Shingetsutan Tsukihime
Lunar Legend Tsukihime

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Tsukihime was originally a visual novel for the PC released by Type-Moon in 2000. It was later adapted into an anime series that was not well-received by fans (to the point that fans deny the existence of the anime) and a manga series that is still being published. I played the Tsukihime game not too long ago, and I loved it. It had one of the greatest and most touching storylines I've ever seen in a video game, but it also had many disturbing scenes as well. I was able to buy the first five volumes of the manga (volume 6 is rare and expensive ... at the moment), and I can safely say, the manga is a worthy adaptation of the original game.

EDIT AS OF 7/13/2011. Thanks to the magic of scanlations, (DrMaster is dead! How else am I supposed to read the manga now!?) I have been able to read all of the manga version of Tsukihime.

Story:

Shiki Tohno is a high school boy living in a seemingly ordinary town. He possesses a rare power, the "Eyes of Death Perception." With this, he can see what looks like black lines on people and objects, and if he cuts any of these lines, it will kill the person or object. He gained this power after what was apparently a near-death experience as a kid. Seeing "The Lines" puts stress on his mind and body, but he is able to live day by day for shortly after he gained this power, he was visited by a mysterious woman named Aoko Aozaki. She knew what was happening to him, and she gave him a pair of glasses that, when worn, hide the lines. She instructs him to take off the glasses only when absolutely necessary, and then suddenly leaves him.

The manga, like the anime, follows the Arcueid path from the game. In the original game, there are five paths, but the anime and manga could only follow one. While the manga unfolds like the Arcueid path from the game, it does incorporate elements from the other paths, and even includes a nod to Kagetsu Tohya, the sequel to the Tsukihime visual novel. By the third volume, the manga starts featuring scenes not from the game, but scenes exclusive to its canon. Without giving away anything, I can say that the plot of the manga is just as good as the game. While it drops a few scenes from the game, it leaves in all of the fascinating powers and most of the plot twists, and adds exciting new sequences of its own. The story is a dark one, but an extremely captivating one. 10/10.

Art:

Art-wise, it's not some of the best ever, but it does improve over time Some characters, like Shiki, Arcueid, and Ciel, look very close to the original designs from the game, but other characters, like Akiha and Arihiko, don't look as nice. (This is irritating for me since I think Akiha is one of the prettiest video game females ever, and to go from the game's design to this is especially jarring!) But the art is not horrible by any means. For one, the action sequences look fantastic. Also, the game, since it was a visual novel, consisted entirely of text and still images. The manga has more images, but scenes that were originally only described with text now have actual imagery in the manga. This I felt was a plus, even if it means that the manga is even gorier than the game. 8/10.

Characterization:

This is Tsukihime's strongest attribute, and the biggest reason it and other Type-Moon works have attracted such a strong fan following. Tsukihime's characters are some of the greatest ever. Shiki is a great lead character, able to smile and lead a happy life despite all of the terrible things that have happened to him. Arcueid is one of my personal favorite fictional characters ever; she's a beautiful and fascinating individual that steals nearly every scene she's in. Just about every character is not who they appear to be at first glance, and they all have their reasons to do things, including the villains, who thankfully aren't one-dimensional baddies who just want to be evil for evil's sake. I can't say much more without spoiling anything, but it's safe to say that you'll come to love at least one character in Tsukihime.

While I am giving a 10 here, I do want to say that the characters of Satsuki, Hisui, and Kohaku don't seem to be as multi-layered as they were in the game. The manga does excise details from the VN, so this may be why this is the case. 10/10.

Enjoyment:

My enjoyment of the manga version of Tsukihime is very close to my enjoyment of the game. Full of moments of terror, heartache, happiness, and so much more, Tsukihime is an absolute blast. This has become one of my favorite manga series of all time, and I intend to see it through to the end. 10/10.

