Everyone, I have really sad news. You might want to sit down before you hear this. Okay? Ready? Here goes: Shiki is on hiatus until October 14. No new episodes, no new hair, no new developments in the Vampire Yuuki storyline. It’s rough, I know. Believe me, I feel your pain.

Did you have a chance to do a little weeping? Good now? Excellent.

It occurs to me that there are possibly, maybe, hypothetically people who haven’t seen all or any of Shiki (not the sort of people you or I would associate with, of course), or perhaps viewers who are having some trouble keeping everything straight. Well guess what? This unplanned (by me) hiatus is our perfect opportunity to recap what we’ve seen and try to put together the biggest pieces of this massive, ridiculous, somewhat nonsensical puzzle.

Death Comes to Sotoba & Yamairi

The bulk of the story takes place in the quiet mountain village of Sotoba. It’s a nice little community, full of noisy neighbors and cows and fresh air. Until everyone starts dying. Dozens of villagers get sick and die, usually over the course of a few days. I’m pretty sure the neighboring village, Yamairi, was completely wiped out (though there was only a population of, like, five to begin with). The ones who don’t die pack up their stuff and move away in the middle of the night. Quite mysterious!

Confused Doctor Says What?

Dr. Toshio is baffled and overwhelmed and having a serious crisis of faith. Well, he takes a while to work up to that, but by Episode 11 we are definitely experiencing a crisis. He runs all sorts of tests but still can’t come up with an answer to all the deaths. Until he starts to wonder…could a league of vampires be behind it? Haha, oh, Doc, you and your crazy theories!

…Turns out, he’s right.

There Goes The Neighborhood

The recent construction of a European-style mansion, called Kanemasa, and the strange group of people who live there have the residents of Sotoba all a-twitter. Who are they? How come they don’t come out much? And mostly at night? Why do they all have such ugly hair? Because they’re pure evil, duh! These people are behind all the risen dead feasting on their former friends and family (known locally as…the Risen), though it’s not clear yet why they do what they do. Then again, do we care?

Oh, they also bleed sparkles. That’s very important.

I Think Her Name Is Lolita

So all that stuff is going on, blah blah blah, but also there’s a monk. Who’s also a novelist. And he may have tried to kill himself at some point in the past. But there’s also a creepy little girl who lives at Kanemasa and only comes out at night (sun allergy, yeah right). These two have a bond that makes me totally uncomfortable because I’m a dirty old lady, but so far they’ve just talked about literature and religion and philosophy. So far.

Girls Loves Boy Loves…Himself

Megumi grew up in town and had dreams of the big city. Yuuki is moody and tortured and moved to Sotoba from the big city. Even after death (oh yeah, Megumi dies in Episode 1), she’s got the hots for him BAD. He doesn’t share her feelings; actually, I’m not sure he has feelings, beyond, “ugh, I’m so over this.” This is your typical boring teenage love tale until Yuuki gets vamped, too.

…Well. Almost. I mean, he got bit. He has vamp potential. Someday Shiki will air again and we’ll find out what the heck is going on with him. Maybe the vampires decided they didn’t want him? Too moody? Too tortured? Too obnoxiously angsty?

Obviously this recap is an over-simplification, just a highlight reel of the biggest points. But if you haven’t watch Shiki, you get the gist of it. And if you have…well, what did I miss that you think is vital?

Hopefully the HoundBlog will be back next week with the whole vampified gang, but until then, do you have any lingering confusion about the series? What loose ends do you hope get tied up before Shiki calls it quits?

And finally: given what you’ve seen so far, would you recommend other people watch this series?