Shikabane Hime: Aka

Living at a shrine with other orphans, Ouri Kagami is no stranger to corpses. But when he sees the patron of his orphanage, Keisei Tagami, seemingly revive the scarred corpse of schoolgirl Makina Hoshimura, he cannot help but feel incredibly shocked.

Intrigued by the mysterious circumstances surrounding Makina, he learns that she is a Shikabane Hime—an undead being tasked with eliminating others like her who pose a threat to society. As Ouri goes about his daily life, his inexplicable run-ins with her are shrouded in abnormality. But as each encounter grows more intense, the two are brought closer together, and it may be their intertwining fates that hold the key to unveiling the secrets behind the world of Shikabanes.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Hoshimura, Makina Main

Akiyama, Nana Japanese

Tagami, Keisei Main

Fujiwara, Keiji Japanese

Kagami, Ouri Main

Hasome, Tatsuya Japanese

Ruo, Minai Supporting

Hirata, Yuka Japanese

Hokuto Supporting

Fujimura, Chika Japanese

Hazama Supporting

Ookawa, Tooru Japanese

Touka, Akira Supporting

Yuuki, Aoi Japanese

Kuroneko Supporting

Horie, Yui Japanese

Yamagami, Itsuki Supporting

Nakamura, Chise Japanese

Sougi, Takamasa Supporting

Kawashima, Tokuyoshi Japanese

Cook, Justin Producer

Yamaga, Hiroyuki Producer

Kurashige, Nobuyuki Producer

Murata, Masahiko Director

Reviews

Sep 4, 2024

Tiberoan

Recommended

"I'll return the exact same words you said to me two years ago. You're pitiful." - Makina Hoshimura

My favourite anime so far. I love its buddhist vibes: everytime I watch it, I get the same kind of eerie feeling I used to get in Lavender Town when playing Pokémon. Angela's opening and endings are also magnificent: they convey that feeling of little but unshakable hope amidst the darkness of death (the second season, which I also wholeheartedly recommend, has even more amazing EDs by angela, like "Hikari sagase naku tomo"). There are some (not many) comic moments, but they are well-placed and the uncanny atmosphere ... is overall well maintained.

In a nutshell, as the song titled "Hikari sagase naku tomo" says, this is a story where darkness is almost pervasive. Salvation seems nothing more than a vain promise, but we need to keep on fighting, even if we can't find light anywhere.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Sep 8, 2024

LilyVarbik

Mixed Feelings

I was a bit reluctant to give a 9/10, so I will start out with cons:
CONS:
-Only "good" corpses are female
-Unless I missed, there is only Male monks (except for 1 exception)
-clear focused on small school clothing, and then also being torn apart, butts and breasts.
-questions get raised, but not elaborated on or answered
-gross people
-I really don't like the "good" organization
-people evil for no communicable reason

... Neutrals:
-guns
-dull color scheme
-felt like a weird 2nd Person POV
-death
-emotional rollercoaster
-setup for Season 2 (Kuro)

Pros:
-very interesting character/monster designs
-what it's like to be alive as a corpse [princess] (Shikabane Hime)
-humanity/compassion towards those that are dead
-humanity/compassion/understanding to serial killers
-interesting world/plot

If you don't like episode 1, you definitely won't like the rest of this anime. I honestly don't know how to explain this, maybe I too have an attraction to death, or maybe something else about the content/style brought me in. I am always a sucker to giving the evil humanity as they get taken out for they're evil.
Hope this helped.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Apr 25, 2013

Bishounen_Hunter

Not Recommended

Shikabane Hime is a barely decent anime that was released in 2 parts: AKA & KURO. For the purposes of convenience, my review is about both parts because its all really the same story and if you watch one part, you'll likely watch the other part as well. From the outset I had a problem with this series. starting with the title "SHIKABANE HlME" If it were just the anime title l'd be ok with it but it is a somewhat silly name for a zombie slayer. Why HIME? Is there a king, a queen, a prince? No there isn't it's just once again no ... one used their imagination or creativity. They know anime viewers all around the world have cottoned on to the Japanese word "Hime" by now so hey, why not use the word HIME in the title....it worked so well for Mai-HIME, right? Names aside, like I said, its a barely decent shonen fighting anime about monks & monsters. Of course the monks don't go into battle alone, no, they mostly fight by proxy via supposedly dead little girls dressed in all manner of skimpy or tight-fitting outfits catering to the various otaku fetishes.
I really did not pay attention to the music of this series. I did watch the anime in English audio and I must give credit to the actors, they were pretty good even if the script was just proper shit. Lucy Christian is pretty much good at everything and I especially appreciated Aaron Dismuke's voice, maybe because you just don't hear too many authentic teenage male voices in anime.
Nothing earth-shattering about the art here at least not for me. Maybe for teenage boys and horny otaku. I can't remember anything about the places in the anime... Probably because they were just flat and boring or maybe because the art is more focused on the characters, monsters and fighting scenes. And even something about that annoyed me... like they plagiarized the fighting scenes from Naruto. Didn't that water fight scene between Makina and Hokuto seem eerily similar to the water fight between Naruto and Sasuke? It's the things like that through out the series that got on my nerves. Not just being simply unoriginal but almost seeming to copy bits of successful anime.
The story is a very basic one, demons exist and there are those that must kill these demons. Nothing supremely new here. Once again I'm a bit underwhelmed. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that somewhere, some dude (erm company) said "Hmmm, I need to make a story about hot chicks fighting in skimpy clothes...let's build around that idea!" I say this again because the obvious questions arise "Why HIME?" Why only girls do battle against the shikabane? Clearly there are male Shikabane, surely the same arrangement can be made. There was some flimsy answer provided, one that they (the creators) easily punched holes thru and contradicted themselves with because there is no genuine interest in cultivating a genuine answer much less perpetuate story integrity. The only real focus is about having big-breasted school girls fight in skimpy clothing and watch it get ripped up. Let's keep it real. Let's keep it 100. I'm actually surprised no one busted out with tentacle monsters.
OK so with the obvious aside, the next logical question is; Is there a real story there, Is Shikabane Hime really worth watching? The answer to that is: meh! To be fair, there is a story there but as far as worth watching... well no. I've seen better and have been entertained by similar and better told stories: Kite, Gunslinger Girl, Mai-HIME, Blood+, just to name a few. The fact they flip-flopped between comedy and seriousness was tiresome. And then the fact that Shikabane Hime has no overall message or theme, which is vital to any great story was also bothersome. You can feel them making it up as they go along, working with just the basic concepts but never fully fleshing it out. Just generic storytelling at best with lots of very large breasts, Is the story about revenge?... sorta, with lots of very large breasts. Is the story about love? again... sorta, with lots of very large breasts! But like I said the story dances around vague concepts and notions, just choosing a "paint by numbers" approach to storytelling; Let's have a character die here, let's have the sauna scene there. But you don't ever really find yourself crying over any death or being interested in any cartoon titties.
Shikabane Hime definitely did not create any revolutionary characters here. It's all pretty much your run of the mill characters, monks & big boobed fighter women all possessing your standard anime stereotypes: big boobed nice girl, big boobed mean girl, big titty ninja chick with toothy fang and cat ears, angry chick with pig tails & ribbons, Loli-type, But it's the so called doctor female with half a white labcoat but all the titties that took the cake...I just wanted her to stab herself in the boob with one of those ninja knives. Who fights with sharp weapons half naked? The monks are just accessories. Everyone just bored me and I just kept wishing they all died.
I definitely give this show as a score of 3. It's lucky to even get that score, because normally anything lower than a 4, I would just delete it and move on to the next title.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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