Shiki – 21.5
Insane is an understatement
Overcooled: That’s it, this is the last Shiki special. No more Shiki after this. You can bet the two of us are crying inside over this T.T Even the manga has ended, so you’d better savour the insanity and madness while you can.
Kyokai: So here we are again, the two sadists, who enjoyed blogging and fangirling over this awesomeoferric series. Being the lover of blood and gore, I couldn’t wait for more releases and this special was just a cherry on top after the original soundtrack released. So, here we go~
Overcooled: This special episode is, yet again, another one of the manga chapters that wasn’t originally shown in the anime. It revolves around Motoko, a very highstrung woman who always worries about her children getting hit on the highway by strangers. We know this because she constantly warns them to the point where her co-workers at the cafe tease her. Even her mother-in-law chastises her for being a worrywart whenever someone seems even the least bit sick.
Welcome to Sotoba, where being a bit paranoid can actually serve you quite well. Ignoring Motoka’s pleas to send her mother-in-law’s husband to the hospital lead to him suddenly dying. Toshio pays them a visit to ask for an autopsy, but is just met with cruelty and a barely missed slap to the face. When the next person in the family dies, Motoka calls Kanami, and that’s when her paranoia really starts to grow exponentially.
She fears for her children the most, so she goes into a fit of hysteria when Shihori is laying there listlessly in bed. She shrieks and runs to the Ozaki Clinic without even putting on shoes. This is around the time Toshio is operating on his wife, however, so he’s closed. Yoshiie appears and slyly advertises the Ebuchi Clinic. Nice one. In her desperation, she decides to go to the outsider’s clinic to save her daughter. It’s also closed though since it’s still broad daylight.
That’s when Old Hagface appears and tells Motoka she’s stupid for taking her to the clinic when she looks fine. That is, if half a zombie looks fine to you. She agrees to let her daughter go home as long as she looks after her when she goes shopping. Of course, she comes home to find her daughter dead and Hagface in just as bad of a shape. So what does she do? Stomp on her head of course!
Not nearly as fun to stomp as cellphones, but it shall suffice
Pretty much the entire family is dead except for her son. She’s past the point of caring for the corpses in her house, and directs all her energy to keeping her son alive. She does so by locking the two of them in the bathroom in the hopes that the “kuso jiji” won’t come and attack them. Long story short, it doesn’t work very well.
While Makoto is in her bathtub, Kanami is struggling with issues of her own. Her mother suddenly dies. That’s taxing enough, but imagine finding your mom outside your door after a few days. Kanami takes her in, unaware of what her mother has become. She keys in that she’s weak to sunlight (you would too after seeing someone’s face explode into a festering mess) and hides her in a dark room from everyone.
She tries to feed her mother normal food, but it doesn’t work. She throws up any type of food she tries to ingest. She’s dying of starvation and Kanami can’t seem to find the thing to satiate her needs. It’s through a small accident that Kanami realizes her mom needs blood. she cuts her finger and her mom instinctively dives for the blood before it hits the floor. She finally accepts the situation and decides to take it upon herself to feed her mom her own blood every night so that she won’t have to kill anyone.
The system works well until Motoka suddenly comes a-knocking at her door. Her son is dead, and now she’s a mess of fear and hatred for that “kuso jiji.” Kanami takes her in to give her a bath, but she notices Kanami’s grandma on the way in. She promises not to tell anyone. However, she’s a crazy psychobitch so don’t act surprised when the first thing she says to people she meets on the road is “Kanami has a shiki in her house.”
Motoka spends the rest of the time aimlessly wandering amongst the Sotoba citizens as they slay all the shiki. She repeatedly curses the kuso jiji over and over…until she gets an idea. She heads over to Yamairi with a container of gasoline and sprinkles it all over. Yep, she’s the one who started the big fire in the first place. Wrought with insanity, she lights everything on fire and laughs to herself as she burns as well. A fitting end for a crazy wench like her, no?
Bonus Insanity:
Revenge revenge revenge revenge noms revenge revenge revenge noms revenge…
Maybe if a headbutt hard enough! Maybe this time! Or this time! Or this time!
