Shiki

Am I the only one who thinks the whole "humans doing inhuman things" as really trite and cliche?

Well, if you think that this is an utterly original and deep idea, then I have the show for you: It's Shiki, where the vampires don't sparkle but do rival the Cullen's tendency toward being vanilla as hell.

Shiki's main praise seems to be that it isn't Twilight and it's more about traditional vampires. However, most of the people who say this have no knowledge about traditional vampires in the first place so you shouldn't put too much stock in that.

No, the switch midway through to the humans being ... the "bad guys" doesn't make this show intelligent. Perhaps if it was executed decently, you might be able to argue this but Shiki doesn't manage that.

Doctor Osai has been the most interesting and sympathetic character throughout the show and trying to paint him in a negative light doesn't work when the rest of the characters are pants-on-head retarded. Seriously, what the hell is the Monk even on about? How does Cain-and-Abel-are-one-and-the-same make any sense? What does that have to do with anything? The vampires are never fleshed out other than being either total douchebags or struggling vampires who don't want to kill but totally do anyways.

Oh, and the OPs suck. They fail at being scary or creating a mood or being halfway interesting.

Shiki is one of the rare horror anime to stand out at all, falling under a "revisionist/social commentary" kind of banner; it has a decently creepy atmosphere, imagery, and an adequate plot, though the gravity-defying rainbow hair and bizarre hip-hop-like music makes this an eccentric title. The writing can be fairly condescending with its depiction of ruralites and villagers: there's a cosmopolitan smugness expressed throughout, with the pink-haired girl, who only cares about cute boys in the city and being an idol, being the best representation of the contempt for the countryside. There's not much presented here that would make anyone yearn for a life ... outside of the city.

For the relatively long running length of 22 episodes, it takes most of the protagonists a ridiculously long time to figure out what's really going on, as villagers are picked off one by one by a clan of vampires. Eventually, the humans fight back, and the prey becomes the predator, but it feels like these people are blind or oblivious for nearly the whole runtime, which becomes exasperating. Emphasis should be placed on the prey becoming the predator, or even the prey and predator being one and the same when boiled down to their essence, which is partially the message found in the monk's pretentious Cain and Abel-inspired story; this is reflective of a trend in horror fiction to humanize the monsters while also relying on gray areas of morality for the sake of social commentary about humanity. The show starts by depicting the shiki as being ghoulish in some early nighttime scenes, but, by the end, the villagers are portrayed in just as ghoulish of a light, if not greater.

Fans seem to relish this aspect, but the humans, while maybe becoming a bit more cruel and spiteful than is necessary when confronting the shiki at times—probably best emphasized by the segment where the villagers leave the shiki to a slow death, but one human delivers mercy killings, as well as the infamous tractor scene, or the murder of humans assumed to be in league with the Shiki—are acting in their own best interest for survival.

The shiki brought the situation upon themselves by terrorizing the once idyllic village. Due to the shiki's bloodlust, the villagers were left to watch their friends and family wither away and die. And among the villagers who die, some come back as shiki and are manipulated or groomed by the veteran shiki in preying on their remaining loved ones in a vicious cycle. Tatsumi, one of the higher-ranking shiki, is particularly sadistic in how he directs these newly recruited companions to prey on former family and friends. The shiki's intentions appear to be the death and/or conversion of all humans in the village. There are no benign alternatives conceived of amongst their ranks. One human appears to be an exception here, and the shiki seem to view him as a potential human ally, in what represents the standard symbiotic relationship often found in horror films, such as vampires having a werewolf or human who protects them during the day or carries out tasks that only they can perform.

Throughout the series, it's shown that the shiki can easily blend in with humans, other than their aversion to sunlight. They open stores in the village, have a city unit of shiki engaging in similar ways, own a moving company, and they can afford to purchase the obviously expensive and out-of-place European castle on the outskirts of the village, so they clearly have shiki-specific infrastructure in place, are well organized, and possess a lot of money.

Cows are featured prominently as livestock to emphasize that what the shiki are doing to the humans is similar to what humans are doing to other animals. Humans survive by devouring animals, but shiki only need the blood of humans to survive, meaning killing is not necessary for the latter. The Kirishiki family is shown consuming blood from wine glasses, an important story arc has one character trying to convince a shiki who was once his friend to coexist with humans and not kill them, and there is only one other subplot that features a shiki making an effort to survive on blood without killing. Couldn't they conceivably purchase human blood (whether non-human blood is viable or not is never addressed) and forego preying on humans altogether? This is never explored at all. In fact, the shiki seldom explain anything that they do, so one must question if their leader, a pseud 900-year-old goth loli vampire, ever had any plans at all.

But on some level, I accept the argument that what humans do to cows is no different than what the shiki are doing to the humans. One can even argue that humans don't require meat to survive either. We can become vegetarians. However, humans enjoy the taste of meat, and a balanced diet with meat, fish, etc., is nutritionally superior to vegetarianism. We also harvest the bodies of animals for many items we create.

However, the series makes it clear that the shiki are trying to survive and flourish. Similarly, shiki need more than just blood, because they cannot replicate themselves through DNA but have to instead convert humans into shiki. If we consider the instinct to reproduce in some form an imperative for all lifeforms, then how can the shiki really be blamed, for it appears to be a biological necessity for the shiki? They do what they must to survive and to "reproduce," yet it necessitates antagonism between humans and shiki. The shiki use every part of humans, not just blood; just as the humans use every part of cows.

While I think we may as well limit suffering, it's a natural part of life. We only make ourselves weaker by creating an ideology centered around removing suffering altogether. A utopian example of this ideology is actually the idea of the humans and shiki co-existing, which strikes me as the end goal of the tedious moralizing the series engages in. "Extreme" attempts at removing suffering tend to result in much more suffering overall. In theory, the two could co-exist. Humans and shiki could live amongst each other, without it being an arrangement similar to the predator-prey relationship of the Eloi and Morlocks of H.G. Wells Time Machine. With a sufficiently small number of shiki, humans could donate enough blood to sustain them. Too many shiki would necessitate suffering and death for the humans, but they could also have controlled replication. Some humans would obviously like the chance of becoming immortal, like the shiki, rather than dying, so there could be a quota system to prevent their death and bolster the population of the shiki. Surveillance technology could enforce this system even better. This is an arrangement that works well in theory, and you could probably make a simulation of this in a video game and perfectly micromanage a win-win outcome. Nonetheless, reality is messy, and humans and shiki are naturally at odds with one another. It's unlikely that you could stop the two from feuding or prevent the shiki from manipulating the humans along the way of completing this grand utopia that will never be. It would also inject many problems into society, with elites controlling the shiki's "immortalization" process.

Just as wolves are predators and sheep are prey, we have a similar relationship with our livestock. The shiki are a natural predator of humans. Is it really immoral for predators to hunt prey as food? Certainly no one would consider a non-human animal consuming another animal as immoral. It only becomes a topic of morality for humans because of their sentience and insecurities. Due to our ingenuity and problem solving, many will debate that having alternatives makes this process inhumane and morally objectionable. Of course, for a coherent worldview, one must realize that morality is a subjective construct to enforce order; individuals have a personal morality that interacts with a consensus morality of said society, and that consensus morality is enforced by violence. a society has to have some kind of morality to function and sustain itself, and morality should be beneficial. Yet the morality on display in Shiki is often framed in a way that is injurious to the humans, and the authors are saying it is a good thing, often resorting to injecting manipulative evil bastardisms into their writing.

The killing of humans by other humans without a justified cause would almost universally be seen as immoral by the standards of today. Could the same be said of relations between shiki and humans? Certainly there are many similarities between shiki and humans, but is an equivalence in intelligence and other criteria more important than the nature of being predator and prey, when it comes to evaluating whether or not something is moral? The shiki may have once been human, but they must be regarded as a completely different species, and something altogether different than even denisovans or neanderthals, which are other species humans mated with in the distant past. My assumption is that shiki are probably parasites that can "resurrect" a recently dead host, harnessing their memories. Just because the shiki possess the dead human's memories does not mean they are one and the same.

Essentially, the shiki are in direct opposition to humans. Both are engaged in competition for resources as various creatures would be in an ecosystem, while also engaging in a predator-prey relationship, eventually resulting in a predator-prey reversal as the humans gain the upper hand. The shiki, as the minority, must always be fearful of the human majority exterminating them, and the humans must always be fearful of the shiki surreptitiously parasitizing them and taking over their society, as can be seen when the shiki replace the entirety of the local government, with aims of taking over the village.

The focus on morality that the show has, where they went to great lengths to make the humans seem wicked or "just as bad" was insipid and cheap. In many cases I'd say the humans are portrayed by the writers as far less sympathetic than the shiki, the true aggressors here. I'd rather have been spared the moralizing tone and the pathologizing of the villagers. Both the humans and the shiki can be "humanized" in their own right with a recognition of them being competing entities, concerned first and foremost with their own survival and growth in numbers. You can portray a person doing something one might find objectionable without giving them evil-looking expressions set to sinister music, which this show was often guilty of in the second half.

One point that will sometimes be made is that Ozaki, who led the bloody campaign against the shiki was too brutal. Yes, they would have been obligated to kill many of the aggressive shiki, but they could have imprisoned some of them or brought in the government to contain them in some way. Even the shiki couple who decided to stop preying on humans, unconscious in their cell, were killed by the humans. Amusingly, characteristic of this show's try-hard brand of trashy social commentary, Ozaki even says something like, "We need to clean this up," indicating the bloodshed needed to be concealed from any outsiders or non-local government. Not only do people conflate what happened to actual genocides, but the writers seem to be suggesting as much. Sure, they didn't have to kill all of them, but shiki, who have an overwhelming desire for blood and can pretend they're humans, are extremely dangerous, and eradicating them altogether would be for the best. All it takes is one shiki to deceive the humans, convert more humans into shiki, and have the same incident all over again. They could quickly take over entire cities.

