Shikabane Hime: Aka

Living at a shrine with other orphans, Ouri Kagami is no stranger to corpses. But when he sees the patron of his orphanage, Keisei Tagami, seemingly revive the scarred corpse of schoolgirl Makina Hoshimura, he cannot help but feel incredibly shocked.

Intrigued by the mysterious circumstances surrounding Makina, he learns that she is a Shikabane Hime—an undead being tasked with eliminating others like her who pose a threat to society. As Ouri goes about his daily life, his inexplicable run-ins with her are shrouded in abnormality. But as each encounter grows more intense, the two are brought closer together, and it may be their intertwining fates that hold the key to unveiling the secrets behind the world of Shikabanes.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Hoshimura, Makina Main

Akiyama, Nana Japanese

Tagami, Keisei Main

Fujiwara, Keiji Japanese

Kagami, Ouri Main

Hasome, Tatsuya Japanese

Ruo, Minai Supporting

Hirata, Yuka Japanese

Hokuto Supporting

Fujimura, Chika Japanese

Hazama Supporting

Ookawa, Tooru Japanese

Touka, Akira Supporting

Yuuki, Aoi Japanese

Kuroneko Supporting

Horie, Yui Japanese

Yamagami, Itsuki Supporting

Nakamura, Chise Japanese

Sougi, Takamasa Supporting

Kawashima, Tokuyoshi Japanese

Cook, Justin Producer

Yamaga, Hiroyuki Producer

Kurashige, Nobuyuki Producer

Murata, Masahiko Director

Reviews

Dec 25, 2008

wakka9ca

Recommended

Story - 8/10
Ok. This series started on the "monster-of-the-week" formula, so it may be very misleading. Even the sypnosis that a Shikabane Hime must kill 108 corpses to go to Heaven is misleading. The real plot and story has really nothing to do with it. The truth is, this series does provide a reasonable and interesting plot development in the SECOND half of the season only. And the last four episodes or so does have enough plot to build up decent cliffhangers that forced me to watch the raws and chinese subs (instead of waiting for the english subs because of my impatience). But keep ... in mind that there is a second season that follows up directly, so this whole first season gave me the feeling of PREQUEL to the actual story (which turned out decent)

Art - 7/10
Sometimes, the actions are animated in a pretty sloppy way. The characters' design are sometimes too simplistic.But you may argue that it was done intentionally as a more "stylish" way of animation. The colors are all in the range of grey, dark red, black and deep blue, blending into a nice gloomy atmosphere befit of a horror action series.

Sound - 9/10
Nice fighting music and nice insert songs, opening songs and ending song by angela. The music is very catchy and the voice acting is not bad. Ouri (main protagonist)'s voice sound pretty unique and has a good touch of innocence and tonelessness, befitting his strange attitude towards death (a key element in the plot)

Characters - 8/10
I would say the characters are decently developped for an anime series. Ouri's evolution is clearly portrayed throughout the series. Makina's realtionship with Keisei is revealed bits by bits in a very good rythmn. At the same time, Makina and Ouri's relationship also evolves with each episode in the SECOND half of this series.

Enjoyment and Overall - 8/10
The first half was pretty random and generically boring. The second half really redeemed itself. This is series is underrated because the first 6-7 episodes didn't have enough to keep the audience from labelling this as "another generic action series". Although it is far from being a breakthrough, the second half really made good progress in terms of plot and character development. It does deserve the slightly above average rating of 7.5 to 8 out of 10.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Jan 17, 2011

711

Mixed Feelings

Zombies.... ooo zombies... I feel like I can’t think of apocalypse without you anymore. Gruesome bipeds hunting me for my brains, drooling and screaming while you slowly sustain inordinate amounts of lead to the face without cringing... I love you all for all the beautiful dreams and nightmares you give me.

You can imagine my excitement when I found out my favorite giant robot making studio was going to give it a shot to epically portray all of you in the most gar-ified way possible. Right when I got into the show I was overwhelmed with the amount of familiar faces, all it was missing ... was a huge drill actually and I would have probably wet myself in excitement. The breasts were there, the over the top action was there, the weak but soon to become omnipotent character was there, “K” was there… but something was missing. This something kept bugging me for all throughout the show and by the end I started to realize I can’t think of mediocrity without you anymore as well, but you know, its zombies so I knew you guys were going to put a good show for me regardless, or so I thought.

