Parasite Eve (novel)
Parasite Eve is a science fiction/romance-y book written by Hideaki Sena that was published in 1995. It was adapted into a movie and strangely, both have been released in America, the movie in 2001 by ADV Films and the novel in 2005 by Vertical.
In it, Kiyomi Nagishima, wife of Toshiaki Nagishima, crashes her car. Kiyomi survives but is brain dead. Toshiaki and Kiyomi's doctor transplant her kidneys into the teenage girl Mariko Anzai as an organ donation. What they didn't know was that Kiyomi's mitochondria had undergone an evolution, granting them special powers and a will of their own. Toshiaki is compelled to culture Kiyomi's liver cells, which he reffers to as Eve, and the mitochondria in Mariko's new kidney start transforming her into something suitable for giving birth to the next step on the evolutionary ladder. The story then goes rather haywire as Eve takes on a form of her own, kidnaps Mariko, starts setting people on fire, and *ahem* acquires a sperm sample from Toshiaki to create the Ultimate Being.
Oh, did you come here for the video games? You can find the first in the trilogy here.
For now, the character sheet only pertains to the games.
- And I Must Scream: Kiyomi's almost literal description whe Eve took over her body.
- Armor-Piercing Slap: Male example with Mariko's dad.
- Author Avatar: The author, Hideaki Seha is a Ph.D. in Pharmacology, so is the main character.
- Blob Monster: Eve-1.
- Body Horror: Full stop.
- The Bully: the reason why Mariko stopped taking her medication the first time she got a transplant.
- Chekhov's Gun:
- The sounds Mariko dream/hallucinate and the comic book mentioned earlier.
- The lecture about mitochondria.
- Description Porn: See Shown Their Work.
- Didn't See That Coming: Type 5. Eve-1 assumed male sperm was just a convenient way of reproduction, but never expected the male mitochondria to come in conflict with female mitochondria in her Ultimate Eve.
- Dreaming of Things to Come: Mariko. With a twist. She assumed the donor would come to take the kidney from her... instead she came to implant an embryo into her.
- Frankenstein's Monster: Mariko believes that getting an organ from another person makes her one because school bullies mocked her with it.
- Gambit Roulette: Kiyomi's mitochondria have played with their limited control over her body to get her together with Toshiaki, as well as to enroll her on the list of kidney donors and to kill her in hopes of getting her kidney into a female recipient. They also influenced Toshiaki to cultivate Kiyomi's liver cells. This is all part of the plan to give birth to Ultimate Eve.
- Go Mad from the Revelation : Inverted with Toshiaki, who goes sane from the revelation just before his first My God, What Have I Done?.
- Grand Theft Me: When Eve-1 took control of Kiyomi.
- Huge Schoolgirl: Asakura's childhood complex.
- Laughing Mad: Eve-1 as Ultimate Eve is born.
- Meganekko: Asakura
- My God, What Have I Done?: Done twice with the same character in something little less than 20 pages. Also done with a minor character a bit earlier.
- Playing with Fire: Mitochondria produce cellular energy. Eve presumably uses this to induce intense heat and even produce flames.
- Puppeteer Parasite: Eve.
- She Cleans Up Nicely: Asakura, but actually because she is under Eve's influence.
- Shown Their Work: Oh god, where to start? The novel actually have a glossary with the difficult terms and a bibliography for all the medical description on transplants, rejection, antibiotics, dialysis, the psychology of organ replacement patients, and hospital stuff in general. The novel could be classified as Medical Porn.
- This Cannot Be!: Eve-1 as Ultimate Eve goes haywire.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: Kiyomi's childhood friend and her.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: Eve-1 is capable of this. Her favorite form is Kiyomi.
- Weaksauce Weakness: The Ultimate Being's weakness is her/his dad's normal vanilla mitochondria.
- What Happened to the Mouse??: Averted with Eve-2, Eve-3 and other Eve cultures. Played straight with Kiyomi's childhood friend.