I realize people want to make these kind of productions into metaphors about the human condition and humans massacring or genociding other humans for social commentary and moral preening, but the shiki are undead. They shouldn't even exist in the first place, not to mention all of the other points that make them an enemy of humanity.

I never questioned "who the true monsters were." I always sided with the humans, though I often had sympathy for the shiki, given that they were forced to become shiki without any regard for their own wishes and were manipulated, not only by their newfound hunger, but by the shiki leaders. From the perspective of the humans, I see the shiki as something to be exterminated for the benefit of humanity, as we usually view vampires in fiction, but I can also respect that the shiki are acting to benefit their own group, though it goes against human interests.

Another pretentious show with very little substance that contradicts it's own themes and logic, makes philosophical arguments it can't back up, and culminates in a gratuitous gore-fest of mass carnage and destruction for the sake of the spectacle. It doesn't do anything special or unique with the vampire genre, poorly explains or suppoprts their existence and motives, tosses around paper-thin relationships between dozens and dozens of unlikeable characters, and conflates the repetition of forced tragedy with that of brilliance.

A mysterious illness is ravaging a small countryside village, one with only a few hundred residents. It started with the discovery of several deaths among the elderly, ... not uncommon for the rural population there, but spread rapidly to include people of all age groups including teenagers and small children. Dozens and dozens pass away within the span of a month and local burials and temple services are booked for weeks. They all share the same initial symptoms of weakness and fatigue, followed by anemia based complications and ultimately death within a few days.

You would think, such a small, tight-knit community with barely a few hundred people, having lost a good 20% or more of their residents, friends and family they see every day and know by name, would lead to a major uproar and mass investigation from within and without. The death of so many young individuals especially, national treasures in Japan's aging population, should cause a major panic. Even entire families succumbing to the same illness. Nope. Instead, they make any and every excuse imaginable to NOT do anything and pretend the problem doesn't exist. They even make ridiculous excuses like saying the disease isn't new or dangerous because that JUST CAN'T HAPPEN in a small hick town in the middle of nowhere, otherwise it would be national news. For one, that's EXACTLY where most new diseases come from, zoonotic diseases in particular. And second, the nation isn't gonna know about your hick town problems unless you tell them about it or ask for help. They even go so far as to refuse autopsies. There are not enough rugs in all of Japan to sweep all this shit under.

And what does the local quack do? The kind-hearted, young doctor who dies a little inside every time a patient passes away? He nonchalantly calls it an epidemic and only half-heartedly describes it as such to avoid a "panic", as if the people weren't laid back enough as it is when he does tell them about the possibility. His first instinct was actually that it was a vector-borne disease transmitted by mosquitoes. Does he tell people to use common insecticide? Nope. Does he recommend the village be professionally sprayed down to decrease the mosquito population? Nope. Does he ever say jack squat at village meetings? Nope. Even his nurses and staff are always just casually smoking and drinking tea as if the death of the whole village is inevitable, that the villagers should calmly accept their fate, and that the health professionals at this clinic are smarter than the average village idiot and can avoid the disease (by sipping tea of course) so it's not their problem or responsibility. When all the members of a household die within weeks of each other, there should be giant ass blaring sirens going off telling anyone with half a brain that this is a communicable disease that's highly contagious and dangerous. Not once does ANYONE in the entire anime ever realize or even prepare for the possibility that the disease can be spread from human contact. It's laughably unrealistic. There are no masks. There are no isolation wards. People cozy up to dead bodies like they are still alive and not rotting flesh filled with pathogens. The nurses smugly fawn over their own immunity. They aren't even worried they'll lose their jobs as their clientele quickly shrinks.

This is the entire first half of the series. A dozen episodes of people dying, over and over and over again, accompanied with funerals, and everyone a mixture of apathy, stupidity, or ignorance. It's almost like a monster of the week shounen. But instead of a monster being vanquished, it's a hideously ugly old man or woman, followed by other family members. And my god are the characters in this anime ugly. It's like really bad fanart of pokemon/digmon/children's anime characters stretched in all the wrong ways, with vertical eyes, creeptastic irises, pointy chins, gravity defying drag queen hairstyles, and grotesque wrinkles and warts. The old people look horrific while the younger ones look like utter clowns out of place in rural Japan, some even with fashionable cat ear tufts on their head. Is this supposed to be an existential horror anime or just a really bad comedy?

Speaking of how ugly the character designs are. The characters themselves are even worse. The very first one you meet, Megumi, is a self-centered bitch obsessed with the main male protagonist. She constantly complains about being trapped in a hick town that doesn't appreciate her sophistication. How in the world did she survive 15 years there then? Her entire life? Natsuno, the male protagonist, with a cold, distant demeanor, also hates the village, as well as his narrow-minded parents who brought him there. There are also literally dozens of other characters that are shown one after another after another, with forgettable names, faces, circumstances, and family relationships. They all have the same things in common. They either have pent-up animosity towards each other from lifelong family issues, a general disregard or disrespect for one another, or a very uncaring and selfish attitude towards those who have died. There are only weak familial bonds and throwaway friendships. It's a miserable town full of miserable people. You don't care if they die. Even when the anime tries to force an emotional situation, a sense of tragedy or grief, you just don't care, especially when the characters themselves don't care about each other.

Eventually, after a dozen episodes of pure tedium and watching unsympathetic characters die one after another, the whole vampire plot finally starts to materialize. There is no disease spreading. The victims are actually being attacked by Japanese vampires dubbed Shiki, who rise from the dead and need to feed on human blood. One host can provide several feedings over a span of several days before dying from blood loss, with a small chance of turning into a Shiki after being interred. These Shiki are actually being created and controlled by the Kirishiki family, a bunch of weirdo outsiders that had recently moved into the village and built a strange, western-style mansion looking down upon the village.

Going back to the whole diatribe about how braindead stupid the villagers are. This is a backwater locale with the temple steps running down the middle of the village leading to the temple itself at its apex. They are dutiful to their funeral rites and traditions and it's their primary source of income. There is also rich folklore of corpses rising from the dead to feast on the local populace. There are sightings everywhere of strange phenomena and the ghosts of the deceased wandering about. A bunch of creepy, inhuman looking weirdos with PITCH BLACK eyeballs and no sclera have moved into town, only come out at night, and people have been dying by the droves ever since. And yet, no one is willing or able to make the connection between all these occurrences, or even humor the possibility. Yet another absurd justification is used. The villagers claim "modern rationalism" keeps them from believing in things like demons or vampires, much less poking around or asking questions. It's like some running joke. At the very beginning of the anime, Natsuno complains how everyone is up in everyone else's business because it's such a small town with nothing to do. And here we are, the same people, denying their better nature, ignoring their own superstitions and suspicions, their own old-fashioned beliefs, their own prejudices and fears, because they have somehow all become pedantic scientists grounded by the realities of "modern rationalism".

Through the latter half of the anime, when the village realizes the existence of these shiki vampires and goes on a systematic killing spree to rid themselves of these monsters, the anime tries to shine a sympathetic light on their existence. It's a complete 180 from their previous portrayals, wandering the countryside and attacking anyone and everyone with a big smile and acting like a gang of rascals released onto a playground with joyous fun, giggling as they took pleasure in tormenting victims they had harbored petty vendettas with in their previous life. Now, they run and cower in fear like prey lamb being attacked by a pack of wolves, even though the role was completely reversed not so long ago. Why are they so weak and useless all of a sudden? Even in the dead of night when they have the highest advantage, they hide in the pitch black corners and cower away. They are literally incapable of using weapons and always attack with their fangs. And all that superhuman strength and speed is just a fairy tale. The anime even places an invisible wall around the whole perimeter of the village to make the situation feel even more hopeless for these shiki. The only way out is the main road which is blocked by the villagers! We obviously can't tiptoe around them or run into the woods, because God designed us with tires for feet and to run only on paved roads and nowhere else!

The last few episodes are especially grating as they spend an inordinate amount of time showing Shiki pleading for their lives and justifying their actions through inner monologues. The most annoying and repetitive, droning on for minutes at a time, is that of Kirishiki Sunako, the oldest Shiki there and the one who pulls the strings. She's your typical loli but with pitch black eyes and a very punchable face. She keeps repeating that all she wanted to do was survive and that she wasn't a Shiki by choice. Over and over and over again, reaching it's height when she enters an old church and the whole place starts burning. It's supposed to symbolize how god has forsaken her, and there's this entire worthless subplot involving the monk in the village writing an allegory about abandonment, but it's all extremely pointless when the actual Shiki are portrayed as one-dimensional villains and the Queen Shiki herself, Sunako, masterminded the death of an entire village. She never wanted to "just survive". She was systematically killing people to make more of her kind, like a bitch in heat jumping on every willy and dong in sight. That's actually giving her too much credit. It wasn't some primal urge and sexual desire to procreate. She was commanding other Shiki to create her Shiki utopia. It's now purely greed and selfish desire.

Throughout the show, you get bits and pieces of the Shiki's existence, their motives, and why the Kirishiki family moved into town. The anime makes you think there is more to the story, a grander plot, a more thought out and sensible purpose. But in the end the reasons are a mindless and shortsighted "conquer the world" scheme bursting at the seams with flaws and more suitable for a children's cartoon on Disney. Sunako wants to turn everyone in the village into Shiki by gradually killing them off. She also brings in Shiki from the city to take on perfunctory governmental roles to avoid suspicion from the outside. Her end goal is to make the entire village her own Shiki paradise where she can walk outside without fear. Fear of what exactly? The only reason people feared her and feared those that emerged from the darkness was because she decided to start mindlessly killing them all. She has been living with them peacefully for centuries, being able to hide persecution from her need for blood, because everyone believes it's just a disease when her victims fall ill from blood loss. But now she wants more. It's far beyond just mere survival. The whole spiel the anime tries to shove down your throat, that there's this innocent loli girl crying with tears streaming down her eyes, is actually the tears of a power hungry devil.