Hello, fanservice hotline, how may I help you?
Obligatory Tatsumi because FABULOUS
End Thoughts:
Kyokai: Ready for SHIKIII?
Overcooled:I AM ALWAYS READY FOR SHIKI
Kyokai: HAHAHAAAA~ But they trolled us >.<
Overcooled:Kinda. I expected them to show how they saved Akira or at least Kaori
Kyokai: YEAHHHH or some main characters, but no, nothing like that.
Overcooled:lol well it WAS an extra manga chapter so i guess it was all fair game :/
Kyokai: But this woman, I don’t even remember her. I remember seeing her somewhere along the line of many characters.
Overcooled:Yo, Motoka is awesome. She appears in about one scene in the anime LOL
Kyokai: But she had nothing that would make her memorable. At least Nao, you couldn’t forget because she did all that creepy stalker stuff
Overcooled:That’s partly because they didn’t include her scenes originally though. But yeah, she didn’t play a big role anyways. I’m not mad because i love batshit characters like her
Kyokai: She was crazy alright. I loved it how she kicked her mother in law. That woman was asking for it I mean, how stupid can you get? Not to mention that jarring makeup >.>
Overcooled: Oh I know, I hated her. She deserved it
Kyokai: Lucky people who will see this in sync with the series. For us, who have seen the main series already the flashback left us hoping for more until we remembered…oh wait…I have already seen episode 22 =__=
Overcooled:lol indeed. It’ll be better to watch them all in order now with these bonus episodes. But for us it’s like….what? XD
Kyokai: Would be a better experience for sure
Overcooled:Ah well, as if i could have waited this long
Kyokai: I felt cheated in the end. I was LIKE NOOOO. HOW CAN THERE BE NO MOAR SHIKI
Overcooled: I know…it’s sad that it’s over. The manga ended too! and now the last thing I’ve seen of shiki is a random special.
Kyokai: Yeahhh ;3; Time for me to hit the manga now. I thought, there would be some big revelation in the end but there was none. STILL, Overall, the Special had everything that we were looking for except for the main characters. My heart went dokidoki after seeing Tohru and Ritsuko.
Overcooled:Yes, the special wasn’t a nice bang to ring out the series, but it was good as a little bonus episode. some of those flashbacks killed me too…D:
Kyokai: The BGM was as meticulous like the rest of the series with well placed buzzing of flies to creepy music
Overcooled: It has all the shiki touches we’ve come to love like the music (which i was humming all day) and atmospheric noises.
Kyokai: Yeah! It actually complimented the release of their OST recently. I don’t think we can ever let go of the awesomeness of this series. There should be more of such shows but what we go, we enjoyed immensely, even from such an unknown character who showed up like once in the series. You felt her agony and almost laughed every time she said, kussso jiji
Overcooled:Yes, perfect timing~
Kyokai: I think the third time she said it, I would roll around laughing
Overcooled: lol yeah I wasn’t sure if I should take her seriously after a while. Especially her head door knocking
Kyokai: and they way she talked and the easy way she said “my son just melted in my arms” as if it happens like every day regularly…I felt sorry for the kids specifically because you can she, she was not a bad mother
Overcooled:I know, she did her best but it became too much D:
Kyokai: Her yandere tendencies just reached out of limits when her survival strategy kicked in
Overcooled: SEIZON SENRYAKUUU
Kyokai: YEAHHHHHH. Of course, not everyone would deal with the situation like that
Overcooled: It’s amazing how fast she turned to insanity. not everyone would go that far to the deep end. but she already had a predisposition for paranoia so…
Kyokai: YEAHH. It was epic to watch her go sideway glance with those weird eyes. Of course with many chants of kussou jiji added in too, she was a real nutjob.
