Review of Shiki

When there are two sides opposing against each other, like, lets say there's good and evil, you would want to root for the good, right? The good could be people who are trying to save the world from the grasps of the evil, ones who could wrongly use the world for their own gain. Obviously you'd want the world to maintain the peace it holds as is, right? So you'd naturally want the good to prevail. But that's where Shiki stops you and crosses that belief out. 'Who is the real evil?', it asks. It asks so fiercely, so unrelentingly. Sotoba is a quiet rural village closedfrom the outside world and one highway connecting to the village is the only path to access it. This highway is used by a new family who moves into Sotoba, surprising the village residents who hadn't seen new people in a while. But everything becomes even more surprising, no, horrifying, as the residents start dying around the village. The local doctor, Ozaki Toshio grows increasingly frustrated and worried as he attempts to find the cause of the deaths, and in a panic, labels it as an epidemic. Yuuki Natsuno, a reserved boy, believes something else is at play, though, and along with his friends, tries to uncover the true reason behind the deaths in Sotoba.

One thing you must've come across if you know a bit about this anime is people complaining about how slow it is. Yes, it's frustratingly slow, but it's intriguing during that period. Shiki starts very, very sluggishly, taking its time to immerse the viewer, to get the viewer to know the characters and how they think and act, and just to set things up for when the anime really picks up the pace and drags you in, all the while being totally engrossing. It might not be the most obvious thing ever, but there are major plot points happening during this slow progression, things to make you feel sad, disgusted and shocked. It's not because this show is terrible that those unwanted emotions surface, it's because the show does a stellar job at surfacing those emotions to make you feel for everything. When Shiki picks up the pace as it delves deeper into the minds of its characters, these emotions are strengthened by about a million times, and add to those emotions confusion. I will not state why, but to assure you, it's not a 'what the fuck is going on' confusion. Please don't think all twenty-two episodes and the specials are just gonna be the characters trying to figure out these mysterious deaths and then, boom, they found it, woohoo! No, Shiki grabs you by the collar, throws you against a wall and hits you straight in the guts with a hard punch of realization soon enough.

Shiki is different to your run-of-the-mill we-must-defeat-the-bad-guys-type anime. There's good and evil, sure, they clash in a war, yeah. But the way the story handles how these two clash is entirely different. Instead of opting for generic fighting without any depth whatsoever, like, "BAM! One shiki down, one-hundred-and-ninety-nine to go!" Shiki settles for something deeper. Before all that, it peers into the shiki's lives, their motivation, and their psychology in general. At first you're rooting for the humans, but it slowly turns away from portraying the humans as the just, and focuses more on making the shiki seem in the right. You know already about the shiki's motivation, so you're then even more inclined to root for them, but at the same time, you can't say, "Yeah, the shiki are right, the humans are wrong. Eat up the whole village, you guys," and that's the part where it's confusing. It messes with your head, and that's one point that really makes Shiki shine.

Away from picking the storytelling apart, something Shiki does that's also quite different from your regular anime is the artstyle. This might be another thing you've heard about being bashed around. No one seems to even remotely like the artstyle, and I can see why. To me, it's unique, cool, and refreshing, and it didn't bother me one bit, but I think all viewers can agree that it does not fit the context of the anime whatsoever. Shiki is supposed to be a psychological horror anime, and you'd expect dark tones and a serious, or at least basic artstyle, but no. With a bright color scheme, wacky bodily structures and batshit crazy hairstyles that look like they've been put through ten tornados, Shiki's artstyle to some might seem like a failure in conveying the theme and message of the anime. Though, like I expressed before, it probably won't strike you as a terrible artstyle (it's pretty cool to me), it's just out-of-place, that's all.

The animation works wonders, especially for being done by a relatively obscure studio in the early 2000s. It must've been pretty hard to animate with tornado-haired characters everywhere, after all, so there was a decent amount of effort poured in. Each character's movements flow mostly well, and there weren't any drops in quality, drops that weren't noticeable, anyway. It wasn't absolutely amazing, though, as in studio Madhouse standards, but still far from mediocre. This is probably the least exciting thing about Shiki.

Where the artstyle failed, the visual effects succeeded, serving well in more conveying the creepy and depressing vibe the anime has, and in general adding that little bit of spice.

