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Forum - View topicREVIEW: Shiki Episodes 12-22 Streaming
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child of Lilith
 Posts: 137 Location: Egg of Lilith ( the black moon) |
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Excellent review. It's just a pity Shiki's message seems to be lost on the majority of viewers.
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Megiddo
 Posts: 8360 Location: IL |
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The second half of Shiki was bloody fantastic. I loved how it never picked a side. It's so easy to paint the Shiki as pure evil and humans as good and yet that never happened (or if it did, then it wasn't a permanent comparison). Ozaki's "experiment" on spoiler[his wife] is what turned Shiki from a "good" anime to "great" for me. The glazed eyes and his nonchalant reaction when Muroi comes in... it's just so perfect.
I know a lot aren't satisfied with the ending, but for me it fits perfectly. I particularly liked spoiler[how it's implied that Natsuno lit the village on fire after witnessing what the villagers had done to Tohru and Ritsuko.] And his one-liner to Tatsumi was sublime. It sums up the series so well. |
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child of Lilith
Posts: 137 Location: Egg of Lilith ( the black moon) |
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The last episode was indeed great. It's just a shame the episodes right before it were the weakest the show had to offer.
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Takamachi Ryoko
 Posts: 332 Location: 東京, 日本 |
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Shiki Part II: Revenge of the Humans, now that title makes me lol
I don't know, Shiki was pretty much decent IMO. But I have to agree with Carl's view of the character. The first part was boring as hell, starting from episode eighteen onwards it got very satisfying. It's such a good pleasure to see the villagers work together and screw the Shiki; solely based on their roles, the humans did a good job. Shiki, on the other hand, are poorly portrayed vampires. It can't be helped that they are defenseless in sunlight, Tatsumi is probably the only intelligent fighter here, while the rest are like moving corpses while maintaining their human abilities. Siriusly, THEY ARE VAMPIRES, at least give them some bit of their folklore counterparts supernatural abilities like super-strength or the ability to shapeshift, blood-sucking and hypnotism seem to be their only powers. And Sunako, heh, she may look scary in the 1st half then WTH have they turned her into: a typical "God has forsaken me" character achetype who helplessly watches as death comes near. They are both vampire progenitor, but Dracula can put much more of a fight than this oujo-chan. And I don't what's with the series' logic: The show is obviously set after World War Two, and yet no-one in this rural community has guns (until the very end), no-one has a UV lamp or torch, and the governmental system is outdated to the point of being feudal. This is a village in the middle of nowhere with just 1300 residents and it has its own mini-hospital complete with five nurses. It is odd in itself but even if the village was well equipped there was no reason not to call in outside help. As for the horror part, I don't know, the show was pretty creepy as first then when we know who's behind the murders, it's not scary at all (in my case). Every horror scene became a predictable vivid image. The "horror" of Shiki is probably those geyser of blood they shown near the end, what we call horror should be psychological moments that spread fear in our minds or something that would pop out of nowhere then "BOO!" (something like the Grudge since Shiki can be considered J-horror) I have to agree with Ringu's author about this part, "I don't like blood because it kills imagination." and Shiki technically did. Its poor execution can be counted among what makes it a good but not sufficient series, literally the time jump; there's nothing wrong with that (Higurashi did too) but by the epilogue, it's overloaded with plot holes: spoiler[we all know what happened to the exorcist hag, but we like to see her last moments or why no one gives a damn about her missing]; spoiler[according to Tatsumi, there are 4 jinrou, so what happened to the fourth?]; spoiler[poor the Tanaka family, but the epilogue never addressed how Akira survived;] etc. The ending SIRIUSLY lacks a sense of closure, but since Shiki was based on the light novel and manga, I suppose those two are more detailed. In my case, Shiki started to make me lose interest, Story: B+, meh, it should deserve a lower score than that. I close my case here. Last edited by Takamachi Ryoko on Tue Feb 08, 2011 10:22 am; edited 1 time in total |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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The humans were the good guys, and I was audibly cheering on the villagers each time another vampire bit the dust. Very satisfying; my high blood pressure caused by all of the horrible events was giving me grief, so it felt good when the tide turned. The villagers were not monsters; that's like saying war heroes are monsters. That's like saying that ordinary people who protect their homes from thieves and murderers are monsters for daring to exact justice, for daring to be more than livestock.
