YMMV / Shiki

• Adaptation Displacement: Since the original novel has yet to be available outside of Japan, most North American fans are only familiar with the anime or manga adaptations.
• Alas, Poor Scrappy:
  • Megumi is a sadistic, whiny Stalker with a Crush who kills Tohru and ruins her former best friend's life for absolutely no reason. However, it's hard not to feel any emotion when the villagers run her head over with a tractor, and then stake her heart after she survives that. Especially considering that she wasn't this way before she was forced into becoming a Shiki, and is having an emotional-turned-psychotic tirade about that time in her life and how she never was able to live her dreams. In a way, her death may arguably be merciful, even the man who stakes her agrees on this.
  • Masao is established as a petty, hateful brat from day one whose only redeeming quality is his reluctance to feed on living humans, although that's more due to cowardice than any noble conviction. However, one can't help but to feel at least a bit of pity for him when he ended up dying at the hands of his own sister-in-law after thinking he'd made it to safety. Given how much nastier his death comes across in the manga, it's pretty clear the anime was gunning for this trope.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: The vast majority of the characters get this to at least an extent, given how morally ambiguous many of them are.
• Base-Breaking Character: Megumi is either one of the best characters in the series or one of the worst. Her sadistic tormenting of Kaori and Akira and her horrible, horrible death don't help with this.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • Chizuru spends the entirety of the series as an insufferably smug Card-Carrying Villain happily victimizing the villagers. So watching her prideful face contort into sheer terror once she realizes she's been exposed by Ozaki followed by her attempting to flee like a wounded animal is immensely gratifying. Her humiliating Karmic Death by the villagers complete with a stake through the heart delivered by the father of her first victim is the cherry on top.
  • Depending on how you feel about her by the time it comes. Megumi's death can likewise count. It's likely the author did this intentionally, both to appease those that hate her and those that may feel the villagers are going too far.
• Complete Monster: The manga incarnation of Tomio Ookawa, the hulking, hot-tempered owner of Sotoba's liquor shop, demonstrates he's just as bad as the vampiric Shiki while having none of their redeeming qualities. Already an abusive father, when his son is infected and turned into a Shiki, Tomio gleefully uses this as an excuse to kill his boy, even as his son begs for his life. Tomio also slaughters a temple full of innocent monks, by this point only barely using the infection as an excuse for his own innate lust for murder. Although his anime counterpart has genuine redeeming qualities to neuter his brutality, Tomio in the manga is nothing but a sadist, barely any more human than the vampires he's hunting.
• Designated Hero: A deliberate example. All three of the main protagonists can fall under this in different ways, owing to the cynical tone of Shiki.
  • Natsuno is a subversion of this and averts it by the end of his arc, he's unambiguously the most heroic out of the three despite ironically having the most abrasive personality at least prior to Toshio's Took a Level in Jerkass. This is because he starts out rather cold and selfish towards others and doesn't really seem to care about Megumi's death, even rejecting Kaori's offer to give him a keepsake of hers(granted Megumi did stare through his window so it's understandable why he didn't like her). The trope becomes more averted with every episode as becomes a nicer person and goes out of his way to protect his friends and dies not one but two heroic deaths, the first time he accepted his fate to save Tohru, and the second he blew himself up to put a permanent end to Tatsumi who was the most dangerous out of the Shiki's.
  • Toshio starts out as a moral if gruff person who just wants to help his patients and is deeply saddened by their deaths particularly Megumi's because of her young age, as he learns the truth about the Shiki he understandably becomes more and more ruthless in his tactics, which culminates in him testing on his wife after she is turned into a Shiki by torturing her and staking her. Also, his final line in the anime implies he saw the battle against the Shiki as a game rather than a way to protect the village. That being said he does care about others(particularly Seishin at least before their fallout) and does show some restraint compared to the likes of Tomio.
