

屍鬼
Life is idyllic and unassuming in the small town of Sotoba, a simple place where everyone knows everyone. However, tragedy strikes when Megumi Shimizu, a young girl with high aspirations, unexpectedly passes away from an unnamed illness. Over the torrid summer months, as more unexplained deaths crop up around the village, the town's doctor—Toshio Ozaki—begins to suspect that something more sinister than a mere disease is at play. Toshio teams up with Natsuno Yuuki, an apathetic and aloof teenager, and siblings Kaori and Akira Tanaka, two of Megumi's friends, to unravel the dark mystery behind the deaths in Sotoba. With their combined efforts, the investigation leads them toward an eerie secret pertaining to the new family in the Kanemasa mansion. [Written by MAL Rewrite]
Life is idyllic and unassuming in the small town of Sotoba, a simple place where everyone knows everyone. However, tragedy strikes when Megumi Shimizu, a young girl with high aspirations, unexpectedly passes away from an unnamed illness. Over the torrid summer months, as more unexplained deaths crop up around the village, the town's doctor—Toshio Ozaki—begins to suspect that something more sinister than a mere disease is at play. Toshio teams up with Natsuno Yuuki, an apathetic and aloof teenager, and siblings Kaori and Akira Tanaka, two of Megumi's friends, to unravel the dark mystery behind the deaths in Sotoba. With their combined efforts, the investigation leads them toward an eerie secret pertaining to the new family in the Kanemasa mansion. [Written by MAL Rewrite]
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thenhk
February 11, 2012
I was directed to Shiki by a fellow anime fan who, like me, enjoyed more horror based anime. He insisted that Shiki was superior to shows like Another or Higurashi, since it created "characters you cared about". Having now watched it, I am wondering what he was smoking. I'll go through each aspect individually. Tharrrrr be spoilers (at least in the plot section), so read at your own risk. Art = 5 I'm torn on this one. On the one hand, the backgrounds are great. It looks like a small village. They are beautiful, though a bit colourful at times for an anime which is supposed to be "dark".Points also go to this one for mixing up the character designs and not having all the characters as beautiful supermodels. Though not excessively gory, the blood and gore aren't skimped on either, another important point. On the other, there are big problems with the character designs. Some of the characters look utterly ridiculous. Seriously, what is with their hair? It detracts from the "horror experience". The best horror anime have characters who look vaguely like real people, not people who have had their hair styled by Ronald McDonald. Okay, enough about the hair. Another nitpick I had about the art was how obvious it was when a character was turned, so to speak. Red eyes, glowing white skin, just unnatural looking. It might have been more interesting if it was hard to tell the two groups apart. I am pretty forgiving when it comes to art so I can ignore a lot of ugly if the story is decent. Sound = 7 Credit where credit is due here. The majority of the voice acting worked for me. Everyone had a distinct voice and most of them were fitting. I couldn't tell you what any of the minor characters voices sounded like (or if they were "off") but that doesn't bother me in the slightest. The music is ... interesting. The openings are fine, for the most part. Ending songs aren't quite as good but still passable. Some of the in-show music works very well, in a creepy subtle way. By that token, there is also some that are too subtle and fail to evoke any mood. And then there's the weird pop-techno blend song that comes in once in a while. Each time I heard it, I spent the entire time trying to figure out what popular song it sounded like. The sound is pretty good. It works. No real problems here. Character = 3 We start off by sticking close to a pink haired girl named Megumi. She is a stuck-up bitch who hates the town she lives in (and many of the people, including some who go out of their way to be nice) and has an unhealthy obsession with a boy named Yuuki. Think she's the protagonist? Nope. What about Yuuki? He's the outsider who's just moved to a new town and is slowly making friends. Again, not really the main character. We spend a good portion of time with him until about a third of the way in. The people we spend most of the time with are the Doctor (Ozai) and the Junior Monk (Seishein). This is a mixed blessing, since Ozai is perhaps the most interesting and likeable character in Shiki. Megumi is, for the most part, annoying as all hell, though she gets better as the series goes on (and her role is downplayed). Yuuki is tolerable but never really breaks out as a character. He's the stoic (semi-)badass who says he doesn't want friends but has a good heart. Seishein is ... horrible. I know I'm supposed to agree with or sympathize with him since we spend a decent chunk of time with him, but he's a drag in every scene he's in. Ozai is perhaps the most logical and realistic of the characters. He realizes something is wrong and he ATTEMPTS TO