I read a few blog posts on this series as it was airing and it sounded delightfully horrifying, which is prettymuch right up my alley. Finally got around to watching and as such, here is the review. (I don't think that second sentence was quite necessary, was it?) The Basics Episodes: 22Genre: Horror, SupernaturalAired: June 27, 2010 to December 30, 2010Directed by: Tetsuro AminoProducers: Aniplex, DaumeOpening Theme: Kuchikuze by Buck-Tick / Calendula Requiem by Kanon x KanonClosing Theme: Walk no Yakusoku by Nangi / Gekka Reijin by Buck-Tick Review The Story: Shiki is one of those small town anime series, taking place in Sotoba, a place with just over 1000 residents. It's a typical, boring place (they all seem typical and boring at first, don't they? Hinamizawa, anyone?) until a family moves into Kanemasa, an extravagant home that doesn't fit the rest of the town at all. When they move in, people begin falling ill and dying at a high rate; it's no secret to anyone watching that the new residents aren't exactly human. As time goes by in the town and people keep dying, every resident wonders why, and most suspect and epidemic of some sort. Others take the initiative to find out what's destroying Sotoba, their neighbors, friends and family. They discover the answer that was obvious to viewers—the residents at Kanemasa are vampires. The series spirals into death from the beginning, merciless to the characters, with people dying only to rise again...all to please one little vampire girl. The Characters: While the population of Sotoba is tiny, the series doesn't hesitate to throw character after character into the mix...granted, plenty of them die right around the time you meet them. The number of primary characters is blessedly smaller. I had mixed feelings about the characters of this series. Yes, they're all pretty realistic (given they live in a vampire-infested setting, anyway), but I did take issue with some of them. My favorite character at the beginning was Seishin Muroi, the town priest. I'm not going to go into the details of why, because I avoid spoilers at all costs, but by the last episodes I hated him and was sitting there praying he'd be added to the death toll. That's never happened to me before. The other issues I had were pretty basic. Like why are you doing that, why do you seem to be such a weak person, why in hell does your hair look like that? This question came up for several characters, not the least of whom was Tatsumi. His wasn't even the weirdest. On the whole, though, I was appreciative of the characters. A minor character turned into my replacement favorite by the end, and I have a new yaoi pairing to ship. I was pretty content. The Music: Oh my god. In watching Shiki, I fell in love with the music prettymuch right off the bat and knew then that the only real option for this section of the review was the music. Or the hairstyles. (I'm sorry. I had to.) But I went with the music. There's a fair mix of beautiful and just plain weird music when it comes to Shiki. I found out midway through the series that it was composed by Yasuharu Takanashi. Well, that explained a whole heck of a lot. My very first review, Jigoku Shoujo, had music for this section, and for anyone who doesn't know, Takanashi was responsible for the music there as well. Evidently I adore him without even realising it's him. That's how great he is. My favorite piece by far was Eau de Vie: <iframe allowfullscreen="" class="youtube-player" frameborder="0" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/w8pbSDqruMY" title="YouTube video player" type="text/html" width="640"></iframe> Conclusion?: Shiki was a hell of a ride. The constantly rising death toll was pretty amazing, for one. And honestly, I haven't been even a little creeped out by vampires since I was like six...Shiki actually managed to creep me the hell out. It wasn't outright scary or anything, and the creepy only occurred to me when I woke up at like 3am; I think what made the vampires so disturbing to me on occasion was the fact they were feeding on their friends and family. That got to me. There was wonderful action, it was great watching how some of the characters changed when it came to dealing with the Risen, there were truly horrifying moments, the series never tried to be too funny which is something that can seriously detract from a serious anime. All-in-all, Shiki was great, though I wouldn't suggest getting too attached to anyone. My rating: 9/10. It was actually a perfect 10 for me until this one little thing I wanted to happen did not happen. And I raged about it. So the series lost a point for that. Just the one though. If it had been just a little anger it wouldn't have lost any, but when I say rage, I mean rage.
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