In one of the middle episodes, when Natsuno, the male protagonist, meets his dead friend who had turned into a Shiki, he tries to negotiate, asking why they couldn't coexist, why they couldn't establish a line of understanding to help one another. His friend says its IMPOSSIBLE, even if humans provided voluntary blood it would not work. That one short conversation is literally all the time the anime bothers in exploring any sort of reconciliation between the two groups. It's a cop-out, to avoid complexity in a simple black and white story that the author doesn't want to delve into, yet tries to instill humanity into the Shiki in the latter half of the show as a cheap ploy to give depth and meaning. This goes back to the original question of why Sunako wants to turn everyone in the village into Shiki. For one, how the fuck are they going to survive if all the livestock is dead? In every other functioning vampire society, they don't stupidly outright kill their only source of blood. They either round them up like cattle, allowing them to recover after each feeding, or pay for blood donations. In the world of Shiki, you forcefully feed nonstop on a single victim until they die, possibly creating another Shiki, who also goes around town doing the same thing, until eventually there are no more humans to feed off of and everyone DIES from hunger. How in the world is such an ecosystem sustainable? Do these Shiki still have the intelligence of humans, or have they regressed to savage animals unable to avoid the typical predator-prey overpopulation collapse?

The newly risen Shiki are confined into a room, served several meals to adapt to their new bloodlust, and then unceremoniously kicked out to fend for themselves and devour the villagers as they see fit. How can such an uncoordinated approach not jeopardize revealing their existence? What happens when they are fighting over the same prey? What happens when there is no more prey and they start fighting each other for survival? There are supposedly Shiki tasked with city duty who go into the city and find victims to feed the less experienced and newly created Shiki. Do they even have a process or a system in place to provide a continuous food source from the city once the villagers are all dead? Do they plan on creating more and more Shiki, compounding the food problem to untenable levels, or will they eventually stop and start managing human farms and actually use their pea-sized brains for a semblance of a sustainable society?

There are supposedly varying positions and a hierarchy, but the anime doesn't bother with any real structure and treats the Shiki like a loose group of bandits. Sunako is the scheming leader, but she has nothing tangible to back up her clout and is a weak, useless girl otherwise. She has an attendant named Tatsumi, a rare species of Shiki called Jinrou that can live amongst humans during the day and survive on human food, and the other Shiki listen to him because they are afraid he will drag them out during the day and watch them burn to death. But he is not an unstoppable monster and can be easily taken on by a group, even a human one, and killed with a stake to the heart. So the whole Shiki organization can barely be called one, the civilization even more primitive than a nomadic tribe, and their plans even less thought out than a doodle on a diner napkin. There is zero effort made here yet Shiki tries to sell you it's brand of fake bread that barely has any flour and substitutes most of it for poisonous alum and plaster.

Another poorly thought out philosophical question that the writers try to shove in your face involving the shiki is whether they have sinned or not, which the town monk won't stop debating over. We've already established they are doing all this for more than mere survival, so much of that argument in their favor is thrown out. The other question the anime poses is whether they should kill Shiki, who are just trying to live and survive, or even do the bare minimum of defending oneself against them, if it means violence. Violence committed for basic survival is not a sin, the monk purports, but can violence against the Shiki, who are just trying to survive, be considered a sin? The monk has spent too much time staring at dead leaves on the ground and has let his brain rot. A straw you can see through from one side, you can also see through from the other. If it's not a sin for Shiki to attack humans in order to survive, than it's equally not a sin for humans to attack Shiki in order to survive. Animals and other living things in nature attack those they perceive as threats, and especially in this case, actually ARE threats to their very existence. They are not sinners.

The monk is displaying the age-old, wildly inaccurate cliche of a buddhist monk unwilling to hurt a fly or take a breath in fear he might swallow a spider. It's pacifism to the extreme, submission to any and all opposing forces. It's doubly more incredulous as this is a Japanese work, not some clueless white hippy writing about peace and love in his downtown studio apartment. The Japanese should know better. Buddhism has never preached pacifism. There are warrior monks and they practice martial arts not only as a means of defense, but also to wage war against existential threats, including genocide if they deem necessary. They aren't there to conquer or oppress, but they sure as hell aren't going to wilt like a flower in front of an enemy.

There are also other vague possibilities not fully supported and just mentioned in passing of why he would help the Shiki. Maybe he's just trying to be rebellious in defiance to his clean-shaven, peaceful role as the benevolent monk, a role he inherited. Maybe he's undergoing an existential crisis and doesn't know his purpose in life. Maybe his morals are far more fluid and questionable than once thought. In any case, he's just another anime cliche, a poorly written character serving only to oppose one of the main protagonists of the story, Dr. Ozaki, and of course they use to be besties. It's the Suzaku to every Lelouch. The Sasuke to every Naruto.

The anime abruptly ends with no real conclusion, with everything bloody and on fire. It did it's job in checking the boxes to make an "adult" and "thought-provoking" shitshow that viewers will applaud as deep and profound but can't support in any sensible argument. Death, murder, and violence? Check. People crying and pleading for help? Check. Moral ambiguity and depravity? Check. Stuff on fire? Check. Long, drawn out philosophical musings? Check. Shock value? Check. No happy endings and everyone dies? Check. The moral of the story is...nothing really matters and the universe is chaotic but at least I'm getting paid by technically ticking off every checkbox.

Spoilers below:

As far as being morally ambiguous and making us question humanity's place in the food chain (a la parasyte), Shiki fails on both accounts miserably. Trying to have sympathy for the vampires is immensely difficult, as most of them seem to normalize killing humans, even reveling in it fairly quickly. It's like watching a group of sadistic serial killers terrorizing a community, bragging about their deeds, and then without a semblance of self-awareness going "why don't they like us :(" when humans take action in exterminating them - if you live by the sword, you should be prepared to die by the sword. There ... IS initial reluctance to murder by new vampires, and persisting guilt in a very few, which makes the vampire organization only more vile in how they blackmail recruits into killing by threatening their living families. Only one vampire in the series managed to do the right thing by choosing to starve over murdering friends and family to survive. While Parasyte's aliens don't share human values towards life, most of Shiki's vampires have been human until recently, which makes their adjustment jarring and contrived.

Character intentions and actions are terribly developed bordering on frustratingly nonsensical. in a couple of points humans managed to incapacitate these vampires and instead of bringing them to light as evidence, they left one free to escape, and the other forgets video evidence of it until convenient at the end. The doctor's lament that people don't believe him is pretty hypocritical considering he was denying the existence of Shiki in public a few episodes ago despite already knowing of their existence. Relationships are poorly written and contrived, with multiple characters having baffling affections or friendships to another who had showed them nothing but scorn. The vampires' decisions are probably the most frustrating to watch and try to make sense of - doing a terrible job of hiding their existence by growing their numbers exponentially, repeatedly exposing themselves to humans, killing so many in a small village that it is noticeable within a month. At some point you get the feeling that they deserve to be an endangered species, disregarding that they prey on humans.

If you need a reminder that "humans can be monsters", there are way better shows out there to watch than this. If you want to watch two factions strategically fight a covert battle, there's better shows out there. If you want a reminder that "people are stupid", this might be the show for you, you'd probably feel stupid watching 22 episodes of this hoping it would have a good payoff at the end.

This series is so abysmal that I really think I should write a line or two about it.

TL: DR version. Shiki sucks so much that it made a 360 degrees turn and it ended sucking more. If you enjoy watching the worst characters ever made, please do.

Story: 2
I won't write a synopsis, there are already too many of them.
I gave a 2, just because the premise could be interesting. Pity is that after the 2nd episode you already know where everything is going to go, and I had to suspend my disbelief so much that it will probably have to repeat a year.
Nothing ... that happens makes sense, with actions driven by dumb characters that will make you jump off your seat, just by how dumb they are.

Art: 1 I could probably have appreciated some of the backgrounds, or a few animations, but the character design has hurt me so much that I think I will have to look for someone's comfort. Feels like Yu Gi Oh plus JoJo, plus dead people, but worse. I won't say much about the animation, not incredible nor awful, but I really want to point out that incredible "NOOOOOOO" scene, that gave me the chills. Like, embarrassment chills.

Sound: the only thing that actually works in the series. the dubbing is good, except for the usual, annoying creepy laughter; the music fits the moments, and the OPs and EDs are, erm... ok, I think?

Characters: 1
By now, I thought I would be used to moronic characters that just actlike morons for 12 episodes. But usually there are a few of them, you know?
Handling with a whole town of absolute idiots, for 24 whole episodes, tho, is really proving.
Apart from the design, that makes you think that these guys spent way too much fixing their hair instead of thinking logically, there is absolutely no logic behind their actions.
Whenever you see a character deciding something, in the remote chance that this happens, it's a completely stupid decision. It's so incredibly impossible to be empathetic with any of them, that I ended laughing when anyone died while the others looked with shocked eyes. The hell, it's the hundredth death, you should have at least an idea of what's happening now, don't you?

Enjoyment: 2
I manage to complete the series and actually had lots of fun watching stupid people doing moronic things, but I presume that wasn't the meaning behind the show. No, that sucked, like, a lot.

There's a certain degree of information that I will have to keep to myself based on your decision of how much would you like to know about Shiki before going into it. But to properly review and describe most gripes I have with the series, I'll have to go really deep into the series. So I'll classify this review in parts. At the start there will be no spoilers and I'll explain beforehand why that is.

To sum up everything I'll say:
- As a mystery it won't work because what is happening is revealed in the fourth episode. Also because the series is really easy ... to spoil on the whole mystery aspect
- As a thriller the series has too much momentum and while it takes its time to get where it gets, it never focuses on things in the same way a slow paced thriller would, making sure you understand every possible viewpoint beforehand.
- As a drama, it plainly doesn't work, because the characters are impractical in their action, their sense of morality is almost cartoonish, and any semblance of competence in the writing gets fucked by the end.
- As a horror, it's a bit more subjective, but I wasn't really actually scared and thought that it felt more edgy than disturbing. Blood, disturbing imagery and some gore. Not really anything lacking outside of the horror genre. It's just amplified.

