Shiki

Episode Count	24
Season	Summer 2010
Genres	Drama, Horror, Shounen, Supernatural, Thriller
Source Material	Manga
Rating	TV-MA
Streaming	TBD

True horror anime are hard to come by. What scares someone is different from person to person. And in my opinion, drawings are not as scary as real photos. The tropes used to bring fear to live-action horror do not work in animation. As such, most "horror anime" are actually a blend of different genres. Hellsing, High School of the Dead, Parasyte -the maxim-, these are action horror anime. Not that they don't have scenes that are horror, it's just that the focus is more on action. Other shows like Zom 100 and Danganronpa are listed as horror but if the goals of those were to SCARE me then yeah they failed.

Shiki is the first horror anime that scared me.

Here's the premise: the series takes place entirely in one rural village. The population is around 1,300 people. No highway connects to the secluded town. A family moves into an abandoned castle, and soon after people start dying one by one. Before long, the village doctor notices that each person is dying in the exact same way. It's not a spoiler to say that the family that moved in are vampires.

In a genre known for having unintelligent characters for the sake of creating worst possible scenarios, every character in Shiki is written like a real person. Every choice they make is at least a sensible one. This makes it easier to attach to the characters and puts you at the edge of your seat whenever something might happen to them. Couple this with great directing that creates a chilling atmosphere extenuated by the knowledge of how isolated these people are, and you have my favorite horror anime of all time.

- 0215MADman