FIX IT! The problem with the characters is development. There is a large cast of characters, the majority of which aren't important anyway, which means we don't spend enough time with any character to get too attached to them. And very few of these characters change in any meaningful way. Most of the characters are the exact same whether alive or dead, though the dead do angst a bit. The character I had the most sympathy for was the girl in the track suit. She's young, unprepared for this, forced to choose between doing unthinkable things and dealing with friends and family who have risen. Her increasing instability is one of the few interesting changes within the series. Too bad she's downplayed in the second half. Plot = 3 There are spoilers now. You have been warned. Shiki is about vampires. If you didn't know that going in, you would have figured it out by the second episode at the latest. It takes the rest of the characters at least another three or four episodes to catch up. The plot is sloooooow. Most of the mystery, if there was any to begin with, is dispelled right away. Every once in a while, something interesting would happen and I felt like I wanted to see what was next. Then the plot would drag its feet a few episodes with no substantial progress being made. To sum up the first 2/3rds of the plot, the vampires are killing people. A lot of people die. Only Doctor Ozai, Seishein and a few kids realize what's going on. Then the kids drop off the face of the earth for a while and barely factor in again (with one exception). Most episodes in this bit focus on Ozai trying to do something, the townsfolk doing nothing and Seishein being tormented. Should he do something? (YES!!!!) To repeat, the vampires kill a good portion of the population and no one is all that disturbed about it. In the last 1/3rd, the show does a 180 and tries to make us sympathize with the vampires. This might have worked if they hadn't been mercilessly slaughtering townsfolk for half of the series. There are some moments where you genuinely think the vampires have been dealt a shitty hand (not choosing to become one but being forced by whoever bit them), but they are few and far between. Suddenly, the humans are the bad guys for protecting themselves and their families against the immortal people who have been murdering them. While many of the humans who are cleansing the vampires are obviously enjoying the experience waaaay too much, it's hard to argue that they're wrong in doing it. Should the vampires survive, the humans will just be mined for blood until there are none left. You can complain that the vampires want to live too and they've retained their memories, but the bottom line is that their existence is just to kill former neighbours and friends. And then there's just moments of incredible stupidity. -At one point, it's suggested that the Shiki want to convert all the humans they can so the village is entirely Shiki. This would make sense, if you forgot that they NEED the humans for sustenance. Without them, the vampires starve. -A third to half the town is wiped out and everyone is content to believe it's an epidemic, yet make no effort to do anything about it. -No one questions why there are now large populations of people who work only at night, why many families have just disappeared and where the death records have went. -Ozai makes a tape of him dissecting his wife, proving the existence of Shiki .. then shows it to no one. -If you can figure out Seishein, you deserve a cookie, his entire character and motivations make no sense. -The technology problem prevalent in horror. Why does no one phone about this? The final few episodes make an attempt to tie everything together but it only partly satisfies. Many of the characters motivations are still stupid and there are jumps that we're never shown. This isn't to say that there isn't ANY depth in Shiki. There is. It just happens to be muddied by other aspects. In the second half of Shiki, we start being presented with questions about the value of life, whether it is ethical to kill (if your life is on the line), the propensity to deny rather than act. The questions are interesting. It's the way they're executed that doesn't do them justice. Enjoyment = 4 I wanted to like this series. I really did. And there were some positives. I liked that they used some old-school vampire tropes (not being able to enter buildings without being invited ect). I liked the tracksuit girl. I liked Doctor Ozai, who has a couple of badass moments (though not enough!). It's the pacing and the plotting that really let this series down. For every thought-provoking idea ("is it right to kill someone else so I can live?") or genuinely nice/interesting moment, there is much more padding. And stupidity. No one (besides a few characters) seem to ever catch onto what's happening before they kick the bucket. Everyone is so complacent that you wonder whether they're all too stupid to live. I was ready to scream at these characters sometimes. DO SOMETHING! Overall = 5 See above, really. Shiki has potential, but squanders it by dragging everything out and failing to make any compelling characters. Look ma, no Twilight references!
