her identity was exposed, she would be in extreme danger.
Therefore, before she could be hunted down, she sought out the protagonist, Shinichi. Tamura was a parasite who had been an enemy to Shinichi. Yet this murderer, who once viewed human life as nothing more than grass, was now using all her tenderness to cradle the human infant in her arms.
It was the child she had birthed herself. It was absurd that a parasite inhabiting a human body would produce human offspring, but that was the reality of the story.
"I have killed thirty-eight people so far. That is relatively few among my kind. Most were simply for food, and if I lacked nutrition, I would supplement it with ordinary human food." Tamura's opening statement was shocking.
"That means... parasites might be able to survive without eating humans. What are humans, and what are we? It can be summed up in one sentence. We... are the children of humanity."
As Mizuki read this, her expression became grave.
As a reader, her feelings toward Tamura were incredibly complex. The creature possessed curiosity, a thirst for knowledge, and even seemed to harbor genuine affection for the human child she had borne. If Shinichi was a human influenced by a parasite, then Tamura was a parasite influenced by human emotion.
"We are extremely fragile. Without a human host, we cannot survive," Tamura said calmly, looking at Shinichi. "So... don't bully us too much."
Mizuki felt a pang in her heart at those words.
She couldn't quite grasp the full meaning of the statement, but as she read on...
The government soldiers arrived at the park and surrounded Tamura. Then, the most soul-stirring scene in the entire novel occurred. The soldiers opened fire, their bullets flying ruthlessly toward her. Shinichi tried to stop them because the infant in her arms was human, despite being her offspring.
But Tamura did not follow the parasite instinct of survival at all costs. Instead, she used her body as a shield, cradling the infant close to protect it from the hail of bullets coming from all directions. Bullet holes appeared one by one across her body, and blood began to flow. Yet, she continued to walk toward Shinichi, step by step.
'What do I have to do... to truly connect with your human heart?' Tamura looked at Shinichi.
The hostility in Shinichi's eyes began to fade.
At that moment, Tamura was simply a mother protecting her child, just like his own mother, who had died long ago, had protected him from a scalding pot of oil when he was a boy.
Mizuki's eyes instantly welled up with tears.
She had never expected that Shiori's purpose for creating Tamura was to use this murderous monster to portray the most powerful and moving image of motherhood in the work.
"Shinichi, when I first became pregnant, I intended to use this child for an experiment," Tamura said, looking at the infant. "But in the end, I didn't do it. He is just an ordinary human child. A human child should be raised by humans."
She handed the baby to Shinichi. "Before... I tried to mimic a human laugh in front of a mirror." A smile appeared on her face as her bullet-riddled body slowly collapsed. "It felt... quite good."
Mizuki turned the pages slowly. Honestly, the death of a parasite should have been a moment of satisfaction for a reader.
But she felt heavy-hearted, her eyes red. This chapter was even more shocking to her than the one where Kana died. The themes Shiori was exploring were profound.
What is the meaning of life?
Perhaps he couldn't provide a definitive answer, but through this story, he made her feel that the question wasn't just a few simple words.
After the release of this chapter, the official Kiyozawa Library website and the comment section of Haruto's AniSphere Forum were flooded by fans.
"My god, this chapter was so painful to read."
"My skin is crawling. I never thought I would feel sympathy for a parasite who killed dozens of people."
"From a human perspective, they are evil. But objectively speaking, the parasites haven't really done anything wrong. They just want to survive."
"Tamura's line, 'We are fragile, so don't bully us too much!' sounded like a joke the first time I read it. The second time, I wanted to cry. Humans have already started a plan to exterminate them. They only wanted to live; they ate people for food, not out of malice. But the moment humans noticed them, the only acceptable answer was total extinction."
"I am honestly speechless."
"Is Shiori Sensei really only in his teens? Where do these life insights come from? When I was his age, I was wondering if I could open the yogurt my mom bought."
"At his age, he can write a character as contradictory and yet as representative of maternal greatness as Tamura."
"Rationally, I wanted her to die, but emotionally... her innocent child just lost its mother."
"When she braved the bullets to hand that precious child to Shinichi, I actually cried. I feel so conflicted! I miss my own mother now."
"Another day of being emotionally crushed by Sensei."
"Is there anyone who disagrees that this is the best single chapter since the series began?"
The discussion on the forums far exceeded any previous engagement. The portrayal of Tamura was so hauntingly beautiful that many readers found themselves unable to move on for a long time. The voting numbers reflected this sentiment.
536,984 votes, taking the first-place spot in the magazine.
After eighteen weeks of serialization, nearly four months, Parasyte had climbed from fourteenth place to first.
This speed was staggering, shocking not only the staff at Kiyozawa Library but those at other publishing houses as well. For Haruto, however, this result felt like a natural progression. The strength of the original material was undeniable.
From the first chapter to now, there had been very little aggressive marketing; the popularity had simply grown bit by bit on its own merit. Of course, the fact that the competition in Azure Kiyozawa wasn't exceptionally strong played a part, allowing Parasyte to take the top spot with relative ease.
With the series now at the summit of the rankings, a routine meeting was finally convened within the publishing house. In the flagship Kiyozawa magazine, a certain novel's popularity had been cratering lately; its plot had clearly collapsed.
The editorial board was meeting to discuss transferring that failing work to Azure Kiyozawa. The question was, what would happen to its vacant slot in the flagship magazine? Should they hold a competition to find new work?
Or... considering its current popularity, should they consider transferring Parasyte to the flagship Kiyozawa? Should they give this work the prestige of the main magazine for its final run?
In the conference room, the participants sat with serious expressions, waiting for the Editor in Chief to speak.