Because of my video gaming habits, I don't sit down to watch broadcast television from a very young age. These days, I do try to find television shows to watch from digital venues such as Netflix, Hulu, and other official stream channels. I fail to see the allure watching scheduled shows - do people really still do that? I imagine that people would sit down with their family at night watching recorded shows so that they could skip through commercial breaks. Maybe not. Live shows? They are overrated me I am afraid - these things should happen on my time schedule. Since I don't watch football, I tend to spend my time playing video games on Super Bowl Sunday. Every so often in my quest to watch something passively instead of playing video games I would encounter incredible television shows that I would have regretted not seeing if I focus solely on one hobby. Shiki is one of those shows. This 22-episode anime series that was originally aired in Japan in 2010 is being streamed for free by its American distributor Funimation. You can check out the awesome stream by clicking here.
Shiki tells a story of a secluded Japanese village that is being plagued by an ever increasing number of mysterious deaths. The local doctor is unable to find the cause of the problem as the body counts continue to rise. Mostly inhabited by simple-minded people, a majority of them comprised of old folks, only a few suspected that the new family that has just moved in to a remote sector in the village where a western-style mansion was recently built had something to do with the entire thing. As you may suspect from the plot, this is a tale of vampiric-nature but even with its adherence to the established rules involving these bloodsuckers, the way the story is told is quite refreshing and the characters, both the humans and the undead are deeply fascinating.
There are so many characters in the show and the way that scenes move rather rapidly from one to the other, not to mention the never ending changes in time and place, can be a bit too much at the beginning but the reason for this will be quite evident at the later stages of the story and by then, you will be able to assign the names to their appropriate faces. Shiki takes its time to build up but from the beginning, it is obvious that the story will be a somber, dark one. There is that theme of helplessness and seclusion, as exemplified by the symbolic location of the village and the inner demons of the main characters. The only thing that didn't work out so well for me was the subplot of a Junior Monk who is trying to discover himself through a novel that he is writing. The monk ends up being one of the most important characters in the tale but he is also the weakest characterization of the bunch. Be warned that the show is filled with deaths around each corner and before everything is settled in the end, you have to go through a heavily emotional and extremely unforgiving climax. There is an interesting morality play to Shiki involving the idea of the hunter and the hunted as well as its role reversal. Is there truly a valid justification to murder when life has always been about survival of the fittest in all of its aspects? Whether its a human losing a life or an undead losing its own forever, the aftertaste will always be a bitter one.
Shiki is definitely one of the best anime series I have seen thus far with my two top favorites being Boogiepop Phantom and Death Note. Despite the unnatural hair shapes and colors infused into the art style, there is an incredible level of maturity to the storyline and the show really plays out its ideas to the fullest, never for a single episode deviating from its sordid roots. Shiki's potent combination of drama and horror is an experience that I will never forget. It is also another brilliant showcase from Japan that animation can certainly do a lot more than what live action can bring to the table. Watch Shiki now before they stop streaming it.
RATING: 5 out of 5
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