Lindle
January 2, 2011
Shiki, or Corpse Demon, is effectively the story of a village in the middle of nowhere being subjected to a mysterious string of unexplainable deaths. If you want to watch this anime and go into it 100% spoiler-free, even though this is not much of a spoiler at all, look away now. The deaths are, of course, being caused by vampires. While they take their sweet time coming out and saying it, it's pretty obvious from a really early stage. But don't tell any of the characters that, because they don't half take their sweet time working it out. Over half the story is dedicated towatching the cast struggle to grasp something you worked out by the second episode, which is effectively this show's most crippling weakness. Now stop. Do not hit the "Not Helpful" button just yet. Before you have a knee-jerk reaction to this, let me clarify my point quite firmly: No, I do not, by any stretch of the imagination, think that assuming the existence of vampires to be true is a logical conclusion. Not by a long shot. However, there are several very simple logical steps they should have gone through that would have lead them to it. The most glaring of these is shown through Shiki's focus on the medical aspects of the show. One of the few things that sets the story apart from every other vampire story is that we see the doctors dealing with all the deaths trying to work out and explain what is going on. This would be a lot more compelling if they didn't miss an obvious sign. They promptly go through every aspect of the deaths, but leave one thing out: every victim shares a pair of bitemarks on their neck. Aside from the symptoms themselves, this is the only thing that every single victim has in common. But the medical staff don't even try to explain it. On top of that, every patient died of severe anaemia, but had no rational way of losing so much blood. Except the bitemarks, the only possible explanation and a plain and simple way of putting the only two loose ends together. Now, once again, let me clear this up: I do not think that the bitemarks shoudl have instantly made them realise vampires were behind this. But so much about it makes it clear that vampires would have crossed their minds. Even if they initially brushed it off as implausible, they would have thought of it. Instead, this thought takes a long time to occur to anyone, and when it finally does, they are bizarrely accepting of it. But even once they do realise it, they have to spend a long, long time convincing everyone else. In troper terms, this effectively leads to the villagers Dying Like Animals from sheer stupidity. Which leads to a highly drawn-out stretch of episodes consisting of Dr. Ozaki trying to stop the villagers from essentially jumping headfirst into their own graves. On that note, the characters of Shiki are, to put it generously, less than likeable. There is only one personality in the entire series that is simultaneously interesting and does not make you want to punch them in the face, and that is Dr. Ozaki. The remaining cast are either boring, or sociopathic for no apparent reason. There are also a small handful inbetween who are mildly interesting but very stupid. Effectively, this is both the best and worst thing about Shiki. On the one hand, the cast is utterly insufferable. On the other, they die. A lot. And it manages to be gloriously, gloriously cathartic. It is also what makes Ozaki such an empathetic character. Ozaki is the only sane man in the entire village. And he is just as frustrated as you are at their complete lack of survival instinct. Also, despite some earlier absences of common sense, Ozaki really manages to pull out some incredibly impressive tactics. And I mean REALLY impressive. In spite of all the show's failings, in the final act it really gets it together and does a complete 180. This leads to an incredibly impressing finale, that is nothing short of a war. It leads to the point that anyone can (and probably will) die. Sadly this is only for the last 6 episodes, and at this point it is too little, too late. While these episodes were absolutely stellar, they don't quite justify watching the previous 16 episodes. From a technical aspect, Shiki ranks to the latter on the scale of good vs OH MY GOD WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!. The art style is about as awful as they come. The hair on the characters is the most stupid I've ever seen. Anime, as a medium, is known for its love of stupid hair, but even among them Shiki manages to be unbelievably appalling. The sound is quite a bit better, being a user of eerie ambient music. The first OP is also quite an excellent song, excellently merged with the animation. The remaining OP/ED themes are fine, but unremarkable. I mentioned earlier that there were three ways that Shiki attempts to stick out from the vampire crowd, the first being the medical aspects. While none of these were very well-executed, they are still interesting: The other two being that the humans vs. vampires war is portrayed as simply being two opposing forces simply trying to survive, rather than good humans vs. evil monsters... and the third, being that they focus on the angst of those forcibly turned into vampires, having to kill people they once knew to survive. Overall, Shiki has a lot of good ideas but in the end doesn't really execute them every well. It's a mixed bag, with enough upsides to keep it watchable earlier on, and with an excellent finale. Still, it really isn't worth watching in the long run. Story/Plot: 5/10 Animation/Graphics: No seriously, what?/10 Music/Background: 7/10 Characters: 3/10 Overall: 6/10 For Fans Of: Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni, Dance in the Vampire Bund.
