Shiki (alternatively translated to “ Corpse Demon" or "Death Spirit") aired in 2010 and is based off of the manga by Fuyumi Ono, which was first published in 1998. The story takes place in a quiet Japanese town that’s surrounded by trees and is very isolated from the rest of the world. It’s the kind of place where everyone knows everyone, so when new strange neighbors move in the large house everyone takes notice. Since their arrival in the middle of the night, people start passing away seemingly due to some strange epidemic, or so the town doctor suspected at first. However later it is revealed that these people are being killed by vampires, and some are coming back to life as lower level vampires. The series ends with gore filled final episodes where the towns people band together to fight off the family of vampires, and their loved ones that came back to life as these beings. It makes one question who is really the monsters in the end with how horribly the townspeople killed the people they loved and mourned, even through they were still the same person and felt the same feelings a human would. They refused to see them as people any longer since they were deemed a threat as vampires or “shiki”. The youngest girl of the vampire family is saved by the head monk who saw it as wrong to kill these beings and brought her away from the village, leaving the audience knowing this is not over.
Looking at Shiki objectively as a horror anime, it is mostly good. Some scares in this anime were a bit lazy. For example, just showing red glowing eyes in the background and jump scares felt a bit cheesy at times. Another downside was the characters acted unrealistically sometimes, mostly by being melodramatic. However the feeling of dread and fear is built up well through the anime as the audience wonders who will be killed next, and how soon the doctor will be able to discover the truth behind the deaths. Also, the art style is quite unusual/unsettling which especially shows in certain character designs, which I cannot describe that well without showing the illustrations. For example, the proportions of some characters were strangely elongated and the eyes of the shiki had no whites yet it went unacknowledged by the other characters. As for the soundtrack, or non-diegetic audio, it is absolutely outstanding. The creepy, melancholy, yet beautiful music sets the tone so well, even if nothing particularly scary is going on.
I personally enjoyed this series and the messages it presented about human mortality, fear of the unknown, and especially mob mentality in the last episodes. Half of the fun for me was interpreting the meaning of certain lines and events. I would recommend this series, especially to a fan of horror. Even if you choose not to watch it, the soundtrack is still worth listening to since it’s so beautiful. In fact, in my opinion, it would not be half as good as it is without the soundtrack. This combined with the subtle unsettling elements made for an excellent series. Modern series seem to be heavy on just gore and shock value, but I would describe Shiki as horror done right in anime.
Rating: Good Good
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