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[Cornbread78]

The stakes were high.

It's definitely not worst bit in this series.

dun dun duuuunn...


Wait, it gets worse than that? niiiice! There are only 5 or so episodes left!

 

[Paltheos]

Hmm, alrighty then, lol

Yes, yes it has. The doctor is definately mad in the head now...

"Perfect timing, you can help me clean up this mess"

You can't write off Toshio that easily. He's a pragmatist, and the extremes he's gone too reflect the frustration and desperation of the position he's in. He wants to save people so badly but everything he's tried has failed. In order to find a solution, he needs to learn more about the shiki, even if he needs to do something deplorable. The scenes with him experimenting on his wife are fantastically constructed. He's not mad, and that's part of the reason it's so tough to watch.

The scene where Seishin walks in is great too. The cuts between Seishin and the bloody mess around Toshio in most any other show would be corny but Shiki's earned it. Toshio's chosen the path he's walking - He's going to save people no matter what he needs to do. Seishin doesn't know what he's going to do yet, but he can't approve of a path that includes such a terrible result.

Toshio and Seishin always had different outlooks on life (and really you could boil down allot of their characters to 'doctor' and 'priest' to get the point across), and Shiki does a fantastic job of splintering them apart ever little by little.

 

[Ascheroth]

You can't write off Toshio that easily. He's a pragmatist, and the extremes he's gone too reflect the frustration and desperation of the position he's in. He wants to save people so badly but everything he's tried has failed. In order to find a solution, he needs to learn more about the shiki, even if he needs to do something deplorable. The scenes with him experimenting on his wife are fantastically constructed. He's not mad, and that's part of the reason it's so tough to watch.

The scene where Seishin walks in is great too. The cuts between Seishin and the bloody mess around Toshio in most any other show would be corny but Shiki's earned it. Toshio's chosen the path he's walking - He's going to save people no matter what he needs to do. Seishin doesn't know what he's going to do yet, but he can't approve of a path that includes such a terrible result.

Toshio and Seishin always had different outlooks on life (and really you could boil down allot of their characters to 'doctor' and 'priest' to get the point across), and Shiki does a fantastic job of splintering them apart ever little by little.

I agree with all of this. Toshio is such a fantastic character.

 

[Cornbread78]

Damn, not the doc too!

He thought he was gonna fight, but....

Also, Yuuki rose as a hybrid! He needs to fibd a way to fight back though.

 

[ThatChairMan]

Episode 18

Good job Toshio, all according to plan. Now everything is out in the open, and time for some shit to go down.

I'm not quite sure if the show is trying to make me feel bad for the shikis since there's a lot more personal and non-villainous scenes for them, but if it is, it's not really working too well.

 

[Cornbread78]

Oh shit, the doctor outsmarted her! I hope she does get killed, but I'm guessing she excapes with the help of blue haired dude. Sensei is #1!

 

[Aki-at]

I agree with all of this. Toshio is such a fantastic character.

Doc was definitely my favourite character, as mad as he might have seemed, all his actions had rational reasoning behind it.

 

[Cornbread78]

Doc was definitely my favourite character, as mad as he might have seemed, all his actions had rational reasoning behind it.

Yeah, I'm starting to conceed that after watching that last episode where he set the first lady up.

 

[Ascheroth]

Episode 18

Toshio the madman strikes again. Loved his charade and smug face at the end. Well played. But for some reason I also kinda feel bad for Chizuru. This anime is really good at thinning the lines between good and evil.
So there are actually subspecies of Shiki. Tatsumi is one and Natsuno as well. Interesting. It looks like there are no demerits to becoming on, since without drinking blood you're essentially a normal human being, but with it you get superhuman strength. Huh.
So now with the remaining villagers in the know, I wonder if it will lead into a full-out war between the villagers and the Shiki.

 

[ThatChairMan]

Episode 19

Holy shit, it's begun. People are going a bit mad over the shiki revelation now, but it's an understandable madness. For now, at least. I worry a bit about what Seishin will do if they found him, especially since he looks like he's close to turning.

 

[Ascheroth]

Episode 19

So it begins. Not a pretty sight though.
Megumi shittalking Masao is always funny.

