| The priest got the full front seat of seeing the vampire PoV, so he gets the license of possibly bringing about a change from the usual human vs vampire dynamics. He couldn't care less about betraying anyone. The doctor killing his own wife and the villagers killing their own folk just out of sheer paranoia made him side with nobody. He just cared mostly for the girl, it just turned out she was deep in the vampire side. Both the villagers and the vampires shows the human side. The vampires are a thought experiment on what human can become it they are suddenly gifted with powers that only thrive with harm. While the villagers themselves show the human capability for both violence and intellect to overcome unknown threats, the priest himself represents the human tendency to also have the capability to transform or assimilate from within, on empathising with a subject that feels antagonistic from the surface. Also the power of human emotions, which can drive them to do things that crumble the natural flow of things for something they rationally or irrationally want to protect. From the very beginning, this show was always about humans, including the seemingly supernatural beings. |
| "All truth is meaningless. In the end, 'meaning' comes from the mind of each individual human. Even when there is a single truth, it can mean different things to different individuals. The truth has no meaning in itself!" - Erika Furudo |
| Vampire cunny made him act unwise. |
 |
| I would absolutely side with a vampire loli over some smelly villagers. If anything, the priest is one of the most relatable characters ever. |
 |
| @texasfangirl1999 I feel the same way about Shiki. It is hard to find a fellow fan who feels this way about the anime. |
LucifrostDec 12, 2025 12:31 PM
| その目だれの目？ |
| Seishin is my spirit animal, he and Sunako my two loves from this series, and their relationship is the foundational backbone and one of the primary reasons this series catapulted into my Top 10 of all time, from which it has yet to be dislodged and superseded and quite possibly never will be. With all due respect, I think that you're just fundamentally misunderstanding and missing out on crucial info related to what drives and makes the character who he is, and it's all there interspersed at various points within the body of the show. Seishin Muroi, along with likely Masao, is probably the most widely hated character in the series (Masao is probably even more near-universally unlikable/disliked and unpopular, but you generally hear less badmouthing of him and less of that affecting individual viewers' overall opinion of and feelings toward the series since he's more of a minor character while Seishin is a main), so this is a criticism which has come up many times in many slightly different variations, but it's something you always hear both from people who dislike or hate the series and from people who otherwise like and even love it but this is the main niggling sticking point reason for why they can't be fully onboard as fans of it and dock it points in the rating. Here on the Shiki sub-forum on MAL and on other sites where the series has been discussed. It's a recurring persistent train of thought. But from what I've always gleaned from that line of argument based on everything else the folks say, and everything else you say in your post here, it's a case of clashing perceptions of what you thought the series originally was or trying to be or should be as opposed to what it actually is. That you want it to be a different series than it was in not entertaining the whole Seishin psychological complex, the greyness and moral ambiguity of the humans versus vampires conflict for supremacy in Sotoba, and all of that. You wanted a more clearcut clear line drawn between good guys and bad guys, and then everyone on the ostensibly "good" (which you'd view as the humans) side, despite their differences and problems between one another, despite any individual faults or quirks, would all ultimately band together in the end to eradicate the vampire menace, like a more standard horror and a lot of action horrors where the big bad of vampires, zombies, giant mutant spiders, etc. is united against and trounced in a grand showdown. Having some vampires/undead (including jinrou here) survive in the end - including the big boss who started it all, having some humans switch sides after internally questioning whether their own people and community, the life they knew before - whether it was all worth fighting for at all - that blurs the lines and makes thing messy and unable to be effectively placed into neat teams. But you know something? I think that makes it a better, more compelling story with a hell of a lot more interesting writing. To get closer to understanding Seishin's mindset and rationale behind his decisions and behavior - even if you regardless don't end up empathizing or agreeing with it, remember that he is also an author and pay close attention to the story of his and the wording of it - the roles the characters are assigned and how he sees them. I'm talking about the story centered on the two brothers and how he explains it when he relays it to Sunako. Remember that he already attempted suicide before the events of the series began. Remember that it was his vivid description in one of his stories of the isolated nature of the village and inherent morbidity of its historical trade as a source of funerary materials and how it felt like one large gravesite - how that was what the man playing the role of Sunako's father, Seishirou, took as a sign and prompted him to want to forge their vampire base in Sotoba. That too, though it could be claimed that there is no way that he could have possibly known in advance who it would inspire or what it would lead to - that could still be interpreted as an indirect cry for help. He didn't succeed previously in taking his own life as an individual (or maybe on some level knew that it was half-hearted and not physically capable of killing him, but it was more a suicidal gesture and call for attention), so he wouldn't mind seeing the death/end of the whole village and community which had forced this role and lifestyle on him. Because, again, back to the "brothers" in his novel who are both intended as symbolic representations/projections of different sides showing the duality within the same person, the younger "brother", in the visual sequence where he is breaking down its meaning to Sunako when they're in hiding in the basement of the Kanemasa estate, is portrayed as a shiki, with the same large eyes without visible pupils, and also referred to in that way. So he is a shiki. And that shiki represents aspirations of escape and freedom. And when the two "brothers" or two sides of the same person confront themselves, this is what the shiki says: "You set me free from that hill. After all, that hill is under God's control. [A classically-designed Buddhist temple is shown in the background representing ties to and living under the communal authority of religion] That's why I played a good man in order to gain the favor of God. I suppressed myself. I hated and despised the hill. I had no choice but to live that way though I detested that way of living from the bottom of my heart. You were my total opposite. You were free." The shiki voicing that sentiment is again just the other half of the human character and the character as a whole is an obvious stand-in for Seishin himself, the author cipher. His life for years, probably decades up to this point, has been one of barely managing to stomach and choke down the visceral disdain he feels for the role he's expected to inhabit and play in society. He chooses himself and he chooses Sunako because at that late stage his love for and loyalty to anyone and anything else in the village has long since completely withered away. I truly believe that if Seishin is at all on any level a relatable character for you, then it does really change the view you're likely to hold of and relationship with this series and has you really watching numerous events play out in it in a different light, because those who seem to dislike or outright hate him and his actions are typically those who find everything he did irrational because they find it unrelatable. In some ways, you're probably better off from a health and well-adjustedness standpoint if you find him and his mentality and course of action so utterly alien, unreachable, and unknowable. He more represents the lost and doubting side of humanity. |
WatchTillTandavaDec 18, 2025 3:53 PM
| The priest a pdf. He saw sunaku and wanted to get with her and abandoned his humanity. Fucking weirdo. Im so pissed he and that bitch didn't die |
More topics from this board
Poll: » Shiki Episode 8 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 )zimno - Aug 26, 2010 |
220 |
by kuilherme
»»
5 hours ago |
|
Poll: » Shiki Episode 9 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ... Last Page )HawthorneKitty - Sep 2, 2010 |
253 |
by noiseaholic
»»
6 hours ago |
|
Poll: » Shiki Episode 5 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 )Hannah_Ana - Aug 5, 2010 |
233 |
by kuilherme
»»
6 hours ago |
|
Poll: » Shiki Episode 4 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ... Last Page )yakisobapan - Jul 29, 2010 |
303 |
by kuilherme
»»
7 hours ago |
|
Poll: » Shiki Episode 3 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 )magelet - Jul 22, 2010 |
238 |
by kuilherme
»»
7 hours ago |