These are villagers who have been under siege for months, having their loved ones killed off only for some of them to arise anew, often as psychopathic murderers who have newfound powers and aren't afraid to use them. Killing for sport, killing for revenge, killing to stave off boredom, killing for an evil hunger's own sake. The villagers only killed to protect themselves and their loved ones, and to put such abominations to rest. The vampires didn't need to kill, they could have just spoiler[sucked blood from a person once instead of the requisite four times.] The could have run their own blood bank and siphoned a bit off the side. But they targeted children, the elderly, the strong and the weak. Every human was little more than a walking pre-packaged meal. There is no moral issue about who was right or wrong. Sunako deliberately ordered the deaths of hundreds of humans simply so she could have friends to play with. The monk aided and abetted those who had killed his own people - people who he had known his or their entire lives - just to help one sick (in the head) and twisted little "girl". I don't like it when people say "you're either with us or against us", but really, there was good and there was evil in ShiKi, and the two weren't exactly hard to distinguish. |
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Megiddo
Posts: 8360 Location: IL |
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I'm sure they'll handle Akira's situation in one of the two OVA episodes.
Also, why do you say they're vampires? They're shiki. When a vampire bites a person, there isn't a random chance of that person being a vampire. Just because you want them to be vampires and turn into bats and have super-strength does not make them vampires. And how was Sunako's "God has forsaken me" character when Ookawa was about to kill her? It's all about survival. It's not about the humans winning or the shiki winning. It's about them both fighting for survival. And that's what makes the end of the series so ironic. |
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12skippy21
 Posts: 785 Location: York, England |
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I do not think the message is lost, it is a rather simplistic message afterall, push humans into a corner and watch them erupt, it does not matter how sentient and caring the other species may appear to be. Although in reality you do not need to push people, the same end can be achieved by simply using a buzzword as a cover for action. Freedom seems a popular one these days. We as a race are all guilty of our callous nature towards our own and the planet. I loved the show because it portrayed the most real aspect of survival. However I still have issues with the first half, because the horror is so much better achieved in the second half. Rather than a simple set-up of a human then "oh look s/he's dead" I wish they tried to make it creepier (I loved episode 4), or thrown us a few curve balls in its development. |
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Takamachi Ryoko
Posts: 332 Location: 東京, 日本 |
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I get what you've meant.
But remember Sunako wasn't a blood-sucker to begin with. She was infected by some guy, who knows whether he was a vampire or not, if he was, the same went to his victims. The local call these blood-suckers Shiki which means Corpse Demon, and aren't vampires belonged to the undead. Like you said, some people who were bitten by Shiki didn't become vampires, but this was happened in some vampire stories too. And what, Shiki can't withstand sunlight, their heads have to be removed or hearts destroyed in order to kill them, they have to be invited to enter a house, they feed on blood, they can hypnotize and control people, these factors alone are enough to consider them vampires. There have been many alterations of vampire which make them look different than their mythical counterparts but can still be categorized vampires because of their distinguishable traits, Shiki can be considered one too. Sunako was discussed why God didn't save her when her friends are killed with Muroi, for a progenitor, she was such a crybaby. And her attack on Oukawa was a desperate act. Would she rather sit there let him kill her or at least bring him down along before getting killed herself? And for your information, I don't hate Shiki, just don't like it. |
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vashfanatic
 Posts: 3495 Location: Back stateside |
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It's strange that they have guns at all, since gun laws in Japan are so tight that it's almost impossible to own one. Also, why would guns be helpful against vampires? Stakes through the heart or swords and axes to lop of their heads makes much more sense.
