Review of Shiki

We can't get enough of vampires. Is it the scintillating sensation of fangs tapping the most intimate of areas? The brutal yet surgical method they use to selfishly extract our lifeforce? The way they command the night with bloodshot eyes and snow-white skin, teetering on a fine line between life and death? In all their hellish interpretations, it's no doubt vampires are sin given form, embodying the deliciously virile taboos coursing deep in our conscience. To put it simply, vampires are just nasty fun. And what does "Shiki" do? It shoves those twisted ideals back in our face with a mirror. Vampires are not alluring. Vampiresare not powerful. Vampires are not right. And neither are we. In fact, this show... this heartless show, makes it a point to prove that hidden in every man is a monster, and underneath every monster is a man, both forsaken. So, what is Shiki? Aside from translating to "corpse demon," it's an anime that's had enough of vampires, and pretty much humanity in general.

STORY - 9

Without giving too much away, Shiki is a story of coexistence. Could we ever learn to live with those cursed bloodsuckers if they existed? The answer is revealed as the plot takes its sweet time crawling through a downward spiral.

We've heard it all before. An isolated village in the boonies, an epidemic, bizarre newcomers, painfully ignorant locals, and one of the most indifferent cast of characters I've ever had the pleasure of seeing suffer. After a rash string of illnesses and sudden deaths, one man who knows what's up, stands against the unknown threat along with a bunch of meddling kids. Though Shiki has a wealth of cliches straight from your classic backwater town horror story, it plays all these conventions exceptionally well due to the show's sense of urgency.

People die left and right before anyone has time to react. Symptoms are varied and many factors interfere. Everyone is scared yet no one wants to act. Even mob psychology and mass paranoia are shown at its worst. Only after a massive death count does Shiki start slowly sinking in its fangs.

The plot does take time to set up though. A lot of characters = a lot of subplots. An unrequited love between two city kids, a war of ideals between a junior monk and the town doctor, a woman's struggle to bring her family to the undead, and a vampire who searches for a place to call home, to name a few. Shiki juggles characters and locations like a veteran circus performer, especially in its somber and aimless first few episodes. It's very easy to lose track and concern considering the very limited screentimes for each person. Combine that with its slow pace and you have the possibility of having two big turn-offs for any piece of entertainment: boredom and confusion.

Thankfully, this show doesn't waste time. Something's always happening and the writing makes sure of that, thoroughly establishing the town's web of relationships. It immerses you in this seemingly close-knit community that you just feel could crack anytime. By the time it does, the action is visceral, the suspense is killer, and the drama is painful. None of which is drawn out or overdone. Though it doesn't fully explore its vampire origins and lore (like the infamous hybrids known as Jin-Roh who lack all the limitations of a vampire), it succeeds in displaying the possibility if such a society exists. Shiki attends to its story like a torture specialist: with menacing patience and indiscriminate brutality.

CHARACTERS - 7

At face-value, Shiki flaunts a bloated cast of side characters, with no clear person to root for or identify with. Not only that, some personalities are so cookie-cutter to the point of being laughable. I'm looking at you, Masao.

But you have to give it to Shiki for putting together a variable cast. You have Dr. Toshio Oozaki, the grumpy town doctor with a flair for cigarettes and saving lives. Then there's Seishin Muroi, junior monk, all-around nice guy, even to the enemy. Over at the teens' section, there's ice-cold but closet shounen hero, Natsuno. And by the camp of the vamps, there's Sunako, homebodied token loli by day, soul-searching overseer of the damned by night, as if her eyes weren't already an indication. That's it for the main cast. 20+ characters later, you get the idea. It starts off with a thorough infodump as it unloads all these people as if they were just names on a list; complete with a documentary heading for each of the characters as they were first shown.

Mr. X just died! Wasn't he with Mrs. Y's son, Z? Don't worry Ms. A, Officer B will check the scene. Might wanna call Dr. C to check up on your son because he isn't looking too chipper. How's the daughter-in-law, D, by the way?

Albeit not as cocky as this, the initially grating exposition could use a bit more grace. And with many characters to address, building tension through many unresolved incidents for the span of nearly six episodes comes as a double-edged sword, feeling redundant and sluggish at times. Really, prepare to be treated by a smorgasbord of my above example. But a little perseverance peppered with growing intrigue kept me invested.

As the show cycles all around its locale, it dawned on me that Sotoba village itself is a character. Its numerous and vastly diverse inhabitants reflect the general feeling we have about society as a whole: indifference and selective concern. We barely recall these people save for their very striking features and quirks and they get offed before we get to know them better. When the show starts pushing these unwilling participants off the edge, that's when characters get fleshed out in the most gripping of circumstances. They misbehave. They lose rationality. They don't hold back. And all of this clearly pains them. Each decision, conflict, and action these poor souls make will rattle and thrill you to no end. Every one of those trivial names get their shot in the limelight, each with their own memorable climaxes and closures. Though Shiki's characters are a shotgun spread, it hits all the right areas. It may flop in giving attention and attachment to its characters but justifies by exposing its variety cast in a self-made hell to see how they'll manage, forcing genuine character development in a collective scale. Sotoba village being this isolated microcosm, we ultimately witness how humanity eats itself from the inside out.

