The closing film of this year's Tokyo International Film Festival, Takashi Yamazaki's "Kiseiju: Part 1 (Parasyte: Part 1)," arrives in theaters with a lot of hype. Based on Hitoshi Iwaaki's best-selling manga about the stealth invasion of Earth by alien parasites, the film is the first of a two-part epic, with the second film scheduled for release on April 25, 2015.

Will the buyers of 11 million or so "Kiseiju" comics be disappointed? Given Yamazaki's sterling box-office record — his controversial World War II kamikaze drama "Eien no Zero (The Eternal Zero)" earned ¥8.7 billion, a figure only surpassed by megahit "Frozen," for the year — even a blizzard of online naysaying will not stop the films from becoming humongous hits.

I couldn't call myself a fan of the manga, but the film adaptation of "Parasyte" hits the hard-to-find sweet spot between black comedy and serious sci-fi/horror, while uncannily echoing scare headlines about the worldwide spread of the Ebola virus. It's what so many directors would like to make, but seldom do: a well-made piece of popular entertainment that not only reflects the zeitgeist, but is a step ahead of it.