Category: Shiki

So, we’ve waited a number of episodes, so finally it’s time: the entire episode was pretty much building up for it to happen at the end: Natsuno’s return, and probably the start of a serious counterattack to the vampires.

It’s not outright stated, but my guess is that Natsuno’s father somehow managed to hide his body out of the reach of the vampires, telling everyone that he was going to be cremated outside of the town. This episode also showed me that Natsuno is the real main character of this series. Of course, Toshio did something amazing in the last episode, and that guy can indeed do some outrageous things, but it took fourteen episodes for him to get there. This episode too just shows Toshio wandering around randomly, looking for allies, whereas Natsuno would have immediately started doing something concrete. The only thing that really stopped him during the series was the fact that he couldn’t move due to his blood loss.

Speaking of which, Seishin suffers from this even more: he was introduced as one of the main characters of this series, and yet he didn’t really do anything: he’s capable, but again he really needs Natsuno to push him forward, and unfortunately the two haven’t even met yet.

Most of this episode was building up, though there was a lot of interesting stuff that happens: we’re shown a bit of the prejudice of Toshio’s mother, along with Isaki (one of the nurses) finally quitting, along with a bit of a strange turn of events with a really flamboyant undertaker who… does just about everything you shouldn’t do in order to remain unsuspicious. It’s a… strange twist, especially for this series.
Rating: * (Good)

Holy crap! This episode was unbelievable. It was quite possibly the best episode that Shiki has shown us so far, but dear God was it morbid and depressing.

For the most part, this episode continued the trend that the previous episodes had set up: the vampires are having their way, and get more and more powerful as they go along. We learn what happened to Masao: in the end he was just too chicken to kill a human, but strangely enough he was kept alive. We also learn another reason why the vampires chose a small village as their base: its cemetery, in order to ensure that as little people as possible get cremated. Oh, and unfortunately it seems like finally the Awesome Beard Guy’s family is going to be on the list of next victims, along with one of the nurses of the infirmary: Yuki.

But Toshio… the things he does in this episode… at first I thought that his eyes meant that just like Natsuno, he gave up, and collapsed under the stress. But to keep the corpse of his wife hidden, only to brutally experiment on her and kill her afterwards in order to find out the secret of the Shiki, it was just creepy beyond belief. Especially in the way that she actually kept screaming and pleading. Heck, we know that she may have been in a state of confusion when she woke up, but to wake up, only to find your husband trying to destroy your brains…. It’s just completely disturbing, but I loved how well this episode built everything up.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Finally, this should put an end to the constant hiatuses of this series. But damn, what a depressing episode to start off with here.I mean, I know that this is a morbid series and all, but there was absolutely no bright side to this episode at all. All of Shiki’s episodes so far have shown someone struggling against those vampires, but this was just a one-sided slaughter.

The vampires just picked apart some of the few people who still were alive, and nobody really did anything to stop them: Natsuno dies, Toshio’s sister dies, Natsuno’s father gets bitten, Natsuno’s mother leaves the village (aka, she’s already dead), Kaori’s father is meanwhile bitten and Nao’s father also is going to bite the dust. This episode was just completely desperate, even Toshio didn’t do anything due to the refusal of all of the victims to stay at his clinic, which now can be accessible to vampires anyway because of Tatsumi.

And this doesn’t even seem to be the turning point. My guess is that it’ll take one or two episodes before Natsuno wakes up again. My guess is that that’s going to be the point at which he can really fight back the vampires, but what will happen until then? Could Seishin finally end up doing something? I mean, out of all of the major characters, he has by far been the most passive, not really doing anything.
Rating: * (Good)

It’s taken three weeks, but it’s worth the wait. This episode was mostly one that was delaying the inevitable, but it did so really well, with the same atmosphere that made the first half so good.

The focus surprisingly fell on Kaori and Akira, especially in the second half, since Natsuno was too busy dying and his father was being an asshole. Still, I thought that Natsuno might have tried to escape the Shiki, but to me that seems like it’s going to be Toshio and Seishin’s role. Throughout this episode, Natsuno focused more and more on getting Tooru back, and in the end he seemed to have just accepted that he’s going to be a vampire. Speaking of which… what the heck happened to Masao?

