ooc: information

[unpriest]

General Info

Series: Shiki
Series' Medium: Anime/manga, but it has been based on a light novel with the same name. There are some notable changes though. There are even some differences between the anime and manga canons. For reference, I’ll be going with the manga canon.

Character: Muroi Seishin (last name/first name)
Age: 32
Sex/Gender: Male
Canon Role: UHM. Let’s keep it simple and say he’s a major/main character. I’m not sure if he’s counted as one of the protagonists – doesn’t help that the series doesn’t really pick sides.
"Real" Name: Watanabe Yori (last name/first name)
(Seishin’s Japanese, and I don’t think these are too exotic Japanese names)




History


To start off, let me first explain something about the vampires in this story. They are called ‘Shiki’ – a corpse demon; corpses that rise from the grave. It’s all rather traditional; they need to be invited before entering a house, they can hypnotize their victims by biting them, they will burn in sunlight, fall in a coma-like state during the day and can be killed with a stake through the heart. They grow incredibly hungry if they don’t feed on blood. It takes about 3 bites before their victim dies. Not everyone that’s bitten and then dies becomes a Shiki, but if they do it’ll take several days before they’ll rise. There’s one special type of Shiki called a Jinrou (werewolf-type). Unlike Shiki, they can move around in the sunlight and they can live off normal human food. Also, Jinrou don’t fully die during their transformation and it’ll only take a couple of hours at most. Depending on your view, you might say that Shiki are imperfect Jinrou. However, they are extremely rare.

Seishin was born in a small rural village in Japan called Sotoba. The village itself was surrounded by mountains filled with fir trees which they usex to make ‘items of death’ such as grave markers and coffins. These surroundings made it a very secluded village. The villagers were very religious people who found tradition important – they still buried the dead. Upon a hill sat a temple, where Seishin’s father was the well-respected head priest and married to a woman. Likely, Seishin had very loving parents – especially his mother who very much wanted him to be born. Seishin grew up in Sotoba as a somewhat shy child, frequently playing with Toshio Ozaki and Mikiyasu Yasumori. Toshio always wanted to be the leader and he hated losing, so the shy Seishin followed along with him.

As I’ve said, the villagers found tradition important. As to be expected, Seishin was to be the next head priest of the temple. He and his friend Toshio Ozaki didn’t quite agree with this (Toshio was more or less pressured in becoming a doctor by his harsh parents – the Ozaki family were doctors), and believed they were allowed to do whatever they wanted. The villagers had no right to decide things for them! But at the time, Seishin already thought it would’ve been nice had that been the truth. It wasn’t; because of his friend being in the same situation he was soon aware that the existence that awaited him was an empty one. During his university days Seishin tried to commit suicide by slitting his wrist in a drunken state. He may have not consciously known why he did it at the time, but at least it had been a subconscious awareness. Perhaps it was to escape from his duties, perhaps it was to kill off the unsavory part of him. More on that in the personality section.

Still, in the end both he and Toshio resigned to the expectations of the villagers. Toshio’s father died so Toshio was to take over his father’s clinic. Seishin returned to the Temple and was groomed into becoming a priest. Sometime during the story his father suffered a stroke and some additional conditions, causing him to be bedridden and the son having to take over most of the duties. As a side job, Seishin would write novels and short essays, likely as an outlet for his true feelings. In total he wrote two novels, six collections of short stories and a number of essays. One of them is about Sotoba, which would later inspire the Kirishiki family to move towards the remote village. Yes, everything happening in Shiki is essentially Seishin’s fault, albeit indirectly.

Shiki began with the destruction of several religious artifacts throughout the area. Not much later, Seishin found the first three corpses in a small district nearby called Yamairi during one humid summer in August. The bodies were so far decomposed that the causes of death couldn’t be determined, yet it was curious that one of the three had died much later than the other two. Not much later, a 15 year old girl was found collapsed in the forest supposedly because of anemia. Though it initially seemed nothing serious, she passed away mere days later. The death count continued to rise, though at this point no one was certain what was causing it. Elderly people dying could have been explained by the heat being hard on them, but the girl was only 15 years old. When Seishin heard of yet another death, he visited Toshio to find out whether he knew more of their causes. Seishin showed in this conversation that he can be perceptive if he wants to, bluntly asking for the `real´ reason after Toshio mentioned several ´insert organ here´-failures. Toshio and Seishin began to suspect an epidemic. Seishin decided to help his friend out to off-handedly ask the relatives of the deceased if something strange had happened to them.