Okay, I resent that. You're basically dismissing any complaints about the pacing by saying that anyone who thought it was too slow or that it wasted its time on non-essentials is somehow juvenile or immature. Because this series was too slow, and wasted a lot of time. Most episodes had nothing of consequence happen in them, just character 47 dies, then character 48, then maybe character 49 turns into a vampire and everyone angsts a little, then we're back to everyone milling around and not doing anything. I know they're trying to set up a mood of growing dread, and it worked at first, but by episode 16, when I quit this, my feeling had increasingly become "DO SOMETHING ALREADY!!" I'd gotten chills during the spoiler[vivisection] scene and thought the plot was finally picking up, but then it went back to the funeral home nonsense and nothing happening and I dropped the series. I have a feeling it was the 22 episode mandate that slowed this series down, and if it had been 18 episodes long it wouldn't have dragged as much as it does. I also think they had trouble with dividing it into 24-minute episodes, where each needs a bit of rise and fall in the action. I'd very much like to read the books, though. Oh, and dare I bring up the pointless cat-ears on random characters? I really didn't like the art style of this series either. |
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pachy_boy
Posts: 1341 |
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That does in fact sum it up, but the rest of the review really explains how Shiki became such a huge surprise. The story was creepy and gradual at the beginning. People have complained about it, but I still felt it worked, and I maintain that the point was that, although a ficitional story, it's meant to reflect how people in real life wouldn't easily jump to conclusions that they're dealing with vampires/undead. Yet I never predicted that this series would make me shift from rooting for the human characters to sympathizing with the Shiki. It was one of those rare series that didn't have a main character, and you really didn't know who would make it at all. At just past the halfway point, I was starting to wonder, 'do any of the human characters survive to the end?" By toward the end I was wondering just the same for the Shiki. With the way the story was going, I was concerned about whether the ending would be an especially bleak one that would leave me feeling empty, as some similar series have done for me. Sure enough, the ending isn't technically a happy one, but at the same time I wouldn't really call it sad. It was just--appropriate. The spoiler[village burning] was something that definitely had to happen after everything, especially on a symbolic level, and what survivors there were on both sides was equally sufficient. So in summation, Shiki was definitely something uniqe in a way. I don't know if I'd watch it again, but if Funimation's potential DVD release of it may include the OVA episodes a forumite had mentioned, I might consider it. Last edited by pachy_boy on Tue Feb 08, 2011 10:18 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 24162 |
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Someone's a little sensy!  Yes, Carl is being insulting, but not to non-juveniles. He is assuming that younger viewers would find Shiki's pacing too slow and, in the main, he's probably right. Your assumption that he is therefore implying that anybody who found the pacing too slow is somehow juvenile is just something you are bringing from your own psyche.
The fact is that the vast majority of a general North American audience would find Shiki's pacing too slow, regardless of age. I myself, a huge fan of the show, was sorely tested on occasion. I never seriously considered ditching it, though, because there was always enough other compensation for me to keep me hooked despite the fact that my "humans striking back" catharsis was being cruelly delayed. I found my patience more than amply rewarded in exactly the conflicted way that Carl laid out in his review. I admire the show's bravery in sticking to its slow guns because the payoff was worth it. That's what I love about anime - it will do things like repeat the same episode eight times in row except for minor variations. No other entertainment form that I am aware has that kind of balls. But yeah, I get how these things won't have universal appeal. |
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vashfanatic
Posts: 3495 Location: Back stateside |
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I think it could easily be interpreted both ways, but you're right that I hadn't thought about how it insulted young folks for implying they're all impatient bubbleheads.
That's why I stuck with it as long as I did (I was starting to get tired of it much earlier). After a while, though, I started to have doubts about whether the catharsis would ever really come, that it would be a fade-to-nothing downer ending. And honestly, for there to be a catharsis, I would have to have cared about the characters a lot more than I did. By episode 16 I was sick of all of their persistent non-action, and I realized I didn't care whether the village was wiped out or not anymore.
Yes -- much balls, no brains. Resorting to tactics that will lost over half your audience because you're not actually telling a story, just spinning your wheels, is not brilliant, it's bad storytelling. Shiki wasn't anywhere near as bad as "Endless Eight" but it still could have used some tightening of the pace to keep it tense rather than letting it slip into "dull, with sporadic bursts of interesting material." I mean, a lot of this is subjective, but I personally found Shiki to be a waste of a good story set-up on a poorly-executed production. I really want to read the books, but I could not finish the anime. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 24162 |
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I make no claim on whether something like Endless Eight is brilliant or not - my point is that decisions like that are brave; an element all too lacking in most entertainment. I wouldn't want to make a steady diet of courageous failures, but I can accept one every now and then.
And yes, your opinion of Shiki is subjective - as are everybody's opinions of anything. I am kind of surprised, however - I would have thought you might have been in the camp that vibed on the other things Shiki had to offer. I was certainly not alone in my admiration. |
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vashfanatic
Posts: 3495 Location: Back stateside |
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Which, besides the story, was...? Like I said, I'd love to read the books that this are based on, it's just that I don't like the adaptation in terms of art style or pacing, which is what 90% of adapting a book to an anime is. |
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Megiddo
Posts: 8360 Location: IL |
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Someone who can watch Angel's Egg, and rate it "Good" simply baffles me as to how such a person can then complain about another anime's pacing.
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