  • Seishin is initially portrayed as a reliable and decent person who wants to help Toshio save the village from the "pandemic" and befriends Sunako when he believes she's a sad lonely girl who just wants someone to talk to. However, the trope begins to show when he finds out about the Shiki and thus Sunako's true nature and begins to move closer to her. While it's understandable that he felt awful for the Shiki (in particular Sunako) for their cursed existence and that he condemned Toshio for his pragmatic cruelty regarding his murder of Kyouko, the issue arises when he sides with Sunako who did the same thing on a larger scale making him come across as a self-righteous hypocrite, persuading her that she wasn't an evil person while never offering the same comfort towards his childhood friend. He ends the story by becoming a Shiki, saving Sunako, and driving away with her in tow, essentially giving her another chance to keep killing innocents, and then there's the fact that we never actually know if he will also feast on blood in this state. Ironically Seishin started out as the most heroic out of the three but ended up being the one to side with the Big Bad, although this is a result of Shiki's very grey portrayal of both the humans and Shiki.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Although not as extreme as some examples, both Tatsumi and Megumi have fans who ignore all the terrible things they've done because of their good looks. It doesn't help that Megumi was actually a relatively sympathetic character prior to turning into a Shiki (after which she did a complete 180) and has a really sad death scene.
• Evil Is Cool:
  • Tatsumi, complete with obligatory sunglasses and motorcycle.
  • For those who like her, Megumi can fall under this with her sassy snarky personality and lolita fashion sense and being easily one of the most dangerous Shiki.
  • Sunako is an Affably Evil, well-mannered, and intelligent Big Bad who despite her short stature commands a large presence as leader of the Shiki family.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Because of Mrs. Kirishiki's fabulous and outrageous sense of fashion, she has earned the title Lady Gaga by the fandom. The resemblance is uncanny.◊
  • Some fans even call Toshio and Seishin, Dr. House and Monk.
  • "'Salem's Lot the Anime" for the series as a whole from a few fans due the the similarities between the two and both being about a community besieged by vampires.
• Fashion-Victim Villain: It seems that the more serious Shiki gets, the odder the costumes are. Near the end of the series, Chizuru wears an outfit that looks like it's made out of strips of red tape, Tatsumi wears a very unfortunate one-piece hoodie with unbearably short shorts, and Sunako appears to be cosplaying as the Queen of Hearts. Even Natsuno gets fashionably challenged after becoming a Shiki (his pink sneakers are just the start of it).
• Ho Yay: Tohru and Yuuki have plenty of this at the start. It becomes even more obvious after Tohru becomes a vampire, Yuuki is willing to risk his life in order to convince Tohru to escape the town with him. The pairing is quite popular among fans, only second to Toshio/Seishin, another pairing that gets some Ho Yay moments of their own.
• Les Yay: There's a little Ship Tease between Kaori and Megumi, and the pairing has a small following as well. It doesn't help that there's even official artwork◊ of the two of them together than resembles them being together in Heaven.
• Magnificent Bastard: Dr. Toshio Ozaki is a brilliant doctor who deduces that the cause of the mysterious deaths of Sotoba village to be linked to the Shiki. Experimenting on his vampirized wife to learn of their weaknesses, which results in her death, Ozaki schemes to expose the Shiki by seducing one of them and revealing her status as a bloodsucking monster to the town, and rallying the villagers to hunt them down. While Ozaki ultimately failed in saving the village, he did succeed in saving the lives of its surviving people.
• Memetic Mutation: Shiki kid watering the homolust.◊
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Toshio performing a vivisection on his newly-turned Shiki wife to figure out what the Shiki react to.
  • In Episode 20 the villagers go as far as to kill humans simply under hypnosis. It gets worse in Episode 21 where Ookawa's group murders Seishin's family thinking they're involved with the Shiki.
    • It gets even worse in Episode 20.5 where they kill people who have just been bitten and were not hypnotized out of fear of them turning into Shiki.
  • The Shiki are hardly innocent either, specifically the Kirishikis that control them. Sunako masterminded the plan to turn the village into a haven for Shiki, fully endorsing the mass murder of the population in the hopes that some would rise from their graves; they not only murdered people, but encouraged any newly 'born' Shiki to go and feed on their own families.
  • The Werewolf who turned Sunako despite the fact that he doesn't need to feed on people to survive and Sunako's family who kept sending her maids to feed on also crossed it.
