Shiki – 08

Episode 08 – 「第夜話」 (Dai Ya Wa)
“The ‘Night’ Episode”

In the last episode’s post, I predicted that there would be a real battle between the protagonists and the vampires in this week’s episode, and I think I was pretty much on the mark. After digging up Megumi’s grave and a brief moment with an attempted kidnapping of Kaori, Natsuno smacks the hell out of a random vampire dude who is KO’ed instantly, which was a truly satisfying moment for me. 🙂

Anyway, this is the first time Natsuno and his friends, Kaori and Akira, sees a real vampire in person; they actually even touch the vampire and are surprised to find out how cold he is. It was pretty interesting to hear that Natsuno isn’t sure whether the infected people are vampires or zombies, because they don’t seem to have all the typical traits of vampires that appear in movies or novels. I was actually surprised that Natsuno knew Tatsumi had been watching Kaori and Akira from behind, and the fact that he is immune to sunlight. He seemed also seemed pretty smart; he pointed out that there could be more than ten vampires in the village, which is actually true.

At the end of the episode, the appearance of a little ventriloquist vampire girl, Shizuka Matsuo, at Natsuno’s house was a quite surprise to me, as I thought most of the main characters have already been introduced in Shiki so far. I’m not sure what role she is going to play later in the show, but it seems pretty obvious that she has a some kind of unfinished business with Natsuno to settle. Her presence probably marks the beginnings of a major conflict between the main cast and the vampires.

Overall Enjoyment: 4.2/5

Screenshots later in the post.