But those vampires are really shrewd: they systematically aim to disable parts of the village, they take over the entire village council, so nothing will go outside the village, they try to stop anyone who tries to go to Toshi’s house, and they’re really thinking of exterminating the entire village.

On a side-note: is the manga actually finished at this point? If not, then we’re having a potential pitfall here, because this is just one of those stories that would suck if it were cut off in the middle (pun not intended). Of course, the novel has an ending, and I really hope that the creators manage to blend in this ending well enough with the manga’s storyline. That really seems much more complicated than simply adapting a straight-forward manga story.
Rating: ** (Excellent)
OP: Better visuals, but the song isn’t as good as the first.
ED: This one’s really good, though: haunting soundtrack, beautiful visuals. Much better than the first ED.

To the people who have yet to check out this episode: be careful. The entire ED is full of spoilers for the second half. >.< Either way, this was a bit of a bizarre way to end the first half with: an entire episode dedicated to none other than Itou Ikumi. Didn't see that one coming, yet it worked surprisingly well to show how the villagers are starting to suspect things. This episode did really well in portraying such a weird character as herself, and she's actually quite charming. I remember some commenters talk about how I should hate Shiki because its story is just a standard vampire story and has hardly any originality. The thing with this show is indeed that the general story is about a bunch of vampires attacking a town, nothing special with that. The reason why I love this show is the huge amount of creativity and energy it puts in its delivery and storytelling. It's true that I like shows with a lot of plot twists (provided that they don't take this over the top and are too lazy in other areas), but I also love the series that have simple stories, yet excel in their delivery, storytelling, or characters. That's pretty much the reason why my review scale talks about "storytelling", rather than "story". I don't care how big your story is, I'm mostly interested in how it's used. I think the best way to describe the storytelling in this show is that it leaves hardly any room for the audience to take a breath: every second is busy showing something. There seem to be hardly any seconds there to just fill time. It's also a series that makes excellent use of its soundtrack to create its atmosphere: it knows when to start playing its tunes, and it also knows when to keep quiet. It works really well so far. On top of that, I also love the kinds of series that actually make their setting come alive. At this point, it's actually working pretty well so far, and this episode was a key to it: it showed that the lead characters aren't the only people in the world, and the villagers are definitely also involved here. I feel like the creators can take this even further, but that completely depends on the kind of direction that the second half will go into, and whether it will abandon the rest of the villagers, or instead focus even more on them. Series that really manage to portray an alive setting are very rare, but it would be awesome if this show manages to do it. Rating: ** (Excellent)

Oh, I love series when they take unorthodox plot twists. I have to admit: the vampires’ counterattack went completely different from anything that I could have expected.Both with Natsuno and Toshio, their reaction was bold, creative, ruthless and effective. This episode again: it rocks for so many different reasons: the things they throw at Natsuno, Natsuno’s reaction to this, Natsuno’s relationship with his parents, the way that they finally portrayed the vampires as surprisingly human, and especially that twist at the end.

Of course death I this series isn’t exactly permanent, but I still love it when creators find a way to kill off their main characters. Natsuno isn’t exactly dead yet, but I do feel like the creators are really trying to turn this guy into a vampire. And while vampires doesn’t exactly equal death, it does seem like a pretty irreversible process. It really shows that there is no way that this is going to result into a “and they lived happily ever after”-endings.

It’s also great that the creators took this chance to show more about Natsuno’s relationship with his parents. They’ve got a very interesting chemistry with each other, showing that they’ve been living together for a really long time, yet don’t seem to fully get along with each other. Typical of puberty, actually and I like the subtlety in which the creators handled it.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

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)

I like Natsuno. He’s no idiot and continues to use his head. He’s not one to rush into a situation, and instead thinks before he acts, and his actions are so far all taken with the intent to learn as much as possible about what’s going on. More protagonists should be like this.

The vampires in the meantime aren’t stupid either: they’re not going to let someone like him walk around freely, as shown by the counterattack at the end of this episode (which was really well directed and creepy, by the way). With fourteen episodes left, I wouldn’t be surprised if this show would evolve into a thriller, something like “humans versus vampires”. When both sides are this formidable, I can’t wait for this second half.

And I guess that that’s why Masao and Megumi are so important here: they’re the vampires who have many sentiments towards these characters. In fact, I’m very interested in how that cat guy manages his vampires. This episode really made it apparent that someone is tightly controlling the different vampires. How do those vampires react exactly when they run into someone they know or hold dear? Megumi showed that they don’t lose their memory, Masao showed that they don’t exactly lose their self-conscience.