Tsukihime comes with my upmost recommendation, even if you haven't played the game. Keep in mind, it is a horror series, so I wouldn't recommend it to the faint of heart, (Hope you don't mind attempts at rape!) but everyone else should check this out.

While I still think the VN version is superior, this is still a great read, too. (I will say, I like the ending here more than the endings of Arcueid's routes in the VN.)

Warning, this review may contains spoilers.

First impressions:
So, this manga is based off the hentai game and that adapts one the original routes in its entirety. It seems interesting enough, we’ve got vampires killing people and some romance developing in the background. I wonder how they will handle this.

Story: 6/10
Our tale begins with our main character Shiki Tohno who’s moved back into his family home after years of being taken care of by distant relatives, which he went to live with after a major incident that nearly killed him and gave him the ability to see lines of death. While getting used to being ... back with his sister and their twins maids, a mysterious case of vampire like murders is spreading out through the city like wildfire. One day while returning from school he comes across a mysterious foreign woman and like a good japanese citizen he cuts her up into multiple pieces, in what can be described as a psychotic rage. After a few days pass the same woman who he murdered visits him and reveals herself to be a vampire named Arcueid, who’s come to the city in order to kill a powerful vampire known as Roa, who is behind the recent murder cases and other supernatural shit that's going down in the city. It turns out though that she’s been badly weakened by Shiki’s attempted murder, so she decides to strong arm him into helping her complete her mission and so begins their partnership together.

Tsukihime is probably one of the more interesting stories that have been done by type-moon, which doesn't revolve around "people die when they are killed" or "the archer class is full of archers". Jokes aside though, the story is pretty much Shiki and Arcueid going around together and killing lesser vampires while looking for Roa, which does get boring and repetitive after a while. Like how many times can you fight the same generic vampires before it gets stale? On the bright side, they do kind of flavor it with external and internal problems. For example, one external problem they face is when they go against Roa and this one vampire that’s made out of wolfs and shit. On the other hand, the internal problems they face are more about the main two characters and their dark sides coming out. One being that Shiki at times devolves into a bloodthirsty killer and Arcueid……... well, she’s a vampire, so it’s self-explanatory what's going to happen.

There isn't really much to comment on, besides what’s already been mentioned, except for the bond they have together, which turns into a romance, which as far as romances go it isn't that bad, all things considered. Because I have seen quite a few romance stories that use a couple who are a completely different species altogether and use this as an excuse for cheap melodrama and over the top emotional expressions, that make me want to vomit. Luckily though, the story doesn't do this and instead their relationship and how it was developed felt very normal. Because it was very simple and to the point, it wasn’t bogged down by being overly emotional or being so pitch perfect that it felt robotic. It’s basically just them hanging out when they're not killing vampires and their relationship developing from that, so the romance is at least pretty decent.

All in all, the story was pretty ok and even shockingly grounded for a supernatural series. The last thing I can really comment on is probably the negatives. For starters, this story feels very dated and doesn't have enough punch to it. It has a very dated presentation and I feel that when this story originally came out it was pretty interesting and fresh in people's minds, but stuff like fate/stay night have kind of made it obsolete. Maybe if this series got a readaptation then maybe it would be better, because some of the ideas the series came up were interesting. One example of which is the way it explores the concept of vampires in this world. I also find it interesting how the series plays on the many legends surrounding vampires and explains them in a very straight forward matter, like why vampires need to drink blood and the like. The original source material for this was written in a basement by a group of people who were starting a game company, so i’ll give the writing a bit of slack for that. At the end of the day tsukihime isn't badly written, especially when you consider the fact it's a manga adaptation of hentai game, so for that i give it a slightly good score.

Characters: 6/10
The main character Shiki at first seems like another bland protagonist, who’s a quote unquote normal highschool boy, but as the story continues we find at that that’s not the case. Even though he has this generic upbeat, pacifist, loner attitude, he has quite a few interesting traits that aren't really found in a quote unquote normal highschoolers. For example, he doesn't fear death and all too often makes very light jokes or comments about death and shit like that. He also has this kind of evil side to him, where he becomes this near unstoppable sociopathic killing machine when he is the presence of supernatural beings. Unfortunately, he can't control this bloodlust and it leads him to at times go slightly insane, where it’s interesting to see him try and hold on to what humanity he has left when that side of him tries to take over.

