Review of Shiki

I want to start this by saying there are no truly great horror animes. Maybe The Promised Neverland defies that notion, but it's still a rare occurrence. The problem is that the horror anime genre doesn't tend to receive top budget production, and even when it is given a fair shake, a few gaffs can ruin the whole experience. I desperately want to give Shiki a full 10, but my real inclination is about an 8.6. The story is compelling, the large diverse cast of characters are surprisingly well fleshed out, and there are some animation techniques employed that are effective at creatingfear and suspense that are undeniably unique to this anime. The soundtrack by itself is on a completely different level. Even if you have no intention of watching Shiki, you should still check out the full OST on youtube.

Seriously, do it now. Pull it up on youtube, and listen to the OST while you read the rest of this. You can thank me later.

There's something to be said about an anime that tackles deep philosophical quandaries as Shiki does throughout the narrative. The first time I watched it I sided with the humans. The second time around I sided with the vampires. But during the third time around I had come to the understanding that the sins and merits of both factions could not be categorized so easily.

This anime does a perfect job of tackling the moral dilemma of what happens when one has to kill to survive. At what point is taking a life justified to save another life? What happens when one has these decisions forced upon them by circumstances outside of their control? If finding out answers to these questions while watching a faction of humans take on a faction of vampires sounds compelling, just watch the show.

All of my praise for the show's best aspects aside, it has one fatal flaw that mars what could have potentially been a perfect experience. Rather I should say that it has one chief flaw, which is the source of all of the shows problems. That flaw would be the pacing.

The show starts purely in the horror genre. No slasher or thriller elements. It's just a brilliantly executed slow paced buildup of suspense and fear of the unknown. It shows you enough so that you have an idea of what is going on, but hides enough so that your imagination can run wild with all the potentialities of everything that could possibly be going wrong.

The show runs like this for about the first two-thirds of its runtime. Then, it changes on a dime. Some major truths are revealed, and instantly the story becomes far less about suspense and horror, and way more focused on action. Granted, I think a buildup of action suits this type of story, but it should have been a subtle transition. This screams to me that the production team realized they had way more story to tell, but knew they were running out of episodes. If budget and production limitations had allowed, I think this show could have used another 4-6 episodes to tell the story it was trying to convey more effectively.

This brings up the problem with the OVAs. The show is 22 episodes by itself, and the 2 OVAs bring it up to 24 total episodes. Really the OVAs were essential parts of the story, even though they came out afterwards. So sections of the end of the original 22 episodes don't make sense unless you watch them with the OVAs wedged in-between some of the latter episodes. You have to find a guide for the watch order, which was just bad planning on the production team's part, or maybe it was a deadline restriction.

I don't know the full story of what happened here, but the ending was obviously rushed. We don't have particularly satisfying resolutions for a number of the characters' story arcs. For most of the story the focus on each member of the large cast of characters is fairly well balanced. This starts to fall apart towards then end when the show realizes how many loose ends it suddenly has to tie together. The main cast gets most of the attention they need for decent resolutions, but a number of important secondary characters are left for dead, both literally and/or figuratively depending on the case.

The writing also takes a bit of a dip at the end. Without getting into spoiler territory, I'll just say that some of the fight dialogue in the last few episodes adds absolutely nothing to the story.

Now there is one I'll say "betrayal" that was well built throughout the course of the story, and for the most part expected. Those who have seen the anime know who I'm talking about. But there are a couple other betrayals that are rushed, explained away with about one line of dialogue, and are never addressed again. At one point a fairly important side character gets shot in the street by someone who is supposed to be on their side, and it is poorly glossed over to say the least.

What I can say is that both the manga and the original book that this story was based on do a better job of balancing all the elements at play. Shiki is complex. It deserved a better resolution.

At this point I've praised this show up onto a pedestal, and then viciously slashed it down. It truly deserves both. This is indicative of how much I enjoyed this show, while at the same time wishing I could have enjoyed it more. If you buckle up, and set your expectations for the ending at floor level, you'll be in for one amazing ride like no other.