Shiki Tohno was severely injured in a large accident in his childhood. After miraculously surviving the event, he was sent away from the family to recuperate. As a result of the injury, he is now able to see "life lines" on objects and people which, when cut, will destroy them.
After years away from home, Shiki moves back following the death of the head of the Tohno family. While walking home from school, he meets a beautiful woman whom he is inexplicably drawn to kill. At firs he thinks her murder was all just a nightmare - until she reappears in front of him.
It turns out the woman is Arcueid Brunestud, and a vampire princess! She promptly recruits Shiki afterwards to help fight Roa, the antagonist vampire currently on a killing spree.
Story & Characters
Firstly, as a extremely popular doujin visual novel/eroge produced in japan, naturally people are going to compare the
anime adaptation to the visual novel, just like how everyone compares anime adaptations of manga to their manga
counterparts. Visual novels sell by having complex, beautiful storylines that really draw the reader in....they do not
have flashy graphics or absorbing gameplay, they are basically very thick books with graphics, sound effects and music.
Tsukihime distinguished itself by having a fantastic storyline and beautiful endings.
The anime adaptation came no where close. The anime adaptation is based on Arcueid's route, but tried to
incorporate elements of other routes as well, such as giving you a very brief hint that Akiha is NOT a normal
schoolgirl, but did it in a horrible half-assed way. All we get are vauge hints that never amount to anything, and they
just leave the viewer completely confused as to what is going on and why.
Aside from Shiki and Arcueid, all the other characters do not seem to be there for anything except to occupy space, not
even the obligatory comic relief character. Ciel's role in the entire 13 episode anime series seemed to be nothing
other a plot device to save Shiki from certain death twice, her "major appearance" where she fights the
vampire has her instantly get taken out of action off-screen(all we see is Ciel moving to attack, then a flash, then
ciel flying through the air, presumably defeated). The same occurs for Akiha when she tries to use her powers against
the vampire, instantly taken out of action.
Satsuki's role in the Shiki-Arcueid-Satsuki love triangle is nearly non-existent, the viewer can infer that Satsuki
likes Shiki, but its completley inconsequential to the storyline...Shiki isnt even aware of it until the last 5 minutes
of the last episode and it affects absolutely nothing. Only Arihiko seemed to be properly done as Shiki's classmate
that isnt involved with the supernatural events, but thats probably because it was impossible not to make him any less
important to the storyline.
Even the main heroine of the show, Arcueid, was not given proper character development. It was never properly explained
just who she is or why she is looking for the vampire, again all we get are vauge hints and half-explanations. There is
one scence near the end that will leave anyone who hasnt played the game scratching his head as to what the hell Arcueid
just did, it has spawned a injoke that Arcueid can make people explode just by looking at them.
Shiki's character development was done the best out of all the characters, as the main character of the show. We do
see Shiki's gradual love for Arcueid, and it is paced realistically, but things like his past, his relation with
the vampire and how Shiki managed to "kill" the corridor when the vampire didnt are all either left
unexplained or glossed over.
Kohaku and Hisui's role was nearly non-existence, and that is unfornate, because if their story had been
incorporated into the anime storyline, it would have been much better, and explained many things about the Tohno family.
As it is they are extremely minor side characters.
There are also countless plot holes throughout the series, like why Arcueid, a ridiculously strong True Ancestor, would
run from Shiki in the park, instead of simply killing him before he had the chance to twitch a finger. In the game, the
only reason Shiki managed to kill Arcueid was because he performed a perfect sneak attack and she had no chance to do
anything.
In conclusion, the anime adaptation was a complete failure. They took a fantastic plot, and simply butchered it by not
doing something very simple by simply following the game scripts, and attempted to squeeze everything into 13 episodes
with no proper explanation or presentation. It is so bad that Japanese fans of the game refuse to admit that there was
an anime adaptation done, they simply do not recognise this anime series at all.
Rating: 2
Art
The art was, by and large, very sub-par. Simply looking at all the character's faces, you cant help but feel that
something is wrong. Especially Arcueid and Akiha's faces. If one were to just look at their faces, and not anything
else, one might mistake them for males. The drawing is seriously that bad, theres something really strange about the way
the characters are drawn. Other drawings, such as of the background and buildings/objects were simply standard, nothing
special at all. At least the final sunset scence is rather pretty.
Rating: 1
Sound
The sound is, funningly enough, the only good point of this series. The music used throughout perfectly matches the mood
of the scences and the mood of the series. There are a lot of beautiful violin pieces throughout the show, especially
the one played during the scences where Akiha is playing her violin. The music played when Shiki confronts the vampire
for the final time is also spot on. The 2 OSTs released are a fantastic value and contain many many high quality sound
tracks. The OP, "Sacred Moon" is fantastic, really sets the theme for the series, unfornately it is very short
and there is no full version. The ED song, "Rinne No Hate Ni" is simply perfect as well. Both the OP and ED
tracks match their OP/ED sequences perfectly.
Voicing is more or less average, but i felt that Shiki sounded a bit too old.
Rating: 8
Presentation
The presentation was a complete failure. The failure to properly integrate many key game characters into the storyline,
a lot of non-sensical things that left the viewer scratching his head, the famous Nero Chaos fight scence being nothing
more than Shiki killing a seriously underpowered, clueless vampire, and many many other things, resulted in an anime
that screamed "This could have been so much better, if we had only put in a much better effort!", and
consequently the show was only midly enjoyable...and i suspect that was mainly because i was aware of what happened in
the game's version of each scence. Anyone who had played through the game and viewed the anime would not be able to
contain himself screaming "What the HELL are you doing with this scence? DO IT THIS WAY ACCORDING TO THE GAME! What
you are doing makes no goddamn sense!".
Three scences did make me laugh though. When arcueid shows up at shiki's school, at the amusement park, and in
shiki's room. Those were simply fantastic comedic moments. Shiki's dream about Arcueid had fantastic potential
for another comedic moment : In the game, Arcueid keeps asking who showed up in Shiki's dream, in the anime however
the dream is simply a spontaneous dream that Shiki had of Arcueid wanting to suck his blood.
The ending was butchered. The rooftop scence with Arihiko, Satsuki and Shiki made very little sense past the "Okay,
Satsuki got rejected" stage. The sunset scence was not explained at all, viewers are left to guess whether it was a
hallucination or a ghost, and so the real impact of Arcueid's sacrifice is never realised by the viewer.
Rating: 3
Final Verdict
3.1667 (poor)
Reviewed by Question, Feb 03, 2007