One night when Seishin was out and about, a little girl approached him. She introduced herself as a fan of his novels. Surprised to find such a young reader who had read everything he wrote, Seishin began a fairly light-hearted conversation with her, commenting that he must have looked more ordinary than she imagined. The girl responded that though she indeed had expected 'one abandoned by god' to look different, it was okay because he carried a scar. Seishin, shocked at the sudden turn of the conversation, hid his wrist. He learned the girl’s name was Sunako Kirishiki, the daughter of the family that recently moved into the newly-built Western-styled mansion.

The young priest eventually learned of the death of Mikiyasu's wife, Nao, and then Mikiyasu himself was caught by the epidemic. When Seishin wandered through the woods brooding about this he once again ran into Sunako near an abandoned church. He offered her to show her what he calls his “secret hideout”. Sunako noticed that Seishin appeared to be upset over something, so the priest told her of the impending death of his young friend Mikiyasu. Sunako answered that Death is equal for everyone. Sunako said she’d like to visit the church again, yet Seishin warned her that the mountain paths are dangerous at night (sure doesn’t stop him from going out himself…). In their conversation it was also mentioned that Sunako seemingly had a condition called SLE that prevents her from wandering about in daylight.

Seishin began on the earlier plan of visiting the relatives of the deceased to fish for information. He discovered that most of them quit their jobs before their deaths and that a lot of others have up and moved without even saying goodbye. Finding this very strange, he reported this to Toshio only to be scolded for finding “irrelevant information”. Understanding that his friend was simply frustrated with the situation of losing patients to the ‘decease’, he took it silently and later that night visited the abandoned church. Sunako found him there, bringing one of Seishin’s books to sign to the embarrassment of the priest. It’s also noted that Seishin took it upon himself to investigate Sunako’s illness (SLE). She took notice of Seishin’s subtle hint that something is amiss. Seishin answers that Toshio is feeling worse than he is, and briefly explains the situation. Sunako, pitying the priest, petted his head as she commented that the two men’s feelings were starting to bypass each other. I suppose this is indeed the first hint of the two friends beginning to drift apart.

Later on, Toshio met up with Seishin to tell him he had discovered the cause of all these bizarre deaths: vampires. Seishin didn’t fully believe his friend at first, but decided to help him out as they keep the vampire’s latest “prey” at the clinic for observation. It’s worth noting that especially in the manga he drew the connection with the Kirishiki family – thus, Sunako – being vampires rather quickly.

On the first night, nothing happened. The pair spoke of vampires and Seishin mentioned he was currently working on a vampire-story called ‘Shiki’. On the second night, they finally saw proof of the vampire’s existence in the form of Nao, a woman and resident of the village who had already been deceased. Upon being caught, she fled from the scene. On the third night, they are led into an ambush. The power was cut off, and Seishin already realized this placed them at a disadvantage. While Toshio stayed with the “prey”, Seishin ran off to the generator downstairs to switch on the power. There, he noticed a group of Shiki through the window who distracted him. Just as he switched the power back on, Toshio was ambushed by one of the Kirishiki servants, a jinrou named Tatsumi. Tatsumi took the hospitalized person with him to the Shiki, where they sucked her dry while Seishin and Toshio watched helplessly. As the two friends stood at the corpse, Toshio swore to put an end to the Shiki killing off the village. At the poor victim’s burial, Seishin found Toshio digging into the victim’s grave; he wanted to know whether this person would turn into a Shiki, and then to dissect them to find a way to kill them. Seishin was horrified – even if they rose from the grave and killed others, these people were still persons. Toshio, beginning to grow angry, accused Seishin for being a coward and wanting the village to die out. Shocked by the comment that’s rather close to the truth, the priest uttered an apology and ran off.

