Shiki - Review

Out of the many different anime that I am currently watching for the 2010 fall season, this anime stood out the most. At least, for me. It definitely has a great horror and mystery story to follow.  It had some intensive moments for the build up of the climax. This anime does takes its' time to develop their story and it keeps up within a reasonable amount of pace. Although, it's a bit slow in the beginning, but it did eventually get more interesting as the plot unfolds.

The story takes place in a sleepy village of Sotoba. Where a mysterious epidemic disease starts to spread throughout the village. But slowly, the villagers start to drop dead like flies. As more dead bodies starts to pile up and more graves to dig, Toshio Ozaki, who is the only doctor in the village, begins an investigation on what is causing these people to die all of the sudden. He soon realizes that most of these people died due to large amounts of blood loss. But these sudden death and illness didn't come around until a mysterious family moves into an old abandoned mansion up on a hill. Toshio begins to suspect they are responsible for the villager's deaths. However, the people who were just buried have now risen from their graves, and prowls through the night, looking for intended victims as prey. Overall, it's a classic vampire story.

What I liked about ths anime is that not only that it showed from human's point of view, but also from the Shiki's point of view. As well as, from a whole lot of different character's perspective. At least we get to see both sides of their story. However, in the middle of the series, the tables are turned as the humans hunt down the Shiki and put an end to their society. It's interesting because in the beginning the Shikis were hunting down humans, and now it's reversed, the humans are hunting down the Shikis. It got me thinking, who are the real monsters? The villagers who are getting rid of the shikis to stop the epidemic disease from spreading or the Shikis who just want to survive. From what I see, it draws the line between humans and vampires.

There are tons of good things I want to say about this anime, but I'm trying to condense this review. It's a thrilling tale of humans vs. Shikis. Also, an intriguing storytelling of chaos and macabre. However, this series does have a good story build up that will make you want to see the rest of it until the very end.