Now very important, if you want to go completely blind into Shiki, you should really avoid reading anything about it on its MAL page, and I do really mean everything. There's really high odds that if you visit the page for Shiki that you will know exactly what the mystery aspect of it entails, and will then have little to no appreciation for it from that side of things. It doesn't last a really long while, and by the 3rd to 4th episode, you can probably figure out exactly what is going on your own, even if you barely paid attention, point at which the mystery is revealed. But it does put some focus on it early. I wouldn't value Shiki as a mystery anime personally, as it isn't designed with that goal in mind.

And let me warn you that you shouldn't really treat this anime as a thriller either. A thriller builds suspense and doesn't really have momentum, as it will progress slowly and let you take in the whole situation from every important perspective you could go for. However, this anime keeps running forward with the essential of what you need and never really takes a break. If you dislike or enjoy thrillers, make of this what you will.

Now let me give you a rundown on the things you CAN know beforehand and still maintain the mystery intact, by giving you the same level of information the characters know collectively. There's an epidemic that makes characters die of anemia, that presents with very mild symptoms early. The characters start acting strange upon contracting the symptoms as they will sabotage themselves from getting treatment for it. The anime focuses on how the village tackles this new disease and what decisions they make from a moral standpoint to tackle said disease.

Now at the point in the anime where the mystery is alive and the audience wasn't confirmed on any of their suspicions, the anime is a little campy, but is otherwise fine. It does seem tropey, with characters making stupid decisions such as not contacting the government about the epidemic or getting any autopsies, which is a common horror thing, where the characters are like, yeah, we can deal with this. Besides their decisions, some of the characters that have focus put on them are appalling to say the least. One of the main characters we have is an edgelord that wants to avoid having friends and leave the place he lives because he hates the country side. He doesn't want any sort of attention, doesn't seem to like anything, but somehow he seems to be widely liked by most people he goes into contact with. His name is Yuki. And this Yuki also has a Yuno, a pink haired stalker that also hates where she lives because people don't like fashion and has a crush on him mostly because he's from the city, probably. There's also a priest that can't say no to lolies and wanted to kill himself once, and some doctor that is a doctor and a bestfriend type character who's personality is that he's your best friend. There isn't really much depth to the characters, some would classify this anime as horror. I wouldn't, I would classify it as E D G E, but I can't detail it in this section quite accurately.

The nitty gritty is the fact that it deals a great deal with morality, on decisions that aren't exactly immoral since they mostly concern survival. There are degrees where people get really fucked up at points in terms of morals to a very ridiculous degree that it becomes hilarious and tragic at the same time. But again I can't detail this due to spoilers.

If you want to watch the anime for the mystery aspect of it, I need you to be aware of the fact that it is short lived and it doesn't really last for a very long period of the anime. You will understand what's happening before the characters do. The mystery should be somewhat interesting but the overarching story details revolve on you knowing exactly what's going on, so the story doesn't truly start until you learn what is going on. The mystery is merely the set up, and that is all I can give you thus far, with some details about who the characters were. It's merely the setup, there isn't really anything wrong with the setup, and outside everyone's reluctance and stupidity of not wanting to accept outside help, there isn't anything wrong with the anime at this point, unless, like me, you'd think the characters are cardboard. I don't think this anime would be a good choice for you as a mystery, as it is merely there to add spice to what is going on in the story at that moment. And besides that, it isn't something hard to figure out, as there are enough details to figure out what's actually happening in the first few episodes, and very shortly after, the jig is up. If the air of mystery is what you demand in this story, stop reading after this paragraph, as you know the essential information you need about the early story, and I've already said my piece on whether or not the mystery part is essential. My recommendation is avoid Shiki if the mystery aspect is the most quintessential part of the story for you since it's shortlived.

• From this point on, I'll talk about details after the mystery. (contains non-plot specific spoilers)

Ok, now that I can speak more freely, the story is about a bunch of vampires trying to suck off all the villagers, so they could turn the village into their nest. Progressively, we learn more details about how they work and what is happening overall, and the series focuses on the struggles of the doctor and the guy that I said displays only edginess and is rewarded only affection. Now until the point there are flaws on how the world of the anime treat everything. The government somehow didn't notice a major spike in deaths despite death certificates being made, and although there is an explanation done later for that, it doesn't solve the problem before it started being one. There are also lack of autopsies done on the corpses of these people like that isn't even a choice, and was only brought up once and refused. You see, one way the series tries to justify it, is that vampires have a hypnotic effect on the people they end up biting. However, this hypnotic effect only works on who they have had bitten, and they haven't bitten the family members or the remaining people who wouldn't even have a say in the matter, especially if they were the last person in that family to die. The village also tries to claim that they can't really communicate with the government anymore, at some point, but all you have to do is use a car and fuck off, or maybe use a fucking phone. You can still get help from the outside. And if they chose to, this whole story would've been very different. The plot really goes through hurdles to try and justify why it is still going in the direction it is going, because the vampires wouldn't have a convenient setup. And there is one point where one of the characters says "I'm sorry x, but we can't think that way due to modern rationalism." which is the most artificial way to present disbelief ever. That's the same as making a character say "that person is no longer capable of placing one foot in front of the other in a repeated fashion in over to travel large distances in a fast motion" when they notice a guy got tired of running.

In terms of writing the series has a few positives but eventually the series devolves into a cynical outlook on human cruelty, which I can't give much details on because that goes into late game spoilers. But it mostly stems out of the fact that is it immoral that they kill to eat? But when you really think about it, the series asks whether or not it is right to kill to survive? But you can see it is impossible to survive without killing by simply drinking a glass of blood, which is given as a choice. You see, the show is very hypocritical of the humans, but very lenient on the vampires, even if some of them act like serial killers that pick only a type of person they suck blood from sadistically, having a specific MO of killing. If you went to hunt, and shot a deer, and as it lay there dying and scared, you should proceed to stomp the fuck out of it rather than mercy kill it, you're a fucking dickbag. A lot of the vampires act exactly like that and the series treats human as needlessly cruel and the vampires as an endangered species at points, being really forgiving of the cruel acts done by the vampires and very lenient of the "misdeeds" of the humans. This will somehow get worse at one point, but I can't go into detail then, where neither side will be remotely believable anymore. There are still some decent moments that do deal with morality, which is why I claim that the cruelty in it is very cynical, it's not that I think the writer is incapable, but rather that he was terribly cynical and has forsaken the possible nuance the characters could have.

Any depth they could have was done over with the simplfication of how unconflicted they would be in morally grey situations. Which wasn't the case for the entirety of the series and there are some characters that still have some duality to who they are, even by the end, but they are few and far between and most characters act cartoonishly and very simplistic. Basically they're a collective conciousness. Which completely fucks everything, because the moral dillema the series poses becomes very flawed. It's not that you should root for both sides, neither side, one side or the other. It's that you can't be in the moral highground if you do for either. It's that the sides aren't consistent to what they want and act against their own moral preachings and don't think practically to any degree. Anyway, this is as far as I will go about morality. I can only be vague as to spoil you and have merely given you a clue about the direction the series will take through this. I'd talk about a few characters that succeed as an arc, but those are the good part of the series that I'd rather you go on with them unspoiled.

If you can tackle the problems I've described with the series going in, then you should be safe. But in my case, not only were the characters impractical, but they also became wildly irrational, and I ended up disagreeing with everyone's sense of morality. And this made it feel really edge. Horrifying for the point of being horrifying. Cruel for the sake of being cruel. This whole situation they've been through could be solvable in a wild variety of ways that could've solved things for everyone. The events were avoidable and the characters were unbearable. The story simply became unsatisfying and just some animated gore and some disturbing visuals aren't enough to horrify or entertain me. I could describe what exactly the moral dillema was, but that's a spoiler so I'm sorry if I'm being vague, bbut I will give more details later in the review if you decide you are willing to sit through more spoilery information or just have given up on the idea of watching the series.

You see, I think you should watch this show if you really want to see edge, because it's filled to the brim with it. The main character is edgy, the moral dillemas are often edgy. And it gets ridiculously so after a certain point. Even so, it will take a long time to get to metallingus edgimus maximus, and will even have some good questionable grey morality outlines at some points, even if the edge will be constantly present, but don't worry, those get largely overshadowed by the end of the series. It is filled with convenient actions and consequences that feel shoehorned in. I don't advice to watch this series, as a thriller, as a drama or as a mystery but rather as an edgy vampire romp. It doesn't remotely excel in any of the things it sets out to do, and even if there are some elements that almost get there, but due to that, it might get really fun to watch because of how atrocious everything gets. Everything gets terribly written by the end, and as such, seeing everything crumble into a terrible edgefest might be what you will enjoy. The edgeparty is what will happen, but it will take its time to get there, so keep that in mind. If you want any more information, past what I've already given, you can continue reading this review, to understand what my exact problem is with the morality of the show, since you can understand how I see things as incoveniences and how I found the characters appalling due to their traits in the first part of the review. Don't read past this paragraph if you want to avoid plot specific spoilers as I will go all in & make your choice on whether to watch or avoid this series on whether or not you can enjoy hardcore edgy vampire melodrama.

• How the endgame gets fucked up (Full on plot specific spoilers from the ending of the anime and its course)

So, at the end of the anime, the doctor manages to prove that a vampire is a vampire and they end up killing said vampire and the villagers start a purge on them. Now the vampires and the anime itself start arguing that the villagers are evil because, unlike the vampires, they don't kill just to feed themselves, when you can simply just make the argument they are killing them so they can survive, since they were their food. If a boar kills you, when you are hunting them so you would have some food on your plate tonight, your family isn't gonna sue the boar to send it to jail because it did something immoral. It killed its hunter to survive. Same case scenario here. But note that the humans will not be without fault too. Because while they do kill the vampires because the situation kinda forces them to, they are extremely casual and horrific about it. The women will casually speak about how they are middle aged women as they are throwing piles of corpses. The men will attack any hypnotized people and kill them, despite the fact it isn't by their own choice that they take that course of action. They will throw away any morality they had and empathy.

