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.
The manga has not ended yet but, from the bits I read (it was three weeks, I couldn’t take it!) I see a point where they could pause the story but it doesn’t seem anywhere close to ending. It feels like the manga is currently in the middle of the story, like things have changed and it’s currently gearing up to finish it off but I’m starting to get really worried for it.
Oh and we have a break again next week, though you might like to know.
Wonderful atmosphere, which makes up for not too many actual developments…although the episode did start to set the stage for whatever is coming up next.
I wouldn’t worry about the manga until reports of significant changes start coming up. As you’ve mentioned, the fact that there already is an entire novel allows for some amount of leeway if the staff wants to make their own conclusion to the story.
I’m not caught up yet (a couple episodes behind) but Shiki couldn’t have better timing. I recently finished reading Bram Stoker’s Dracula, so now I’m REALLY in the vampire mood, no matter what it is.. xD Will catch up tonight or tomorrow~ I’m looking forward to seeing what all the hype’s about ever since I put this on-hold lol.
That’s a bad red CODE. Bad dog. Don’t do that again.
Fortunately, part of that spoiler is wrong -_-;;;
But yeah, at 35, the manga is much further along than the anime but nowhere near finished. And I just can’t imagine where they would cut it off – it definitely won’t all fit into 25 episodes.
Yes, shiki is back! It’s sort of a dry anime season for me. This series is great, star driver has potential and katanagatari is good but monthly. That’s about it, though :S.
I also skipped through the next chapters of the manga when the anime had its break but the new episode still managed to captivate me, even though I usually don’t even really like stories around vampires that much.
Also loved the new ending, both song and visuals. Finally something that actually fits the content. New opening is fun to watch as in “what is this I don’t even… gothic fantasy visual novel opening??” but due to that it’s even more unfitting than the first one, where the song was also better anyway.
As wrong as the spoiler may have been I did take the time to delete it. Red CODE, please take into account that there are plenty of people who haven’t read the manga yet…
Well the novel and the manga differ in many smaller aspects, but nothing so big that they couldn’t come up with an anime original ending.
There is basically just one central difference that really alters the story. But the anime is not there yet and I have no idea how that is going to play out in the manga…
In terms of the manga, I can see it reaching a point of crossroads- it could either finish itself off hastily, which would disappoint me (but this has happened with a lot of mangas recently- Gai Rei did the same thing) or it could kind of finish what I would loosely call an ‘introduction ark’ and get to a bigger scale in the story. Because of this, I can’t say if the anime is going to end on a cliffhanger and then return back for a second season- I don’t know how well it’s doing in terms of ratings- or it could do it’s own anime orgininal ending. But I can’t see that going well either- after all this heavy buildup, to finish it off so casually like that would be heartbreaking and frankly, a terrible resolution. That’s always the problem with these type of shows that are based of mangas. They can go like xxxHOLiC where they just skip around, and never really ‘resolve’ anything because of the buildup, or just kind of leave them there as an unfinished series. It really depends on how well Shiki’s doing in terms of ratings. I hope, like Tegami Bachi, that it does come back for another season.
But that’s looking quite ahead, no? I guess we’ll have to see how things play out. 😀