Mahoutsukai no Yoru
Witch on the Holy Night

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This is a review of the visual novel of Witch on the Holy Night and not of the light novel since its impossible to find the original piece of work.

This is my favorite visual novel of all time and a must read for anyone who loves magic, the fate universe or good stories that may take its time but has an extremely satisfying ending.

Story 10
This is a prequel to Tsukihime Remake about Aozaki Aoko and her starting as a mage and someone trying to take her and Alice's Territory when a boy from the mountains who has never experienced technology interferes with their lives. Although ... the story feels like the start of a series (which it is if Nasu ever finishes writing it) its slow storytelling eases and invests the reader into the story quite naturally, it invests and introduces characters who have very minor appearances at the start of the game and will impact the story later on. It never feels like the story wastes your time at the start although nothing really happens till around the end of the second chapter where few of the many pieces start to fall into place. The story first peaks at chapter 5 where you get one of the greatest set pieces I've experienced in Japanese media, the OST, tension and pay off is there and if this doesn't pull you into the story then you will probably not like it as it has few action scenes and more of the slower slice of life moments which are pretty funny at times. By the end you will be satisfied and wanting more since this does not close out most plotlines from the story and leaving a lot to be answered in its 2 sequels if they ever happen but nicely wraps itself up as well.

Art 10
Most high production visual novels have great art so not much to say here, the characters all look great, have great sprites and CGs. Moving on

Characters 10
Side characters are fun but appear most in the slice of life scenes and don't get much time to shine in the bigger more serious moments, especially someone like Ritsuka and the church characters. A lot of these characters might even be missed out on if you skip extra chapters which are found in the archives which is a downside in my opinion and maybe should of been integrated better into the main story. I'm sure they will have bigger roles in the future though. The main characters are all great though Aozaki is my favorite female character in Japanese media, her struggle to balance her life as mage and student is interesting which brings conflict with her friend and mentor Alice from the mage side and her complicated feelings towards Soujuurou and her school life. Alice learning to accept people and Soujuurou learning about the world outside the mountains and learning about his emotions. The main three have such great chemistry with each other that its the main attraction to the story. The main villain is a spoiler but I will say they are this mysterious character who uses puppets and eventually comes out from the shadows. They are intimidating and have moments to steal the spotlight, wish their side story was implemented into the main story just like the side characters and not left until completion of the story though.

Enjoyment 10
I absolutely adored Witch on the Holy Night when it first came out without the voice acting and now it is even better with voice acting. The story is slow but there is some great comedic moments especially with one of the side stories unlocked by completing everything. The action is masterfully crafted and feels extremely satisfying. Your enjoyment though will come from if you can sit through the slower moments and feel rewarded by the set pieces or not. As stated above, if you do not enjoy it by the end of chapter 5 I would recommend stop reading it.

Overall this is a masterpiece and Nasu's best work yet (although technically it was his first), great characters, amazing payoff for Tsukihime fans and newcomers. this is an absolute must read although I do wish that the characters and side stories where better integrated than found in the archives.

Right off the bat, I cannot rate this one overly objectively, so I'm saying not to get hanged up on my score as it probably can also be fine to rate from 5/10 to 10/10 depending on the reader. I don't think it's objectively bad if you argue from good faith and are not being overly cynical, but it all depends on how much you liked the characters by the end. Anyway, let's begin.

It's a bit of a classic being the adaptation of the first novel Nasu ever finished writing in 1996, we know that already, but the fact this remade story came out way ... later than the rest of the core Type-Moon titles makes it a bit complicated. But you shouldn't expect this to be an overly complicated story, it is quite simple but quite solid. If you come here for action for some reason, drop that attitude. Just go along with the flow, get attached to the characters, and have a nice relaxing reading experience. No need to bring the experience down by listening to overly positive opinions and vise versa. I feel like you should go in without knowing too much about it if you're a first-timer to Nasu's work and that's it. You can pretty much stop reading this take if you don't want to see me rumble about some details on how to possibly maybe read it or not yet or through which lens I see the story to maybe have a similar chance to enjoy it as much as I did. No spoilers will be present for any specific Type-Moon stories including this one if you're sticking around. In fact, it will have many spoiler warnings and advice on getting into Nasuverse, which ties into Mahoyo relatively well I'd say.

So, from what perspective do I judge and experience this story?
How would I consider Mahoyo to be an entry to Nasuverse?
The next 2 sections will be answering those questions.




First, I'll just say I've read all of it and wasn't using the recently leaked old ass unfinished "full" FR>EN Hollow Moon translation patch from 2019 that was floating around 4chan and wherever else. Don't be that person and either wait for a proper full release or if you know enough Japanese use MTL with Textractor (and JParser) since it should be better than that garbage and fairly easy in the case of your Japanese not being beyond nonexistent and will help you learn kanji hopefully as well as preserve the untranslatable mannerisms of the Japanese language. If you're looking for those benefits, the relevance of this method will be everlasting even after the full translation finishes and the voices get added to preserve some of the Japanese feel later on. But of course, the best way is to know Japanese to a level you can read books freely without ANY help ever, but getting to that level on a whim is too hard a task for most people, myself included. So all you can really assume is that I hopefully had enough knowledge to read it comfortably and catch all of the mistakes (which I did).