And the vampires are just as annoying. Plenty of the vampires made the choice to kill sadistically and without thinking about how their victims would feel, and had no regard of whether or not they could establish a peaceful resolution. You see, there is a valid choice for a vampire to either drink blood from a glass, or suck blood from a human as an initiation right. So that is proof enough that they could probably drink blood from outside the human's body. So, if they chose, to accept blood samples from donors from the village or anywhere else in order to survive, they would have had no reason to kill. So they aren't killing in order to survive either. There are clear collaborators they could get that would be more than willing to help with the blood. Aside of that, there are vampires that do get sadistic pleasure out of their killings, and even choose an MO on who to kill, when and how and even have vendettas on certain people they used to know. And when they start acting in a manner where they are like, this is horrible and humans are horrible they become even more disgusting.

You see I sided with neither side because of each side's action. I could forgive incompetence from either side, but not lack of self awareness. Not feeling any sort of conflicting emotions when killing former acquaintances and relatives is something both sides are guilty of. They are both monsters. They don't have complex human emotions, they're just part of one sick twisted game that believes that is how these people would act in the given situation, without understanding how conflicted they could get in such a confrontation. That's why it became full on edge. Everyone on each side is a shitlord.

It is really the only thing I had left to explain. Now, as I've said formerly in the review, I'd just repeat myself, so choose wisely on whether or not to watch this series. It becomes a real edgefest at one point, and if you are looking for that, you can squeeze enjoyment out of it regardless how bad you may consider it. There's plenty of series I went into with that mindset, that I've ended up enjoying while being completely aware that are awful. If you have some of those examples yourselves, you might like Shiki despite the spoilers I gave. For me, it's far more dissapointing because Shiki had some potential to be a heavily flawed anime that still manages to be somewhat decent, but it doesn't, because it is simply far too cynical.

I remember the first time I had ever heard of Twilight. It was my freshman year of high school and some friends and I were sitting around shooting the shit and someone made a mention of vampires. Since there were girls there and me being the dumb teenage boy I was, I tried to sound badass by saying “I wouldn’t worry about it. I’ll get some holy water, a cross, a steak and we’ll be fine.” My friend who we will refer to as ScreamingCrazyTwilghtLoverSpendingEverydayStaringLonginglyAtHerEdward/BellePosterWhileWritingCreepyFanFictionsAboutGettingButtProbedByJacob or Twatzilla for short gave me a look like I just shat myself and tried to wipe the excrement on ... her leg and stupidly replied with “That won’t do anything.” I was dumbfounded. “What do you mean it won’t do anything? That’s what you use to kill vampires.” Twatzilla continued to give me this look like I had grown a third head out of my chest and it was cursing at her in some sort of alien language just insisted that “No you can’t kill a vampire like that.” Twatzilla then went on to explain all of the nuances of the Twilight saga to me as I continued contemplating the quickest way to make her shut her stupid fucking mouth.

Well thankfully Shiki has nothing to do with that Twilight fagifying of vampires where they’re just a bunch of mopey emo disco balls. They are by the book steak to the heart, can’t go out in sun light, and must be invited in vampires. This may sound a bit spoiler-ish but one of the genres for the series straight up says “vampire” so if you didn’t know that already you probably are the kind of person who likes to huff paint for fun.
Now I believe that story is pretty much generic. Some vampires move in, people start disappearing, a group of people who aren’t pants on head retarded figure it out but no one believes them yada yada yada. So basic vampire affair but it does get some points in my book for keeping it to the traditional vampires but Shiki does take some liberties with vampires any way. Like remember how Dracula used to dress like he had just gotten off working the register at the local Hot Topic? Well these vampires tend to walk around in street clothes which isn’t necessarily a bad thing but when one in particular vampire we’ll just call her Whore-Tits McGee walks around in such little clothing that she would almost certainly be called out for public indecency you’ve done something wrong. Another thing that’s a bit fucked up is the hair of most characters, both humans and vampires alike. A disturbing amount of characters in Shiki seem to do their hair by stepping into a wind tunnel full of hairspray and moose, it almost makes me wonder if there isn’t some chemical in the water that cause everyone’s hair to have so some sort of weird erection. Then there is the one vampire who’s built up to be like an unstoppable badass and could be used to great effect in scarring the shit out of people but he looks like he has two stalagmites growing out of his head which he is trying desperately to cover up with his hair and he dresses and acts a complete fag. I laughed out loud in one scene where he rode up on a motorcycle in some sort of maroon button up leather outfit that I would image a transsexual lesbian would wear and the best part was he had on a pair of sunglasses that could only be described as douche goggles and it was night time.
One of the biggest let downs in Shiki is that it has a very inconsistent tone. Near the beginning it has a really creepy morbid feeling to it which I really found entertaining. It truly unnerving to see a girl previously thought dead to show up under your friend’s bed and proceed to suck his blood without you being able to do anything about it. But then it starts to get more generic. It gets bogged down a lot with tons of worthless characters that I don’t give a shit about and the worst part is when tragedy befalls them, they try to make you feel bad. It’s really quite sad because what could have been a morbid depressing moment turns laughable because the characters are so poorly written I almost jump with joy every time one of them bites the dust in a gruesome way which probably reflects poorly on me as a person but that’s beside the point. A lot of the middle of the show is spent wandering around in boredom waiting for everyone else to figure out what’s going on even though it is painfully obvious. During the majority of the series it seems like nothing is happening like the series is just treading water trying to bide its time till the ending
And the ending incidentally is the worst part of this series. Now imagine that an anime is like a stuffed crust pizza. Shiki is a pizza that starts of delicious with your choice of unsettling toping but as you go one it start to taste like cardboard and then when you get to the crust you find that it’s stuffed with a bunch of used condoms. So to sum it up Shiki is about a bunch of dodleing retards and flamboyant vampires fapping about doing nothing of interest.

Glaring inconsistencies in plot and characterisation.
Writers that draw from the well of idiocy far too often for any form of internal consistency or logical story to be maintained - in a two word phrase, "contrived stupidity"
Poorly executed attempts at gravity in subject matter and problematic pacing both secondary to the poor writing.

1:
Another two episodes and the idiocy compounds. Frequency and quantity of "Why didn't they do X?", "Why did they do Y?" and "Wait, Z doesn't make any sense" moments now exceeding critical annoyance threshold. Series is now actively irritating.

2:
The final epsiodes had a certain drama to them: they were almost entertaining.
One sees where ... they were trying to take the series, but the execution is ultimately very unsatisfying - a real pity, given the kind of incredible zero-sum feeling it could have achieved.

...
and just imagine how they could have avoided all that nastiness with the tiniest amount of communication and a well managed blood bank.

As for someone who is big on horror, thriller, slice of life, etc, I find this anime rather hard to watch. I knew a lot of people who have watched it & found it amazing, so I gave it a shot, & by the end of watching it I was disappointed. As much as I wanted to like it I just couldn't. The characters are really just annoying, poorly thought out, & sometimes even forgetable. The main character was too typical emo styled, & well I'm not going to lie I felt the only person who had any credibility was the doctor, who I felt ... was a badass, all the other characters just seamed too mellow or too typical. The story was decent I give it that but after a while it started to get real dragged out & over time you just stop caring, there were some fucked up moments I give it that, but the story was just that, decent, not great, but not the worst, the way it ended just made me upset because in the end you want to know more about what happened to the other villagers. But here is the thing, who really cares about this story, as to you don't know what the characters were like before the incident happened, or hell even after, so therefore you couldn't care for them due to lack of flashbacks & character development, you get small backstory on some characters but that's about it, I also hated how they didn't really make the main character seam like the main character until later in the story, the artist & writer threw tits into the first episode to seam to get people watching, & well it seamed to work.

The art was decent, but it seamed low budget for something that had done so well as it did, enjoyable but low budget, there wasn't much to complain about. The sound, as far as soundtrack it was good, seamed generic though, the Japanese dub was decent for what it was, much preferred to the English dub, which the English dub also sounded low budget, surprisingly Funimation didn't do a better job, the dub could have been better. I enjoyed the anime a little bit, but I doubt I will really go back to watch this anime,it just didn't leave a good taste in my mouth, maybe someone else will like this anime, but I didn't as much as I should have.

I went into Shiki after hearing lots of good things about it. I'm left wondering where those good things are.

Story-4
There are really two parts to the overall story of Shiki. The first is the "horror" part.

Vampires in a small village, mass killings, etc. The usual stuff. Shiki starts out well with this for the most part but plays the majority of its cards too early leaving for very few surprises in the endgame.

Shiki is rarely unpredictable when it comes to the plot, though that isn't necessarily a bad thing. By not trying to outwit the viewer, it can excel at times in presenting what ... you came to see, vampire horror. At least early on.

Unfortunately Shiki suffers from chronic horror movie. That being that for some reason, an entire village could be wiped out without doing anything more then saying "well, lot's of people have died lately. Maybe there is sickness going around?" The ending even felt like your typical horror movie. Which is not a good thing in any sort of way.

The real problem is that rather than build up the vampires into fearsome opponents, a 180 is attempted to have the viewer look at things from a new perspective. I'm sad to say that it is a sorry attempt.

Imagine reading a history book that tries to make you sympathize with Nazi soldiers working at a concentration camp. Seems laughable right? Well now imagine that same book, only with whiny Nazis who spent 3/4 of that book saying how killing prisoners didn't matter/was their right. All the while going "woe is me"...If that sounds good to you then Shiki is calling your name.

The above is primarily the second part of Shiki, the "ethical questions". The trouble is that except for one exception, there are no times in which I ever wondered what the right thing to do should be. The "grey" areas really are fairly black and white.

Art-7
The overall look of Shiki works well. Backgrounds, objects, movement, and such all work well. Character models are fine though some characters' hair may be jarring at first. When more intense scenes are done, the art style changes slightly for a more gritty look which can give off a reasonably discomforting feeling (which is a good thing). On another note, I could never figure out if the Shiki eyes were just for the viewer to discern who is dead and who isn't, or if the people in the village were able to see them as well, since 100% black/blue eyes are a bit of a obvious give away that nobody seemed to notice...ever.

