I was not planning on making this list because I missed the starting point, like last year…and this year I’m four days away from when the ‘moment’ posts are supposed to end. But hey, nothing says I can’t make one big post for all my favorite moments in anime for 2010! I watched even less [...]

Woah, that was a pretty intense half-an-hour. Things are still progressing slowly in this series but that doesn’t stop events from being genuinely creepy. One of the things Shiki is proving to be very good at is creating atmosphere, and the show has been using that to its advantage; the consistently eerie mood it’s been building since the premiere has not only been maintained but heightened. In this episode, we were introduced to several new characters, all of whom were sinister or intriguing or both, and the foreboding was really laid on thick.

The first part of the episode focused on three very different teenage boys: Masao, Tohru, and Natsuno, the latter of whom we’ve already met. There’s instantly a sharp contrast between aloof, guarded Natsuno and his only friend in Sotoba, the pleasant Tohru. But it’s through Tohru that we see slivers of another side of Natsuno. Even with his friend, he retains his icy demeanour, but we almost get a sense of why. Natsuno not only doesn’t care about the village he’s living in – like Megumi, he wants to get out – but also seems to be attempting to control his emotions. His behaviour and desire to stay over at Tohru’s indicate that he’s been rattled by the past days’ events (or perhaps something else), but he still doesn’t show much fear whatsoever. Likewise, when Masao angrily confronts him about not accepting Megumi’s gift, he maintains his calm, although there’s clearly disdain in his words.

There’s a contrast between Masao and Natsuno as well. They both harbour (arguably) similar displeasure, but they express it in different ways. As we see from both his interactions with people in the past and the present, Masao isn’t slow to lash out and could even have an anger management problem. He also despises Natsuno and really lets it show. On the other hand, while Natsuno doesn’t exactly bottle things up, he never lets himself get overwhelmed by emotion. He remains cool, calm and collected at all times, but is occasionally distinctly unkind.

Speaking of Masao, he’s a fairly unpleasant character. Aside from his aforementioned anger issues, he also has moments where his actions could make one’s skin crawl. I found his behaviour towards his sister-in-law disturbing, and his reaction upon telling Tohru of Nao’s death had a similar effect on me, as it was difficult to tell if it was excitement or fear he was expressing (but perhaps that was just me). His character design also serves to further the ‘unpleasant’ image. But despite all this, it was surprisingly easy for me to feel sympathetic towards him. Even though, as I said, he acted towards his sister-in-law in a way that made me feel uneasy, it seemed like he was only doing so because he was expecting to be hated by her so much. I feel as though that’s somewhat tragic: he’s expects to be hated so much that, in the process of expressing his anxiety, he makes himself just that.

On the plus side for him, though, his personality might just make him one of the least scary residents of Sotoba. While he is explicitly creepy, almost every other resident in the town seems to be hiding something. It seems that there’s something off about so many of them but it’s hard to pinpoint what it is, and that’s much spookier, to me at least.

All three members of the Kirishiki family also had their first onscreen debuts in this episode (beyond cameos, at least), and they definitely delivered on the strangeness. Chizuru and Seishirou acted very oddly upon meeting Nao’s family, especially considering how soon she died afterwards. Their cryptic utterances, as well as their line upon leaving – “We’ll stop by to pay our respects. Soon, quite soon.”, according to umee’s subs – were also mysterious and disquieting. And yet, somehow, their daughter Sunako managed to steal the spotlight from them. She seemed far older than her thirteen years upon meeting Seishin, and she made her intelligence very clear. Like both her parents, she also added fuel to the intrigue-fire with several enigmatic lines, including one that was a clear reference to Seishin and the cut on his wrist.

The Kirishiki family are probably the most intriguing characters at this point. It helps that their reason for moving to Sotoba is suspicious, especially given the timing of said move. I can’t wait to see more of the three of them, and I’m very curious as to how their stories will unfold.

Finally, this episode featured some very heavy foreshadowing of corpses rising from the grave. The title, Shiki, means ‘corpse demon’, so this wasn’t unexpected, but I was surprised by the amount of oblique and not-so-oblique references to that. First we had Seishin’s novel – which seems like it could become a major plot-point – alluding to it, and then we had Masao’s line about Megumi clawing her way out of her grave to get revenge on Natsuno. Hmm…

All in all, another enjoyable episode. Both the show’s horror and mystery elements are being very well set up, and I look forward to not only when things inevitably come to a head, but to the rest of the ride along the way.

[NB: This is a post that is somewhere between an episodic and an editorial, and it goes off on a couple of tangents (swine flu, Sherlock Holmes). You've been warned. It's a departure, but I hope you enjoy it!]

In Shiki, a universal fear is played with: that of illness, or rather deathly illness. It’s a fear that can be so strong that it can cause a total frenzy – remember last year and the swine flu pandemic? For weeks, you couldn’t turn on the TV or pick up a newspaper without seeing something about H1N1. Suffice to say, the media was all over it, and there was a huge amount of hysteria surrounding it all. Looking back, perhaps what made people so (arguably unnecessarily) scared was that anyone, no matter how healthy, could contract the disease.

Shiki was first published in 1998, so swine flu couldn’t have been any form of inspiration for the disease. Nevertheless, I can’t help but see similarities between the fear it created last year and the fear Shiki plays on now. They both seem, at first, to be similar to colds and flus, with Shiki‘s illness leaving people “drowsy and in a daze”. (Sotoba’s doctor even sees a case of it in its infancy and diagnoses it as a summer cold.) Both have the potential to spread quickly through families and towns. Both can also seemingly be caught by anyone, and that’s what interests me most. While the elderly make up a lot of the early victims in Shiki, a previously-healthy fifteen-year-old girl is also among the dead: Megumi Sotoba.

