Anime Impressions: Shiki

Another of the summer season anime (Made up mainly of disappointment and cruelty), Occult Academy and Shiki shine through the clouded sky and actually bring some damn fine entertainment for the season. There are some minor spoilers coming.

Shiki is based around a small town of people living peacefully, many of the residents are elderly people (Wahey, well the majority of Japan is filled with the elderly). A mysterious string of deaths occur that send the town into an epidemic, and here we have it, a horror anime about vampires. Not the gay Hollywood superhero vampires either, these are traditional, terrifying vampires.

The anime so far (2 episodes) is moving slowly but purposefully. I can praise the artwork for being very unique and the atmosphere for being pretty spot on for a horror with a hint of Higurashi. The character designs themselves are odd to say the least, I don’t really understand it personally but it does have a sense of individuality to it instead of reusing everybody elses ideas.

It is creepy. Definitely a lot to go through your mind, the pacing is relatively fast with days going by quickly. Also, I like that the towns people actually have a sense of desperation and seem genuinely frightened of the events taking place, while keeping a sense of uncertainty because nobody actually knows what is going on (So far, it is just people dying without any sort of signs apart from what the doctor thought was iron deficiency anemia).

One to watch this summer. Anyone who likes gothic horror will love this.

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