Sound-7
Shiki's music isn't the kind that will leave a lasting impression on most people but it does its job and accomplishes it well. Both OPs are interesting and worth a few listens (though the 2nd OP doesn't quite fit Shiki's atmosphere). The music within the show, again, works well. Basically, the music adds to the atmosphere whether it's tense or philosophical or whatever.

Voice acting is pretty solid all around, with nothing to complain about.

Character-3
This will be lengthy as Shiki has lots of characters and some need to be mentioned specifically.

I recognized from the start that Shiki never really intended to have major character development. It was simply a matter of showing how particular kinds of people dealt with particular situations. That was fine, some of my favorite stories of any media use that kind of approach to characters. The trouble is that for this kind of approach to work, one either needs to be able to sympathize with characters, or appreciate some kind of morale situation they are forced to confront. Shiki, for the most part, doesn't allow for either.

Ozaki was the best part of Shiki. His character was the most interesting and developed. I genuinely liked him and thought he would be the push Shiki needed to turn into something truly engrossing. While it didn't turn out that way, it's fair to say that Ozaki was a solid character and worth singling out here.

Natsuno starts out fine and continues throughout Shiki at that same level of fine. Basically, he never changes. Ever. Which is a shame because instead of watching his progression as a character, he ends up being used as a kind of plot device who seems to get less screen time than other less important characters. At least he is likable I suppose.

Tomio Ookawa isn't even a truly important character but I had to mention him because I just loved this guy by the end. When he spoke (read: shouted in a manly way) I payed attention.

As for the rest, there is a large cast of village characters of varying importance and you will (surprisingly) most likely know the majority of their names. You may even start to care a little for them. Sounds promising right? Except that they never really do anything, or if they do then it's done off screen with only the barest mention of the occurrence later on.

Megumi-sympathy level=0. I'll just leave it at that.

MINOR SPOILERS CONCERNING THE BELOW CHARACTER
Sunako is a piece of work. I decided to withhold judgement on her character until the end of the show. I kept waiting for her constant "Philosophical" (yes it does deserve to be in quotations) speeches to start being, well, valid? That's a big mistake. On hand she cries about being "forsaken by god". On the other she sees nothing wrong with mass murder for the sake of her own life. The "forsaken by god" thing bother me especially. What does religion of any sort have to do with her condition? There was no mention of the afterlife to make me believe that she or any shiki would be damned or something of that sort.
A metaphor then for the way she must now survive? Well even that isn't fully explained. Perhaps the manga explains it better but within the anime no explanation (that I noticed) accounted for why she or any shiki had to kill people rather than just take a meals worth of blood and leave that person alone until they recovered, moving on to a new victim. From start to finish she sounds like a whiny, selfish, useless brat and that is just about the extent of her character.
END OF MINOR SPOILERS

Seishin is a horrible character. This man makes no sense at all (okay, he makes some sense but he is still a horrible character). He starts out as a kind of supporting character for Ozaki and then devolves into pure mush. After lots of thought about him I feel comfortable saying that I understand his character and why he chose to do certain things. The trouble is that his character isn't strong enough to get away with those reasons, leaving him look like he is just a puppet.

Enjoyment-3
The trouble with enjoying Shiki is this. Want horror? You can have it for maybe 3 episodes that are spaced out through the other 22 (24 counting OVAs). Want some grey area, philosophical questioning? Well you can have it as long as you don't actually think about what the characters are saying or said previously or you will then realize what a load of bull you are being asked to swallow (with the exception of one poor sap who just couldn't win and who sorta kinda got the girl, sorta). I actually laughed at (with?) Shiki more than I was nervous or thoughtful. That's right, I'll say it again. I liked Shiki more as a comedy than I did anything else. The 2nd OVA especially had me dyeing laughing at a series of events that was in no way meant to be funny. To be quite honest, If I re watched this series while going into it looking to laugh, I would rate it higher.

Overall-3
Shiki could have chosen to focus on horror or ethics but instead doesn't really succeed with either one. Art and sound are both fine. Majority of characters don't succeed in promoting any emotional attachment or ethical quandary.

Warning to all that my reviews contain traces of mature language,so if you are allergic to that i suggest to have an epipen or take your leave now.
Hello kids!Wanna know what it is to be so bored out of your mind that u might actually start having thoughts of harming your self and those around you while your logic is being gangraped?Yes?Then watch this anime and you are sure to turn into Charles Manson overnight.

Shiki,or Corpse Demon,is effectively the story of a village in the middle of nowhere being subjected to a mysterious string of unexplainable deaths..
Now as stories go this sounds interesting,this is like ... an angel singing naked.I thought so too..But as it turned out this was a case of good premise bad writing.For one it's WAAAAAAAAYYYYYY too long..22 eps that could easily be 10.It's so slow paced and not because it needs to be cause the story is so complex.It's slow cause it wants to actually make your life seem meaningless.By the time u reach halgway through it u can sense your life being drained away from u.The deaths occuring throughout the series are,of course,being caused by vampires.While they take their sweet time coming out and saying it,it's pretty obvious from a really early stage.
But don't tell any of the characters that,because they don't like to rush themselves.They take their sweet time working it out.Over half the story is dedicated to watching the cast struggle to grasp something you worked out by the second episode,which is effectively this show's most crippling weakness.

What i mean is the bitemarks for example..The most glaring issue of all..All victims had one thing in common..ONE!Was it a machete stuck through their necks?Nope..Was it a pencil driven through their pringle jumpers?Nope..Maybe once it crossed their minds that it had something to do with it but then they forgot..Seems legit to u guys and gals?Aside from the symptoms themselves,this is the only thing that every single victim has in common.But the medical staff don't even try to explain it.On top of that,every patient died of severe anaemia,but had no rational way of losing so much blood.Except the bitemarks,the only possible explanation and a plain and simple way of putting the only two loose ends together.

And then they realise it.And what do u suppose they do?They take another half of the damn series to sink it in.And while they do that everyone is dying.And i mean everyone.

Characters then are the people u would normally punch to death.Less likeable than the man that murdered your mother.All stupid beyond repair.And when they die u are left with a sense of happiness..The only thing that somehow saves the day is the finale..But here's the thing.3 eps don't save it lads.Too little too late.

Animation was bad.I know for example that in anime hair are somewhat similar to the 80's hairstyles.But the 80's were a drug fueled era and no one remembers that much anyway.A black era in history then coming back to life through Shiki.

I have nothing else to say.Nothing stuck out.Never once did i find my self on the edge of my seat..There was no passion,no soul.And it shows in the way it delivers u vast amounts of yawn.

To paraphrase Harry Enfield, I've got two words for Shiki: Shite. Shite.

For starters, the first thing anybody notices within any piece of animation is how good or bad the animation itself is, and in most anime, I've found in most instances it's not very noteworthy, as it's usually made by large companies with equally large budgets, and they always manage to get it right, even if in most instances it's not utilised to the fullest degree it can, but that's not a complaint. What is a complaint is the undeniable fact that the art of Shiki is simply bad, no two ways about it, The ... animation was convincing, but that's to be expected by anything more advanced than lego stop motion made by one bloke. It clearly wasn't a Welcome to the NHK scenario either, the art direction was off, and it suits me to say that this was probably because the art of the original work from which this was adapted was just as bad. Correspondingly, the sound design was just as bad. The sound effects were good enough not to draw my attention, but the voice acting was quite uninspired, and the music in particular was especially weak. It's just the generic somewhat ominous sounding sort you'd expect in a horror, except here it feels exceptionally cheaply done, it feels like they didn't compose the music, but rather, they just looked up "scary music free download mp3 no virus" and clicked on the first result they found.

So, the story. Some rural Japanese village in which a large number of people are mysteriously dying and a doctor, along with a monk are trying to figure out what precisely it is. Turns out it was vampires and they've got to get rid of them, I'd under normal circumstances give a warning for 'spoilers', but not here, this is a matter of principle, it was so excessively poor there is nothing to spoil, if anything by revealing the story like this I've done you a service. I've only seen one medical drama myself, and that's House, a series with many similarities to the Sherlock Holmes series. Excluding that BBC series that was apparently bad, the books by ACD were all self-contained stories, as well as the episodes of House which, as a television series, would be adequately described as episodic. Of course, this was a deliberate decision, murder mysteries, and medical mysteries (which Shiki is both of, in a sense) are far more effective with short, self-contained stories, because you cannot drag out a single case for so long, but Shiki had a different idea. For at least the first 15 episodes, it's as slow and painful in pacing as death from infection in a World War I field hospital. Many of the first episodes matter naught, with tons of characters introduced through an intertitle (and some generic eerie sounding piece which just got annoying), most characters amounting to fuck all. Really, the show should be called "Doctor versus Vampires", because that's all it fucking is, even Megumi, the 15 year old girl who becomes a vampire very early on who tries to protect Yuuki should be a main character, she definitely has the most screentime of any singular vampire, yet the relationship between these two amounts to nothing. As the doctor finds out, the only way to kill these vampires is through a stake to the heart, and it's also revealed to the viewer that crosses and other Christian symbolism seems to deter them (a bit odd since they're Japanese), and, for some reason, the vampires cannot enter people's homes until they're invited. What were they thinking? How can you possibly make a creature like this seem terrifying, when it also can't go out during sunlight? These vampires are as much of a danger as making sure to look both ways before crossing the street, but wait, there's more.
Here's a question for you: what is worse than a series with writing so genuinely awful that it makes The Room seem Shakespearean? The answer is, a series with writing that awful, but attempts to dress itself up with awfully written philosophy and morality, that only serves to embarrass itself. Here's the summary: The vampires (or Risen) must drink the blood of someone once per day to survive, and the person who was bitten, after a few days of sickness, will become a Risen also. Now, I never went to law school, but it seems to me as though the Risen have no right to exist at all. They must kill others in order to survive, and the second one Risen feeds off the blood of a human, the ponzi scheme has been created, which will never be paid off, ending in the ultimate demise of both the humans and the Risen. Yet, for some reason, they try and depict it as though the humans are just as bad, and it really fucks me off, because they aren't. Risen need to kill others to survive, and ultimately cannot sustain their own lives, and will end the life of another species in the process. Humans do not need to kill any species in order to survive, and so, if I was a judge determined in settling who was in the right, I'd be done saying that the humans were after 5 minutes, and fine the Risen for having wasted the court's time. It seems like the most basic thing conceivably possible, if you want to have moral greyness, actually make the morality fucking grey, rather than this bungled abomination.