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Story
--

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! This is all I am used to hear from you, so you can imagine my big facepalm with all the repressed angst I got instead. You still did scream a fair amount and I will say those were the shining moments of your performance here, but whenever you silenced the guns and sat around for a long and tedious talk all we got was…. Well, long and tedious talks. At least that was what I would like to call them. In fact, they were long, tedious and flashbacks... lots and lots of them.

Please, don’t take this as a direct attempt to discredit your motives. Repetition aside, they are fairly well constructed and would provide a perfect scenario for your bloody fest if not for the insistence you had in giving the spotlight for some unnecessary, non zombie, characters. I really liked your plight and how you were thriving to fulfill it, just too bad you had to insist in bringing detractions, the worst offender being the one to get the most out of the screen time, a bit of a masochistic choice if you ask me.

Even then, the variety of zombies you guys presented me with was nice and I found a few particular main characters, even some non zombie ones, pretty compelling, but the climax would only work if you had built upon it better… you know, like the guys behind you are so good at when they are dealing with giant robots. I also felt a bit cheated by you since you spilled all the few twists you had in store right at the opening, and after seeing it eleven times when it actually came to be I really felt like my brain had already been eaten.

I know you must be tempted to tear me apart right now, but hang on a bit longer; I still have some mumblings that might make me even more appetizing.

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Animation
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I have to hand it to you; you still know how to move. Whenever you guys are flying about exploding people’s heads or cutting them in half you really look your best, this time even better since you don’t have your usual decomposing skin anymore and the close ups on your new assets really does provide some extra oomph.

Here is also were the otherwise formulaic nature of your plot helped, since the usually boring queue of weekly monsters waiting to be beheaded brought variety of characters and bloody ways to crush their admittedly interesting entrails. They are vicious, colorful and varied, and contrast perfectly with the pretty schoolgirl variety of zombies you guys brought into display here, bringing to the table that old good “princess and the beast” feel we are all so found off in ample dosages, something that even if we had forgotten for a second a character would promptly shout towards the audience so we would recall it instantly.

Still, I know you can do better. Not even once my inner fangirl started screaming at your fights as it is usual when you are around bludgeoning stuff to death, and this alone is a big red flag. The fluidity both you and the hands drawing you are known for is kind of blurry here… it seems I don’t know you anymore! No need to get dismembered about it thought, it’s just that my final perception of you is lower than what I was expecting… please don’t come eat me alive yet!

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Sound
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Your frenzied destruction is never complete without an appropriate music, and gladly you managed to score it this time. Not only the opening and the ending, but the climaxes all felt a bit chewer thanks to the soundtrack. I just wish your voices also sounded as good as the rest, but unfortunately most of it were not up to par…. Perhaps if you would be more willing to scream “brainssssssssssssssssss” more often who knows, the truth is, you only sounded good when the only thing I could hear were the guns and awesome explosions you were creating, as for the biggest part, you sounded dull and out of character.

…I know you must be drooling by now, but just a bit more and you can have a bite at me.

--
Conclusion
--

What can I say to save myself now? I hang at your side your for the whole time, I tried to get as hyper excited as possible whenever you filled my screen with zombie glory and filled my ears with ultra violence, I even gritted my teeth to try to sob for you when you were sad… but to what avail? You delivered anything but the ordinary I am used to with other much less awesome things such as teenage magical girls!

Ok, some of this is my fault. The story only got to an enjoyable portion after the 9th episode barrier, I should’ve kept up with you in silence while you explained to your brainless victims how your plot worked for the 100th time, I should have properly ignored the apparent useless episodes where nothing of notice happened, and I should’ve kept my lack of excitement with your twists out of the room when you arbitrarily did stuff just for the sake of your current attempt to flash characters we don’t want to see.