Arcueid is also interesting to a point. She has a very cat like personally, being very free spirited and not really getting bothered by much. The most interesting thing about her though is that she was originally a weapon made to seek out and destroy anything her creators told her to, but because of interactions with Shiki and the bond they formed together she basically broke out of her eternal cycle of wake up, hunt down and kill vampire, sleep, then rinse and repeat. Now because that cycle has been broken, she actually has time to enjoy the things in life that she never got a chance to enjoy, like going to the movies or just chilling in general, which is a concept which she really hasn't had the time to explore or learn more about.

I found the interactions between Shiki and Arcueid really interesting, especially when they talk about concepts like for example, would you eat something that is equally intelligent as you or when Shiki takes Arcueid to places she hasn't been before, where she learns to have an attachment to the world around her.

The side characters are pretty basic for the most part. The thing that’s pretty cool about the characters in general though is that we often get to know what they are feeling and thinking. Sadly, because the original source has so many routes that explore the characters in many different ways, so we don't get to see the full potential of each of the characters, as this manga only covers one route, in which it's mostly Arcueid that's gets focused on. What I will say about the other characters’ routes is that the focus on them is interesting to a point and there is definitely more there than you would have first thought. An example of this is when we find out that Shiki’s adopted family actually have a demonic bloodline and are half demons, that drink blood and go into a frenzy every now and then.

The main bad guy, Roa feels very flat and comes off as some sort of psycho yandere. The reason for why he was like this was also kinda stupid. Basically, what happened is that he fell in love with Arcueid and didn’t understand the emotions he was feeling at the time. Eventually he came to think those emotions where hatred and because of that started this century’s long personal war, which caused many deaths and even turned a few unlucky souls into vampires. So because of his reasoning he just comes off as really flat and not that interesting, even if the idea itself of a person experiencing emotions and not understanding them is kinda interesting. They just didn't really do much with that idea and kind of left it vague and up to interpretation.

Art: 6/10
The artwork is not the best they could’ve done, as is it looks pretty choppy at times. Now one positive thing I can say about the artwork is that it kind of fits into the kind of setting that’s presented. It also has somewhat ok fight scenes as well, that don’t really flow and basically boil down to how many body parts can our main characters remove in one strike. I like the characters designs, because I am a big fan of most things type-moon.

Enjoyment: 6/10
So what I liked about this manga in particular is the romance, that was quite well done. The vampire fighting scenes were pretty cool was well. I also like how the main character is slowly losing his sanity, as he uses his powers more. I think the concept of being able to see death is interesting for an ability that people can have.

Overall: 6/10

Conclusion:
If you're a fan of type-moon or you want a human vampire romance that isn't like vampire knight or twilight then you will like this manga, but if you're not into romance or stories with plots that have been used before then I guess you won't like this.

Special credit to my new script editor, Lonecrit.

Hey guys, let me ask you a question. Do you like Tsukihime? Do you think it’s an engaging, complex, and well-narrated series? Do you think it manages to address the general flaws of the TYPE-MOON franchise? Hell, do you believe it’s TYPE-MOON’s best work? Because I personally don’t and I think there are a lot of errors that manage to body this series so hard. To be fair, though, I appreciate how ambitious and influential Tsukihime is, mainly as a piece of memory in the TYPE-MOON franchise because of how it’s the bridge between Kara no Kyoukai and the iconic Fate series. As an actual ... piece of story content, however, it’s something I just can’t get behind with. Although there are some good parts that I will get into, don’t get me wrong, almost all of the time, its storytelling falls very short.