In conclusion, Shiki is perhaps the worst thing I've ever watched, in every parameter it is a disastrous failure. The art is ugly as sin. The voice acting feels like it was recorded in a single take, by people who didn't care, the music is beyond generic, and the writing is quite possibly the worst I've ever had to have the displeasure encountering, and it trying to pretend to be something bigger than it is does it no favours, I detested Kakegurui, but I will give that show praise for its honesty, it didn't try and pretend to be anything other than what it was, but I cannot say the same here. It truly is beyond me how something so unbelievably poor got greenlit, someone fucked up, and someone needs to be hanged for it.

at first everything about it seems interesting, everyone seems innocent, even the vamps, you know somethings gonna happen, but it cant be all that bad, maybe things will turn out different

oh and suddenly it all turns stupid, everybody shows their "true colours", and nobodies innocent

well except for the vegan vamps, who were all fair game apparently

"pitchforks for everyone"

this anime just seems like an excuse for somebodies gore fetish, the whole plot just turns into garbage

... its like reading an account about a witch trials or something, only in the modern age, and apparently nuance is still entirely lost on everyone

i guess it tries to humanise vampires, but nobody even got a chance before they were all burnt at the stake

and its not even interesting or unique in the way it delivers the plot, its just goes from 0 to full nutjob like the flick of a switch, and there's absolutely no explanation, nor any brakes on the crazy train

it would actually make sense if it turned out to be a giant experiment, and the reason people went ballistic was because the water was being pumped with drugs or something

there's just something off about the entire thing

A short and simple review of this anime. I'll be as blunt as possible, no offence intended at fans of this anime. Spoilers minimized.

Story: 3/10
- Pacing far too slow. Could've easily been a 12 episode anime
- Creator takes a passive stance i.e. It is unclear whether he wishes to side with the good or evil as the story seems to slant in the favor of either interchangeably
- Several information loopholes here and there.
- Inconsistent character development i.e. Far too many characters. Story does not follow the perspective of a main character, but rather switches between 2-3 of them. There is also no reason ... why a few characters are emphasised, such as megumi. Most importantly (and in contrast), there is a severe lack of development for characters on the "evil" side.
- Plot itself is fair, could've been much better if it was more compact and if there was substantial character development.
- Came for the horror (like Another), didn't get it
- Ending not satisfying (at all)

Art: 6/10
- Fair. Just like your standard anime.

Sound: 7/10
- Pretty fitting music. Plus point.

Character: 4/10
- Characters are portrayed as lifelike as possible, so don't expect any supreme fighter etc
- Most of the characters reacted to situations as though as they were 3 year olds (a major flaw that gets you really triggered)
- Decent character growth/progression for two of the main characters, albeit a little too late and rushed
- Too many supporting cast
- Prepare to face really detestable characters

Enjoyment: 3/10
- Definitely nowhere near Another
- Many issues compounded (pacing, characters, story progression), resulting in a frustrating watch

Overall: 4/10
- Wouldn't recommend this
- Wouldn't rewatch
- Watch if you really wish to spend time on anime and have no other alternatives

This anime frustrates me and pisses me off! It was a slow, excruciatingly painful crawl from start to finish for me. I have no idea why the anime has to be this long. Heck, I love long anime if it’s good, but this was definitely a waste of my time. Gosh, it’s horrible. Yes, I like mystery. Yes, I like horror. And yes, I like vampire stories that are not the typical Twilight bullshit that most girls like, which is the reason why I started watching this horrid of an anime in the first place.

For Shiki, I rate it 2 out of 10 overall, and ... I consider that to be generous. Why? Well, damn, here are the reasons why I hate it so much.

THE CHARACTERS:

Okay, I’ll be honest here I dislike most of the characters in this anime, with the exception of one or two; Nutsuno Yuuki and the two kids who figure out it’s the vampires who cause all the sudden deaths in the village. But even for them, I find my likable-meter struggling because of their lack of action, stupidity, and naivety. Well, I’ll give them some credit for at least taking some sort of action, sleuthing around for evidence to prove their theory that the dead really does turn into vampire or Shiki or whatever... but that’s all.

The character I dislike most is the stupid priest. God, he annoys me with his attitude of ‘I won’t kill whether it’s human or animal’. Are you kidding me? Dude, I understand you’re a priest and you don’t kill because of your religion and your belief, but can you really just stand by and watch your friends and the people you care about in the village getting killed? The guy manages to further roil my temper by aiding, yep you read it right, he’s aiding the vampire escaping and all that shit. Of course I understand that he himself got turned into a vampire as the story progresses, but hell, he has this sort of weird connection with the girl vampire since the beginning, liking the fact that she comforts him when he’s depressed because of the mounting deaths and the fact that she likes his novels, raves on about it, and moves into the small villages because it. Freaky! Needless to say, I simply don’t care whether this dude is dead or alive, which of course he’s both being a vampire. ^_^

Then of course there’s the doctor. Dude, I understand you’re a doctor. I totally understand all of your explanations about normocytic, normochromic anemia and PHN and hemolysis and all those hematology terms because you know what? I’ve studied those at university and have been working in the hematology lab analyzing and diagnosing blood samples for a number of years. I totally appreciate you explaining all of those because, man, that’s awesome. But heck, you’re a doctor, shouldn’t you alert the citizen if you suspect there’s an epidemic going on instead of keeping the damn thing to yourself? You should tell your nurses to put out posters to warn people about the possible infection and all that jazz. You should be telling them to immediately come into the clinic for an examination with the first sign of suspected symptoms. Jesus! There are so many loopholes in this story in terms of simple logic that it makes my head spin. What doctors in their right minds want to keep such an important discovery to themselves? They’d be eagerly sharing their findings/results, and more importantly, worries with other doctors in a group meeting/consultation, because you know what? That happens on a weekly basis in a normal clinic/hospital where cases are presented in a conference among doctors and nurses and other medical professionals, sharing possible causes, diagnosis, and cures. And in a small village like this story, surely they have a main branch in which they could consult? Oh yeah, there is another bigger hospital in a town close to the village, isn’t there? So why the heck doesn’t that so called smart doctor drive over and have a damn consultation? Instead of consulting a priest of all people who has questionable past (the slit scare on the wrist) and questionable mentality? Even better, ask for support and help say from the government? Surely, after nineteen consecutive deaths it should ring an alarm bell? Heck, three to four deaths with similar symptoms in the same area should already ring an alarm bell where the medical team would spring into action like the devil is on their heels to claim their heads.

One last character that needs mentioning in term of my dislike is the stupid pink hair girl. God, she annoys me with her day dreaming fantasy about super stardom. Ugh! Grow up and get a life, girl. Needless to say, I’m totally satisfied when they hack her in the end. Thank God! She deserves that painful death. Although I’m not sure if she can feel any pain since she’s a vampire. But the screaming….?

THE ART:

Is okay for most of the characters of the village citizen, and of course, the mains. But the vampires and some odd-balls with questionable personalities? Definitely not a fan. The hair, the eyes, and the clothing looks like they belong in a theatre doing opera instead of a dark anime. Sorry, but they’re weird. Heck, I like weird and quirkiness art, but this is not one of those. To prove a point, I love the art of Mononoke. One of the best anime and art form I’ve ever seen. The story line is superb and the voice acting brilliant. In saying that thought I love Sakurai Takahiro, so I am a bit bias in that regard.

So on to the VOICE ACTING/SOUND then:
It’s okay. No comment. End.

THE STORY:

In my opinion, it’s full of bullshit and loopholes where no simple logic comes in to play and where normal people would have never acted the way the characters act in this story. Heck, I could probably come up with a better plot than this. In a nut shell, vampires move into the small villages. They kill and turn people into vampire-like-zombie-servants. The main characters (doctor, priest, high school dude with blue hair, and the siblings) figure it out and works together to kick these bastards out of their town for good, killing them in the most awesome action-packed, gore, thrill ride ever! HAPPY, SATISFIED ENDING!

All right, I do apologize for my ranting, but the anime just frustrates me, and I can’t hold back. Yep, I’m so frustrated I have to skip a few episodes, and you know what, I don’t think I’ve missed anything that important.

OVERALL:
So here’s my recommendation. If you hate stupid, unlikable characters, plot full of stupid loopholes, slooooooow built up that makes you want to throw your laptop against the wall, and barely satisfied ending, then DO NOT WATCH this anime.

If you’re still keen, however, go right on ahead. You might have a different taste and you might like it. Who knows? We’re all different, after all. Now I need to find a good anime to watch to wash away this disgusting after-taste that is resulted from this anime.

Story: 3/10.
Unoriginal story, a small village starts losing its citizens one by one dying in mysterious but similar ways. A select few try and figure out what's going on, leaving their minds open to every solution, but the vast majority just give up and accept the deaths as "it's gonna be what it's gonna be". The characters slowly lose their sanity as their family and friends die out, or turn into "shiki", a ripoff of the vampire concept. The only actual plot is that the progression of the village full of despiseable characters slowly die off and get turned into these shiki. The "plot" is ... slightly driven by Megumi, very similar to Myne from Shield Hero, but more on that later.

Art: 2/10.
I'm more of a fan of the modern look to anime myself so I'm a bit biased, but nothing else in this show makes me want to go easy. Picture 30-40 differently colored and textured Slendermen, and then you can picture what 99% of the characters look like. The birds-eye views of the village are the only backgrounds that look good, the rest is repetitive shots of the same background and settings. There's no CGI which is respectable, but it still manages to look awkward and clunky.

