Shiki: Part 2 Blu-ray

Shiki: Part 2

 (TV) (2010)

Shiki: Part 2 Blu-ray delivers stunningly beautiful video and great audio in this fan-pleasing Blu-ray release
Sotobamura is a small village with around 1300 residents; so small the village isn't even connected to a single highway. An isolated village in which old customs, such as the burial of the dead, are still practiced. One day, the bodies of three people are found dead. Although Ozaki Toshio, the village's lone doctor, feels uncertain, he treats the deaths as a normal occurrence. However, in the days following, the villagers start to die one after the other.

For more about Shiki: Part 2 and the Shiki: Part 2 Blu-ray release, see the Shiki: Part 2 Blu-ray Review

Starring: Tia Ballard, Mike McFarland, Jerry Jewell, David Wald

Shiki: Part 2 Blu-ray Review

Fangs for the memories.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, May 23, 2012

In one way, the lure of vampire stories is understandable: there's a lugubrious, seductive quality to many live action portrayals of such iconic characters as Dracula or some of the heartthrobs in the Twilight franchise. But how to explain the equally popular occurrence of the blood sucking beasts in anime? That's a bit of more difficult conundrum, but the fact is vampires have been populating Japanese animated features for years, and they don't seem to be showing any signs of abating soon. Shiki is yet another entry in this anime subset, and, as discussed in the review of Shiki: Part 1 Limited Edition, there are both familiar and unfamiliar elements in this particular vampire story. By far the most interesting thing about Shiki from a story perspective is its emphasis on what might be described as a sort of procedural, where a small town doctor and a teen boy try to figure out why so many villagers are dying from what is assumed to be a rare form of anemia. By the time this second volume's episodes get underway, it's fairly clear what's going on, as several "formerly dead" characters have returned to the fray, fangs and blood sucking proclivities on display, and a mysterious family that has moved into the village has become the focus of serious suspicions that they may not in fact be entirely human. This second half of Shiki boasts some incredible visual flair, something that was evident in the first half of the series though perhaps not quite to the degree evidenced here, but the story itself becomes a fairly dour and relentless march toward a devastating finale that kind of makes the bloody, death filled ending of Hamlet seem like "happily ever after" by comparison.



Alfred Hitchcock famously opined that real suspense was generated by giving the audience some knowledge that those on the screen don't possess, mentioning his famous scene in Sabotage where there's a bomb on a bus as a perfect example. What appears to be a humdrum scene on its surface of people riding on public transportation is instead morphed into a nail biting sequence of unimaginable terror since the audience knows there's an explosive device secreted on the vehicle. Shiki may not get to Hitchcockian heights in terms of letting the audience in on certain secrets, and in fact may be delivering the obvious by letting viewers know that the small town of Sotoba is under the thumb (fang?) of a group of vampires. By the middle section of the series, where this second volume picks up the story, even some characters have finally figured out what's going on, as not only have they been visited by former village residents they thought had died from a pervasive anemia, they have been bitten by these folks.

The second half of Shiki turns into a veritable blood bath, and in fact the series is ruthless in a Lost sort of way with its cavalier attitude toward a bevy of supposedly central characters. If it weren't played so (literally) deadly seriously, some of Shiki might be ripe for a Monty Python-esque treatment, for in the case of some of the characters, they don't just die once, they die repeatedly, first at the hands of vampires and then as the series explodes into an epic battle between the few surviving human townspeople and the vampires, by the townspeople themselves. Some of these deaths are incredibly gruesome, and the series seems to almost exult in shots of death and decay with attendant gore and guts.

The series does try to inject some frankly useless philosophizing along the way, especially as several characters, both human, vampire and jinrou (a kind of vampire – human hybrid), either meet their fates or attempt to come to terms with their stations in life (and/or death). Shiki tends to just stop cold during these moments as various characters ruminate about "big questions", questions which are usually answered with an alarmingly violent denouement that kind of makes the questioning moot. The final two or three episodes of Shiki indulge in this tendency a bit more than usual, something that may bother some viewers as by that time the series is rushing headlong into a maelstrom of death and destruction that sees very few survivors by the time the show reaches its finale. The very dourness of Shiki may actually recommend it to some who find the faux romanticism of outings like the Twilight franchise a bit ridiculous. These vampires have bigger questions on their minds than who looks more buff without his shirt on.