Episode 20

And so it continues. Quite bloody at that. I'm really liking the Sunako/Seishin and Ritsuko/Tooru storylines.
'Collateral damage' is also beginning to happen. I still have no idea how it could end, but it probably will include many deaths.

How are we going to handle the specials? Next would be special 1 aka episode 20.5.

 

[Cornbread78]

Wow, the townspeople finally grow a pair abd take care of sone business. Am I supossed to feel bad for Sunako though? It feels like they are trying to get me to sympothize with their plight, but it's not happening. Hopefully, we get sone Yuuki x Megumi "action" going soon, lol.

 

[ThatChairMan]

Episode 20/20.5

And there it is, the madness is setting in. Shit is getting brutal, not just for the collateral damage that the villagers are inflicting on themselves, but also for the shiki. I didn't think I'd feel sorry for them after all they've done, but damn, shit is way too brutal.

 

[Ascheroth]

Episode 20

And so it continues. Quite bloody at that. I'm really liking the Sunako/Seishin and Ritsuko/Tooru storylines.
'Collateral damage' is also beginning to happen. I still have no idea how it could end, but it probably will include many deaths.

Episode 20.5

This is madness. Madness. Probably one of my favorite episodes. Hit hard.

 

[Cornbread78]

Damn.... That was a bloody mess! Did Yuuki survive the gun attack? They skipped over the outcome for his plotline.... yet again, lol.

So much killing! You kinda feel bad for the old guy that had to kill his own son as well.

 

[Cornbread78]

Chop chop. The town's comeback is huge, but the young monk is now a murderer as well as the shiki. Sucks he got away with Sunako before justice could be served and you know Ozaki is gonna get capped and killed by the infected resident next episode.

 

[Ascheroth]

Chop chop. The town's comeback is huge, but the young monk is now a murderer as well as the shiki. Sucks he got away with Sunako before justice could be served and you know Ozaki is gonna get capped and killed by the infected resident next episode.

I think you skipped 20.5, which is the first special. Next episode is 21.5, the second special

Episode 21

It's very unsettling watching normal people getting used to killing and carrying corpses.
It's funny how I find myself sympathizing more with the Shiki than the humans now.

Episode 21.5

Insanity 101

 

[Cornbread78]

Wait, that was the ending? I mean, they could easily have a whole sevond season to close things out because outside of the village burning down and a few deaths, nothing was concluded. That Megumi scene with the villagers was friggen disturbing as hell though.

I'm actually a little pissed that there was no ending, well, it was an "open" ending, that didn't finish the story really..

 

[ThatChairMan]

Episode 21/21.5/22

Boy, what an ending. Everything just gets so crazy, and, in the end, the village wasn't even saved. Quite an open ending, but I still enjoyed it regardless. Glad a few of the characters I liked ended up surviving, despite not making it entirely through in one piece.

The show as a whole really seemed to start off portraying the shiki as monsters and the people as (mostly) innocent, and then flipped it around afterwards. I can see what it was going for, and I even did feel sorry for some of them at the end, like Ritsuko, Tohru, and a few others, but it's kind of blunted by how extremely evil they were portrayed to start with. Felt more like a "push them too far" kind of thing instead of "humans were the monsters all along". Or maybe that's what it was going for? Still a pretty fun show overall.

 

[Aki-at]

Yeah the second half of the show just burned me out on it, I felt what it was trying to show and what I felt was two totally different things. Was I meant to feel bad for Sunako and the Shiki? Was I meant to feel Muroi was justified in his actions? (Funny how much of a bastard he is, unwilling to accept his friend experimenting on his wife but totally willing to forgive how much death Sunako has brought with her to his town) And the two get away ready to continue this for as long as they get away with it.

 

[Ascheroth]

Episode 22

That was an ending, alright. Nearly everyone dead and the whole village burned to the ground. And least Sunako and Seishun surviving was somewhat happy, I guess?
One thing I never understood was the Lucky/Unlucky Morning/Day/Afternoon thing.

As a whole I'd say I liked this a lot. While the two halves were certainly different in tone and atmosphere I think they each accomplished what they were going for.
Also, the 2 special episodes were amazing.

 

[Cornbread78]

The next Let’s Watch is ready to go:

Now Watching:

Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo

Take my hand and let’s go on a trip.

NeoGAF Let's Watch OT 16: Gankutsuou:The Count of Monte Cristo