is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Yoshiichi Akahito. Premiering in Monthly Shōnen Gangan on April 12, 2005, the series centers on the "Corpse Princess" Makina Hoshimura, an undead girl who is hunting down 108 undead corpses in order to gain entry into heaven with the help of a secret society of anti-corpse Buddhist monks.
Feel and Gainax partnered together to adapt the series into a thirteen episode anime series. The first season, , aired on October 2, 2008, on AT-X and finished on December 25, 2008. A second season, , aired between January and March 2009. The anime is licensed for North American distribution and release by Funimation, which has released the episodes in subtitled form as Shikabane Hime through various online distribution companies and through its own website.
The series made its North American television debut on the Funimation Channel on November 15, 2010.
Premise After being murdered, Makina Hoshimura turns into a living "Shikabane Hime" ("Corpse Princess"). Armed with dual MAC-11 submachine guns, she must kill 108 other Shikabane in order to gain entry into heaven. She is assisted in this task by Keisei Tagami, a Buddhist monk with links to an anti-corpse group known as the Kougon Sect. Her ultimate goal is to avenge the death of her family, by destroying the Shikabane known as the Seven Stars.
Characters
Main
Makina appears as a sailor-uniformed high school girl with long purple hair tied with a red ribbon, and two braided pigtails that end in metal hoops. As a Shikabane Hime, Makina is tasked with killing 108 Shikabane to gain entrance to heaven; in the first volumes of the manga, there is a countdown of how many Shikabane she still has left to kill. She chooses to be a Hime in order to find who had killed her and her family. She has formidable physical skills, and her weapons of choice are two Ingram MAC-11 submachine guns. Her Contracted Monk is Keisei Tagami. Later in the story, it is revealed that her family discovered the process of making a Shikabane Hime and was killed by the Seven Stars who made Makina into a Shikabane. Despite her initial misgivings about Ouri's potential interference with her missions,, she becomes his new Contracted Monk after Keisei's death.
A high school boy who was raised at Keisei Tagami's temple. He treats Keisei as his brother even though they are not blood related. Ouri often appears where Makina and the Shikabane are by following a mysterious black cat that talks with him. The temple kids nickname him Hanagami (anime dub translation: "wussy boy"). Later on after Keisei's death, he becomes Makina's new Contracted Monk. At the start of the anime series, he moves from the temple to try to live on his own, and takes on part-time jobs.
Keisei Tagami is a Buddhist priest under the anti-Shikabane organization known as the Kougon Sect. He found Ouri Kagami as a three-year-old child and raised him at his temple orphanage. Keisei was an orphan himself, raised by Makina Hoshimura's father. When the Hoshimura family was brutally murdered, he agreed to become Makina's Contracted Monk. He is something of a pervert, often placing "pervy anime posters", "zenbu-nose" figurines, and dirty magazines in Ouri's possessions. At the end of the anime's first season he is mortally stabbed and then sacrifices himself to defeat Akasha. He then transfers his contract to Ouri.
Shikabane Hime Anime and manga
Sadahiro's cynical Shikabane Hime, who has dark hair and wears a light purple headband. She works at the bar that Ouri part-times at, and often hits Sadahiro to stop him from saying something stupid. Almost nothing is revealed about her past in the anime, except for her cause of death by a Shikabane. She fights using a sniper rifle. She is the only Shikabane Hime that is allowed to kill humans. In Chapter 90 of the manga she is revealed to have lost her entire family to Shikabanes and sought out Sadahiro to put her former loved ones out of their misery. Sadahiro duly carried out her request, but she was fatally wounded by one of the Shikabanes in the process and then, for an unspecified reason, revived as a Shikabane Hime. Kohaku Hoshimura describes her as being fully committed to find salvation rather than seeing it as almost an afterthought like most Shikabane Himes do.
Isaki's Shikabane Hime. In OVA she is noted for her green hair and her red butterfly hairclip that she wears on her left side. Her weapon of choice is a pair of knuckled gauntlets. She became a Shikibane Hime when she committed suicide after killing her abusive boyfriend and thinks that her existence is a form of punishment, although Ouri disagrees. She was intended to be Keisei's Shikabane Hime but Isaki volunteered to be her Contracted Monk. From the start, there was doubt as to whether or not Minai could be a Shikabane Hime because her contract was incomplete, but Sadahiro and Akira's investigation revealed that Isaki didn't lie about his having a bond with her; they had indeed met in the past when they were kids. She later grows close to Ouri, but before a relationship could be formed, Isaki was killed; despite Sadahiro's offer to help her transferring her bond to Ouri, she ultimately allowed herself to be terminated rather than taking up the offer or reverting to a rogue Shikabane.
Her manga original is characterized very sparsely albeit still differently, wearing a school uniform like Makina as well as being armed with a New Nambu M60 revolver and a knife, and ending up killed by Shikabanes created by Akasha (the Kougon Sect learning of her demise at the end of Chapter 2).