But I couldn’t. And this is why I write this to you now, before you munch me, so I leave behind a testament to other people that tread this place. This way they will know that despite still looking good and interesting, you are far from your best here, and they would be much better suited looking for their visceral zombie thrill or cute girl galore somewhere else… at this day and age in a particular high school as well.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Apr 25, 2013

Bishounen_Hunter

Not Recommended

Shikabane Hime is a barely decent anime that was released in 2 parts: AKA & KURO. For the purposes of convenience, my review is about both parts because its all really the same story and if you watch one part, you'll likely watch the other part as well. From the outset I had a problem with this series. starting with the title "SHIKABANE HlME" If it were just the anime title l'd be ok with it but it is a somewhat silly name for a zombie slayer. Why HIME? Is there a king, a queen, a prince? No there isn't it's just once again no ... one used their imagination or creativity. They know anime viewers all around the world have cottoned on to the Japanese word "Hime" by now so hey, why not use the word HIME in the title....it worked so well for Mai-HIME, right? Names aside, like I said, its a barely decent shonen fighting anime about monks & monsters. Of course the monks don't go into battle alone, no, they mostly fight by proxy via supposedly dead little girls dressed in all manner of skimpy or tight-fitting outfits catering to the various otaku fetishes.
I really did not pay attention to the music of this series. I did watch the anime in English audio and I must give credit to the actors, they were pretty good even if the script was just proper shit. Lucy Christian is pretty much good at everything and I especially appreciated Aaron Dismuke's voice, maybe because you just don't hear too many authentic teenage male voices in anime.
Nothing earth-shattering about the art here at least not for me. Maybe for teenage boys and horny otaku. I can't remember anything about the places in the anime... Probably because they were just flat and boring or maybe because the art is more focused on the characters, monsters and fighting scenes. And even something about that annoyed me... like they plagiarized the fighting scenes from Naruto. Didn't that water fight scene between Makina and Hokuto seem eerily similar to the water fight between Naruto and Sasuke? It's the things like that through out the series that got on my nerves. Not just being simply unoriginal but almost seeming to copy bits of successful anime.
The story is a very basic one, demons exist and there are those that must kill these demons. Nothing supremely new here. Once again I'm a bit underwhelmed. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that somewhere, some dude (erm company) said "Hmmm, I need to make a story about hot chicks fighting in skimpy clothes...let's build around that idea!" I say this again because the obvious questions arise "Why HIME?" Why only girls do battle against the shikabane? Clearly there are male Shikabane, surely the same arrangement can be made. There was some flimsy answer provided, one that they (the creators) easily punched holes thru and contradicted themselves with because there is no genuine interest in cultivating a genuine answer much less perpetuate story integrity. The only real focus is about having big-breasted school girls fight in skimpy clothing and watch it get ripped up. Let's keep it real. Let's keep it 100. I'm actually surprised no one busted out with tentacle monsters.
OK so with the obvious aside, the next logical question is; Is there a real story there, Is Shikabane Hime really worth watching? The answer to that is: meh! To be fair, there is a story there but as far as worth watching... well no. I've seen better and have been entertained by similar and better told stories: Kite, Gunslinger Girl, Mai-HIME, Blood+, just to name a few. The fact they flip-flopped between comedy and seriousness was tiresome. And then the fact that Shikabane Hime has no overall message or theme, which is vital to any great story was also bothersome. You can feel them making it up as they go along, working with just the basic concepts but never fully fleshing it out. Just generic storytelling at best with lots of very large breasts, Is the story about revenge?... sorta, with lots of very large breasts. Is the story about love? again... sorta, with lots of very large breasts! But like I said the story dances around vague concepts and notions, just choosing a "paint by numbers" approach to storytelling; Let's have a character die here, let's have the sauna scene there. But you don't ever really find yourself crying over any death or being interested in any cartoon titties.
Shikabane Hime definitely did not create any revolutionary characters here. It's all pretty much your run of the mill characters, monks & big boobed fighter women all possessing your standard anime stereotypes: big boobed nice girl, big boobed mean girl, big titty ninja chick with toothy fang and cat ears, angry chick with pig tails & ribbons, Loli-type, But it's the so called doctor female with half a white labcoat but all the titties that took the cake...I just wanted her to stab herself in the boob with one of those ninja knives. Who fights with sharp weapons half naked? The monks are just accessories. Everyone just bored me and I just kept wishing they all died.
I definitely give this show as a score of 3. It's lucky to even get that score, because normally anything lower than a 4, I would just delete it and move on to the next title.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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