For otakus (anime fans) who love surrealism, the supernatural, and excellent storytelling, Shiki (lit. “Corpse Demon”) is a can’t-miss. Its creative plotting, true-to-life characters, naturalistic lines, brilliant goth-rock soundtrack and unusually surreal animation style are all interesting in their own right, but what really sticks with you, long after you’ve finished watching it, is what the show reveals about human nature.
A lot of vampire fiction plays with the issues of power struggles, social class, and sexuality. But Shiki bypasses them all, zeroing in on one existential question: in lives ruled by obedience to tradition and authority, is it possible for people to truly recognize and accept one another’s humanity? And is tragedy the necessary result when two seemingly incommensurate worlds collide?
For the residents of Shotoba—the ultra-traditional small town where Shiki is set—survival isn’t really the subject of rigorous examination because their lives have a daily rhythm. They do what it takes to get by, maintaining a certain level of order and stability through a higher authority. In Shotoba, those authority figures are science and religion—represented by the Junior Doctor of the Ozaki Clinic and the Junior Monk of the temple.
But the representatives of higher offices don’t have any greater certainty than the people they lead. We see officials who have just inherited their positions from their predecessors displaying false confidence in public and deep uncertainty in private. Both are clearly exhausted by this subterfuge—Ozaki is a chain smoker, while the Junior Monk, Seishin, publishes dark novels about Shotoba—novels the townspeople don’t seem to have read—that describes a village “abandoned by God.”
And although Ozaki and Seishin are close—they’ve been friends since childhood—there’s a clear hierarchy between the two. Science trumps religion in both their minds, and in the minds of the people in the village. People begin to die in rapid succession, and as Ozaki works to deduce the cause of death, it becomes clear that the villagers want reassurance from him—not answers. As the days pass, there is an abundance of evidence that something extraordinary is going on—but, because of people’s blind faith in a rational world where the supernatural doesn’t exist, they are willing to overlook the evidence in order to maintain their belief in a world where everything is safe, explainable, and under control.
About halfway through the series, we begin to see things from the vampires’ point of view. As it turns out, their lives aren’t all that different than the lives of humans—they, too, have an unquestioning belief in their own right to survive. And in order to survive, they must follow a strict social order set for them by Tatsuma who, like Ozaki and Seishin, is only a second in command—the agent of a higher authority. But unlike them, his obedience is unquestioning. It is his mistress who, in her heart of hearts, harbors existential doubts. Do vampires really have the right to survive at all costs? Does anyone? And what happens when the price of survival is your humanity?
In the absence of an omniscient being that guides our every action, each of us must choose what is right. And the right choice is never clear—nor is it the same for everyone.
What we can always do, regardless of the situation, is try to understand it.
It is the refusal of all parties to let go of their traditional worldviews that ultimately makes Shiki a modern tragedy. In the ancient world, suffering is the result of fate. Modernity claims that suffering is avoidable because it arises from prejudice, misunderstanding, and unwavering adherence to “the way things have always been done.” But Shiki shows that the problem of irrational traditionalism and rigid thinking runs deeper than mere belief in the supernatural. People who don’t understand the scientific method don’t know that science is about observation, not belief—they “believe in science” and use it to dismiss their own experience. Treating science as a religion doesn’t eliminate prejudices and rigid social structures—it creates new ones which, as it turns out, closely mirror the old ones. These new prejudices create new barriers to accepting others—and tragedy ensues. The Shiki writers carefully outline a scenario in which coexistence of human and vampire is possible. Vampires can drink human blood without killing them; they choose not to. Humans can accept the existence of beings that must drink their blood to survive; they choose not to.
Perhaps this is something we all know in our sleep by now, but it bears repeating: The Enlightenment ideals of pure reason and a hundred years of modernity, industrialization, and post-industrialization did not eliminate human suffering from the world. It did not even eliminate prejudice and rigidity—it simply displaced them.
Perhaps it goes without saying that a show called “Corpse Demon” will haunt you. But it bears repeating—if only as encouragement to see it on Hulu for free. Considering that I’d call it not only one of the best animes out there today, but some of the smartest and most relevant storytelling I’ve ever seen, period—I’d say it’s well worth your time. You definitely get more than you bargained for.
Image credit: FUNimation USA