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~