Overcooled:Oh my gosh, I loved her jerky eye motions
Kyokai: YESSSS. My sadistic tendencies were inflamed while watching this xD She kicked and smashed and even burned a house to the ground. At least, she won in her mind
Overcooled: Oh, Shiki always makes me feel sadistic too
Kyokai: Interestingly, she had the Shiki vibe to her even without being a shiki
Overcooled: Imagine if she became a shiki, that would be intense. also, on a side note…Kanami’s mom was the CUTEST SHIKI EVER. SO SMALL
Kyokai: YEAHHHHH =3= She was like so NIIICE. I felt sorry for Kanami but props to her mom. At least she cleaned after herself.
Overcooled: She never gave in to her killing instinct. I wonder if shiki could live on like a small glass a day instead of ruthlessly killing :/ We never found out though since Motoka betrayed her
Kyokai: Yep. Maybe Ritsuko could have done something. But she never wanted to survive and there was no other mindful shiki who would even try. Though, Seishin survived with Sunako so maybe he discovered something later on, but that’s all in speculation
Overcooled:I would kill for an epilogue of Seishin’s and Sunako’s life after
Kyokai: YESSS same here. NOW that would be epic. That is what I expected from Special though
Overcooled:I wanted that too, but unless it was like 22.5 then we’re out of luck :/ I just want more shiki, my god, it’s SO GOOD
.
Kyokai: We didn’t get anything else… ;–;
Overcooled:Are the novels still going?
Kyokai: Nope, even they have ended. They have a different end than manga though I think in one of these, Natsuno actually dies and doesn’t rise up
Overcooled: Noooo there’s nothing left. The saga is over
Kyokai: BAWWWWWWLLLLLSSSSSSSSS. This is the sad truth. Aghh, This makes me wanna rewatch this!
Overcooled: I will one day. It’s become one of my favourte anime. It’s just so beautifully tragic. Anyways, let’s wrap this up and give our final thoughts.
Kyokai: On first impression of this special, I was like, who is this Motoko anyway? I did remember seeing her but couldn’t place her on the episode scale where she showed up but as the story progressed, I stopped worrying because I just went with the flow of plot. Of course, being so paranoid, it was expected of Motoka to act like that but she did go to extremes in ‘protecting’ her son till he actually melted in her arms (eww). Though, this is the exact thing that makes me love Shiki, it looks at the deepest, darkest urges of humans and presents it as plausible course of action. Shiki has definitely been a fun ride for me and I can only wish for more of such series to release. I hope you enjoyed our tag review and there might actually be a series review podcast in the future. Till my next Natsume post, ja ne~
Overcooled: I wasn’t as touched by this special as the last one, but it was still a nice twisted story to watch. While a lot of the characters tend to slowly descend into madness, Motoka just dove right in. She was already neurotic before the shiki came, and having her family die just exacerbated her condition. She’s as crazy as they come, and watching her door-banging, children-melting, head-stomping antics was a real treat. It was very deep, but it was intriguing. As per usual, Shiki excels in showing humans in their most ugly state and telling a whole story with it. I sincerely wish this wasn’t our last Shiki post…but it is. Probably <_< *coughshiftyeyes*. It’s been an amazing ride, but now it must end. Hopefully you enjoyed it!
Owari~
About Tag Team
We live, laugh, enjoy and strictly believe on "more the merrier". When together, we usually come up with very chatty, conversation-based episodics and interesting posts.
POWUH: Metanorn Regular and Infamous Nekomata with 91 comments
You simply CAN’T GET ENOUGH of those epic hairstyles. Whirlwind hair FTW!
POWUH: Meta Team and The Mad Scientist with 5525 comments
Shiki hair is the best hair. Who WOULDN’T want a whirlwind on their noggin?
POWUH: Metanorn Regular with 79 comments
I didn’t like this episode quite as much as 20.5, since I think they tried to fit in a bit too much into one episode, but I liked the way it set Motoko and Kanami’s stories in opposition. I’ve been thinking about why Motoko sold her friend out to the hunters, since we never actually hear from her. Maybe she was jealous that Kanami’s risen relative retained a human relationship with her, it would gel with her obsession. It doesn’t hurt that Motoko is genuinely pretty unsettling in her insanity, and that it’s so hard to get a read on her actual thoughts during this time. I don’t know if she started the fire as misdirected revenge against her old man, or if she wanted to get rid of the outsiders that killed her children (one of them anyway…), but it made for a nice setup to the final episode and put a nice madness cherry on top of the show’s sundae of violent insanity.