Time passed. Seishin only contacted Toshio again to ask after another villager who also fell victim to the Shiki – a rift had formed between the two friends ever since the aforementioned incident. There was an awkward conversation between the two as Seishin revealed that he knew that Toshio’s wife, too, fell victim to the Shiki. He offered to help, but he was rejected. Seishin began to say something else, but abandoned his attempt. Afterwards, Seishin brought his father to the aforementioned ailing person. After a really odd “goodbye”, his father asked him a couple of questions about the “epidemic”. Though Seishin briefly wondered if his father suspected something about the Shiki, he soon shook the thought. After all, his father was bedridden. Not much later, his father asked him to deliver what he claimed was a “welcome letter” to the Kirishiki.

One night, Seishin met Sunako once more. She asked him what kind of story he was working on. The girl noticed that it has been inspired by the Abel and Cain story from the Bible, in which Cain murdered his younger brother Abel. Sunako commented that she liked his term for the risen undead “Shiki” and from then on adopted it for her own kind. Seishin said he, too, had a question for Sunako – he asked her if she was “Abel” (a reference to his own story; the younger brother that rose from the grave. See the summary I’ve supplied below. Curiously, this also portrayed the image of a victim). Sunako moved in to bite Seishin, but abandoned her attempt at the last moment and decided to spare him. Seishin once more stated that he knew that she was a Shiki, seemingly trying to provoke her as he believed the destruction of his life was a fortunate thing. Sunako left, commenting that Seishin really was a romanticist.

More time passed, more people had died. Seishin decided that he’s a shitty friend and that he needed to help out Toshio. He moved over to the clinic, but unbeknownst to him Toshio’s wife had both died and risen. The young priest walked into a rather shocking scene where a blood-spattered Toshio had just finished staking his own wife after videotaping his experiments on her – which basically equaled torture. As Seishin tried wrapping his mind around what his friend had just done, Toshio casually asked him to help him clean up. Shocked and disgusted, he glared before turning around and leaving without a word.

Some time later, Seishin’s bedridden father disappeared from the temple. The priest discovered a letter on the man’s laptop, a letter of invitation specifically to his room. It’s the very letter he himself delivered to the Kirishiki mansion. Minutes later a girl covered in dirt asked him for a posthumous name, because her family had been killed by the Shiki and she was certain she would be next. Seishin pitied the girl, but told her that she needed to continue living. Halfway during his speech he realized the hypocrisy of his words – someone who tried to commit suicide and abandoned the village shouldn’t say anything like that. It’s then that he left the temple and headed towards the Kirishiki mansion, fully aware of the consequences. There, he was bitten by Sunako.

In the meantime, Toshio had tricked one of the Kirishiki – a woman named Chizuru – and displayed her in front of the villagers. She was brutally killed. Toshio managed to convince them to join him to hunt the Shiki. Sunako soon learned of this and ordered an all out war, while Seishin attempted to warn her for Toshio. Instead, Tatsumi instructed the two to hide in the mansions’ secret dungeon. On Sunako’s request, Seishin contemplated and then told her the ending of his novel (see below). Seishin’s also informed of the situation of his father; ironically, he also bore a grudge to the village for his empty existence. Though the old priest had been aware of what happened in the village, he purposely didn’t warn them and even invited the Shiki over to be bitten and start a new life. Though the man did rise, his condition wasn’t cured and he couldn’t move around. Sunako once more fed upon Seishin following that.

Time passed and many Shiki were brutally murdered, forms of retaliation not having any effect. As a new dawn approached, Sunako, terrified of death, began to plead to Seishin that she had only wanted to live. After she fell asleep, Seishin searched the mansion for something to hide her in during the day as he intended to save her. He hid her in a suitcase and attempted to flee the mansion while Tatsumi served as a decoy. Unfortunately, he was seen by Toshio and the other villagers who pursues him. As the car he had been fleeing in couldn’t go further down a forest path and he couldn’t run very well with anemia, he opted for hiding in the temple until nightfall. As he fell asleep, his mother and the workers at the temple are being slaughtered by the villagers, never mind that they were human and had nothing to do with it. The villagers themselves proved to have gone mad and have turned into monsters as well; they’d just kill everyone left and right at this point.

