I couldn't let AniMAY 2014 pass by without at least one review of a horror anime. Shiki is a doozy. It's like a mash-up between Bram Stoker's Dracula and Twin Peaks. A town is dealing with an inexplicable run of deaths. Natsuno, our hero, is fascinated by death but won't be of much use in the story for quite some time. Things turn strange when a high school girl, Megumi, is found in a catatonic state brought on by anemia and dies later that night. Her parents refuse an autopsy so that her suffering isn't extended even though the only thing wrong with the body is a few bug bite wounds. At the same time, a new family, the Kirishikis, move into a long-abandoned Western-style mansion in the middle of the night and are never seen around town. Megumi was on her way to visit them when she fell because of the anemia.

Shiki is fascinating to watch. I do not know enough about the mythology of vampirism or the spread of the traditional Gothic vision of the monsters in Japan to speak on this particular variation on the theme. The creatures are clearly vampires, but they're always called Shikis. It's a total chance occurrence if someone can be transformed into a new vampire without dying and the existing ones claim they are sick and cursed by God.

There are, however, some clear parallels to Twin Peaks within the series that have to be intentional. Megumi is a mix between Laura Palmer and Ronnette Pulaski. The bridge we last see Megumi on before she's discovered in the woods looks a whole lot like the bridge Ronnette is discovered on after the death of Laura Palmer. The scene is "filmed" in a very similar way. Megumi, alive and dead, is the lynch pin to the town's connections and unraveling the mystery. She even gets the opportunity to haunt the town, albeit under much different circumstances.

The town is as central to the story as the young teenage leads are. Each episode is named and numbered after another mysterious death in the town. That's a little more Salem's Lot than Twin Peaks, but the exploration of and investigation into the Kirishikis and surviving townspeople is definitely more similar to the latter.

Shiki is, simply put, almost as dark as Elfen Lied without any of the hope inherent in that series. Nothing can end well for the town or the vampires. No one's minds are going to be changed about the true nature of humanity or shikis. It's going to be a bloody battle to the end where the reluctant combatants aren't even living on the same time schedule. The show is a must-watch for Gothic horror fans.

This post was part of AniMAY 2014. Click through for more great posts.