aoikimahri
June 13, 2020
Another pretentious show with very little substance that contradicts it's own themes and logic, makes philosophical arguments it can't back up, and culminates in a gratuitous gore-fest of mass carnage and destruction for the sake of the spectacle. It doesn't do anything special or unique with the vampire genre, poorly explains or suppoprts their existence and motives, tosses around paper-thin relationships between dozens and dozens of unlikeable characters, and conflates the repetition of forced tragedy with that of brilliance. A mysterious illness is ravaging a small countryside village, one with only a few hundred residents. It started with the discovery of several deaths among the elderly,not uncommon for the rural population there, but spread rapidly to include people of all age groups including teenagers and small children. Dozens and dozens pass away within the span of a month and local burials and temple services are booked for weeks. They all share the same initial symptoms of weakness and fatigue, followed by anemia based complications and ultimately death within a few days. You would think, such a small, tight-knit community with barely a few hundred people, having lost a good 20% or more of their residents, friends and family they see every day and know by name, would lead to a major uproar and mass investigation from within and without. The death of so many young individuals especially, national treasures in Japan's aging population, should cause a major panic. Even entire families succumbing to the same illness. Nope. Instead, they make any and every excuse imaginable to NOT do anything and pretend the problem doesn't exist. They even make ridiculous excuses like saying the disease isn't new or dangerous because that JUST CAN'T HAPPEN in a small hick town in the middle of nowhere, otherwise it would be national news. For one, that's EXACTLY where most new diseases come from, zoonotic diseases in particular. And second, the nation isn't gonna know about your hick town problems unless you tell them about it or ask for help. They even go so far as to refuse autopsies. There are not enough rugs in all of Japan to sweep all this shit under. And what does the local quack do? The kind-hearted, young doctor who dies a little inside every time a patient passes away? He nonchalantly calls it an epidemic and only half-heartedly describes it as such to avoid a "panic", as if the people weren't laid back enough as it is when he does tell them about the possibility. His first instinct was actually that it was a vector-borne disease transmitted by mosquitoes. Does he tell people to use common insecticide? Nope. Does he recommend the village be professionally sprayed down to decrease the mosquito population? Nope. Does he ever say jack squat at village meetings? Nope. Even his nurses and staff are always just casually smoking and drinking tea as if the death of the whole village is inevitable, that the villagers should calmly accept their fate, and that the health professionals at this clinic are smarter than the average village idiot and can avoid the disease (by sipping tea of course) so it's not their problem or responsibility. When all the members of a household die within weeks of each other, there should be giant ass blaring sirens going off telling anyone with half a brain that this is a communicable disease that's highly contagious and dangerous. Not once does ANYONE in the entire anime ever realize or even prepare for the possibility that the disease can be spread from human contact. It's laughably unrealistic. There are no masks. There are no isolation wards. People cozy up to dead bodies like they are still alive and not rotting flesh filled with pathogens. The nurses smugly fawn over their own immunity. They aren't even worried they'll lose their jobs as their clientele quickly shrinks. This is the entire first half of the series. A dozen episodes of people dying, over and over and over again, accompanied with funerals, and everyone a mixture of apathy, stupidity, or ignorance. It's almost like a monster of the week shounen. But instead of a monster being vanquished, it's a hideously ugly old man or woman, followed by other family members. And my god are the characters in this anime ugly. It's like really bad fanart of pokemon/digmon/children's anime characters stretched in all the wrong ways, with vertical eyes, creeptastic irises, pointy chins, gravity defying drag queen hairstyles, and grotesque wrinkles and warts. The old people look horrific while the younger ones look like utter clowns out of place in rural Japan, some even with fashionable cat ear tufts on their head. Is this supposed to be an existential horror anime or just a really bad comedy? Speaking of how ugly the character designs are. The characters themselves are even worse. The very first one you meet, Megumi, is a self-centered bitch obsessed with the main male protagonist. She constantly complains about being trapped in a hick town that doesn't appreciate her sophistication. How in the world did she survive 15 years there then? Her entire life? Natsuno, the male protagonist, with a cold, distant demeanor, also hates the village, as well as his narrow-minded parents who brought him there. There are also literally dozens of other characters that are shown one after another after another, with forgettable names, faces, circumstances, and family relationships. They all have the same things in common. They either have pent-up animosity towards each other from lifelong