So what is Tsukihime about? Like most TYPE-MOON works, describing Tsukihime is honestly hard. It’s about a boy named ‘Tohno Shiki’ who was surrounded by black magic and was unable to regather his memories. He was told that he encountered a car accident which led him into a huge mystery and while we’re on the topic of mysteries, he had and still has an ability that allows him to see mysterious lines. Because of that incident, he was sent away from the Tohno household and was given to someone to be aided by. Years later when Shiki was in school, his father who was the head of the Tohno household, died and Shiki was sent back to said household by Akiha. However, Shiki needed to protect the secrets he discovered, especially the one part where he met a mysterious lady named ‘Arcueid Brunestud’. I’m sure that Tsukihime has more things on the table but nonetheless, this is a very complicated yet very pleasing premise overall.

As for how the actual story goes, let’s start with the good parts. The start of Tsukihime is arguably the best beginning out of any TYPE-MOON series. Whereas nearly every other TYPE-MOON series needed to rely a little more on magical giggles for the sake of explaining their respectable chaos before they get a little more serious, Tsukihime was a little more human in exploring its characters initially. Sure, it’s not that amazing but it was straight to the point. It shows us how the characters would set things up. But wait, that’s not the only good part about the series, we have yet to observe the world-building. The world-building is interesting in the sense that it not only explores the settings well but it also connects nicely with the power system. Again, it initially shows Tohno Shiki's capabilities. It’s decent and while I still prefer the world-buildings in other TYPE-MOON series more, it at least manages to live up pretty nicely.

These, however, aren’t really enough to cover the series’ fundamental flaws and it only goes downhill from here. It’s time we talk about why Tsukihime fails to create a story. For starters, the scriptwriting. You know, I find this to be weird because most other series tend to be dialogue-heavy but still manage to piece things together well in addition to excelling at the ‘show, don’t tell’ rule. But Tsukihime’s dialogue is awful for the simple fact that it tries too hard to be philosophical while also being epic. While the ideals behind the story figuratively make sense and can elevate the plot, the plot itself takes them too literally to the extent that it manages to make them pretentious. Seriously, though, the mysteries regarding the relationship between Tohno Shiki’s visceral journey and the black magic invading reality are unique yet they’re told as if they’re M&M creepypastas coming to real life. It’s as if the series injected fanservice (not the kind you think of, mind you) each between character arcs.

And speaking of character arcs, where’s the consistent connection for each and between them? Non-existent of course. Now, to be clear and to give some credit, Tsukihime’s main story elements are meant to be indirect, giving each main character their own unique story which is good on paper. The biggest problem, however, is the exposition of each character arc. The beginning of Tsukihime may be nice but starting from here, the pacing sure as hell aged like milk. There is too much exposition for each. Most of the time, each arc just spends their time on surface-level character buildup instead of explaining their narrative capabilities and even if they get there, they look like they don’t discover each of the mysteries. They actually do but how they explain each of those reduces them to raw shock value, it’s ridiculous, to say the least.

The character writing isn’t any better. Let’s start with Tohno Shiki, the boy who can magically see lines, Arcueid, the mysterious princess, Ciel, the… um… let’s just say she’s a blue eggplant and Akiha, the current head of a family Shiki was born from and Shiki’s sister. Starting with Tohno Shiki, he’s one of the least interesting/impactful of TYPE-MOON’s protagonists. While he arguably has the most interesting backstory out of the main characters in the franchise, it doesn’t help that his whole character is not only unimpressive but also cringe-worthy. There’s this nice pattern where he explores the mysteries with both his powers and his relationships with the other characters and while they look great at first glance, neither of those in practice even carry his character at all. If anything, they make him look more pathetic than even funny. Shiki’s development is so overexaggerated that he might as well be classified as some sort of NPC for the vast majority of the story.