I gave this a 10 on pure emotion after a few personal bumps and downs with the story I had along the way but this is a perspective of a massive Type-Moon fag that started with FSN VN and kept only reading the novels first every single time properly because I enjoyed FSN so much and the books were keeping me interested in more of a real version of things rather than some shallow adaptation (obviously including ufotable as well). Now, recently I started to get closer to FGO content timeline (2015) after experiencing almost everything Nasu and Takeuchi released until then. Reading/playing this title in the release order (not overly strictly but trying to keep spoilers away) was pretty great for experiencing the second half of Mahoyo especially but I feel like accepting the second half is a bit of a shaky subject. I believe it'll be easier to be okay or good plotwise if you're already familiar with Nasuverse extensively and how each story is different enough with almost anything being possible within the multiverse to not be overly cynical about it or overthink it in the less enjoyable direction. It might be my bias speaking, but I'm just making assumptions based on how I could've reacted personally to it had I started with Mahoyo instead. The first half of the story is probably better suited for a Nasuverse beginner but that second half makes me reluctant to recommend it to first-timers unless they're overly patient and constantly aware that is it an origin story that people were eager to experience for however many years we knew about it before it came out in 2012 that is a part of a trilogy that we cannot even begin to judge to its fullest yet. Most of my good vibes come from just chilling and patiently expecting more good stuff and the sequels answering a lot of the questions and more chill, but I'm used to it. Will first-timers be? Idk, but some people think Mahoyo is the best entry to the Nasu writing and... Having that discussion is largely pointless and will ultimately lead to an objectively best likely choice of starting Nasuverse being (and I only count books and VNs, no manga or anime here at all) Fate/stay night with the least connection to the rest of the main Type-Moon titles to spoil (non-book FSN content is just not even worth mentioning but FYI: HF3 movie needs at least 5 KnK movies at the minimum or any other Fate anime, in general, being riddled with spoilers from either other routes or the other novels entirely, for example, Fate/Zero is made impossible to experience properly if you even touch the anime adaptation of UBW before reading it in the intended novel order which leads to anime-only misconceptions). FSN VN is also sitting right in the middle ground (sweet spot) of Takeuchi's art style between Tsukihime being a bit older and rough around the edges but still very charming and Type-Moon's new style of Mahoyo, FGO, and now the Tsukihime Remake. Also, my bias tells me Tsukihime could maybe be weirder for me if I hadn't read Kara no Kyoukai novels beforehand since Melty Blood later spoils KnK (and even FSN in Type Lumina), but reading those KnK novels is kind of a chore to ask a first-timer if you know Cokesacto translation that every Mal normie read is mostly bad with the Baka-Tsuki one being eternally unfinished and the movie problems especially with chapter 6 and so on)

However, none of it matters too much as with enough of an open mind and patience it is fine to start with any of the main Type-Moon titles anyway and if you could find enjoyment in it, your journey will be a unique one (especially if you can keep yourself from spoilers and FGO for as long as you can).



Now let me just bitch about MAL for a tiny bit.

Whoever added this as a LN makes me scratch my head despite seeing these cases every once in a while, I assume it was done either because Nasu didn't really want to call Mahoyo a VN and used this excuse not to add voice acting (at least partially), or the fact that the original 1997 version was a light novel (still doesn't make sense to put the specifically 2012 one here), or maybe just ignorance. But that's a minor issue as I think MAL should expand to VNs anyway and more (despite things like vndb being a thing and such), but why does this have only 8 chapters out of 13? And that's purely for the main story, if you count extras there's more. The Hatsukoi wo Meguru Bouken short story (not a VN, actually should be on MAL) that came with the first editions of the VN also should be getting more attention for a MAL page IMO. Despite not being fully translated, it is arguably the best extra chapter out of those. (Nevermind. I guess it's been translated just 2 hrs before I posted the review. So I basically finished it the same day before it was finished translating and perhaps even mere hours apart of it. Believe it or not, with that kind of coincidence, I wasn't even mad I had to spend so much time to read it before the TL finished.)


btw, I'm not gonna go into VN experience detail as it is listed as LN here but it does have the usual nice visuals and a remarkable soundtrack.


Future edit:
1. In March we got a script for Agent (the program people usually use for Tsukihime remake text extraction) so you can use it instead if you didn't want to deal with Textractor but do want to see it in Japanese to some extent.
2. Apparently we'll be getting official TM Mahoyo localization with the new re-release. I imagine some people now gloating at Hollow Moon and all the memes of official TL coming out before it turning out to be correct. That's fairly funny in its own right, but we don't know if the official TL will be of better quality. I don't trust official translations much, personally, but we just have to see how this plays out. You'll be probably safe just reading that but do your research if you're from the far future when all of it came out already.

Mahoutsukai no Yoru is easily the best visual novel I have ever read.
Art/visuals and music are extremely good.
Voice acting too.
Story wise, I loved the balance between slice of life and actual plot. It was refreshing to read the extra chapters and just enjoy the characters' interactions with each others. It did not feel boring even if it was irrelevant to the main plot, because there was always character development going on.

There is only one issue Mahoyo has and that is a bad English TL. As we all know, Hollow Moon is utterly incompetent and will never finish translating Mahoyo. The only English translation ... I consider good is McJon's and it only goes up to chapter 8. I just want to say that the official English TL is very inconsistent in its quality. Although I am not capable of understanding written Japanese, I would consider myself to be good at understanding it orally as a Japanese person. Many of the English text for the voice lines do not accurately reflect what the characters are saying. The numerous grammar mistakes are horrendous as well. I will admit some parts are decently translated though. But imagine reading an especially moving part only to be interrupted by a horrible grammar mistake. It just ruins the magical feeling that you get when you read Mahoyo.

Because of this, I decided to undertake the task of doing a voice port to PC release while fixing English translation. I would never normally do a thing like this but Mahoyo has just moved me that much. At least then I will have an English translation up to my standards.