  • Megumi crosses this when she kills Tohru out of jealousy or killing her best friend's father out of pure spite.
• Narm: Sunako explaining her backstory in the anime. It's suppose to be portrayed as a horrific experience to her (being buried alive and forced to give into her hunger, feeding on innocent people) but the way it's portrayed comes out more hilarious then anything. Heck Funimation used that clip when promoting the series.
• Spiritual Successor: The story resembles 'Salem's Lot, which is unsurprizing considering it's also dedicated to it.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: Most especially towards the end. It's difficult to support which sides (human or Shiki) after they have demonstrated that they've crossed many lines. Whether you're a Shiki who chose a more pacifistic route or not, you'll still die. Despite that the humans "won", they lost their loved ones and their homes. Pretty much, Toshio asked himself whether they won or lost. It's even worse that the boss of the Shiki got away with only a bruised self conviction.
• Unintentional Uncanny Valley:
  • The artist has a habit of using grayscaled images of real people for background characters.
  • Older characters are drawn realistically, which is a bit jarring when you have next to characters drawn in the normal 'big eyed' manga style.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • The Shiki as a species can come across this way. The story tries it's best to make them seem like a Woobie Species who are only doing what they need to do to survive and they are a few sympathetic shiki such as Tohru, and Ritsuko. To a lesser extent Sunako too, but it doesn't change the fact that the overwhelming majority of them are unrepentant killers who casually and gleefully kill off innocent villagers including children. So by the time the shiki are getting massacred by the villagers, it's not uncommon for some viewers to see this as an act of karmic retribution given the way the shiki have been characterized up until that point. It isn't helped by the fact that clearly, they don't have to kill anyone as they can't drink the entirety of their victim's blood in one go, something Natsuno rightly points out to Tohru. Instead of finding a peaceful solution or actually trying to talk to the village about their problem, they jumped straight to murdering innocent people and learnt the hard way that their prey will fight back. It isn't helped by Megumi and Sunako whining about how unfair it is to try to kill them.
  • Seishin can be pretty tough to sympathize with after he decides to align himself with the Kirishiki's. It's meant to be a sign that he views the shiki as being similar. But what makes it really irksome for viewers is that he decided to defect to the shiki side after he disowns Toshio for killing his wife yet he has no problem aligning himself with a group of centuries old mass murderers. Making him come across as a giant Hypocrite.
• Wangst:
  • Masao tends to do this.
  • Megumi constantly whines about hating the village or wanting to date Natsuno. It gets old quickly.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: Shiki runs in Jump Square, which is a Shounen manga magazine, despite having obvious seinen overtones.
  • The ever heated internet argument about what is truly Shonen or Seinen will never die, but is almost accepted that monthly shonen manga will be more lax about showcases of detailed violence and sexually suggestive themes to the point of nudity.
  • The anime, though, was run in an adult programming block in Japan—and the Funimation release is rated TV-MA.
• The Woobie: Just about everyone, though…
  • Tohru had a very good reputation around town for how much of a Nice Guy he is. Then he's killed by someone who he did nothing to. Tohru awakens not long after and finds out he either kills or his family dies. He goes after Natsuno crying. Finally, he's at his limit when Ritsuko rises and when she delivers a set of Armor Piercing Questions, though fortunately calms down.
  • Kaori only wanted to do good for everyone around her. She got betrayed by someone she trusted and who hated her despite doing nothing to earn it. She loses a brother figure, loses both her parents, Akira suddenly vanishes, her father rises, and by this point, she's lost it. While Akira turned out to be okay, she's still clearly dishevelled.
  • Motoko is erratic and severely neurotic, but is otherwise a good person. Everyone refuses to heed her advice when her father-in-law gets ill, whom promptly kills her children. Despite taking every precaution, trying to protect her children, it's thrown out the window and she's left a crazy woman who ends up burning the village.
  • Nao lived with parents who were more focused on alcohol and gambling. Things got okay when the Yasumori family took her in, where she ended up Happily Married. At least until she died and rose. And even then, she only went after her family because she thought they'd be Together in Death. In the end, she's full of guilt over everything she's done and accepts her fate.

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