I’m stating the obvious here, but with one of the genre categories it falls into being horror, Shiki hopes to frighten us. At this point, the basic fear it’s using is an oft-employed one – that anyone can be struck down by, and die from, something unavoidable. Putting ourselves in the characters’ shoes, how would we react if this was our situation? How would we behave, knowing we could catch this deadly disease that presents as something so innocuous?

What makes things even more interesting is that another genre-layer is present, and that’s mystery. What is this disease, and what is it caused by? How is it contracted, and can it be avoided? Can the inhabitants of Sotoba be protected? Simply, in the words of one of the characters, “What on Earth is happening in this village?” Episode two served to further a classic mystery set-up by introducing two possible investigators: Toshio Ozaki, the aforementioned village doctor, and Seishin Muroi, the priest. Ozaki seems to be the driving force behind wanting to investigate, while Muroi assists him with a surprising amount of insight. The two of them have interesting, contrasting personalities – with Ozaki being gruff and somewhat emotional, and Muroi being calm and intelligent – and they could almost fall into a Holmes/Watson type of relationship. I realise this is a pretty big statement to make so early in the series (especially since we’ve been given no indication as to who will actually solve the mystery) so I’ll hold back from pigeonholing them as such for now. But I wanted to make mention of this because the two of them seemed to have much greater roles here and the dynamic between them was, to me, worth noting.

To more specific thoughts on the episode, I enjoyed it a lot. I love how Shiki is not only building up its horror elements but also its mystery elements; the plot is gradually revealing itself, and it’s fun to speculate which characters will play which role in the story. This is both easy and enjoyable to do, because though some of them are difficult to like (Natsuno), all of Sotoba’s residents interesting and mysterious. I’m truly looking forward to seeing how they develop in the coming weeks. Finally, Sotoba is becoming a great little entity in and of itself. The constant chatter and gossip of the older residents adds flavour to the show and helps make the small town setting feel real.

Two episodes in, Shiki is progressing slowly but surely, and I believe that’s a great way for it to be going. If you’re looking for action, I’d advise you to search elsewhere – this is not the show for you. But if you’re after well-crafted suspense and a strong blend of psychological horror and mystery, give Shiki a try.

The premiere episode of Shiki focuses on Megumi Shimizu, a tenth grader feeling totally out of place in the small town of Sotoba. While most residents of the village seem to favour a quiet, simple existence, Megumi is fashionable, vibrant and thinks that the big city is the only place for her. In her eyes, Sotoba is utterly boring. She’s only interested in two things there: her crush, Yuuki Natsuno, and the giant, Western-style mansion up on the hill. She’s a bit of a brat and I could imagine her having a lot of anti-fans in the anime community. Fortunately for them, she doesn’t last very long. By the end of the episode, she’s dead.

The recurring theme in this episode for me was things that stand out. Sotoba – or at least how we see it from Megumi’s eyes – feels homogenous, peaceful and quiet. It’s the typical small town, but (aside from all the mystery, of course) two things seem very out of place: the first is Megumi, and the second is the mansion. Suffice to say, there was a sharp contrast between both of these and the rest of the village.

On a superficial level, things are simple. Megumi’s character design is noticeably brighter than the rest and the clothes she wears – she gets to show off a few designs during the episode – are dramatically different to what the other residents sport. Similarly, the mansion’s architecture instantly sets it apart from every other place in Sotoba. The villagers and Megumi are both fascinated and frightened by it (though she tends far more to the former), and intriguingly, before falling ill and dying, our one-episode-heroine seems to be literally enchanted by the house.

I find it very interesting that the first victim in Sotoba stands out so much, and I can think of several reasons for Fuyumi Ono choosing her for this role. The first is straightforward: the villagers can’t help but notice that someone so flamboyant has died so mysteriously. The second is that homogeneity can make things more scary. When characters seem similar on the outside, the audience can’t help but wonder which of them are hiding dark secrets or true colours behind facades. My third, and final, theory is probably the closest to the truth. Having someone who seems like they’re going to be a large part of the series meet their end gives Shiki an ‘anyone can die‘ reputation. There’s a massive cast in the show, and the body count is only going to rise as things progress. The twist of Megumi’s death adds a great element of suspense – who will the next victim be? No-one is safe.

Whichever of these theories is fact – or even if none of them are – one thing’s for sure: part of me feels like Megumi’s death was a sort of poetic justice. She wanted to get out of the Podunk town she lived in so much that she did… through death.

To the technical side of things, I felt that the music was really strong, able to both be interesting and match a scene well, while still remaining unobtrusive. The direction, on the other hand, was a bit of a mixed bag. It was mostly solid, but at some points, I felt as though there were far too many things on screen. The use of CGI was also awkward.

Next, while I appreciate the art style’s difference to the anime norm, I’m not a huge fan of it. I felt the art was one of the weakest elements of (what I’ve read of) the manga, and the style present in the anime is almost a perfect copy. The character designs, too, have been very carefully transferred, and I’m iffy on those as well: they can look utterly brilliant or a bit silly. Despite my complaints, though, I do think that Shiki‘s art is very effective on the whole. It’s not exactly polished, but it adds another layer to an interesting story while never distracting from the meat of it. Also, the off-putting facial distortion that sometimes plagues the manga is almost nowhere to be found in this adaptation. Finally, like in the manga, the backgrounds are phenomenal.

All in all, I thought the first episode was largely successful. The atmosphere is extremely well done; this instalment did a great job of setting the scene; and there’s a fantastic combination of tension, horror and mystery, but not so much of these that the episode becomes hard to wade through. With multiple intriguing questions popping up so soon, it already feels as though things have been intricately plotted here. Knowing Ono, they have, and I can’t wait to see how things progress.