# Shiki (2010)

> In an isolated Japanese village where old burial customs still hold, a lone doctor watches the dead begin to return as the villagers die one after another.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/33642

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 22
- Episode runtime: 25 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: animation, horror, mystery
- Created by: Tetsuro Amino
- Network: Fuji TV
- Cast: Nobuhiko Okamoto, Wataru Takagi, GACKT, Haruka Tomatsu, Kazuyuki Okitsu, Koki Uchiyama, Toru Okawa, Nozomi Sasaki
- TMDB rating: 7.6/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2016670/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: measured
- Intensity: strong
- Complexity: accessible
- Violence: graphic
- Tone: eerie, melancholic, suspenseful, claustrophobic, foreboding

## What critics say

Audiences rate the series positively for its atmospheric, slow-building horror and its unsettling take on village superstition.

## Synopsis

Shiki (2010) is a Japanese animated horror mystery series produced by Daume, Aniplex and Fuji Television Network, adapted from the manga by Tetsuro Amino, and broadcast on Fuji TV. Across a single season of 22 episodes, it follows Ozaki Toshio, the lone village doctor of Sotobamura, a rural community of around 1300 residents cut off from any highway. Toshio, voiced by Toru Okawa, is the rational outsider who at first dismisses a few sudden deaths as ordinary, even as the villagers begin to die one after another. Around him, Tōru Mutō (Nobuhiko Okamoto) and Natsuno Yūki (Koki Uchiyama) are drawn into the community's unraveling, while the newcomer Seishirō Kirishiki (GACKT) hints at a darker truth. The engine is the slow erosion of certainty: who is dying, who is responsible, and whether the old customs of burial hide something monstrous. Episodes build a creeping, suspicious atmosphere of paranoia and grief, with graphic horror and disturbing imagery used sparingly. The tone is eerie and melancholic, with a psychological suspense that recalls Twin Peaks and Higurashi When They Cry. Fans of 'Salem's Lot and quiet rural dread will find resonance here.

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