Seishin discovered the corpses of his mother and the people of the temple as he left his hiding place. Things grew worse when he was injured by a man with a cleaver. Wounded, Seishin escaped into the woods . The villagers followed his blood trail, however, and he was weakening rapidly due to his blood loss, so he had little choice but to hide the suitcase Sunako was in somewhere in the bushes and move away, only to collapse. Night fell soon after, and when Sunako awakened and became aware of the situation, she found the forest on fire and the priest some distance away, bleeding and barely alive.

However, in the end Seishin rose as a Shiki -- a jinrou, most likely, considering the time it took for him to rise couldn't have been more than a few hours -- and saved Sunako from the man that was about to kill her. With the cleaver he had taken earlier, he killed the man in question rather gruesomely, his personality to have seemingly turned a 180 (but likely, that part of him had always been there). When Sunako initially resigned to death, Seishin gives a speech about how they do not sin because they are not a part of humanity. They were exiled from humanity, therefore, no longer under God's jurisdiction. They were Cain.

Sunako and Seishin both end up escaping the burning village, the flames taking away proof of all that had happened.

In the epilogue, it is revealed that Seishin stayed in an inn for a while to work on his novel "Shiki". When all the proofreading and editing had been done and the book had been released, however, he broke off all contact with the human world, annulled his bank account and wrote a final goodbye letter to his editor -- who was an acquaintance from his university years. It said that "Shiki" would be his final novel and to consider the royalties from the novel as a donation. Furthermore, it said to consider the person known as Muroi dead.

In a way, the Muroi that we had come to known had indeed died, for the man we saw on the last two pages of the final chapter certainly seemed like an entirely different person.

Canon Point

Manga, chapter 38 “Muroi Seishin, part 2: Decay and Degradation”, final page. When fleeing from the murderous villagers with Sunako, he hides in the temple. He seemingly dozes off in his hiding place while his mom is being slaughtered elsewhere in the temple. I shall take him from here – when he would find himself in Landel’s he would arguably be worried about Sunako’s fate if he can’t find her anywhere.




Shiki, Seishin's Novel


Shortly before the start of the series, Seishin had been working on a novel called ‘Shiki’. It’s still in the form of a half-finished manuscript by the time it starts, but it’s actually where the series and also the vampires derive the term ‘Shiki’ from – it literally means ‘corpse demon’. Near the end of the series, Seishin is seen contemplating its ending and the meaning of why he began writing it. Because it is so important, I will provide a summary of it. It should be noted that the story has canonly been heavily inspired by the Abel and Cain story from the Bible.

There was a man living in some sort of paradise on a hill, yet he would always isolate himself. He could not make things work properly, so the other people were disturbed. Because of this, he couldn’t be accepted by the world. This man had a younger brother who was his opposite, revered and respected. Yet, the older brother killed the younger one day and was banished to wander the wasteland. The older brother was haunted by spirits that damned him and threw rocks at him, and during the nights the younger brother’s corpse would rise from the grave. He would follow the older brother, eventually thanking him for killing him, for he was living an empty existence as he was surrounded by the people admiring him, having no choice but to suppress his true self in order to meet their expectations and meet the expectations of God. He was finally free. In the end, the older brother realized he didn’t have a younger brother that he had killed, but that the two brothers were one person. He had made up the younger brother to give his despair a form so he could kill it off. But by doing so, he had also killed himself.

The paradise is some sort of hill, and considering some would call Sotoba a sanctuary, this ‘paradise’ represents the village (doesn’t help that the temple Seishin lives in is on a higher area as well). The brothers – who end up being the same person – share certain traits with Seishin; most notably the young respected one that thanks his older brother for ending his empty existence and the older for being isolated from the rest, exiled after committing sin. Were Seishin to have rejected his position as a priest, surely, he would’ve found himself in a similar position as the older brother (and it’s likely what he faces at the end, see anime ending). Finally, there is the suicide that mirrors Seishin’s own action. In one blurb at one of the splash pages Seishin’s on, it says ‘let’s die together’ among other things. It’s difficult to interpret as we’re not sure who the narrator of this blurb is, but maybe it could’ve been meant as a reference to the story he had been writing. Perhaps the unsavory, dark part of him could be seen as a different person. To kill off that part, he’d have to kill himself. They’d have to die together. But this is speculation, since the story he had been writing and its relation to Seishin himself is heavily up to interpretation, and the meaning of the blurb is vague at best. But to be honest, I can’t think of a different person Seishin could die with.

