Shiki: A manga/anime with a similar feel to "We're Alive"

[zombeh-kitteh]

On my way to work tonight, during one of my rambling thought processes that should have been focused completely on driving, I realized that Ono Fuyumi & Fujisaki Ryu's manga "Shiki" has a similiar feel to "We're Alive."

The two tales have absolutely nothing to do with one another, as "Shiki" is about vampires. However, these vampires are interesting, and the events leading up to and surrounding this story share a certain shade of atmosphere that has the same flavor of "We're Alive."

The basic premise, culled from Manga Access: "This series is about village with a population of about 1300 people, and during one fiercely hot summer, many mysterious incidents happened one after another..."

A little synopsis of my own:

It begins with the discovery of a few badly decomposed corpses, mysteriously drained of nearly all of their blood. A mysterious family that just bought the ostentatious house on the hill is just moving in, but hardly anyone has seen any of them. Then, an anemia epidemic seems to infect everyone in town slowly. The village's doctor tries desperately to find a cure or a cause, resulting in a few experiments that will probably make you raise your eyebrows. His friend is the acting priest of the village temple suddenly overburdened with a sick and dying congregation, his father (the head priest) had suffered from a stroke or some other such trouble and lays impotent to do anything. The mysterious family's little girl befriends the young priest, and meanwhile a former city boy loner of a high school student and his few best friends try to deal with the shadows that lurk outside at night and the dwindling number of people in town. And as the number of people dwindle, more and more mystery lurks around each corner of everyday...each more bizzare and horrifying.

The original material was a horror novel written by Fuyumi Ono, (who also wrote "Ghost Hunt") and then illustrated by Fujisaki Ryu. The art style is very angular, but realistic, and somewhat "traditional Japanese" which fits the village's secluded and rustic setting. It is very bloody, gory, and definitely rated "M". While a few of the characters happen to be of high school age, it is definitely not a school-setting based manga. The three main of the main characters are The doctor, the priest, and the former city boy loner high school student. Each are very likable, and possess a certain strength of character that enables them to survive the horror that has enveloped their villiage.

In terms of it being similar to "We're Alive," the secluded village in the mountains of Japan has a small population. Everyone knows everybody, the newest additions prior to the mysterious family on the hill were the former city boy's family. So, in essence, it's a contained area pretty much cut off from the rest of the world. People still do things the way they were done in their grandfather's time. That and this epidemic of "anemia" is only contained in their village...no one in the surrounding towns are affected. And when the cause is revealed to be vampires (or more appropriately "Shiki" means "Corpse demon"), it's too late to save the town. The vampires have their own agendas as well, and the three men who know what's going on are doing everything they possibly can to help.

Even if you're not a fan of manga normally, you may want to give this one a look if you're looking for something similar. Unfortunately, only foreign editions and online scanlations are avaliable to read. Funimation did however release dvd versions of the anime, with an English dub.