family issues, a general disregard or disrespect for one another, or a very uncaring and selfish attitude towards those who have died. There are only weak familial bonds and throwaway friendships. It's a miserable town full of miserable people. You don't care if they die. Even when the anime tries to force an emotional situation, a sense of tragedy or grief, you just don't care, especially when the characters themselves don't care about each other. Eventually, after a dozen episodes of pure tedium and watching unsympathetic characters die one after another, the whole vampire plot finally starts to materialize. There is no disease spreading. The victims are actually being attacked by Japanese vampires dubbed Shiki, who rise from the dead and need to feed on human blood. One host can provide several feedings over a span of several days before dying from blood loss, with a small chance of turning into a Shiki after being interred. These Shiki are actually being created and controlled by the Kirishiki family, a bunch of weirdo outsiders that had recently moved into the village and built a strange, western-style mansion looking down upon the village. Going back to the whole diatribe about how braindead stupid the villagers are. This is a backwater locale with the temple steps running down the middle of the village leading to the temple itself at its apex. They are dutiful to their funeral rites and traditions and it's their primary source of income. There is also rich folklore of corpses rising from the dead to feast on the local populace. There are sightings everywhere of strange phenomena and the ghosts of the deceased wandering about. A bunch of creepy, inhuman looking weirdos with PITCH BLACK eyeballs and no sclera have moved into town, only come out at night, and people have been dying by the droves ever since. And yet, no one is willing or able to make the connection between all these occurrences, or even humor the possibility. Yet another absurd justification is used. The villagers claim "modern rationalism" keeps them from believing in things like demons or vampires, much less poking around or asking questions. It's like some running joke. At the very beginning of the anime, Natsuno complains how everyone is up in everyone else's business because it's such a small town with nothing to do. And here we are, the same people, denying their better nature, ignoring their own superstitions and suspicions, their own old-fashioned beliefs, their own prejudices and fears, because they have somehow all become pedantic scientists grounded by the realities of "modern rationalism". Through the latter half of the anime, when the village realizes the existence of these shiki vampires and goes on a systematic killing spree to rid themselves of these monsters, the anime tries to shine a sympathetic light on their existence. It's a complete 180 from their previous portrayals, wandering the countryside and attacking anyone and everyone with a big smile and acting like a gang of rascals released onto a playground with joyous fun, giggling as they took pleasure in tormenting victims they had harbored petty vendettas with in their previous life. Now, they run and cower in fear like prey lamb being attacked by a pack of wolves, even though the role was completely reversed not so long ago. Why are they so weak and useless all of a sudden? Even in the dead of night when they have the highest advantage, they hide in the pitch black corners and cower away. They are literally incapable of using weapons and always attack with their fangs. And all that superhuman strength and speed is just a fairy tale. The anime even places an invisible wall around the whole perimeter of the village to make the situation feel even more hopeless for these shiki. The only way out is the main road which is blocked by the villagers! We obviously can't tiptoe around them or run into the woods, because God designed us with tires for feet and to run only on paved roads and nowhere else! The last few episodes are especially grating as they spend an inordinate amount of time showing Shiki pleading for their lives and justifying their actions through inner monologues. The most annoying and repetitive, droning on for minutes at a time, is that of Kirishiki Sunako, the oldest Shiki there and the one who pulls the strings. She's your typical loli but with pitch black eyes and a very punchable face. She keeps repeating that all she wanted to do was survive and that she wasn't a Shiki by choice. Over and over and over again, reaching it's height when she enters an old church and the whole place starts burning. It's supposed to symbolize how god has forsaken her, and there's this entire worthless subplot involving the monk in the village writing an allegory about abandonment, but it's all extremely pointless when the actual Shiki are portrayed as one-dimensional villains and the Queen Shiki herself, Sunako, masterminded the death of an entire village. She never wanted to "just survive". She was systematically killing people to make more of her kind, like a bitch in heat jumping on every willy and dong in sight. That's actually giving her too much credit. It wasn't some primal urge and sexual desire to procreate. She was commanding other Shiki to create her Shiki utopia. It's now purely greed and selfish desire. Throughout the show, you get bits and pieces of the Shiki's existence, their motives, and why the Kirishiki family moved into town. The anime makes you think there is more to the story, a grander plot, a more thought out