Edit after the manga had finished:
It may be more accurate to say that the Abel represents Seishin's life in Sotoba, the part of him that he was expected to be. It's the part we see the most of throughout the series. However, the part that is Cain may very well be his suppressed true self. In order for Cain to exist, Abel had to be killed off. The Muroi Seishin we had come to know had to die, revealing the person we had seen at the end.

'Cain' had created 'Abel' because of despair. Despair is also the reason behind Seishin attempting to commit suicide, to escape from it and that empty life.

In a way, the story also represents Seishin's own story in the canon. He had been Abel all his life, but he had to commit sin to become his true self. He had to abandon the village and he had to die, in order to become Cain. According to his speech at the end, they are now exiled from humanity and no longer fall under God's jurisdiction. That's probably the reason why he was able to kill someone after rising as a Jinrou; his humanity was no longer in the way.




Personality


Suiting to a junior priest of Sotoba, at first glance Seishin is well respected and polite, even friendly. He is a reserved young man of small smiles, the emotions he displays being rather subtle but nonetheless present. He is a man who tends to brood silently rather than taking the initiative to speak of his feelings. His interaction with most of the villages are solely related to his work rather than on a more personal level, with the exception of the village’s doctor Toshio Ozaki (who he is childhood friends with), and later Sunako. It seems that – on a more personal level - he has almost isolated himself from the rest of the villagers. Either way, he is soft-spoken in his words and mannerisms, even to the point of being a bit timid at times. But overall, he has a fairly silent and calm personality.

This probably aids him in a way, considering he can be a rational thinker. He’s even perceptive and he has shown the ability to connect certain dots, drawing the conclusion of the Kirishiki being vampires almost immediately and drawing conclusions from what he had seen of Sunako (they were able to see in the dark). Earlier, he was also the first to conclude there was something wrong with the village with everyone moving out without notice and such, his initial hunch of the ‘epidemic’ being part of something greater being spot-on. The only thing possibly interfering with this is common sense.

It’s also worth noting that he spends the majority of the series being passive and indecisive, lacking in purpose. He seems a bit more willing to take action when it is on a more personal level, such as investigating the deaths to help out his friend Toshio. He also researched Sunako’s supposed illness and warned her when he still believed the deaths were caused by an illness. Later, he would go to great lengths to protect Sunako from an angry mob of villagers. I guess when there are certain other people involved, he’s a bit more willing to take action. But overall, he seems a wishy-washy type of character who’s hesitant to do something about the Shiki because he perceives them as not being so different compared to humans, even despite the fact that people are dropping like flies and the problem growing quite severe. He doesn’t see there is any justification of slaughtering creatures that are inhuman – as he sees it, a Shiki is still a person, possibly even a victim. Having sympathy for the ones killing off your village probably makes him a romanticist, a bit of an idealistic dreamer (hell, his character song is called ‘dreamer’) who can easily sympathize with others. I guess you’d have to be to be able to write the kind of stories he writes. Though I suppose it also helped he’s too caught up in his own insecurities and flaws in order to do something about the problem.

But there is another reason he won’t take action – deep in his heart he feels it would be better for him that the village would be destroyed. He never had any desire to follow his father and become the new priest, but he knew when he would choose his own path, people would be dismayed. This is probably related to him being a bit of an idealistic dreamer, but wasn’t allowed the chance to pursue his own wishes. Because of the pressure he had resigned to his fate and took up the duties that came with being a priest. Basically, he suppressed his true self in order to meet the expectations the villagers forced upon him, chaining himself to the village. Yet, a certain gap between him and the village that couldn’t be crossed remained. He would feel resentment towards the village and the life that had been forced upon him. Though he carefully hid his “darkness”, in the manga Seishin himself referred to it as a snake lying in wait for the perfect time to strike. It means he’s well aware of this unsavory part of him, which places him in a position of conflict throughout most of the series, likely the cause for his indecisiveness.