Spiking things up from least exciting, Shiki is accompanied with a beautifully chilling and sad soundtrack, and (how can I begin to describe this?), it's like... by itself, it immerses you in the anime. Forget those two paragraphs dissecting the storytelling for a second. Imagine yourself just watching some random fight sequence between, I don't know, two toddlers? Put Shiki's music over it, and it becomes a hundred times more powerful. You'd be immersed in that fight, waiting to know who'll land the next uppercut, if toddlers can even do that. Suddenly it's as if those two toddlers have the whole world on the line. That's how amazing Shiki's soundtrack is. Now watch Shiki while some of its best tracks are playing, and you'll be lost for words (and thought, it's that mind-numbingly good). It fits perfectly with every scene. There's a depressing track, a suspenseful track, a creepy track, an emotional track, a goofy track, a track with every fucking emotion combined—it's all in the soundtrack. You can just hear behind everything the sadness and chilling tone of the music, even when there isn't something big happening and it's not one of the best tracks. I have to applaud Takanashi Yasuharu for composing such beautiful and compelling music. I've always told people that if they won't watch the anime, then they should listen to the soundtrack, because if they're not even a little bit more convinced to watch the anime after listening, or even worse, think the soundtrack is bad, then they're hopeless. As I'm typing this up, I'm listening to the track "Eau de Vie", and you should be too.

Unlike the soundtrack varying its tone, delivery and sometimes its genre, Shiki's voice actors are consistent. Speaking for the Japanese voice actors, they are never bad or even good; they're DAMN good, and all throughout. Each character expresses the right amount of emotion every bit of the way through. Never exaggerated, and never played down. This is the type of voice acting needed in anime. As for the dub, coming from Funimation, you'd expect the same level of production considering their other okay-level dubs, but they really reeled in some amazing voice actors with this one. I'd say it compares just as well to the Japanese version, maybe sometimes performing better. I feel they picked the perfect English voice actor for Natsuno. He speaks just like some antisocial and cold teen jaded with just about everything. If you prefer dub over sub, you won't be getting cheap stuff, that's for sure.

Something we all like to avoid is annoying and unlikeable traits in characters. We want to see characters that we like and can root for, not characters that piss us the hell off and give us a distaste for the anime. Too bad, Shiki is chock-full of them! But they're unlikeable and realistic, and they'd be better of being so. The reason no one likes the characters in Shiki is because we expect them to all be badass vampire hunters ready to stab any vampire coming their way in the heart. All the village residents are completely normal human beings, influenced by normalcies what is morally right and what is morally wrong, and what is considered real. Most can't just up and accept that vampires—in this case, the shiki—have started invading their village and killing the village off. If you were in their situation before all the chaos, living your relaxed life in Sotoba, would you believe Dr. Ozaki, your waka-sensei, when he tells you, "Yoooooo, min'na! So I just found out the cause of the deaths and it's vampires, baby."? Of course not! And now, to address the elephant in the room, Muroi Seishin, who we all hate for reasons I won't explain, else I'd spoil a big chunk, is very well-written. Yes, he sucks, he should probably off himself, as one of you who have watched the anime might suggest, but he's undeniably very well-fleshed-out. There are signs left that, though very subtly, suggest he is a misanthropist, and that's more than enough reason for him to go down the unlikeable character path.

Another thing mentioning the characters (and this is targeted directly at those that've watched Shiki) is the way the anime sentimentalizes the shiki. Many claim that it's a poor attempt at romanticizing the little pests and that the way it does so is pretentious, but you have to view the humans' side too. The shiki aren't the only things which are changed and morphed into something completely different. By the end, you'll be disgusted at the humans' actions and that's why the shiki are made to look like the ones in the right, not just because the anime showed the reason the shiki do what they do. And then, coming back to the paragraphs picking apart the storytelling, again you're left with mixed emotions on who to side with. In actuality, you can't side with anyone, and so all the sentimentalization amounts to equally as much sentimentalization the humans have. The point is to have you scratching your head. There may have been a certain degree of effort put into romanticizing the shiki, but it ultimately wasn't the point of the anime.

Out of all the anime I've watched so far, there hasn't been an anime that's been so well-crafted in its storytelling, messaging, and had me feeling more emotion, than Shiki. The anime's an amazing blend of horrifyingly sad and terrifying moments, with an intent to really make the viewer think who and what is really evil. You might get a bit bored during the start of the show, as it takes a while to pick some speed up, but I'll tell you, you'll be greatly rewarded for your patience. The artstyle might be a little strange and off-putting, considering how 'frighetened' you'll feel throughout the show, but it shouldn't be much of a bother if you're not too nitpicky, and it just looks cool in general. All of that, though, is all majorly made up for by the great animation, the absolutely stunning soundtrack, the skilled cast of voice actors fitting every character, and the realness and humanity in all the characters, even in the shiki. If you're looking to watch something with strong messaging and emotional weight, Shiki is something to consider watching.

And you won't go a week without thinking about how amazing it is.

Thank you for reading my review.