Review of Shiki

Shiki is one of the most surprisingly good animes that I've watched. Definitely one of the few outstanding ones out of all the "good" ones. It is gripping, intense, exciting, deep, but the number one thing that stands out of it all - it is incredibly REALISTIC. And realism is something most animes, especially animes that have vampires and other mythical creatures in them, fall short of. TL:DR Story: 9/10 Art: 6/10 Sound: 6/10 Character: 8/10 Enjoyment: 9/10 Overall: 8/10Good points:
+Very good allusion and foreshadowing
+Suspenseful, exciting, thrilling
+Wide cast of multi-faceted and unique characters
+Very strong main protagonist
+Moral discourse on murder, death and survival
+Good second OP and ED themes
+Excellent background music
+Realistic reactions and plot line

Bad Points:
-Underwhelming resolution
-Bad first OP and ED themes
-Some repetitive episodes towards the middle
-Confusing set of antagonists

Story: 9/10

We start off in a secluded village that is quite isolated from the rest of the world. Megumi may have been a rather annoying, ignorant character, but her opinion on her own village helps to set the entire scene in the first episode. And of course, what happens at the end of the first episode just makes the audience want to watch more. And it's basically a horror roller coaster ride from there.

A seemingly wealthy family called the Kanemasa move into a house on top of the hill in the village, but everything is not quite what it seems. People start dying one by one, for reasons unknown, leaving the only village doctor, Ozaki, perplexed and most of all frustrated at both himself and at the situation. His other friend, Muroi, a temple monk, similarly is haunted by sadness and tragedy of all these deaths, and expresses his feelings in his literature.

As the story progresses, Ozaki learns about the true causes of these deaths in the village and vows to put an end to it. He learns about the true nature of the enemy through brutality, he essentially turns into a monster in order to learn about the monsters he is fighting. Then, after many tries, he convinces the remaining villagers to fight back against the vampiric race called "Shiki".

I absolutely loved the plot's overarching horror, and I thought that the show put across this suspense, terror and drama in an excellent fashion. You would usually expect the Shiki to have some form of special magical powers, they don't, under than the fact that they can turn other people into Shiki of their own, but even then, not at a 100% success rate (though this is rather ambiguous). The story maintains realism, and brings out natural reactions of both the Shiki and humans in the conflict that they are in.

There are humans who vow to kill Shiki no matter what, humans who feel like they shouldn't be killing things no matter what, there are also Shiki who feel that they are not wrong to kill humans to survive, and Shiki who vow not to kill humans no matter what. It's a comprehensive and complete picture about the idea of morality, of rules, of freedom, of what constitutes murder and a realistic discourse of right and wrong.

You have a father who kills his own son, a sister who kills her own brother, a man who kills his own wife, family members turn on each other, friends who end up killing each other... wait this essentially sounds like the story of Cain and Abel right? Brother on brother, son on father, this is EXACTLY what was alluded to during the discourse between Muroi and Sunako in the temple. So that's what it was about! The question is - what is the intention behind killing, and is killing ever justifiable? Sunako states "there is always a reason behind killing." She doesn't think killing for survival can be wrong, but if that's the case, does that make it right to kill? Most humans, even those that have converted into Shiki, act like they don't think so.

There are also several plot twists in the show relating to Ozaki's plan. The plot is completely compelling, exciting and exhilarating to watch. I did not give the plot a perfect score only because of the sub-par resolution at the end. There were some loose ends not completely tied up, such as the ultimate fate of the surviving villagers, or of Muroi, Ozaki, Sunako and of course, our favourite, Yuuki. And I thought that the ending episode felt abit rushed and not completely thought-out. Motoko's sudden urge to burn the whole of Yamairi seemed like a convenient way to explain the ending, in episode 21.5.

Still, the plot is definitely impressive. I would have given this anime an 8 for plot, but I actually noticed a detail that was good. I went to count all the number of times that Shiki were killed and I found that the numbers tally. (for more explanation, see below in "other comments")

Art: 6/10

Everywhere is just blood, blood, and blood. It's disgusting, gory and downright suits the horror theme best. The general mood of the art work is dark, gloomy and suspenseful, and that added a lot to the anime. The red eyes are everywhere, and so are those white fangs. It's even giving me the shivers. Animation wise, everything was quite smooth, it was pleasing to watch.

