屍姫 Literal Translation would be “Corpse Princess“. I’ve had season 1 sleeping in my hard disk for ages, and thus finally watched it when i lost my internets. I found it interesting because the plot is ‘unique’. Downloaded season 2 and finished it quickly. This is a summary of what i remember from Shikabane Hime: Aka and Shikabane Hime: Kuro.

After being murdered, Makina Hoshimura turns into a “living corpse”. Armed with dual MAC-10 submachine guns, she must kill 108 other corpses in order to gain entry into heaven. She is assisted in this task by Keisei Tagami, a Buddhist priest with links to an anti-corpse group known as the Kougun Sect.

-Wikipedia

The series starts lightly with Makina killing off Corpses with a little mystery surrounding them, about 4 or more corpses’ story before the main story follows. Oori Kagami appears from the start as a normal highschool boy who just gets fooled by an invisible cat to go where the corpses are, thus he sees Makina killing the corpses. A betrayer priest shows up as the main antagonist, he killed his own Shikabane Hime and creates Corpses to fight for him. The first season ends up with Keisei Tagami getting killed by the betrayer priest joining forces with a group of strong corpses named Shichisei. Oori becomes Makina’s Contracted Priest following Keisei’s death.

Corpses are born when a human dies and he have a strong attachment to live or attachment to the world. Corpses can be human like, and may have monster forms. They still have their thoughts as humans, the only catch is that they’re DEAD.

Shikabane Himes are Corpses but they are more rational and have a Contracted Priest, their life line is the ‘run’. The get their run from their Contracted Priest. If a shikabane-hime kills 108 corpses during their lifetime, they may go to heaven. Which is actually a lie. They just get sealed in a coffin forever. Only girls of certain age can be Shikabane Himes.

Shichisei is a group of 7 strong corpses who have one goal, which is to well im not so sure. They are moved by their NATURE and not through their attachments. Hokuto is their strongest member. They are Makina’s murderers, they stole a book from her family on how to make Shikabane himes. They get killed 1 at a time. 2 survives, but Makina still hunts them down. The ending of the second series ends where Makina attacks Hokuto.

Kougun is a sect of Buddhist Monks/Priests that protects the living. They save the living and thus uses Shikabane Himes to eliminate Corpses.

Traitor Priest: Akasha Kills his own Shikabane hime. He learns about the Lie where the shikabane himes goes to heaven after killing 108 corpses. His shikabane hime was originally his lover. When a Shikabane Hime kills 108 corpses, they turn back to being corpses and attacks everyone on sight. An auditor assigned to them takes down the shikabane hime and seals the Shikabane hime in a coffin forever. His attachment with her is unbreakable thus makes him leave the Kougon as a traitor and destroying the Shikabane Himes.

Makina Hoshimura is the main Shikabane hime, her attachment to the world is to get revenge from the Shichisei who murdered her and her family. She gets Keisei to be her Contracted Priest, because they have had a connection before. Their relationship is unclear but it is shown that they cared for each other. When Keisei died, she can’t accept Oori as a new contracted priest. She gets sealed quite a lot of times, and even gets raped by ghosts. She kills the Shichisei one by one through the 2nd season.

Oori Kagami is a loser through out the first season, he found his worth by training for half a year to be Makina’s Contracted Priest in the 2nd season. He founds out that he was born from a Corpse, and he is both Human and corpse. He fights one Shichisei along with his invisible cat in corpse form. He instantly learns how to use the Zadan Jutsu and pwns every enemy they face. His Zadan Jutsu is unbelieveable because only priests who trained long enough can use that, he’s not even a half baked Priest and he’s a half human and corpse.

The second season ends with the Traitor priest getting killed by Hokuto. Akasha destroyed the catalyst of Kougon which allows all Contracted Priests to transfer their “Run”s to their Shikabane Hime, thus weakening all himes and turning them to Corpses. This plan fails because all Shikabane Himes are “FRIENDS” with their Contracted Priests which is a “Connection” that allowed ‘Run’ to still continue flowing. Hokuto escapes with another Shichisei and went hiding. Oori wanted Makina all for himself and to not fight anymore, but Makina lives to fight and hunts down Hokuto.

Overall a great series, though underrated. Gainax’s style can be visually identified, i can’t explain it through words but it’s unique to their titles. I suggest this to people who likes supernatural and fiction, kawaii girls with guns, and short skirts getting all ripped up. XD

Working on Hayate and Umeneko.. XD

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