and sensible purpose. But in the end the reasons are a mindless and shortsighted "conquer the world" scheme bursting at the seams with flaws and more suitable for a children's cartoon on Disney. Sunako wants to turn everyone in the village into Shiki by gradually killing them off. She also brings in Shiki from the city to take on perfunctory governmental roles to avoid suspicion from the outside. Her end goal is to make the entire village her own Shiki paradise where she can walk outside without fear. Fear of what exactly? The only reason people feared her and feared those that emerged from the darkness was because she decided to start mindlessly killing them all. She has been living with them peacefully for centuries, being able to hide persecution from her need for blood, because everyone believes it's just a disease when her victims fall ill from blood loss. But now she wants more. It's far beyond just mere survival. The whole spiel the anime tries to shove down your throat, that there's this innocent loli girl crying with tears streaming down her eyes, is actually the tears of a power hungry devil. In one of the middle episodes, when Natsuno, the male protagonist, meets his dead friend who had turned into a Shiki, he tries to negotiate, asking why they couldn't coexist, why they couldn't establish a line of understanding to help one another. His friend says its IMPOSSIBLE, even if humans provided voluntary blood it would not work. That one short conversation is literally all the time the anime bothers in exploring any sort of reconciliation between the two groups. It's a cop-out, to avoid complexity in a simple black and white story that the author doesn't want to delve into, yet tries to instill humanity into the Shiki in the latter half of the show as a cheap ploy to give depth and meaning. This goes back to the original question of why Sunako wants to turn everyone in the village into Shiki. For one, how the fuck are they going to survive if all the livestock is dead? In every other functioning vampire society, they don't stupidly outright kill their only source of blood. They either round them up like cattle, allowing them to recover after each feeding, or pay for blood donations. In the world of Shiki, you forcefully feed nonstop on a single victim until they die, possibly creating another Shiki, who also goes around town doing the same thing, until eventually there are no more humans to feed off of and everyone DIES from hunger. How in the world is such an ecosystem sustainable? Do these Shiki still have the intelligence of humans, or have they regressed to savage animals unable to avoid the typical predator-prey overpopulation collapse? The newly risen Shiki are confined into a room, served several meals to adapt to their new bloodlust, and then unceremoniously kicked out to fend for themselves and devour the villagers as they see fit. How can such an uncoordinated approach not jeopardize revealing their existence? What happens when they are fighting over the same prey? What happens when there is no more prey and they start fighting each other for survival? There are supposedly Shiki tasked with city duty who go into the city and find victims to feed the less experienced and newly created Shiki. Do they even have a process or a system in place to provide a continuous food source from the city once the villagers are all dead? Do they plan on creating more and more Shiki, compounding the food problem to untenable levels, or will they eventually stop and start managing human farms and actually use their pea-sized brains for a semblance of a sustainable society? There are supposedly varying positions and a hierarchy, but the anime doesn't bother with any real structure and treats the Shiki like a loose group of bandits. Sunako is the scheming leader, but she has nothing tangible to back up her clout and is a weak, useless girl otherwise. She has an attendant named Tatsumi, a rare species of Shiki called Jinrou that can live amongst humans during the day and survive on human food, and the other Shiki listen to him because they are afraid he will drag them out during the day and watch them burn to death. But he is not an unstoppable monster and can be easily taken on by a group, even a human one, and killed with a stake to the heart. So the whole Shiki organization can barely be called one, the civilization even more primitive than a nomadic tribe, and their plans even less thought out than a doodle on a diner napkin. There is zero effort made here yet Shiki tries to sell you it's brand of fake bread that barely has any flour and substitutes most of it for poisonous alum and plaster. Another poorly thought out philosophical question that the writers try to shove in your face involving the shiki is whether they have sinned or not, which the town monk won't stop debating over. We've already established they are doing all this for more than mere survival, so much of that argument in their favor is thrown out. The other question the anime poses is whether they should kill Shiki, who are just trying to live and survive, or even do the bare minimum of defending oneself against them, if it means violence. Violence committed for basic survival is not a sin, the monk purports, but can violence against the Shiki, who are just trying to survive, be considered a sin? The monk has spent too much time staring at dead leaves on the ground and has let his brain rot. A straw you can see through from one side, you can also see through from the other. If it's not a sin for Shiki to