Sound: 6/10

I really disliked the first OP and ED. But I enjoyed hearing the second OP and ED. Also, throughout the show, suspense is built up and the sense of eerie dread is made clear through the carefully composed music, which, was probably quite repetitive, but still effective enough to bring across that dark tone to the anime.

Character: 8/10

There are so many characters in this show, that it is nearly impossible to develop them properly. But this anime has excelled in bringing out the back stories of so many characters, and so realistically that it's possible to empathize with every death of every important person who goes through a conversion into a Shiki. Their feelings are conveyed very clearly and their emotions hit you right to the core.

Even the character interactions are solid. Every personality is unique and stands for something in the anime. Nobody is just a "sheep" or a "follower". Most characters bear weight in this anime, whether they are main or supporting. In fact, I would say that this is one of the few anime which reduces the plot impact of the main cast and distributes them to rest of the supporting cast, and does it magnificently without diminishing the value of any of the main characters.

Favourite character? Definitely Ozaki, the main protagonist. He's smart, scientific and all, but he's also determined, willing to make sacrifices, has incredibly high tolerance for sadness and pain, and while he seems cold to some people, he is just incredibly focused at the task at hand. The amount of blood that appears on him increases drastically from episodes 16 onwards, because of all the Shiki-slaying that he's been doing. What a badass.

But he doesn't outshine the other characters, all of whom also have their awesome points. We have a crazy lunatic woman, and independent old lady who managed to uncover the secret of the Risen before many other people do. We have a bearded, muscular old man whose role in the entire anime is to scold people and punch them in the face, and generally be the tough guy. We also have the cast of werewolves, who are, in my opinion, much cooler than any of the Shiki.

The main downfall of the anime are the antagonists, who basically are just a confusing bunch of people. Also, we have the main antagonist, Sunako, who looks too innocent to be a main antagonist, and is instead just lamenting her sad existence as one rejected by God. Tatsumi looks more like the evil mastermind, but he isn't. There is Seishirou who ends up killing one of their own werewolves? Then there's also the scantily-dressed Chizuru whose main job is to seduce people for... fun? They are not convincingly evil in anyway, and they don't seem to have any real motivation for "survival", I thought that they survived well enough in that mansion of theirs and they honestly did not need to attack villagers to "survive". It was more like to "increase their brethren" but that was never brought out in the anime.

But it's' still a very balanced cast of characters, and I must say, a job well done!

Enjoyment: 9/10

I cannot give the anime a perfect score for enjoyment because there were honestly parts that tired me out. The beginning of the anime was very gripping, and so was the all-out war at the ending few episodes, but somewhere down the middle, it seemed as if the episodes were just repeating itself over and over again. There was a simple recipe: A person dies, some situation leads to that person dying is revealed, Ozaki is frustrated he can't save the person. And the "epidemic" carries on. This was essentially the main plot line of many episodes near the middle, and kept repeating itself. Perhaps it was to show Ozaki's persistence and determination, but I thought it went slightly overboard with detailing so many number of deaths in the village, and the constant "impending doom" effect.

Still, I really enjoyed all the suspense and horror that was just a recurring theme and tone throughout the anime. It never deviated from this theme even once. I was completely hooked to this anime start to end, and I basically finished watching this in two days. That was an exhilarating ride!

Overall: 8/10

This was one of the better animes I have seen in the recent months, and I would recommend it to all. Just don't watch it at night, or you might have some trouble sleeping. (NEVER invite people into your house!)

Other comments:
In episode 20, Ozaki stated that the villagers managed to kill exactly 20 Shiki. Tatsumi later explains to Sunako that they lost around 30% of their Shiki collaborates. A quick calculation leads to the conclusion that there were around 67 Shiki under their control before the purge broke out.

Following that, I counted every Shiki that died from episodes 20 onwards until the end, and the number indeed turned out to be 67. If you're interested, EP 20 - 20 kills, EP 20.5 - 33 kills, EP 21 - 13 kills, EP 22 - 1 kill, total to exactly 67 kills. Of course, there is some ambiguity about whether some of them were actually killed or not, but this leads to at most a discrepancy of (+-2). I was impressed by the mathematical detail to put into this, so bonus 1 point for that.