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Type: TVSynopsis
Fifteen-year-old Megumi Shimizu dreamed of a glamorous life in the big city; however, her unexpected death in the quiet village of Sotoba marks the beginning of what appears to be a ferocious epidemic that turns the hot summer into a season of blood and terror. A young doctor named Toshio Ozaki begins to doubt the nature of the disease and comes to understand that to discover the truth, he must abandon his humanity. Meanwhile, Natsuno Yuuki, an antisocial youth from the city, is haunted by the sudden death of Megumi and must realize the pain of friendship in the face of his own tragedy. Toshio and Natsuno form an unlikely pair as they work together to save Sotoba before it transforms into a ghost town of vampires.
Shiki, adapted from the horror novel written by Fuyumi Ono, goes beyond the average vampire story. It tells the tragic tale of survival in a world where one cannot easily distinguish between good and evil. Abandoned by God, the Shiki, as the vampires call themselves, have only their will to live as they clash with the fear of the paranoid/unbelieving villagers. Shiki explores the boundary that separates man from monster.
Review – Candy
Oh shiki, words can barely describe how much I love you. You came during this “let’s make vampires romantic” era, and fucked it in its ass….hard. This, my lovely addicts, is how I like to see vampires done.
Shiki is a badass horror, thriller, mystery, that will have you so fucking hyped it’s not even funny. The mystery is simply because the townspeople ain’t having it, but my god is the thrill real. With amazing backgrounds and a to die for soundtrack, this show will suck you up into its story and will not let you go….no matter how badly you want it to. The dark ambience is real as f! A lot of the story will happen at night and omg they love to use the fuck out of that. Because of that, we get an really good contrast between day and night, evil and good, humans and vamps etc., all of which they focus on a lot, so when the show ends and all the lines are blurred, you’re they’re like O_____O DAFUQ IS THIS. ITS FUCKING AMAZING OKAY!!!
Please do not be fooled by the strange character designs. I know, they’re a little weird and do not fit a horror story, but I swear you’ll get used to them and even actually start to think they match the story so well it’s kinda abnormal. Plus the weird art adds to not only the creepiness, but it also helps give characters great distinctions and personalities. Best examples of this include the fashionable Megumi and the annoying Masao. The bright colors feel like they don;t fit the dark story at all, but idk how it does it, but my god it amplified the thriller aspect of the story and made some scenes extremely terrifying. Like seriously, please, anything with Megumi in her cute, brightly colored clothes, get pre damn creepy. It’s that contrast man, I’m telling you, they stand out hard on them dark backgrounds.
Speaking of characters, my god, this show will make you love some soooo much and hate others more than you thought possible. Personally, the doctor is the best character in this show and I need him to have my babies. His personality, dear sweet Jesus, too good. Nothing surpasses his obligations as a doctor and his need to help save the town. He’s willing to do everything, and omg when you see the scenes I’m talking about, you’ll fall in love. Fuck the monk, he’s a little bitch. That is all. But that’s he intention of the story, to make you feel that way about them, because it wants to blur the lines between the vampires and humans. It wants to end with you sitting in the middle like…dafuq. The vampires are geniuly terrifyingly evil, like omg, they give no fucks, as it should be. I really like how they portrayed the people who changed over the course of the show. Some became deluded and just wanted to be with their family again, some just accepted it and said they needed to do this things to live, and some straight out denied the way of life, I.e. we get a bunch of different viewpoints and thoughts of the background characters. There’s actually a lot of main characters so it’s hard to get too much focus on all of them, but fortunately we get to see a lot into the thoughts of the monk and doctor. I say fortunately because these two are best friends who started in the same place, both humans with jobs of protecting the town, however their paths deviate soooo far showing us the strength and weakness of the average human. (Apparently, some plebs will not fall for the doctors charms….well you’re a pleb HMPH). Natsuno is actually a typical brooding emo kid that you won’t really care about too much until later when his outfit changes and he gets super fucking hot. Yea, that’s how I feel about him LOL. The background characters, basically the village, play a very important role that I’ve mentioned like a bunch of times, but seriously when townspeople are eating riceballs with bloody hands. Yes, just fucking YAAAASSSSS!!! I’m not going to go into every main character because there’s so many but Takumi is fabulous as F and I love him and Sunako is a little bitch and how I wish hammers were bigger.
One of the best things about this show is the soundtrack. My god, it makes the mood so freaking well! Like some pieces will legit send chills down your spine, add that to some creepy twisting and staring from behind trees, and the faint of heart may not make it lol. The first opening sets the mood so well if you go into the show knowing nothing. There’s a deep man voice saying “come to me”, please do abide by it Personally, I hate the ending because its like….ugh, but I completely understand why it was done that way. Eventually the tables turns and those humans you were rooting for to live are now the antagonizers.
Since I’m bragging so much about the show, I guess I’ll talk about a few of it’s weaknesses. The pacing is something a lot of people had a problem with. Apparently it’s slow in areas, which I will admit, is true. Some things are drawn out just to leave us on a cliffhanger at the end of the episode. I think during the whole “mystery” aspect of the show, things were definitely drawn out, but that’s because we already know what’s going on, we get to see everything behind the scenes, the townspeople do not so of course they’re not very receptive to the idea. Another problem is some things that just go totally unexplained. Like I’m sure they tried to throw some images or sentences about some things, but for real, wtf happened with the monks dad? I have no freaking clue! Did he go willingly? If so, why? Like it’s weird and the monk is like…I understand. WELL MOTHAFUQA, I DON’T, PLZ, DO TELL!!!! Finally, a bunch of ex-machina bs got pulled. So apparently werewolves are a rare vampire or something right? Then why the fuck at the end of the show do we have like 3-4?!? That’s not rare! You’re making em for the sake of plot now! Random crap like that got pulled but it’s cool, I ain’t even mad due to how well some other things worked.
The show is a simple 22 episodes so you need to go start it like right now, please, it’s soooooo good, I promise!!! The ovas, omg the two specials, THEY ARE SO FREAKING GOOD!!!! Like they give you more insight into some background characters and how they handled baically, what happened in the village. Like honestly, just watch them, because the scene of the mother holding her children, chills, honest to god chills. All in all I;m saying, THIS SHOW WAS A GODSEND AND SRSLY IF YOU’RE INTO ANY OF THESE GENRES, GO WATCH IT!!! Please!!! Look at that gif! HE’S LIKE BEST GIRL OMG!!!! (Actually on my fav characters list)
Score
5/5 FAVS PLZ LIFE OMG
Agreed! Amazing show, amazing review 😀