[Anime] Shiki Review

[BlackWater]

Shiki is an anime based off of Fuyumi Ono's novel of the same name. I've never read those novels and quite frankly, if they're anything like the anime I never want to.

The concept of Shiki is this: In a boring country village named Sotoba during a sweltering summer, people start dying from some unkown epidemic. They become tired, pale, anaemic and finally they expire. This coincides with a new family moving into the Kanemasa Mansion, a place some villagers are suspicious of.

Natsuno Yuuki (a highschooler), Toshio Ozaki (chief of the local clinic), Seishin Muroi (the local Buddhist priest), Kaoru and Akira (the siblings of Tohru, who dies of this epidemic and is also yuuki's best friend) soon find out the cause of these deaths and it is up to them to save Sotoba.

Story:

Despite the great start, this story did not live up to its potential. A bunch of Shiki (vampires) invade Sotoba, stay in the weirdly-out-of-place, Western-style castle at the edge of town and then end up eating pretty much every villager. The only people who notice are Yuuki, Ozaki, Seishin and Tohru's siblings.

After several investigations into the causes of illness, Doctor Ozaki finds the answer: Shiki. This is only after they attack the hospital to try and kidnap and feed on one of the dying patients. The doctor's best friend Seishin is also witness to this. He goes one step further and is able to see that Sunako, the creepy little girl who comes to the town's ruined church to talk to him at night, is in fact a Shiki herself. Yuuki and Tohru's siblings go another route and dig up the coffin of a girl who has been stalking Yuuki, even after she died. Their conclusion: the empty coffin proves that there are Shiki attacking the village. That same girl caused Tohru's death and he, along with several other villagers must now be members of the undead.

The crazy village shaman gets close and nearly outs the Kanemasa's as the Shiki but fails when the family head comes out and makes an excuse.

The only conclusion I can draw from this is that if the rest of the villagers are so stupid and blind as to not be worried about strange deaths and people suddenly moving away - they deserve to end up as fodder for the Shiki. In fact, they do.

The rest of the story dwindles around after episode 13 showing us nothing in particular. It takes 5 episodes for the siblings, Ozaki and Yuuki to come up with some way of defeating the Shiki. They could have done this in half that time.

Instead of giving any useful insight to the viewer about the way the newer Shiki deal with killing people they once cherised, we have some bordeling-yaoi moments between Yuuki and his best friend Tohru. It does show us that Tohru feels devastated by using Yuuki as food, but that he has no choice if he wants to live. In the end, Yuuki also becomes a Shiki, but he is determined to wipe them all out, including himself.

The last few episodes, starting from episode 19 onwards, mark the point where the main cast decide to actually do something about the problem the village is facing.

By this point, some of the secondary characters and their families, such as the nurses and residents of the villages are Shiki. Akira has gone missing and is probably dead. Kaoru cowers in her house with the family dog, Love, terrified that she will be forced to kill her undead family. She has already dug her own grave in preparation. Ozaki's wife has turned into a Shiki and Ozaki tortures and kills her.

Ozaki gets bitten by another Shiki from the Kanemasa Mansion, Chizuru. Chizuru likes hot men and dresses scantily so Ozaki uses this to his advantage and manages to convince her to go the local shrine festival as a "date". Chizuru is reluctant, as Shiki (just like vampires) are rendered weak by sacred symbols and spaces, but she goes with him in the end.

Putting his plans into action, he lets all the villagers know that Chizuru is a Shiki. At first, they wonder what the hell he's talking about. But then he convinces them by telling Megumi's father that Chizuru's perfume is the same one that he smelled in Megumi's room before she died, and therefore Chizuru killed her. This angers the remaining villagers beyong all else and they drag Chizuru and rip her apart.

They then gather their pitchforks and tractors and go about warning other villagers and ripping, staking and driving their tractors over the Shiki. The head of the Kanemasa family tries to save his wife but to no avail.

In the end, the angry mob goes and destroys Kanemasa mansion and everything in it.

Seishin and Sunako manage to escape, having hidden in the cellar. Seishin shows signs of become a werewolf-creature and it is up to him to take care of Sunako.

The end.

The ending is so rushed through, I wonder if the show's creators found out that they ran out of time for a proper ending because they were to busy dragging out discoveries and pointless feely-feelings that did nothing during the show.

