Hey, everyone – I’m back! Did you miss me? I know you did. You know what I missed? Angsty teenage boys making consistently terrible decisions. Luckily for me, Shiki has just what I’ve been craving.

Even before the OP plays, we get a creepy scene between Monk 5000 and the creepy girl in which she creepily says that she thinks he feels lonesome and forsaken by God (she figured it out from his novels, see). Monkenstein says maybe she’s right, whatever, but he’s worried about her because she seems so sick and lonesome. I say, who cares who’s more lonesome? Let’s hurry up and vanquish this demon-spawn and end the whole debate.

After the OP, we join Yuuki, Akira and Kaori in the woods at Megumi’s grave. Kaori’s not really excited to start digging up her dead friend, but Yuuki seems resigned, in a moody sort of way, and Akira is all, “meow! Let’s do this! Meow!” Eventually Kaori picks up a spade and bashes their heads in. No, just kidding. She helps dig.

The coffin is, predictably, empty. As they stare stupidly down at it, something grabs Kaori from behind and drags her into the woods! It’s a living dead dude! Wait – I forgot – we have a cool name for them now: it’s a RISEN Dude. Yuuki eventually notices that she’s missing and swats the Risen Dude in the head with a shovel, at which point he starts to bleed…sparkles. Sparkles? Hm. You lost me there, Shiki.

Anyway, after she’s been rescued, they’re all pretty horrified at the thought that they’ve just killed a person. No worries, though, Yuuki knows what to do: throw him in the empty grave. Uh…wow, man. That’s one way to deal with it, I guess. Then they realize that he appears to have already been dead, which makes his death (un-death? second death?) slightly less traumatic. Yuuki still wants to throw him in the hole, though. He’s pretty stuck on this idea. Also, none of them seem to recognize him, so maybe he’s an out-of-town Risen Dude.

Yuuki only buries him a little bit, figuring that it would be best if an adult someone found the body and from there could reason out that a league of undead monsters was killing townspeople (of course!). They make plans to meet back in the morning. Kaori and Akira are so freaked out by the experience that the sleep in the same bed, which looks like an oversized crib and makes me a little uncomfortable. That’s Shiki for you – always tapping into those rough issues. I’m just glad it’s not a kitty bed.

The next morning they meet back at the grave. Surprise: Risen Dude is gone (he woke up during the night, not super excited to find himself half-buried). Akira is all, “meow! Let’s break into Kanemasa and wage war MEOW!”

Here follows an interesting conversation about how the “usual” vampire-killing tricks (garlic, crosses, stakes, etc) won’t work, partly because they don’t even know for sure that the Risens ARE vampires and partly because they’ve been seen in the daylight, which negates the standard vampire rules. They’ll have to think carefully about how to fight them. Yuuki is totally broken up about not-killing that guy and wonders if he could not-kill someone again. I think this is an attempt to give him some depth, but I don’t buy it.

Kaori wonders aloud if a recently deceased old lady will Rise, too. They decide to follow her funeral procession and “deal with her” before she has the chance. Despite having just decided that old school methods of dealing with vampires won’t work, Yuuki…opts to use them on the old lady. What?! File this under, “Nonsensical Things Yuuki Decides To Do.” (This file is close to bursting already, I know.) Oh, and then they decide not to dig her up after all, because it’s almost dark and SURELY she wouldn’t come back on her first night? Add that to the file.

Kids, if the dead start to become the Risen, promise me you won’t be this stupid and damn us all to death by vampire, okay?

Monkelstiltskin walks home, sad and lonely, thinking about his creepy buddy. Could she really be a demon? Meanwhile, the creepy demon is staring down from her window all, Yep! I’m a God-forsaken demon all right!

Now we get to spent some time at Yuuki’s house. Papa Yuuki and Mama Yuuki are making dinner when a creepy girl with a geisha doll comes a-knockin’. Is Yuuki at home? Nope, not right now, Papa Yuuki cheerfully tells her. The girl wants to wait for him and Papa Yuuki is becoming disturbed and annoyed. It’s dinner time! Where are her manners?

All of a sudden the geisha doll transforms into SUPER SCARY MONSTER TEETH GEISHA DOLL and the girl is all, LET ME IN LET ME IN LET ME IN LET ME IN! Then she throws the doll into the house and waves her hand in Papa Yuuki’s face. It has a face on it. Weird.

Mama Yuuki is like, what’s going on here? And Papa Yuuki is like, I’m about to punch this little girl. And Mama Yuuki is like, oh honey that won’t do. So they let her into their house (stupid runs in the family?) and then tell her where their son’s room is so she can wait there for him. After she eats both of them, which I’m sure she’s going to do ANY MINUTE NOW.

Kids, if you someday grow up and become parents and a girl (or boy) that your instincts tell you is a freak and a danger comes looking for your child, promise me you won’t hesitate with the punches, okay?

Based on the preview, I think the next episode might try to get back to trying to be a horror series. As things stand, though, I’m more annoyed than scared – and we all know I scare easy. There’s been a lot of criticism of the darkness in this series (entirely justified, if you ask me), which basically goes…”Hey, where’s the darkness I was promised? Isn’t this supposed to be dark?”

I’d like to encourage you to play devil’s advocate for a moment. It’s possible that the fluffiness of Shiki isn’t actually a flaw, but a deliberate choice with specific intent. What do you think that intent might be?

To specify, I don’t care if you believe your own theory, I just want to know how you would justify the show’s direction at this point. Don’t worry, I’ll share my theory, too!