Interesting, but flawed (minor spoilers)

taikero

I enjoyed this as a slow burn thinker, and as a meditation on human nature and our natural dismissal of the extraordinary, however I cannot empathize with the Shiki. The central argument made in support of the Shiki is that they're just hungry, and eating to live is supposedly not a sin. However, due to the fact that their food source is not human meat, but human blood, their food source is entirely renewable. Even with this supposedly insatiable hunger, we do see civilized moments at a dinner table of Shiki drinking human blood out of wine glasses, so they don't absolutely need to drink blood straight from a human. Even if that was a requirement, they could easily just drink 1-3 times from the same human, then move on to another one while allowing their previous dinner to recover. This approach obviously makes sense and is humane.

I categorically reject the insipid argument that the Shiki killing humans is the same as humans killing animals for food. Shiki don't eat meat, unlike humans. It's entirely different. The show even specifically illustrates exactly how the Shiki can avoid immorality, and yet tries to justify genocide as a matter of hunger anyway. How utterly irrational and ghastly.

The Shiki precipitated their own demise through an abundance of recklessness and lack of care in their selection of humans to attempt to bring into the Shiki fold. Had they shown even a modicum of restraint, I'd be more sympathetic to their slaughter, and yet they began the carnage by refusing to seek more peaceful options for expanding their numbers slowly over time. When you have an eternal life, you can afford to play the long game, and the Shiki did not understand that fundamental reality.

The humans committed atrocities at the end, yes. There is no question about that. In the same breath, I can't blame them nearly as much as the Shiki because the humans had spent months with their fellow villagers dying left and right, and their "dead" loved ones were often the perpetrators. That sort of betrayal doesn't sit well in the human psyche. We repeatedly see that nearly all of the Shiki felt no regret for their murders. Further, regret does not excuse murder.

Ultimately, I appreciate that the show's creators attempted to create philosophical musings for its viewers, however the argument is fundamentally flawed, and I think it's important to call it like it is. There wasn't just another way, there was an easy way to survive without committing genocide against humans. This method of survival was covered much more rationally in Blade II. I have no problem with the Shiki deciding to live, and even thriving. What I do have a problem with is the reckless abandonment of morality just because the Shiki are able to exercise power over humans in a predator-prey relationship. There are consequences for murder and genocide, and to think that their actions would not come back to bite them was incredibly naive of the Shiki.

For me, there is no grey area here. The humans defended themselves from a deadly, immoral, wasteful predator. I would defend myself also.

score 6/10

taikero 22 July 2019

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw5010899/