by Hitoshi Iwaaki, 273 pagesWhen an alien trying to take over his body gets trapped in his right hand instead of his brain, Shuichi's life as a normal high school senior is over, for not only has his parasitic tenant decidedly not come in peace--it hasn't come alone.
This series (a Kodansha Manga Award winner in 1993) is about much more than just an alien invasion and body-snatching gone awry. Through their forced companionship and mutual dependence, Shuichi and Migi (his right hand resident) engage in an ongoing philosophical conversation about personal and collective morality. What is good? What is evil? Where does following the instinct to survive fit on that spectrum? What before would have been black and white to each of them becomes increasingly, convincingly grey, even to the reader. As the invasion progresses, the clash of cultures results in much violence and bloodshed; but wherever humans and aliens are forced to relate to each other before they can kill each other, they have the chance to learn. And therein lies hope.
In this volume, some of Migi's more successful fellow parasites have decided to pool their resources, which bodes ill for humanity (you only have to see one of their conveniently organized "dining rooms" in an earlier volume to know that this is very, very bad). Because he secretly hosts one of their kind, Shuichi can spot the invaders among us, a skill the desperate authorities forcibly employ. But when Shuichi meets another conscript, he learns that the old adage "takes one to know one" is truer than he realized and that the aliens are not the only "monsters" out there.
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