Shiki: Part 2 Blu-ray, Video Quality

 

Shiki: Part 2 is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of FUNimation Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This is one of the coolest looking animes in recent memory, one defined by some very nice looking graphical elements, frequently layered with a sort of gritty superimposed texture that makes some of the more gruesome shots look like old daguerreotypes or images from fading newspapers. There are also purely graphical representations of characters at times which also elevate the series' visual allure. The basic character designs are excellent, including some spooky looking vampires, albeit occasionally with questionable hairstyles. Colors are bold and provocative, and even the intentionally desaturated elements are very crisp and clear looking. Line detail is very strong and the overall high definition presentation pops extremely well, perhaps even a tad better than the first half of the series.

Shiki: Part 2 Blu-ray, Audio Quality

 

As with Shiki: Part 1 Limited Edition, the second half of the series features both an English dub in Dolby TrueHD 5.1 as well as the original Japanese language track delivered via Dolby TrueHD 2.0. Both of these tracks offer excellent fidelity, and it's kind of fun to compare the voice work of both of them (listen to how almost identically hysterical Megumi is in both languages). The English language track offers an obviously much more spacious presentation, one that opens up the increasingly violent ambience of the series' closing episodes, with lots of excellent sound effects (including some very lifelike fire sounds) dotting the sound field. Fidelity is very strong, with dialogue, effects and score very well prioritized. The series doesn't really have an overabundance of LFE, but all frequency ranges are very ably supported on both of these Dolby TrueHD audio options.

Shiki: Part 2 Blu-ray, Special Features and Extras

 

• Episode 18 Commentary follows the tradition set by Shiki Part 1 by having the series' Line Producer, ADR Director and Voice Artist Mike McFarland act as host for a round table, this time including Ian Sinclair (Tatsumi), J. Michael Tatum (Seishirou) and Lydia Mackay (Chizuru). McFarland really keeps things nicely on track here, getting some good information out of each of the voice actors about how they see their characters and various plot elements that play into the series.


• Episode 22 Commentary features Mike McFarland yet again, this time with Cherami Leigh (Sunako), John Burgmeier (Seishin), and David Wald (Toshio). This is a little less engaging than the other commentary, but McFarland follows the same approach of eliciting the actors' thoughts about their characters and various story arcs.


• Preview Featurette Vol. 05 (HD; 1:46)


• Preview Featurette Vol. 06 (HD; 1:46)


• Preview Featurette Vol. 07 (HD; 1:16)


• Preview Featurette Vol. 08 (HD 1:16)


• Preview Featurette Vol. 09 (HD; 00:39)


• Textless Opening Song – Calendula Requiem (HD; 1:32)


• Textless Closing Song – Gekka – Reijin (HD; 1:32)


• U.S. Trailer (HD; 1:31)

Shiki: Part 2 Blu-ray, Overall Score and Recommendation

 

In a way it's hard not to commend Shiki for at least having the courage of its vampiric convictions, because not too many people are left standing by the series' end, and even most of those people are horribly scarred, either emotionally or physically. This isn't a "kinder, gentler" retelling of age old vampire tropes a la Twilight, although it does try to inject a quasi-CSI procedural element that may in fact be the series' most innovative twist. The second half of Shiki turns into a pretty relentless downer, without much relief from the death and destruction. Some of that death and destruction gets to almost self-parody levels as the series winds up (Megumi's fate is a perfect example), though it's hard to take this series as anything other than completely serious, warts and all. From a visual perspective alone, Shiki is spectacularly effective, and even those who couldn't care less about the melodramatic aspects of the plot may well find themselves compelled to watch simply because the animation is so impeccably well done. This Blu-ray offers incredible video and excellent audio, and some okay supplements. Despite some of this series suffering from "tired, iron poor blood" (in the words of an old commercial), Shiki comes Recommended.

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