Also, the soundtrack is just getting better and better, and I really like what Yasuharu Takanashi did on it. To compare it with his other work, it sounds closest to the combination between Jigoku Shoujo and Toward the Terra’s soundtrack. Beyond that, it’s also interesting that he has been experimenting a bit more during the past year: the OST of Jigoku Shoujo and Toward the Terra (but also Mononoke, Before Green Gables and Seto no Hanayome) lacked this… “spark” that I did notice at Heartcatch Precure and Shiki’s OST. They feel like they have much more contrast, compared to his more subtle earlier works.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

One thing I love about horror series is how consistent they are: once they’ve got an atmosphere built up, they can keep this one going for episodes and episodes. This episode yet again was excellent in the way that it progressed the plot, and this solid atmosphere really helped in bringing up the creepiness factor even though this isn’t really scary. That’s the entire point of Japanese horror: it doesn’t intend to freak you out (that’s also why there are so few anime that are genuinely scary), instead it attempts to captivate its audience with exactly that atmosphere.

This episode focused on three different subplots: an exposition part Masao rising from the dead as a vampire (I knew it!) and receiving the explanation behind the nature of vampires in this series, a build-up part in which Seishin and Toshio prepare to try and catch the vampires, and a character-centric part involving Natsuno teams up with Kaori and Akira, and prepares to dig up Megumi’s grave. The latter was where most of the depth in this episode was, mostly thanks to Kaori. I mean, being forced to dig up the grave of your dead best friend. Who wouldn’t be disturbed? Natsuno in contrast is completely different: he hated Megumi when she was still alive, and he doesn’t really care for others’ feelings, allowing him to take such measures that a lot of others would find insane. Akira meanwhile… is just an idiot. He’s impulsive, but I don’t think that he really realizes what he’s about to do.

As for the exposition, I’m very curious why the creators chose Masao of all guys to show all of this. I mean, I keep feeling like his existence in this series is with a very clear future purpose in mind. He’s weird, what kind of a different vampire is he going to become because of that? There has to be something. Either way though, the vampires in this series are weak against sunlight, they can die when a stake is run through their hearts. And there are very rare vampires who are able to just survive in the middle of sunlight. I’m glad that this series is returning to the roots of vampires, rather than the generic schlock that they have evolved into in the past ten years. But yeah, the irony is that the vampire genre came to evolve the way it did, probably because the classic vampire stories were getting overused at the time.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

For me, this has been one of the best episodes of Shiki so far. it’s great to finally have another good horror series airing and this series is certainly pushing the right buttons. This episode continues the string of deaths throughout the village, but you can now really see how people are starting to change as the “epidemic” continues on.

Natsuno, who probably is the closest to the truth, is now finally trying to take measures to prevent himself from getting bitten. We also learn a bit more about Toshio and his father. A great doctor, but I can really see him lose his nerve when he’s failed to save so many lives. Seishin in the meantime is also very much trying to do something to solve the crimes, and he also has been close with his assumptions that something strange is causing the diseases. I blame this on his spiritual upbringing: with normal epidemics this would indeed have been useless, but this mindset is vital in this story, when suddenly we have a bunch of vampires that are attacking. If these three people would meet, and discuss their theories, they would probably crack the mystery. As shown at the end of this episode, where Toshio realizes that Vampires could possibly be behind everything.

I also love how this series has been developing some characters off-screen. When was the last time we saw Kaori and Akira? Well, they haven’t been sitting still as it turns out. It’s perhaps a matter of luck that Akira was able to see that vampire, but still, it just shows how these two have just continued with their lives and don’t just stop moving when the plot doesn’t need them for a while.

Also, I feel that the creators are building up to something with Masao’s dead body. It’s like they really wanted this guy to not have a burial, which is why they made him such an idiot who is hated even by his own family. Does that make him unique though? I’m not sure, really. I mean, in a village full of old people, I suspect that there have been more people who perhaps lived alone and therefore had nobody notice that they died. The difference here is probably going to be his connection to Natsuno.

Also… Ikumi. the horrifying image of what harem girls might turn into when they turn past seventy…
Rating: *** (Awesome)