Rika's partnered Shikabane Hime. Saki is a 10-year-old mischievous girl with blonde hair who enjoys teasing Rika by sharing Rika's romantic feelings about her colleagues and is usually seen munching on chips or drinking juice. She was Rika's only childhood friend, and the two became very close due to Rika essentially living in isolation and Saki's cheerful, boyish behaviors. She was fatally injured when the fireworks they played in secret accidentally caused fire. Rika, after a dying Saki begged her for help, had Saki's body frozen until she is capable of undertaking the ritual to turn Saki into a Shikabane Hime. Moved by Rika's resolve to answer her plead and mitigate her regret for dying young, Saki became extremely protective of Rika. In the manga, her weapon of choice is a pair of axes, while in the anime, she uses a war hammer. Unlike other Shikabane Hime, her Contracted Monk happens to be one of the ten great holy families, which means that no ordinary Shikabane can defeat her. In manga Chapter 63, after Rika is dismembered by Lee Li Hong, Saki merges with Rika to repair her body. Following Lee's termination, Saki returns control of the repaired body to Rika, thus passing on as her obsession of protecting Rika is fulfilled. }
Takamasa's Shikabane Hime with the very large pink bow at the back of her hair. She died in an automobile accident and came back with the regret of not living the life of a teenage girl. She bonded with Takamasa because she thought he was a powerful monk and would help her get to Heaven faster. Unfortunately, Takamasa knew nothing about the Shikabane Hime before that. Regardless, the two continued to work as a team. During their time, they began to develop romantic feelings for each other. However, they were unable to act on them because Itsuki was a Shikabane Hime. She fights with a pair of M945 Combat handguns. In the anime series, she joins Ouri's class as a transfer student, immediately trying to befriend him.
Takamine's Shikabane Hime. Nicknamed "The Sword Princess," Kamika has been referred to as the strongest Shikabane Hime not necessarily for the level of her strength, but her regret and will. She is typically seen wearing glasses and a button shirt like a secretary. In manga, her mortal death came about when she ran into Shikabanes in her quest to challenge and defeat the strongest warrior in the world, which became her obsession as a Shikabane Hime. Late during the fall of Kougon Sect headquarters, she is given Ame no Murakumo no Tsurugi in order to kill Sugami Maen. Despite initially being decapitated by the King of Shikabanes, her determination prompted the spirit of the legendary sword to make her an avatar of Chika'eshi no Ōkami, the gate guardian to the world of the dead, allowing her to rematerialize one last time and deliver the killing blow in Chapter 79. Her obsession thus fulfilled and as dictated by her godhood, she vanishes from the mortal realm for good, being sacrificed willingly alongside a fatally-wounded Takamine to keep Sugami Maen sealed forever in the afterlife.
Umehara's Shikabane Hime (the sole one in manga) and having been so for more than a decade. Umehara calls her "S Monster from S Universe" because she often appears to derive pleasure from inflicting pains on him whenever he does something perverted, but the two of them in fact trust and care for each others deeply. She is most often seen armed with a staff although she is also proficient with various throwing and close-quarter combat weapons.
One of Umehara's Shikabane Hime in anime, who is as much an otaku as Umehara himself, although the two can have even more passionate arguments than normal Makina and otaku Keisei would have had over conflicts on two-dimensional vs. three-dimensional or doujinshi vs. figurines. In fact, she was a foreigner who had died in a plane accident on her way to Akihabara. The other Shikabane Hime of Umehara is Touma (who only appeared in the manga), who is away on a vacation of sorts and seems to strike fear in her Contracted Monk. She was the unknown female that was peeking outside Makina's cave, and she has brought news about her.
Traitor Monk Akasha Shishidou's lost Shikabane Hime and his primary motivation behind seeking to destroy the Kougon Sect. In anime she was Akasha's fiancé in life and considered a comparable to even Kamika Todoroki. After killing 108 Shikabanes, however, she became a Destroyer Shikabane and eventually died by the hands of Akasha. In manga he and Hibiki were total strangers and in fact did not even have anything build a strong bond on. Unbeknownst to Akasha, she had a husband in life who she remains emotionally attached to despite being prevented by circumstance to ever see him again. She took advantage of the fact that Akasha never bothered asking about her past to conceal her desire to avoid death or becoming a rogue Shikabane. After she was fatally wounded in a botched mission against Hazama and could not regenerate due to her bond with Akasha not being strong enough, Akasha performed the Shikabane Hime induction ritual (an art that is forbidden to anyone not of the Ten Great Holy Families) on her again in hope of rejuvenating their bond, but again because Hibiki's connection with Akasha remained weak, she was transformed into a grotesque monster that needed to be put out of her misery. She is brought back to life (as Akasha's Shikabane Hime) by a deified Kohaku in Chapter 98, and proceeds to disclose the truth to Akasha, which emotionally devastates him. When Akasha turns on Kohaku and perhaps because of Akasha's declaration that, despite the truth, he still has feelings for her, she nonetheless decides to fight to protect Akasha and ends up erased from existence by Kohaku while trying to help Akasha escape.
Manga only
A mature Shikabane Hime who only appeared in the manga with her younger partner, Sousetsu Kashio. She uses her whip to attack and tie down her enemies. Presumed to be dead during the failed attempt to assassinate Sugami Maen.