屍姫赫

SHIKABANE HIME: AKA

ANIME

STATUS
COMPLETE
EPISODES
13
RELEASE
December 25, 2008
LENGTH
24 min

DESCRIPTION

After being brutally murdered along with her family, Makina Hoshimura turns into a Shikabane Hime, a living corpse contracted to the Kougon Cult, in order to exert revenge on the mysterious undead organization responsible for her death. She is assisted in this task by Keisei Tagami, her contracted priest and former friend. This series follows the story of Keisei's younger brother Ouri, a boy with an unusual attraction to death, who slowly discovers his brother's secret and gets dragged into the world of the Shikabanes.

(Source: Wikipedia, edited)

CAST

Makina Hoshimura
Nana Akiyama
Ouri Kagami
Tatsuya Hasome
Keisei Tagami
Keiji Fujiwara
Hokuto
Chika Fujimura
Minai Ruo
Yuka Hirata
Itsuki Yamagami
Chise Nakamura
Akira Touka
Aoi Yuuki
Saki Amase
Mika Kikuchi
Akasha Shishidou
Mitsuru Miyamoto
Nozomi Kasuga
Miki Maruyama
Kuroneko
Yui Horie
Hina
Miwa Kouzuki
Rika Aragami
Saeko Chiba
Sougen Takamine
Hidetoshi Nakamura
Mizuki Inuhiko
Fuyuka Ooura
Sadahiro Mibu
Junichi Suwabe
Mitsuyoshi
Susumu Chiba
Shuuji Isaki
Tomokazu Sugita
Hiroshige Ushijima
Tooru Nara
Ena
Michi Niino
Kamika Todoroki
Yui Horie
Shinze Kamiu
Mitsuki Saiga
Touya
Sumire Morohoshi
Riko
Yui Horie
Hazama
Tooru Ookawa

EPISODES

Dubbed

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RELATED TO SHIKABANE HIME: AKA

ANIME ActionShikabane Hime: Kuro

MANGA ActionShikabane Hime

REVIEWS

GrandMasterWaifu
65/100
Corpse Princess Review
Corpse Princess
━━━━━━━━ ꕤ ━━━━━━━━
Preface

After watching the first episode over a year ago, I decided one late night to begin bingeing the series. I'm always on the search for a good animated horror, unfortunately the genre is oversaturation with lackluster quality series. Often over encumbered by additions with no real horror aspect such as Chainsaw man or Death Note. I'd rather have an affixed "gore" tag than labeling these titles as "horror". Corpse Princess in the finest sense is a supernatural drama. However, with the Shikabane's designs ranging from humanoid to monstrosity I can understand the horror tag. I feel atmosphere is also a big player since death seems to flicker in and out and be a continual part of our characters overarching existences.

Background/Synopsis

Corpse Princess follows the story of Makina Hoshimura and Ouri Kagami, with many other prominent characters playing supporting roles. We follow an interesting plot surrounding Makina and her family's grisly murder, set 2 years prior to the main story's events. Shikabane are driven by regret, nature and being, each progression in the scale being more deadly than the last. Similar to Demon Slayers "Blood Arts", few Shikabane are given life defined by their nature but will develop a curse representative of said nature. On a personal note, I'm a big fan of villain groups, such as the Akatsuki, Phantom Troupe or 12 Kizuki. So, when this series introduced a group of ne'er-do-wells knows as "The Seven Stars", I was hooked. In gist, the "7 Stars" colluded to murder the Hoshimura family due to her black bloodline, thus setting in motion a means to give the head hancho purpose. The head is of the Hoshimura bloodline and is the strongest shikabane, often compared to death itself, because she was raised to be a sacrifice and knows nothing of the world, only seeking to understand through destruction. Despite being drawn and quartered, Makina revives as a Shikabane, driven by the sheer dire to destroy the stars. It's then that she enters a contract and becomes a Shikabane-Hime, hell bent on destroying all those that return from death with regrets.

Things I Enjoyed (Pros)
- The basic premise of the story was enjoyable since it centered around Makina's revenge tour.
- Villains were interesting, along with the concept of revival due to nature. Gave additional weight/value to death since decisions made in life carry meaning in death. (ie. How terrible of a person one is)
  The Dahmer Effect
- Every character relationship outside our two main characters. Bonds between people were well dialogued and done so in-a-way to enhance the emotional resonance when an event occurs.
- Animation quality was better than I expected for a horror genre made from 2008-2009
Things I Disliked (Cons)
- Hinted relationship between Ouri and Makina felt forced. Outside characters would make jabs about their status within the story but to me, conversation always felt rigid and cold.
- Inconclusive ending. Not all "7 Stars" are defeated by the end and Makina for some reason developed a need to "Save" her enemy and give her a new lease on life/purpose to live on. Actually, a brilliant concept considering Makina's whole reason for being murdered was to eventually give Hokuto purpose by becoming her enemy. By committing to save Hokuto, she essentially seeks to break the wheel our villains set into motion. Ending the series after this proclamation however earned zero points with me.
- 2nd in command of the "Seven Stars" has crazy plot armor and no reason to be alive.
- Outside of Hokuto, Touya, and Ouri's "Brother" (So minor he's not even listed as a character on Anilist) we know nothing of the backgrounds behind our villains. Makes it hard to sympathize or hate them beyond the actions we see during the main story's progression.
- I fucking hate "The Power of Love" plotline stories take. Authors trying to dig themselves out of a narrative hole is hilarious though.
Final Thoughts

Thought provoking and enjoyable to watch but falls short of a captivating experience. The topics presented don’t boast necessity to produce a flawless animation, but rather present a broader subject matter to their audience. Whether the series fully delivered on this subject matter is neither here nor there. What I can say is that many titles tend to lack a semblance of connection whether it be to its characters, plot points, or worldbuilding. Often overcomplicating the storyline trying to give vague, unreinforced meaning to the cast's existences, attachments to one another, and historical connection. Corpse Princess as a whole, is a fun watch with interesting concepts, but lands flat on execution.
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