attack humans in order to survive, than it's equally not a sin for humans to attack Shiki in order to survive. Animals and other living things in nature attack those they perceive as threats, and especially in this case, actually ARE threats to their very existence. They are not sinners. The monk is displaying the age-old, wildly inaccurate cliche of a buddhist monk unwilling to hurt a fly or take a breath in fear he might swallow a spider. It's pacifism to the extreme, submission to any and all opposing forces. It's doubly more incredulous as this is a Japanese work, not some clueless white hippy writing about peace and love in his downtown studio apartment. The Japanese should know better. Buddhism has never preached pacifism. There are warrior monks and they practice martial arts not only as a means of defense, but also to wage war against existential threats, including genocide if they deem necessary. They aren't there to conquer or oppress, but they sure as hell aren't going to wilt like a flower in front of an enemy. There are also other vague possibilities not fully supported and just mentioned in passing of why he would help the Shiki. Maybe he's just trying to be rebellious in defiance to his clean-shaven, peaceful role as the benevolent monk, a role he inherited. Maybe he's undergoing an existential crisis and doesn't know his purpose in life. Maybe his morals are far more fluid and questionable than once thought. In any case, he's just another anime cliche, a poorly written character serving only to oppose one of the main protagonists of the story, Dr. Ozaki, and of course they use to be besties. It's the Suzaku to every Lelouch. The Sasuke to every Naruto. The anime abruptly ends with no real conclusion, with everything bloody and on fire. It did it's job in checking the boxes to make an "adult" and "thought-provoking" shitshow that viewers will applaud as deep and profound but can't support in any sensible argument. Death, murder, and violence? Check. People crying and pleading for help? Check. Moral ambiguity and depravity? Check. Stuff on fire? Check. Long, drawn out philosophical musings? Check. Shock value? Check. No happy endings and everyone dies? Check. The moral of the story is...nothing really matters and the universe is chaotic but at least I'm getting paid by technically ticking off every checkbox.
Fragmentary
April 13, 2013
I'll be honest; this is my first review. As so, I am open to all criticism and feedback. After all, I'm here to inform you, not fan-boy rant or spew obscenities about a show. So, without further ado, onto the review! (I promise that was not intended to rhyme!) It's been a while since I dared to pick up a vampire anime. The modernization and romanticism of these blood-suckers in titles such as Twilight and other anime like Rosario + Vampire left me with much despair for this genre. Luckily, Shiki rekindled my appeal towards the night stalkers. After watching the entire series, I have to say Iwas pleasantly surprised. I went in not expecting much, and came out finding a hidden gem among anime. But, Frag, what makes this show such a gem? I'll do my best to answer that question in the following paragraphs, my dear readers! Shiki's story starts off fairly simple. A small back-hill village that seems trapped in it's own little world. And it's because of this simplicity that the producers were able to catch the viewer off guard. Just when things seemed normal enough, there's just the smallest, slightest flash of insanity that reminds you you're watching a very mind-boggling show. As the story went on, the simplicity began to evaporate. What was left was more insanity. More horror. Shiki goes back to the roots of the vampires most older individuals remember. Burning in sunlight, fearing religious objects (such as crosses or buddha statues) and faith, coma-like sleep during the day. I don't want to say too much, for I wouldn't want to spoil anything, but I will tell you that Shiki does vampires justice after shows such as the Vampire Diaries. As the story progresses, you begin to become more enthralled within it's mysteries. Just as one mystery is figured out, more appear. It's what hooks the viewer, and it did so marvelously (I watched the entire series in one weekend.) Some people found the ending to be not what they were expecting, but I thought it matched the series as a whole perfectly; full of mystery. I've seen quite a number of anime's in my time, and I've really come to appreciate good art when I can get it. I find there are two categories; shows that normalize their art to fit in with other anime, and shows that shape their own style. Obviously, it's impossible to be completely unique when manga itself is a repetitive art, but there are shows that manage to create a style that works well for it. Shiki is one of those anime. Watching it in HD, the animation was incredibly fluid. The scenery was vibrant and colorful where it should of been, and dark and horrifying where it ought to be. The horror scenes are really what entranced me, however. The way that the artists conveyed the terror of being watched during the night, of wondering if you'll wake up the next morning truly enthralled me. It's been a long while since I got chills watching an anime, and Shiki delivered quite well. Major props to the art team. I had some mix feelings about the sound of Shiki at first. Loved the initial opening theme, but the choir and gothic music felt almost cliché at first. Over time, however, the anime's original soundtrack really grew on me. It