May 23, 2013
Wow, what a painful watch it's been... I nearly dropped this show after the horrible first 3 episodes, but I couldn't believe, after reading all the positive reviews here, that it had no redeeming qualities. Well, guess what ? It has none.
Story-wise, Shiki is quite lackluster : though the starting point isn't that bad, it stays too faithful to its premise and never surprises the viewer. The bad storytelling doesn't help, since things happen slowly and very routinely during the first half. Furthermore, it's not really credible as a whole : during the 3 months span in which tons of dramatic events happen, there is
...
absolutely NO interaction with the outside world (no media, no police, no nothing), how the hell would that be possible nowadays ?
I should also mention there were glaring holes in the plot : you leave a certain character on the verge of being killed, with 0 chance of surviving, only to find him on the hospital, 5 episodes later, without any semblance of explanation. Oh, and there is no proper ending...
As disappointed as I was with the story, what really killed the show for me was its awful characters. Lots of characters are introduced in the first few episodes, 90% of which have absolutely no trait or personality (being useless cannon fodder). The main characters themselves are incredibly bland : we hardly get to know anything about their past and motivation (aside from the rare flashback), and they show very few emotions throughout the 22 episodes. How are we supposed to feel dread from a horror show, if we cannot in the least identify with the characters ?
Speaking of the characters, they display remarkably little consistency in their deductions and actions; especially the (presumably) main character, Doctor Ozaki, being able to make a mental U turn in the blink of an eye, from a totally rational approach to a total acceptance of the supernatural theory, then "disproving" said theory in front of everyone before proving it a few episodes later...
Unfortunately, Shiki does not fare better art-wise, I'd even go as far as to say that this show is, for the most part, an eyesore. The character design is utterly terrible : pointy noses and chins, weird eyes, hideous outfits (especially with some of the shikis), and, last but not least, those ludicrous haircuts. Some characters are just plain repulsive (that Masao guy...) and made me want to stab myself in the eye. Even the supposedly moe character (gothloli Sunako) was more weird than cute. Also, while I don't mind more realistic-looking characters, I felt I got trolled with the abundance of sexy poses/outfits involving that old fat manly looking nurse...
The animation was bad as well, with lots of still images and slow pans, very static characters and relatively stiff movements.
Sound was a bit better, with some nice and fitting tracks (some of the most electronic ones did feel out of place though), but the 2 OPs/EDs were mediocre and readily forgotten. Voice acting ranged from "average" to "awful" (Masao again...).
As an avid horror stories consumer, enticed by the excellent ratings given to this show, I consider Shiki an utter failure. It fails as a horror show (neither the story nor the atmosphere gave me any thrill), it fails as a mystery show (there is NO mystery whatsoever), and it fails at delivering its underlying message (the whole "aren't good and evil relative ?" is meaningless and childish when conveyed in such an awkward way). Plus, it's painfully bad looking.
Please, do yourself a favor and don't waste 8 hours of your life with that trash.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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