I’m beginning to understand why people were saying that Shiki took a while to get going. This episode showed the series surpassing itself yet again, it was completely gorgeous, well built up, full of tension and atmospheric as hell. If this trend will continue for the second half, then we’re in for an awesome horror series here.
There was something very interesting going on with the graphics in this episode: they were very inconsistent, but I mean this in a really good way. There were a number of off models in this episode, or some hastily animated frames. But dear God, the good shots looked better than ever here. There really were quite a few shots and drawings in this episode that looked utterly gorgeous.
This episode was all about the counterattack of the vampires, but we do have to wait a while before we learn what happened to Natsuno and instead we see them pull a mass attack on doctor Toshio. It’s interesting that he’s one of the few characters that the vampires aren’t going to kill. I suspect that they see him as the one who keeps their attacks within the village: if he dies, there won’t be a doctor to treat the patients, and they’ll be moved to a larger hospital, which probably means trouble as soon as people there start to notice what’s going on.
I think that the fact that this is all happening in a remote town is a key here: that the vampires are relying on the secluded nature of the village and its residents, who tend to try and keep all of their business inside the villagers, and aren’t open to outsiders, even when possibly questioned by the police. And this episode showed that that’s indeed the case: Toshio hasn’t called the police yet: he wants to be the one to save his village. I think that that’s going to be one of the main problems of this series, though: stubborn is one thing, but there has to be a time in which Toshio needs to swallow his pride and involve the police, especially when so many lives are involved. Yet, since we have yet to see any kind of police in this series, I doubt that they’re going to play a role in this story, otherwise we would have seen some foreshadowing by now.
But yeah, when at this point I’m about to call something like that the major flaw of this series, it obviously means that I’m enjoying the rest of the series a lot. It’s been ages since the last good horror show ended, so I’m really glad to see how well this series is doing with its atmosphere. I especially liked how this episode built up its expectations of having a single vampire try to get into the hospital, only to show a whole army of those buggers at the end of the episode.
Rating: *** (Awesome)
The graphics were really creative this episode. Loved the visuals. And I guess Tatsumi got invited by Kyouko.
But Kyouko is great! Love the dynamics between her, Toshio, and his mom.
It would be kind of hard to involve the police though.
There would have to be a well thought out plan to back it up, or else it would turn into one of those chessy scenarios where something weirds up but nobody believes them :L
Im really loving this stuff. I hope the creators can manage to keep the suspenseful atmosphere intact, now that the viewer basically knows what’s going on.
We have seen the police though – as early as episode one. Remember that perky youngster? That was Sotoba’s very own resident police officer Takami. He died and was quickly replaced by a rather shady looking older officer.