It's interesting what different points of view we have, despite all having enjoyed this show to the end. The sign of a well-written story, as
Guardian Enzo says in his
blog post.
I ended up liking the Shiki more than the humans, but that doesn't mean I'm talking about "
moral equivalence." The shiki -- particularly the core group -- did all the evil until the humans started losing it and killing a few suspected collaborators. Both groups did bad things, but the shiki did a lot more of them.
But I don't care about the morality. This is not some moralistic little anime for kids; this is actually a show with some depth to it. Moral judgment and artistic judgment are not the same thing. Not that some simple things don't affect our enjoyment: I do have prejudices in favor of both Yuuki Aoi and priests, and against violent and self-righteous middle-aged men, lol.
Personally, I find
Seishin fascinating and deep. The difficulty of really grasping the nature and depth of his pain makes him even more fascinating. It really was as if he and Sunako were inhabiting a strange other world, drawn together by their personal histories and their intellects.
Pacing problems? Not in my opinion. You slowly wind up the spring, then you let all that energy free and it rushes toward the conclusion. Like a Greek tragedy, as Guardian Enzo wrote in his blog. If this were a long novel, we could tie up every character's past and future, but that is neither possible nor necessary here. The little puppet-mistress, for example, has played her role and we don't need to know how and when she was turned or how she died.
But despite many differences of opinion with Guardian Enzo and others (not least the fact that I am still unable to see
Cross Game as anything other than shallow and slow -- I'll keep trying) I completely agree with him on his choices as the
top two shows of the year:
House of Five Leaves and
Shiki.