Review of Shiki

This is a spoiler-free review. I watched Shiki 3 times, and every time I rewatched, I liked a little more. I'm going to try my best to explain, why I like this show so much. We can start with the plot. The story is kind of simple, but works really well, basically, we have this calm small village called Sotoba, a place isolated by mountains, a place who never happens nothing unnusual, people have their families, their jobs, the fathers die before the sons, and life goes on, but one day people start to get "sick" from something that even the doctors can't explain, and eventualy,die.

What I like more about Shiki, is the atmosphere created by the anime, even if for us as spectators, the mystery can sound a little bit silly, we have to understand that for the characters, the fact of the deaths are being caused for something supernatural, sounds really absurd, after all, they are normal people, like us, and they only understand after the truth are really in front of their eyes.

The storytelling is built slow, sounding like a mysterious slice of life, at the first episodes the anime introduce us to the characters and their families. Constantly we see Toshio, our main character, working at the hospital, and visiting sick people, and day after day we can see how all type of people are dying from nothing, since olds to even children, and all of this create an great atmosphere of insecurity and mistrust.

The characters are not the big deal here, they are not bad at all, but their have nothing of incredible, most of them have their big moment to shine, of course, the ones who have more opportunity, like Toshio, are the stars here. Sunako and Seishin have good moments and good dialogues throughout the show, between them and with other characters too, Toshio, Sunako and Seishin are good characters with good conflicts. But in general, the characters are just ok.

Well, in overall, Shiki is a really catchy anime, you are going to want to see what is going to happen next, the mystery and the atmosphere is really good, even if we are in front of the characters, we need to know how they are going to react to at is happening. Shiki is not an exemple of innovation, the story about how humans can be so bad as the real "bad" ones, was told before, but this time was told really well.

Last things, the OST is great, both openings and endings are awesome, the best is the second ending called Gekka Reijin, awesome song who fits perfectly with the anime. The animation is solid, but the art can be a little weird at the beginning, the characters hairs are really awkward, but in one or two episodes you are going to be ok with it.

So, go on and watch Shiki, I'm sure you are going to enjoy it. See ya!