POWUH: Meta Team and The Mad Scientist with 5525 comments
It was a bit rushed seeing as Motoka went from 0 to 100 on the crazy scale in one shot. As for why Motoka sold her friend out..wouldn’t you? It’s a shiki and shiki are the vile creatures who have been killing her family. They need to be eradicated at all costs. Jealousy definitely could have been a part of how she made her decision too though, since i doubt she’s concerned about the well-being of the entire village.
As for the fire, well, that’s hard to say as well. I think she wanted to get revenge against that kuso jiji for the most part. Man, crazy people are hard to understand. :/
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
So the Shiki sadists are together for the last time. The special wasn’t exactly what I expected but at least we now know what started the fire that burned the village to the ground: one deranged and whacked out woman. It was good to see some of my favorite characters once more like Tatsumi. The yellow eyed girl outside Ozaki’s clinic was the jinrou girl Yoshie. She’s pretty likable. In fact, I loved all the Shiki except Masao, the villagers can have him.
Normally it would take time for a villager to lose themselves to madness, but Motoko went in like a beginner jumping into the deep end of the pool with no training. It grew with her family members dying and no one listening to her. I was both disgusted and fascinated when she was holding her son’s dead body in her arms while having a crazy smile on her face.
And we also get to see what happened to Kanami and her mother before the village started its’ rebellion. Kanami deserves a lot of credit for trying to take care of her even though she’s no longer human. It didn’t even bother her seeing her outside the door knowing she was supposed to be dead. She even went to the point of giving her own blood. Everyone else would’ve taken out a wooden stake. We have another Shiki sympathizer like Seishin. But Motoko was a total bitch for telling everyone about Kanami’s mom being back. I hated her for that. I guess she was thinking misery loves company and rated them out. And in her own delusional state, she killed herself and torched the forest.
POWUH: and Yaoi Fangirl~ with 2320 comments
I think the reason why Kanami didn’t try to kill her mom is because she wasn’t that involved with the Shiki massacre. She lives near the border of the village, so she lives the farthest.
And her mama is her world
POWUH: Meta Team and The Mad Scientist with 5525 comments
Tatsumi and Yoshie only appeared for a split second though D: There were hardly any shiki in this episode, actually. Aside from Kanami’s mom.
That bathtub scene will be forever stuck in my head. *shiver* So amazingly gruesome.
Kanami was such a nice daughter…I probably would have killed any risen family members…<_< Heck, I would have ratted out anyone with shiki in their houses too, friend or foe. Anything to get rid of them. If one of your friends/family rose as a shiki, would you try to take care of them?
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
That depends on your state of mind and how far you’d let you naive kindness go. If I was in their world and I grew up, like say Seishin, yeah I’d try to take care of them. I’d have his line of thinking. He’s one of my favorite characters in the entire show. Especially if they’re sweet and innocent like Sunako. You simply can’t win against those like her. She’d twist your mind with no effort.
Kanami has a good heart. Even if she knew what her mother was, she wouldn’t have been able to bring herself to kill her. She loves her too much and would probably let her mother drink her dry.
Motoko would have lost it even more if she knew what she was dealing with. Too bad she never found out.
Sorry, I’m still pro-Shiki. I’ve got such bias when it comes to vampires and I’m sucker for them. I’m a Vampire’s Lover. Lol, maybe that should be my title.
POWUH: Meta Team and The Mad Scientist with 5525 comments
No need to apologize for being pro-shiki. I mostly asked because I wanted to see what our resident vampire-lover would say. I’ll ask Kyokai-sama about that title~
If you were going to take in a shiki, it would really depend on their personality. I wouldn’t take anyone like Masao in, ugh. Sunako would be very hard to resist with that feigned, child-like innocence…
POWUH: Meta Team and Ringleader Extraordinaire~ with 6433 comments
Enjoy your new title. :3
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
Thank you very much!! I was thinking of others untill I came up with this one.