didn't completely "WOW!" me, especially at first, but as the story progressed, the music really began to fit in with the emotions that this show stirs inside of you. The ending theme, like many other anime, really didn't impress me, however. It felt out of place for the type of anime Shiki is. Overall, Shiki's soundtrack did a great job after giving it time to settle in. Now, what really made me adore this anime wasn't any of the above, but the characters themselves. I can't really say that there's a "main character" in this story, but some characters perspectives are highlighted more so than others as the show progresses. The thing about Shiki is that it hosts a massive cast; that cast being the village. You would think that spreading so much of the story throughout many characters would be a bad idea, reducing the chance the viewer can become attached to them, but Shiki manages to do quite the opposite. The key was the fact that the characters were believable. I've yet to have seen an anime (other than Clannad Afterstory) that manages to sport such realistic characters. From Megumi to Natsuno, to Toshio and Seishin; all of them feel like people I've met in my life, people that I can relate to or say I know. It's because that these characters are believable that you so quickly become attached. Did you enjoy Shiki, Frag? Well, if it wasn't apparent enough already, it has truly been one of my greatest pleasures of anime to watch this year. When a company can piece together all these delicate categories of anime in just the right way, it can create a genuinely memorable experience for the viewer. Shiki is an anime I'm proud to add to my collection of favorites. Something I should mention is that the show really manages to get you to think about morals. What is truly right or wrong? Is there such a thing as pure good or evil? The best part is that Shiki leaves it up to you to figure out the answers yourself. To sum it all up, I urge you to give the show a chance. Two episodes in, I was hooked, and I'm willing to bet it'll do the same to you. I'm surprised this show isn't more popular; it's a real breath of fresh air when it comes to the long neglected genre of vampires. Even if you've never been one for blood-suckers, you might find the genre more appealing after sitting down and watching Shiki.
Asunkuro
July 23, 2015
While Shiki is definitely not the best thriller anime out there, I wouldn't go as far as saying it is a complete waste of time. Despite the fact that the story is not really original (vampires and werewolves, yeah), it still manages to not be a copy/paste of others fictions (at least from the ones I know). The rule for people to "rise" (aka becoming a shiki) is actually a bit different from what you can usually see, and makes the plot more interesting. Also, the characters are not that original either (or unforgivable), but they still manage to make the view more enjoyable. Thedoctor and the teenage lead are the characters you can identify the most, and both make an acceptable job to advance the story. Then, you have the bitch girl, the pathetic teen, the scared-but-decided-to-act children, the 50-year-old brute, the nice-mean-guy, the seductive succubus, the little girl a bit scary, etc. The only one I don't get is the Junior Monk, which personality and motivations are unclear from the beginning and all along the story ; but he still manages to bring something to the plot. I think the main problem of the anime is its pace : even if they shortened it by 5 episodes, it still would be too long. It would have been better to go for 12 episodes. Indeed, it starts ridiculously slowly, and NEVER accelerates ; consequently, the narration becomes quickly unbearable. Besides, they have the annoying habit to shelve the important facts, and sometimes you have to wait for 3 or 4 episodes to get your answer to what happened - and it's often very incomplete. Anther thing I disliked is the way they want to make you sympathize with one or either side ; I know it's usual in this kind of show, but still, their arguments are so shallow that it just bores me. Yes, the shikis have to kill humans to feed and survive - yes, the humans have to defend themselves from their former friends if they want to survive too - but the way both are presented successively as monsters or as people who can't do otherwise diminishes the impact of the show. Should I remind that the point of a thriller is to scare the viewer, at at least to make him feel uneasy ? Well, there are also some details that are not really explained, which is quite annoying too. The last critic I would make is about the art : what the hell is wrong with their hair ? I mean, I could handle their funny (not to say ugly) faces, but the haircuts are too much. One guy literally has ears on his head, like a dog, and nobody notices a thing ! And what about the girls whose wig look like gravity doesn't exist ? Or the old guy with a beard going up ... You get used to it after 20 episodes, but it's still unsightly. Well, I made a lot of critics, however the show is still somehow enjoyable and perfectly fulfills the job of distracting you for a few evenings. It's probably better to watch it at night (with an open window), and to not split the views too much - but don't expect too much from it either, since some parts might get you bored anyway.
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#1357
Popularity
#380
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Episodes
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