ART - 8

Shiki's art is a very interesting case. While animation and cinematography are a brooding trip of film grain psychedelia and ominous shading, the character designs clash with obnoxious camp and excessive style.

Clamp-y and mannequin-ish are the general body types featuring lanky statures and well-defined curves. It does fit the whole dollhouse, halloween town vibe, sure. But then we move on to the rest of the characters where the designers just run wild. Every. single. character. is designed different to the point where it feels like they came from different shows.

Hairstyles and color palettes get so random, you'd swear Sotoba's stylists must've been even crazier than the locals. Imagine green hair on a nurse reaching all the way down to her ankles, blue hair on a mother in the shape of an ice cream swirl, and white hair on a town elder that makes Kiss look like a country band, and that's just three of them. Majority of the town just seems to have a serious case of bed head and bad barbers. Moving down to the rest of the features: head shapes, eyes, body types, even wardrobe choices, all feel like they were randomly drawn from a hat. From the usual wide-eyed anime look for younger people, to the more realistic facial designs for older folks, as well as some other grotesque mugs thrown in, the looks may detract from the overall experience.

Considering the village-sized cast, it works in making everyone distinct. And with how tacky the setpieces can get despite the eerie mood, it works better as an artsy tragedy than a monster horror flick. Given how sad Shiki can get, it helps to have something occasionally silly to look at. But in the show's defense, when skin finally hits the fang, those dissonant designs can get very unsettling. Vampires here sport hollow eyes with bloodshot pupils, pale and lifeless skin, and malformed features with their already over-the-top costumes injecting charm and fear in equal doses. Icing on the already messed-up cake goes to the show's treatment of its demented facial expressions and mangled doll-like proportions, all contributing to a disturbingly dreary package.

Even the backgrounds are not to be ignored. Lighting is beautiful, giving everything a soft glow that's especially haunting at night. Even predictably dull sceneries like the sewers, the town clinic, and the abandoned church are brimming with grim life, being dark yet constantly vivid. Detail and animation are surprisingly high with quality maintained in every shot and character. The colors are also a delicious treat, spilling gradients all over the more morose scenes, with wrinkles, bloodshed, and rotting flesh made even more festeringly graphic. Shiki may not be the scariest, but no doubt it's an eye-catching and eccentric experience overflowing with confidence in its own skin.

SOUND - 10

Amazing English dub. Check.

Immersive sound design. Check.

Chilling ambient music. Check.

Shiki is a sonic marvel. Starting with the dub, the show boasts a lot of new gen veterans bringing a mix of over-the-top ham, contemplative dialogue, and hair-raising mania. Highlights go to David Wald for doing justice to the short-fused and cynical badass, Dr. Oozaki, and Cherami Leigh for her pitifully adorable yet world-weary Sunako. In fact, everybody's well-cast; even Masao, the textbook definition of trash, with Todd Haberkorn's despicable whimpering. But the true testament to Shiki's dub quality is during the show's turning points. Not one death throe goes unnoticed as sunlight and stakes to the heart never felt so painfully agonizing.

As for the sound design, it shines during the heavier moments of the show. Besides the ghoulish ambient voices, high-tension wood, steel, and soil give Shiki a really claustrophobic finish, notably during the slaughter when all those regular tools are put to horrid use. As weird and creepy as the town already is, making it feel suffocating and inescapable through effective use of foley deserves mention. And it further adds to the premise, given that Sotoba village is a far cry from the city and normal human contact.

Lastly, Shiki's spine-tingling soundtrack holds it all together. Haunting choirs of children. Mystic harps, chimes, and guitars. Tense strings and percussion. Even ambient electronics and beats here and there. It's more than just cheap thrills to say the least. But what actually enraptured me with the overall OST was that it sounded more melancholic than unnerving. Like how the creepy kid constantly going la. la. la. in the key tracks sounded more pitiful than threatening, the music box melodies exuding more innocence than deception, and the orchestration being more grandiosely tragic than sparsely suspenseful. But in any case, that's just my five cents on how Shiki's sound department sucks you in a beautifully sad world.

ENJOYMENT - 10

This is not to say I'm a sadomasochist, but Shiki is a downright downer. I said it before, it's a story of coexistence and its implication on vampires. News flash, you can't change the food chain. Vampires don't suck, they die. Humans don't kill, they die. There is no middle ground in a world of instinct and survival. It's disheartening because Shiki tells us that making peace is impossible. You're better off getting that hammer and stake ready for tonight.

Despite the message being a pitch black hole with no way out, it isn't a snoozefest. It won't leave you an empty husk devoid of all feeling either. Shiki hits you like a brick wall. With impact. And that's why I love the show to death. It resonates with a more primal fear than things going bump in the night. It isn't just horror in genre. It's the horror of being endangered, being estranged, being alone. Ultimately, the horror of being the very monster you sought to destroy. It's scary because it's sad, and it's sad because it's true.

OVERALL - 9

It isn't as bleak so much as tragic. And it isn't as hopeful either so much as wishful. Shiki is this massive gray area representing the slow decay of humanity consumed by self-preservation. It takes the body of The Rocky Horror Show, the heart of Dracula, and the mind of Heart of Darkness, and reanimates the tired corpse of conventional vampire stories into a shocking application rather than just another reiteration.