Final Grade: ++
Now lets talk about everything that sucked. Spoilers abound.
The vampires are sparkly and have feelings.
Nice cleavage
Natsuno looks too much like a girl, even for anime. His personality is too inconsistent, even for anime. He has too much implicit gay sex with his best friend, even for anime.
Megumi’s attack on Tohru was a huge ripoff. We’re eagerly trying to deduce what kinds of powers the vampires have in the early episodes. In comes Megumi. She yaps her mouth for a while. Nobody moves. She climbs on top of Tohru and bites him. Nobody moves. She presumably leaves. Nobody presumably moves. The next morning, Natsuno wonders if it was all a dream. What happened? Can the vampires paralyze bystanders? Can they erase their memories? Do they only attack in dreams? No, Natsuno was just a huge pussy.
The vampires have the most inconsistent powers in the universe. There was one scene in which a vampire was flying. Gee, that would’ve been convenient at any other point in the show. Ditto with the eye powers.
If only she could see the tractors. Or fly away.
Yeah, I get it, the vampires are made to seem overpowered at the beginning to contrast with their portrayal as vulnerable and human toward the end. Whatever, I’d rather see flying byakugan vampires, but if you’re going to do the vampires-are-people-too theme, don’t let it screw with the plot.
The book was pretentious. Nobody cares about a story within a story having a character based on a character, unless it involves a nameless monster.
The scene with the women laughing and eating while covered with blood lasted forever and was an insult to the intelligence of every single viewer except Glo. We get it, they’re desensitized. WHO ARE THE REAL MONSTERS? Move on with the show already.
I can’t say the second opening sucked. Buck-Tick is just a tough act to follow.
The ending seemed a little half-assed. Just a little. I’ll say one-quarter-assed and leave it at that since some dumbass is reading this despite the spoiler warning.
Shiki’s evil of least importance but greatest magnitude was repeatedly showing a fat lady in her underwear. On the bright side, she got attacked by wolves.
Despite all these problems, Shiki succeeded in disappointing me less than PSG (+) and Kuragehime (++).
Shiki is also the best of the on-average-slightly-above-average novitaminA shows that everyone’s sucking up to these days.