However, though he resented the village he did nothing to change his fate until the second half the series. There is one exception, and that is the suicide that happens way before the story is taking place. Noteworthy is that both attempts to change his fate resulted in self-destructive behavior.

He regards the life he currently leads as an empty existence, something he had likely already experienced during his university days. It was but a subconscious realization at the time (because he didn’t know why he did it initially), but to escape the despair he felt he slit his own wrist. He sees the destruction of his own life as a fortunate thing, evident from not just this, but also trying to provoke Sunako in biting him as he reveals he knows of her nature and eventually heading towards the Kirishiki mansion by himself, fully knowing that he would be bitten. All of it was a way to commit suicide. His darkness obviously leads to self-destructive behavior, and he’s well-aware of it. Perhaps it could be said that he not only sought escape of his duties, but also sought to kill off his darkness and his despair. It’s what leads him to abandon the village and head to the Kirishiki. At that point, he didn’t seem to take into consideration that others would also suffer because of his arguably foolish decisions.

In that regard, he could also be seen as a rather selfish character. He may be depressed, but no matter how you look at it, he did forsake the village for his own desires and never did anything to help them out in the time of crisis. As a priest, he should have done something. Never did he stop to consider how his betrayal would affect his mother until after he found her corpse on the temple grounds. He also knew very well that he was practically betraying his childhood friend, even if said childhood friend did something horrible and felt he had more in common with Sunako than with Toshio. On the other hand, he did visit Toshio with the intention to help him. So yeah, I guess that as long as you don’t do anything that would strike Seishin as horrible, he can be a decent friend. But if you do, he’ll turn his back on you.

His own health is not an immediate concern to him. After being sliced with a cleaver and the culprit tripping and landing in a rather unfortunate manner, he would ask after the culprit’s well-being, even relieved when the culprit is alive in the manga (I suppose he’s also rather gentle, unwilling to take lives). Even with an open wound he is determined to drag Sunako to safety. When he realizes he can’t, he hides the suitcase and intends to use his own blood trail as a decoy.

Considering he is the type of person to brood rather than take the initiative to speak of his feelings, writing was probably his only outlet. Thus, the story he wrote -- ‘Shiki’ -- contains heavy parallels with Seishin’s personality and it also tells of the reasons behind his attempted suicide.

All in all he’s a rather conflicted character, struggling between what is expected of him and his own selfish wishes. This leads him to despair, indecisiveness and depression, which in return leads to resentment. He is not one to bother others with his problems, and quite likely hates the fact of being a liability to others, causing him to be withdrawn and silent. However, his sense of loyalty and morality is questionable at best.




Physical Description


Though Seishin is a full-grown adult, he is a very frail one. His figure is wiry and thin. On his left wrist, he has a scar left from the time he slit it. He has short grey hair which, in contrast to basically every other character’s hairstyle in the series, is fairly straight with his bangs parted in the middle. He has large dark yellowish eyes – especially his irises seem to be large, almost making them look like the undead eyes of a Shiki (or a bug, what have you). Finally he has a pair of angular glasses which are half-rimmed with yellow (they are rimless at the top). Other than that, he looks fairly ordinary.




Abilities


Otherwordly abilities: None, considering he is still human where I'm taking him from.

Non-otherwordly abilities: It’s canonly said he’s well-versed in the occult, which is kind of a no-brainer considering what kind of novels he writes. He’s a skilled writer at that. Furthermore, as a Buddhist priest he can probably perform rites and stuff like that, but I don’t expect any marriages or funerals to happen so it’s probably a moot point. Considering he abandoned his position, he will likely not feel too acquainted with priesthood anymore. Throughout the series he has also been shown as a rational thinker and he can be rather perceptive. See examples I’ve covered everywhere else.