The story could have been improved by actually showing how the Shiki feel about being what they are, how they're forced to survive. The villagers could have shown more common sense and been able to avoid the problem altogether if they actually listened and did something for a change. The author would not have had to resort to strawmen like the ugly, whiny Masao so the audience can have somethin to hate.

NOPE.

Instead, everything takes too long to get done and the viewer is left feeling impatient and frustrated, not to mention confused by the main characters and their strange actions.

Characters:

Another problem is the way the characters deal with things.

Ozaki's wife becomes a Shiki, and instead of feeling any sorrow or grief he decides that she's the perfect specimen to use to find a way of killing the Shiki. An entire episode is devoted to the doctor torturing his undead, tied-up wife so he can fin a method of killing her. He cuts her open, he cuts her veins and steries in two, he burns her, he terrifies her with a statue of the Buddha. All the while, he ignores her screams of terror and pain.

In the end, he kills her by driving a stake through her heart.

I don't know what justified the author or the director in deciding to depict this the way they did. They did nothing to alienate Ozaki's wife or make her look like something inhuman in the eyes of the audience. They gave Ozaki almost no justification for going from husband to torturer-with-no-conscience. But Ozaki is still a hero in the end, so that makes it fine? Aside from being horrifying (which is this show's promise) it did little else but confuse me.

No wonder Seishin just turns around and walks away when he witnesses the wife's corpse, tied to a surgery table with a stake through its heart and everything else is covered in blood.

However, Seishin's character is no better. He ultimately decided to join the Shiki by visiting Sunako at the Mansion and letting her bite him. What makes no sense is how he got to this conclusion. We're given a few flashes of his latest novel, a retelling of the story of Cain and Abel. Sunako tells him things like "Killing without intention is accident." and that death is horrible for everyone. She specifically does not tell him her background story - that she became a Shiki and was forced to kill people not out of her own choice but because she needs to survive. She saves that for Tohru when he feels bad about killing humans who were once his friends.

Seishin basically had no evidence that the Shiki have some kind of crisis of conscience, but he decided to be one of them nevertheless.

Yuuki too is inexplicable. His Tough Guy exterior and inner investigative monolagues make him less of an actual character but more of a cut out Hero™. He shows some momentary horror when his undead stalker appears to be biting Tohru's neck, or the first few times she approches his house at night. But he soon calms down, thinking these were all nightmares. The only time he shows and real emotion is at Tohru's death. He shows pity for his friend's tears once Tohru comes to turn yuuki into his snack. These "feeding" moments border on yaoi, which is fine if that's what the show is about. But in this story it just adds to the general confusion.

Kaoru and Akira are at least played straight. They are horrified to learn their precious brother is now a walking corpse with a thirst for blood. Their father becomes ill and dies too. They watch while their mother becomes ill with the symptoms of a Shiki's food supply and then eventually disappears. The two are left on their own, afraid and with no-one to depend upon once Yuuki becomes a Shiki.

That's all I have to say about the main cast.

As for the rest of the characters?

In my opinion they are nothing but strawmen, designed to give the main cast something to do, but never fleshed out so we feel any terror of them. The ones that catch on to the strange happenings all end up being killed and becoming Shiki, and then killed at the end of the show.

The one that annoys me to no end is Masao. He is nothing but a character the audience is supposed to hate.

Does he have no purpose in the story? Check.

Does he have an unbearable voice actor, and sounds disgusting to boot? Check

Does he whine? Does he think he's a victim and no one pays any attention to him? Does he have one of the ugliest, most putrid character designs for a human in any anime, ever? OH, HELL YES! CHECK! CHECK! CHECK!

He's not even funny! He just wastes precious minutes with his ugly face instead of letting the author, directors, adapters and writers do their job and write a convincing story.

Character Deisgn:

The character design is definitely unique. However, it does not, in any way fit in with the atmosphere of the show.

One thing to mention is that by unique character design I mean hair. That is the only thing that makes these characters identifiable. It is also slightly insane, with some character's hair resembling weeds and plant growth in shape.

Here's an explanation:

Also, the character we're all supposed to hate seems to have consulted Micheal Jackson's plastic surgeon:

EW. Actually, his design is an offense to Michael Jackson and his surgeon.

