Review of Shiki

Have you heard of the Wiesmann? It is, or rather 'was', a German car maker. They made perhaps one of the most stylish, classically-designed cars the world has ever seen. Although powered by BMW engines, Wiesmann was made with German precision engineering, hand-made refinement and pronounced body contours worthy to be called "classic", and perhaps the only car you will ever recommend to Count Dracula. Because telling him to have something like a Cadillac is like telling him to live in California and that he should be wearing clothes from Tommy Hilfiger. Telling him to have a Rolls-Royce or a Bentley might fit his imagebut he would rather be a stock magnate from WallStreet. Yet, with Weismann, you're telling him to remain living in Europe, in Transylvania with wickedry, wearing only the best from Caraceni.

Which brings me to Shiki, the anime that isn't tuned familiar to both the frenzy and sensible anime fans. Only a few have heard of this anime, and fewer could even remember it, but don't get me wrong: Shiki is a class of pure, hand-made, well-thought vampirism.

STORY: 9
Shiki is what some anime fans call as "Japanese vampires", but that doesn't exactly fit in the image because Gackt already claimed that title. Yet, this will do really well in contrary to America's set of silly sparkling vampires which only falls in love like a giddy mutt and has the exact behaviors as teenagers do, maybe because a lot of them were in fact written by teens. The concept of the Shiki storyline started as far as the time Abraham knew God, where they survived through time just as how every instinctive creature would survive in this world long enough. It's wickedry in that sense alone, and savagery.

The first episode began fast-forward to the 90's, somewhere in a far-away village called Sotoba, where the life is slow-paced and the folks are contented with afternoon siestas and tractors, well, except for one girl with the pink hair who was voiced by Haruka Tomatsu. Anyway, a string of mysterious "epidemic diseases" began plaguing the townspeople with a very similar, unmistakable set of symptoms. Until the town's physician, Ozaki, began investigating the epidemia that resulted to death tolls which aggravates and at the same time insults his profession at the point that he took them personally, the story then just came alive like a Wiesmann's V8-esque roar.

This 22-episode (and 2 episodes of OVA that you really don't need to bother) vampire story is nowhere short of expectations. It's fast-paced, and was able to present philosophies which the Japanese vampires give their Raison d'Etre.

Expect no less since this came from a light-novel created in the 90's. During those times, writers were still infused with what to do with the literary elements so you won't find characters that has nothing to do with the story and silly back stories that doesn't make any sense. Every character has a role to play, although the exact origin of the "Shiki" was never really elaborated, which I took a -1 off the points here, but it's acceptable as accepting that humans evolved from monkeys. There's a missing link, but we're too busy to be bothered by that, so we accepted it as a fact.

CHARACTER: 9

Characters are not perfectly sorted-out, and that's what made it grand because you don't make stories with perfect characters in it, unless you're a writer from Power Rangers--or on the sparklepires-novel, or if Hollywood asked you to. I've said each character has a role to play in Shiki, but I didn't say they're finely contrasted. Some of them are annoying, and are slowing a bit of the progress of the plot, like Masao for example.
That aside, we can focus on main characters who made sense, like Ozaki who is dynamic, and Muroi who is complex. They both existed to counteract each other, putting the plot behind them and worked on with their characterization and their own reasons. This is one fine example of character development--nothing like Glasslip as I reviewed earlier.

Moreover, we have the definite character of what makes Shiki as "Shiki": Kirishiki Sunako. No, not because she's a violet-haired loli or that she was voiced by Aoi Yuuki, but she harbors the age-old perplexity of life and death. She's knowledgeable and wise, as what vampires should be tormented to live forever about; not like falling in love with some teenager.
Here, this enigmatic characterization makes the maturity of this very Japanese vampire story to sneer at what the American vampire novels have scratched and wasted printing paperbacks.

ART: 10

Let's juz make this 10, it's as vivid as night and as dim as day.

SOUND: 10

Good opening and ending songs, especially the 2nd opening song that I forgot the title.
Also, Shiki has some of the renowned seiyuus, like Tooru Ookawa known for voicing Roy Mustang; Aoi Yuuki who's known for her role as Madoka Kaname. Seiyuu-wise, the seiyuu casting is no slouch at all.

ENJOYMENT: 10

Can't enjoy nothing more of vampire novels these days. It's like the world is telling me to make one myself instead.
Even so, Shiki is a Japanese vampirism class of its own. It's a light novel written in the 90s, yet it presented quite different from the usual, but otherwise good, vampire stories of those times. Hence, you got to hand it to Fuyumi Ono who wrote such a good story that innovates the bloodsuckers.

Now that vampires are a relic of the past and what we have nowadays are just some stories made by a housewife, and some other authors that I don't want to be bothered remembering where they just threw the word "vampire" in their writings for the sake of ploy, the search for gushing-delectable, bloody-attractive vampire stories is a treasure worth risk-finding even if we all need to go to the uncharted far mountains of Transylvania if it calls for it.
So yes, anime or not, Shiki is worth every rare vampiric enjoyment.

OVERALL: 8

Again, Shiki is the Wiesmann of anime. You may not have heard of this car, but when you do, you just can't help with the allure and attraction it brings.
I really have nothing to say more except to support anyone who thinks of watching it. There's just something I'm not utterly convinced though: the ending, thus, with that reason and the other things I've mentioned is why I opted to rate this as eight (8) overall.
But in all its entirely, the underratedness of such, Shiki is of Weismann-quality. It's one of the fewest anime there is that is worth the trouble of watching, and it's also categorically accurate to put this in the same bookshelf as Bram Stoker, Anne Rice and Stephen King.

Sadly, the Wiesmann was defunct last year 2014.
We may no longer be able to see these classically-designed cars of German engineering. I do want to admit that I want to own a Weismann, but reality is trekking on a different path but I'm proud that I know what this car is.
And like the Wiesmann, I'm contented enough to tip my hat and salute to Shiki, even if the anime realm will be willing to forget it in place of near-naked, borderlining-ecchi, low-quality anime we keep seeing nowadays. And I will be so proud to recommend Shiki to anyone who is searching for a good vampire story to watch, because Shiki can top off any vampire story made in the West.

Verdict: The last of the real vampire tales worth the praise.