Kouhei Morioka is a freelance photographer working for a supernatural magazine with the gift (some would call it a "curse") of having spirits show up in nearly every photo he takes. His colleague, Hiromi Anzai, and their editor, Seiji Midou, take Kouhei to investigate a haunted castle in Germany. There he spots a mysterious girl sitting on one of the parapets who poses for him. He takes several shots, but she does not show up in any of the photos!
They go back to investigate and break into the castle, freeing the vampire princess Hazuki, the girl who posed on the parapet for Kouhei. Afterwards she disappears and they all head back to Japan... only to discover that Hazuki has followed them there and is staying at Kouhei's house!
Written by Question.
Story & Characters
NEVER AGAIN! NEVER AGAIN! All too often I find myself giving into watching anime that has been "recommended"
by my fanboy gene. All it takes is some cute girl and some gimmick like a lolita vampire, and my brain turns to mush
and I end up usually watching a heaping pile of garbage. Occasionally I get some enjoyment out of the viewing
experience, then there are other times I end up shoving a Q-Tip up my nose to punish my brain for its wrongdoings. Look
out brain, you've got a mean poking coming tonight all thanks to Tsukuyomi.
Tsukuyomi starts out with a boy named Kohei Morioka. He works as a paranormal photographer doing freelance work. One
night while on assignment at a mysterious castle he sees a young, enchanting girl on the balcony. He goes to talk to
this girl and see if she will agree to be photographed. The girl is Hazuki, a purple haired, youthful vampire.
Eventually she bites him and expects him to become her slave, which is what is SUPPOSED to happen once a vampire has
bitten someone. Instead Kohei is uneffected and now finds himself up against one preturbed vampire and one angry castle
that wants him out. Problem is, Hazuki wants out too and Kohei is just the man to do it.
So what does a man do when he's just freed a vampire that tried to make him a slave? Well he let's her live
with him of course. That's where the majority of the story takes place. Everyone is out to get Hazuki because she
holds special vampiric abilities that the king of the vampires wants to keep his own. They also want Kohei dead because
he is what is known as a "vampire lover". A vampire lover is uneffected by a vampire bite and can also free
any vampire that bites him from their contracts with their master. That is at least the basis of the 26
episodes.
The problem is that any sort of plot takes a back seat to yelling matches between Kohei and Hazuki, redundant sight gags
and fanboy candy. The whole show is the back and forth of "You're my slave!" "No I'm
not." So on and so forth. Not only that but it seems the creators made applause signs for the viewer in that they
would drop buckets or pans or teakettles on peoples heads at regular intervals. It really didn't matter how
serious the situation was, they at some point would drop a pan on someones head for just about no reason. The final
straw that destroys the whole show is that it just seems to beg for love. Good characters, bad characters and even a
shrine all wore cat ears. If you were female in this show, at some point you would be wearing cat ears and saying
"nya". Of course it was far worse with Hazuki who is the atypical fanboy drool catching loli. Two times
throughout the show she had fashion shows with her cat ears on and various costumes, all of which were of course
accompanied by "nya".
I was simply going to give this show a '4' for the plot category, but I am subtracting a whole point for the
absolutely pointless and nonsensical episode 26. I know that 26 is somehow the magic number for anime, but if you
don't need, DON'T ANIMATE IT! The show wrapped up as one might expect in episode 25, but the back of my DVD
case said there were 26 episodes. I expected some kind of extra episode that maybe showcased the characters or
something. Instead we are treated to an episode that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever... NONE! IF you end up
watching this show, you'll agree.
Rating: 3
Art
This 7 is going to be the height of your score. The animation overall was quite impressive. The primary focus is on
the female characters, but that should be obvious by now. Hazuki was animated in an extremely cute manner and showed
emotions very well when she was pouty or angry or any other miriad of emotions. Of course the constant wardrobe
changes, the fashion shows and the cat ears were all very well animated and probably unleashed hundreds of Hazuki
wallpapers across the net. Characters outside of the female gender were rather typical of just about any anime. If you
haven't seen Kohei's character design in anything else, then this clearly is your first anime and feel free to
raise this score by a point.
The negatives come in the afformentioned sight gags that were all too often used and the lack of detail when matching
voices to lip animation. There were many occasions throughout that a character would be saying something or on some
long winded diatribe and their lips would be noticably off. You would just see the same shapes and movements repeatedly
until they were done ranting. I realize this is a common practice in anime, but it usually isn't this visible.
Rating: 7
Sound
Now I'm going to count music for 5 points and voice acting for the other 5 points. Doing that dooms this show in
this category from the get go. The openings and closing songs for this show were absolutely horrific. Anybody who
enjoys "Neko Mimi Mode" needs to have their genetic history erased. The song is those words said over and
over again with music from a casio keyboard playing in the background with that damned "nya". On a few
occasions it changes to "Tsukuyomi Mode" which is essentially the exact same song with a slower pace and those
words repeated. The ending songs don't necessarily go for the cute approach but instead choose to go with the
"what the hell is she saying" approach. The songs are very slow and the singer sounds like she is recovering
from tonsil surgery or has a severe case of laryngitis... *sigh* The background music does fare a bit better and is the
only thing that gets music a point. The BGM did a good job of at least portraying the proper mood for the scene and was
at times quite catchy.
Voice acting is the savior of this entire sound category. On the whole, the voice acting was quite solid. Chiwa Saito
plays Hazuki and gives you exactly what you'd expect from the tsundere loli character. Moody and adorable. She
compliments Hiroshi Kamiya as Kohei quite well and together they do have a good chemistry for the show. Though they
were the main characters, it was the supporting cast that made it all work out. Kohei and Hazuki were the fire but
everyone else was the kindling that kept the fire burning. The mischevious Elfreide and Ryuhei. The light-hearted and
whimsical Hiromi. And the pure evil of Count Kinkel. Worty performances.
Rating: 5
Presentation
I would best compare Tsukuyomi with a child on a diving board. All it seems to do is scream "Watch me do a
cannonball! Watch me do a cannonball! LOVE MEEEE!" The show tries all too hard to make fanboys cream themselves
with glee over cute lolis. It may work for all but 3 episodes and then it becomes like eating sugar in tablespoons.
Too much, too often. There are times when the show tries to interject some seriousness but always defeats itself with
Kohei and Hazuki yelling at one another, the mystical pan/teapot falling from the sky and always with the cat ears.
There are times when it seems that you may be enjoying it only to be reminded minutes later that you're actually
clawing your eyeballs out.
Now I'm not usually one to rant... but if I'm ranting then that should give you a good indication as to my
strong feelings on Tsukuyomi. Should you watch this show? I'd say if you are capable of reading at a high enough
grade level that you understood this review, then you'll likely want to steer very clear of this. Now if you are
reading this review aloud to someone who washes their armpits in the shower with a brick and mayonaise due to severe
mental retardation, then by all means give them the entertainment. But put the DVD in your disc tray yourselves, they
may put their eye out with the sharp edges. Oh and seriously if anyone is offended by the comment, you may want to
reconsider reading another "shoujoboy" review again. I hear he's a real prick.
Rating: 4
Final Verdict
4.3333 (below average)
Reviewed by shoujoboy, Nov 14, 2007