Graphics/ visuals:

"Meh" is the one word I would use to describe the visuals of this anime. Aside from the hair, the character designs are bland and the animation is standard. The OP and ED animation is much better, using some interesting "overlays" during the first OP and the last ED. The other two feature rather standard animation and gimmicks and are not really noteworthy at all. The show however only uses "negative film" black and white when the Shiki appear in Yuuki's nightmares.

Music:

Finally, this show has done something right!

The bgm is composed by Yasuharu Takanashi and makes the atmosphere what it is with its use of haunting vocals, glockenspiel and violins. In fact, had they used any other composer's music, the total value of this show would have diminished by half and it's already at a low.

The first and second OPs are great songs. "Kiss" by Buck-Tick and "Calendula Raquiem" by KanonxKanon and they are both wonderful. The first Ed is somewhat lacking, "Walk no Yakusoku" by nangi whilst the second "Gekka Reijin" by Buck-Tick brings back some of the charm and power of the OPs. However, all the songs are wasted as they build a premise that never really occurs in the show.

Overall, I give this show 6/10, and that is only because of the cool music and interesting OP and ED. The story could have evolved into something more interesting but the show's creators seem to be afraid of innovation (much like Yuuki's dislike of his parent's choices) and the show goes no further than the excitement of the first 6-7 episode and then stagnates and rots until the end.

I would only recommend this to people who feel that Twilight has made too much of an encroachment on vampire fiction and would watch anything, anything but a Twilight marathon.

Edited December 16, 2012 by BlackWater

[Hicks]

Eh, I actually found it to be pretty decent, and found that the way that the vampire invasion was actually initially treated like a possible outbreak situation. Some of the characters really got on my nerves, though.

[xanas]

I think part of your criticism is fair but a lot of it seems like you disliked the show more than would be warranted for a casual viewer. Either you are bored or you just like being critical

Anyway, I think you were thorough and wrote more than I generally would on a show that I somewhat-like It's too bad your review has to get a bit too much into spoilers to really explain your feelings about the show also, but I think this is a problem many reviewers have.

[pancakaru]

I thought it was okay until like the last 5 episodes they were not even fun to watch

[user_insanes]

Probably one of the best show i watched

[SuperSlamm]

I really disliked Shiki. I had to force myself to watch it to the end. 

[Feenis]

It's funny. I just stopped watching anime after trying to force myself through Shiki. I have made it to episode 8.

Before that, I had to force myself to stop watching so much anime (due to lack of sleep). I keep trying to go back to Shiki, but I just get turned off buy it. I even did something I have never done before. I went to the net to read how the series ends. I may have to shelve it indefinetly like Samurai Gun.

 

The gore is not a problem. I've watched Gantz, Elfen Lied, Ga-Rei-Zero. Maybe it's because it just seems like I'm watching a story that is destined for a depressing end with gore being the only thing breaking up the boredom. It seems slow, which usually doesn't bother me. I do like xXxHolic, Mushi-shi, Kino and other slower paced anime. I guess I just can't connect to any character. I'm just waiting for the story to reach its climax, but not actually connecting to any of the characters. I'm not rooting for or against anyone.

 

I think I'll watch it when I'm in the mood for drama that happens to have gore in it. I was probably expecting too much action and cool..uh...supernatural...mystery...stuff.

 

I haven't watched Twilight. Maybe if I do, I'll run back to this anime.

[Kenzou]

Shiki was an interesting anime with the whole mystery/epidemic situation. Some episodes kinda drag but it kept me interested towards the end.

[Anime_Logic17]

You know what, I actually really like shiki. I would probably put it in my top 15 anime.  I liked how shiki showed a more realistic perception of vampires. However, I will say there are some awkward actions and behaviors among the characters. Shiki started out slow, but overall almost every episode made me want to watch what happen next.

[Tsukumo Yuma]

This anime was bad, and the horror of it was bad too, it was to steriotipacle.

 

I did not like the characters, the story was not good from the start, I don't see why it gets so much hype.

[warriorpirate]

meh... it was a decent vampire anime... i've seen better so yeah, it was a little bit of a drag. I'd prolly give it 6/10 myself.