Sound: 4/10.
The sound isn't bad. It goes along with the rest of the bleak theme of the show and successfully creates an environment in which you're always cautious.

Characters: 2/10.
Nobody in this story is at all likeable. Except for Toru.
The main antagonist (and the first to turn into a Shiki) is a 15yr old girl named Megumi. She dreams of one day leaving the country-bumpkin lifestyle to become an idol, to fulfill her destiny of becoming something greater than these idiots around her could ever become. Megumi is one of the laziest-written, one-note, despiseable characters I have ever come across. Because of her "dreams", she only likes things that remind her of life outside her village. That unfortunately includes Natsuno Yuuki, a kid from the city with obnoxious "I'm not going to do anything I don't want to just to be a rebel" type of parents. For zero reason at all other than that he's from the city, M is obsessed with N. She sits outside his window when alive, staring in and hoping for a glance (which is creepy as shiz), and once she dies, she turns anyone into a shiki around him to "punish them for taking her Yuuki's affections". She turns N's best friend Toru because he was "getting too close" to him. She bites her best friend Kaori's dad because her friend was "having too much fun together with N", dooming her due to the Shiki's nature to go after their family. (By the way, K was working with her brother Akira and N to try and figure out why everyone was dying, not really an activity that allows for spicy romantic feelings to develop.)
I could go on about how much I despise M. I could mention that she's a blatant ripoff of Yuno Gasai of Mirai Nikki, who shares the same Yandare qualities, hair color/style, and even crushes on a boy of the same name. I could mention that she does literally nothing but continue to stalk N for the entirety of the series. But the other characters, while a bit more likeable than M, are just as one-note. There is zero character development. Many of them simply exist to get killed off or turned into shiki. The cast is very similar to that of Rising of the Shield Hero, with none of the likeable characters existing.

Enjoyment/Overall: 1/10.
I wish I could rate it lower. I really wish I could. From generic characters to despiseable ones, from cheap thrills to various ripoffs of much better-written stories, in both characters and entire plot concepts, Shiki is a joke of a show. I had high hopes for it, since amongst Horror anime, it's one of the more reputable ones out there. I did not get anything out of watching it, and I hope you will not waste your time on this dumpster fire.

Shiki was a real treat to watch but not in a good way. Spoiler warning

The story 3/10
Shiki is meant to be a horror anime but it doesn’t deliver on that promise. It’s a really unique concept but it was executed really poorly. At the beginning, I thought it was going well and the town thinking it was a summer flu/epidemic did make the deaths and all weird behaviour of the sick townsfolk was a really believable concept to use. I also thought that using Megumi to haunt Kaori and her family, and using her, Natsuno and Akira (Her little brother) to find out if Megumi ... was in her gave or not, was a really cool idea but that’s around the time when they started killing off the town instead of progressing the story. They really lost me when that happened; they relied on that for way too long.

Then they went to killing off the Shiki, which was the final straw for me. They pretty much went full on gore fest. Those parts of the story are really boring and were a pain to go through. I feel like they had rushed the ending and decided to make it as repetitive as possible so they wouldn’t have to do much to change scenes. It started off really well but sadly ended up being really repetitive.

Art 4/10.
The art of Shiki felt really out of date. If I didn’t knew that it came out in 2010, I would have thought that it came in the late 90s/early 00s. It wasn’t really ugly to look at, it was actually pleasant, but it definitely would benefit from being updated.

Sound 6/10.
Shiki had a really good soundtrack and the ambient noises, random sound and whatnot, fit really well with the animes atmosphere.

Characters 2/10
Most of the characters in Shiki were really annoying. Megumi was really annoying during the first episode. Kaoria, Akira were just boring most of the time. Natsuno, Ozaki and Muroi are the best characters in the anime. The Kirishiki family and their servants were really annoying, especially Chizuru. Her personality was really annoying and way too cocky in my opinion. All the others are just forgettable and I barely remember any of their names.

Entertainment 3/10
Shiki despite all the flaws and the annoying characters, it wasn’t really that enjoyable to watch and was really tiring during most of the episodes but it does have some really redeeming qualities, the voice acting was really good, the opening and ending songs were really good but other than that, it was not the best.

Overall I give Shiki a 3/10. I can get why so many people enjoyed this anime but it was not for me. I hope you enjoyed reading this.
Peace!

My search began with Funimation for something horrific to watch with a compelling story; after finishing Higurashi, the intriguing storyline and characters made me wish to find another anime as good. Satisfying the need to watch a good horror as well as a plot that would keep viewers guessing until the very end. After completing Shiki, I felt the need to share my view.

When beginning the show it seemed slightly dull, as to be expected of some stories starting out. So I excused it a bit and continued to watch in hopes it would pick up yet, within the first two shows they redirect the ... path you assume you will be following completely. After this, only curiosity tempted me to continue in order to see how things would play out. Before you understand completely the reason any of the occurring events even matter, you have to watch at least into the eighth episode. The story's flow is painfully slow to the point of non-existent, yes, it goes back to the original view of vampires being evil. But, did not pay any focus on them long enough to bait you into caring. Over half of the show is watching cowering, or indifferent villagers, and could hardly be considered horror until the final quarter.

What kept me watching was the very nice artwork, fitting background music for each event, and the mystery shrouding everything in thick layers of darkness as expected of a good horror/thriller. Seeing as it was created by the makers of Kuroshitsuji, and after reading the synopsis I had high hopes this would be one of my favorite anime. Regretfully, it seems the layers were too thick.

Yet, my reasons for disliking it so strongly was the fact that it becomes very difficult to attach yourself to any of the characters seeing as there is so little to know about them, and so many different paths the story follows that once they finally collide, it still seems as though nothing coexists beyond the point of sharing grief or beliefs. That, and the fact that after enduring watching it to see the conclusion, the plot isn't even conclusive. I found the course of the idea seemed just, but a part of it completely rendered almost the entire show pointless.

In conclusion, the air of the horror genre and any sort of conclusive story is lost because the only thing this show seems to portray is profoundly depressing and hollow. As a person who gets attached to characters I was sad to see there was no feeling I felt, but disappointment in the fact there was no wholesomeness to make me care or hope. In that sense, Shiki truly captures the feeling of empty despair.

SPOILERS: Only recommend reading this if you're done, almost done, or gave up. Since I break down some of the characters in the story to explain why I disliked them so much.

Overall: 2 - Nothing much could have saved this show, from beginning to end I never really cared for the story or most of the characters.

Story: 2 - New people move in, people start dying left and right. Why? So we can have a village. Shiki side wonders why no one will accept them, then continues to murder people. Humans wonder why everyone's dying then continues to not care about people dying. Both sides ... suck, neither really has any real motivation going into the meat of the story outside of "we don't want to die". As the story progresses we learn that only a couple of the "main" characters are even involved in the story.

Art: 4 - Bit strange on episode 1, takes a bit to get used to. By the end I think the art team did a good enough job to bump this up. Not good, but not terrible.

Sound: 4 - We had voices, music(?), and sound effects. Nothing to write home about. Some others say the music was amazing, but honestly I can only remember the annoying first intro music from the first half the show. Nevertheless there was sound.

Character: 2 (1.5 honestly, but we'll round up) Where to start...
Megumi, a high fashion girl caught up in a small village, for no other reason than to... well there isn't really a reason and doesn't actually matter outside of episode 1-2 and ~10 minutes near the end. She didn't exactly add much outside of being a stalker to prove Shiki exist, removing a character, and taunting a couple others, oh and kicking the worst character in the face +2 for that (writer seemed like they really wanted a Yuno from Future Diary thing, but fell flat).
"Main" character, Yuuki. Provides almost nothing to the story outside of a few cheeky things in the second half. Why was he even added? He's a supporting character to his own cover. He's "OP" for the sake of having a young boy main character.
Real main character, Toshio. Ok, now we've got a real character doing something. Kind of annoyed that he just lets so many people walk off without talking to them in any way, but it's not as bad. Without many spoilers, this guy is actually one of the 3-4 characters you can give a s*** about (Along with Tooru, Tomio, and Ritsuko)
"Bad people", none of them matter, none of their stories are compelling in the least. In fact, why are there so many bad characters? It's like some bad fan fiction where someone wrote their story to have 100 characters who were interesting to them, but literally never developed them outside of "here they are". On that note, why are some of these characters even in the show? Masao is easily the most annoying character, and how I see the story boarding for this anime started, make the least enjoyable characters as a meme and see how many people love the show.

Enjoyment: 1 - Watching this and pushing through as part of the yearly challenge, and boy did the SO and I find it hard. The only thing that appeared to make some sense is the rules were mostly followed for the Shiki. Why did X get character development when they're just gone? Why is Y so stupid? What was the point of the overarching story about the priest's book? Did I just miss half the show and somewhere we tied in good/bad? Really rough I expected way better for such a highly rated anime.

Overall again 2 - If you like it, that's great. If you don't, I completely understand. This show could have been much better if the team sat down and cut out over half the cast, and built up the rest more. Cut the length down to 12 episodes, put some thought into people in the show actually f***ing talking to each other instead of just deciding that the dumpster fire going on was A-okay.

i watched this anime a long time ago and i dropped it, tbh i didnt know why so i gave it a second chance and rewatched it. and man was that a wast of time. and yes i read the comments.

my opinion is that this was one of the anime i cant appreciate. first the story was slow as hell, like nothing develop in the first like 5 ep, everything was the same over and over again. so i thought the characters was going to do something great and get the story moving but NOPE, the story just got even slower,fr the everyone in ... that anime was getting on my nerves. plus the shiki was the most annoying cuz they were the same person even when they turned but they didnt even care about their people, this goes to show how much they didnt care for their people and their little town. other then the god damn charactors and the story line everything was great sound and art.
most hated charactor in my opinion was the priest. like uhhhhhhh!!!!!!!