Shiki – 17



I remember how during the first half, a couple of people noted how the first OP of this series showed the people who would end up dying in this series… Yeah. That suddenly got a whole new dimension here.

I mean, if that was the intention of the creators, then they could have just as easily shown the entire cast in that metaphor. I mean, this episode pretty much killed off all of the remaining lead characters: there are only two important characters left that are still alive and unbitten: one of the nurses, and Kaori: Seishin is drugged and will soon be enslaved, Toshio is bitten, the rest of the nurses also get caught in this episode. I mean, I expected some deaths when this series first started, but I never saw an entire genocide coming here…

So I really wonder: what’s next? I mean, the creators have now pretty much ran out of people to kill: we’ve pretty much reached the worst case scenario here. Even though this is a series in which the dead can come back to life, it’s not like the deaths here are reversible. I also keep calling this show for a turning point to start, and yet every episode finds some way to drag its cast closer to despair.

And yet, that can’t go on forever. This series has pretty much been building up for seventeen episodes now; the big difference with a lot of other shows is that it still packs a punch when it’s building up unlike for example Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin and Sengoku Basara, in which the build-up ended up getting a bit boring and random. The question is now really going to be: how does this show plan to use that build-up? What the heck is Toshio going to do once he becomes a vampire? What is Natsuno planning? All he did was run around in this episode a bit. Is Seishin finally going to do something in these final few episodes?
Rating: ** (Excellent)

13 thoughts on “Shiki – 17

  1. Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group
    in this case Shiki destroying humanity, so it is correct use, its not insensitive.

  2. Pretty hard to imagine this show has only 7 (?) episodes left.. Also, to the people that spoiled what will happen next in the epi 16 comments: Thanks for ruining the suspense for next week :s!

  3. @Spike: No, then it would be prolicide, if you wanted to be technical.

    To call this genocide is absurd if you would just stop reading out of dictionaries and think about it for a split second. Are mass murderers in Japan committing genocide by killing a lot of Japanese people? No, because it just so happens that the only people around them are Japanese people. Likewise, the Shiki don’t single out Japanese people; they just happen to be in Japan. Further, the Shiki are probably not interested in wiping out the human race, in the same way that humans are not interested in wiping out all species of cow. You don’t drive your food into extinction.

  4. @ Nayrael

    Wow. That IS badass. =O

    I don’t really wanna read the manga though… I did it for some of the episodes before (when Natsuno died) and I ended up comparing the 2 and critisizing the anime like crazy instead of gasping at the suspense.

    Looking forward to Kaori being awesome scene though. XD

  5. Nice hint on the OP.
    with most of the main characters dead, I really can’t help but think “OMG ARE THE BAD GUYS GONNA WIN?”
    nothing on that yet, but like you said, good buildup, and we have no clear speculation of the ending yet.

  6. Hmmm. They made Toshi a lot less combative in the anime. Still, that provides a plot hole, they’re not supposed to be able to enter the clinic. I still remember the episode where there were about 5-6 Shiki lurking outside the clinic without being able to enter. No one invited them yet unless I missed something.

    Stay tuned for Episode 18. That’s all I’ll say.

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