Moving on to Arcueid, she’s the worst character in the whole series. She may be the key heroine and she may have the most important key elements but as far as overall characterization goes, she has the most convoluted contribution to the plot. She exists excessively to add as many dramatic scenes as possible every time the series wanted to unfold her personal mysteries. Her character is focused on how much crazy shit she can present while ignoring her actual writing. Hell, her interactions with Tohno Shiki only make things worse as their chemistry with one another makes no sense aside from how they started their chaotic journey at the beginning. The way her dialogue is written here makes her look like Captain Marvel became a weeaboo. It’s a shame with how it goes because her characteristics are interesting and her “development” only makes her unintentionally stupid.

Next up, we have Ciel. The best thing we can describe Ciel is “boring”. Yes, she does have her importance but aside from that, she’s just a one-dimensional, gimmicky character who solely exists to “shine” every time Tohno Shiki is involved. While she actually has her unique quirks, when you think about it, those quirks aren’t really fleshed out and are only noticeable whenever the series virtually gets bored. Most of the time, her character is favored towards interacting with Shiki and Shiki only. The worst part about this gimmick is that it’s dumb and it feels forced. Both Ciel and Shiki don’t really have much to coincide with each other aside from cliche romance. Eh, at least their chemistry is still better than the chemistry between Arcueid and Shiki as they aren’t too convoluted.

Lastly, we have Akiha. This is a strange case where, unlike all the other main characters, she actually isn’t so bad. Her contribution to the plot is explored just fine. She actually kinda helps Shiki with how the mysteries can be explored. As for her chemistry with Shiki, I think it’s pretty fine. Both of them coincide with each other kinda well, especially when we take the whole Tohno situation into account. Other than that, though, her character still isn’t good enough to be compelling. Her connection with the rest of the mysteries is still fairly underutilized and development can still be forced, mainly with how her tsundere personality is treated. Nonetheless, though, she’s an alright character and might be the saving grace of Tsukihime.

Side characters also suck. They don’t really do much and they’re just there in case the series needs more “background” to show off. Now, you have some standouts. Some characters like the maids in the Tohno household, Len, and the chronological return of Aoko do have okay development. Again, they still aren’t utilized at their maximum potential but they’re side characters so I guess they aren’t too much to worry about. The villains are worse. You would think that they would make some good twists but no, they still exist for raw shock value. Even Nrvnqsr Chaos wasn’t used properly. He has similar gimmicks as the likes of Kotomine Kirei and Araya Souren but with none of what makes those villains good in the first place. He’s… just there and that’s all…

Now the final important element to talk about is the ending of the series. Honestly, endings in most TYPE-MOON series in general are pretty underwhelming. Sure, you have some epic fights before but afterward, there are conclusions that just remind you that time will shift when moving to a new installation, nothing else. But this is just stupid. Seeing how this ending became THIS anti-climatic, even from a figurative viewpoint, is unacceptable and doesn’t feel like an ending at all. The chemistry between Shiki and Arcueid was already bad enough so seeing how they ended with nothing but a cheap cliffhanger doesn’t really help in that sense. It doesn’t even bother to cover other important aspects, let alone address what happened in the story prior to the end. There’s no way in hell a series this big doesn’t have enough room for other things to cover either, and it's not even close. I don’t know what else I could say, this ending is not only rushed but also contrived for no apparent reason.

Alright, enough talking about stories and shit. What is good, however, is the art. Even though it can look a bit generic in some parts, the visuals, for the most part, are consistent, and the character designs are organic and recognizable, especially with Arcueid and Akiha.

There are more flaws I want to cover as well but this review is getting very long so I’ll just stop right here. Tsukihime is probably my least favorite TYPE-MOON series ever barring most of the FGO era. It may have the most interesting ideas out of any main title in the franchise but it’s watered down by horrible pacing, half-baked dialogue, insufferable ending, and an atrocious ending. It tries too hard to be deep but in the end, it results in being a nigh-trainwreck. Now, of course, I wouldn’t try to deride you from liking the series. If you have a high chance of liking and/or enjoying it then go for it. It’s one of TYPE-MOON’s most iconic titles after all. This doesn’t stop me from personally beating up a dead horse, though.