POWUH: Meta Team and PreCure Mastah with 9203 comments
Fan-service hotline looks awesome <3
So basically in case we forgot the event in Shiki this refreshes us on the timeline? It was nice to see another perspective. Also good to relive some of the epic moments, well some of them anyway.
Ohhh how I missed the wacky hair styles of Shiki good times...
POWUH: Meta Team and The Mad Scientist with 5525 comments
It doubles as a refresher with some elaboration on characters we only saw for a few seconds in the anime. It’s a good middle episode. :3
POWUH: 1100-1199 and Meta's Evil rice-flour Product with 1137 comments
Moar shiki! i don’t recall these characters, it’s been that long, downloading nowz!
POWUH: Meta Team and The Mad Scientist with 5525 comments
Download! Download like the wind!
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
Make sure you download all the episodes and marathon the entire anime as a refresher course to recall all of the characters. You’re right, it’s been so long.
POWUH: 1100-1199 and Meta's Evil rice-flour Product with 1137 comments
i’ve got everything on one of my harddrives….i got 6 of them o.O too much anime, when i put things into storage, it’s troublesome to dig it up
POWUH: Metanorn Lover with 199 comments
The scene in the bathtub when she holds her dead son is one of the most terrifying things I’ve ever seen.
A glimpse of dead Tohru and his nurse girlfriend made me so sad I almost cried. Motoko looked at them like “hmph. whatever.” well, they’re just two from a pile of corpses.
POWUH: Meta Team and The Mad Scientist with 5525 comments
I should make that my phone background and creep people out.
Tohru and Ritsu were so sweet…their deaths made me so sad. Seeing it again I didn’t feel quite as sad, but the first time really made me want to cry.
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
One of the other terrifying in this show was the gruesome pipeline scene from episode 20.5. It really showed the humans at their ugliest nature. I felt sorry for Nao and the other Shiki that were pinned down to suffer a slow and horrible death. What made it even more sad was that in spite of what she did, Nao had nothing but good intentions.
POWUH: Metanorn Lover with 199 comments
Well, the two scenes had different meaning IMO – one is a woman who went insane after her family death, and the other is human cruelty as its worst in a form of lynching. But both scenes are awful indeed.
POWUH: 1100-1199 and Meta's Evil rice-flour Product with 1137 comments
They showed more humanity as shikis than most of the normal “humans”
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
I’ll say. It sure made the Shiki, they supposed enemies, look like tortured, misundertood beings and made the humans look like cruel, unsympathetic and brutal savages. It questions your point of view on things. And makes you ask which side is evil. Human or Shiki.
POWUH: Meta Team and The Mad Scientist with 5525 comments
Yes, I LOVE that sort of line-blurring that shiki does. The shiki are victims, but also killers. Same with the humans. It’s funny how most of the brutal deaths were caused by humans though. They really just lost it after a while…especially around 20.5
POWUH: 1100-1199 and Meta's Evil rice-flour Product with 1137 comments
reminiscent of lord of the flies wouldnt you say?
POWUH: Lovely-pyon~ with 305 comments
For whatever reason, I really wasn’t as interested in Motoko’s insanity. It was still awesome and all, but for Shiki standards I didn’t think it was done as well as it could have been.
But then again, I guess with only one episode it’s unreasonable to expect TOO much. XD I was more emotionally affected by the sight of dead Tohru and Ritsuko than I was about her and her kids.
I felt bad for Kanami though. Her mom was so…precious <3
POWUH: Meta Team and The Mad Scientist with 5525 comments
Yeah, I think it went too fast so there was no depressing progression from sane to insane :B They only had one episode to do it, so it figures *shrug*
Kanami’s mom = SUPAH KAWAII.
POWUH: iLurker with 3 comments
This episode was epic!
POWUH: Meta Team and The Mad Scientist with 5525 comments
Oh yes, Shiki is always awesome~