A mysterious disease has struck the rural village of Sotoba. People young and old are falling ill, then dying just days after the symptoms appear. At the same time, a new family has moved into a conspicuous mansion on a nearby hill. Could these newcomers, the Kirishiki family, have anything to do with the deaths sweeping across town? The village doctor, Ozaki, is busy trying to solve the problem from a scientific perspective. Meanwhile, the local priest Seishin investigates the victims' circumstances while having some morbid late-night conversations with the Kirishiki family's daughter. Natsuno Yuuki, a high-schooler, has also become suspicious after a classmate's death. Are the dead coming back to life and feeding on the living? Faced with an idea straight out of fiction, the people of Sotoba must stop the crisis before they become a village of death.
The thing about the story is that it represents a true mystery of who or what done it, as it kept me thinking of who’s going to bite the dust next from this epidemic. Now here’s the twist that I never got from first glimpse of the series or what little have I heard about it……the dead coming back called Shiki is the exact thing as a vampire, as in the creature who comes out at night to suck your blood, leaving bite marks on your neck, causing you to go anemic, possibly killing you, and they look creepy as hell. OK, I may go off the tangent with the vampires but you can the signs of it being there. The horror element in here is being represented very well with the right amount of creepy and thrills without being overbearingly shocking just for the thrills of it. Hell, I think most vampire enthusiasts would be thrill to hear about this show, especially those who like vampire anime that might be a bit displeased with most vampire media today.
Characters are a bit iffy to describe considering that there is a lot of them in the show and they have perfectly focus on every character without them feeling like an afterthought or forgotten, but try not to get attached to them because be warned, a lot of people in this show gets killed off and not everybody is safe from harm. Two characters that I actually like, sister and brother Kaori and Akira Tanaka….I really hope nothing too fucked up happens to them but I can’t bet on that as I watch the show. I will say that the first character to get killed off, Megumi, is the one character that really annoyed me at first with her being a brat, being a bitch to everyone especially to some of the people that consider her a friend, and her obvious crush on the main character Natsuno, who doesn’t like her at all and I don’t blame him.
The animation was brought to you by Daume, whose resume is mostly a lot of romantic comedy and slice of life anime, with the exception being Le Portrait de Petit Cossette, and they follow through with the creepy motif and style, although their pupil designs kind of freaks me out a bit. The artwork does feel like one of those paintings that doesn’t seem lively at first but the second you turn away from that, it will surprise you.
Musically, I’m a bit mixed as the first theme does manage to be within the tone of the series and it was alright to listen for the first time but like I do with any other series, I just skip the theme just to get into the show and as for the second theme, it’s about the same as the first only not as noteworthy to even brought out. The overall score is very centric to the mystery aspect and it did also help with the more serious moments of the show, not that this show wasn’t serious in the first place.
As for the dub, this is FUNimation’s work and if you already know my opinion about FUNimation’s dubs is that while I think they make great dubs (and no, I’m not hating on FUNi, so shut up.), I never have these high expectations from them as many people do and for the most part, the dub was pretty alright although there wasn’t that many standouts. Jerry Jewell as Natsuno was fine for what he did and David Wald’s Ozaki was decent as well, even if sometimes the character was sometimes an idiot. I also did like the performances of Cherami Leigh, Alexis Tipton, Luci Christian, and Tia Ballard did good as the role of Megumi.
FINAL VERDICT: This is actually a very well-done horror mystery anime, since it’s more about the mystery of what’s going on rather than the basic horror tropes, especially since they are vampires while they never bash you over the head with it and they didn’t make it as vague and confusing. I say if you have the time, especially in the round of Halloween, and you happened to like the mystery aspect throughout, you’ll definitely like this show.
