Tsukihime is a rather short (12 episodes) anime adaptation of the TYPE-MOON doujin eroge of the same name. Given the type of fanbase that TYPE-MOON has, I was actually quite eager to watch Tsukihime, in spite of the slow burn of the Fate/Stay Night anime adaptation, and the warnings about how disappointing Tsukihime was.
Tsukihime tells about young Shiki Tohno, who has the ability to see lines. Yeah, I can see lines too, but the lines that Shiki sees represent the life of the object (I believe he has Shinigami eyes), and give him the ability to just obliterate things with a few precise cuts from his knife, Nanatsuya. One day, he has this sudden urge to completely cut down a beautiful blonde for having way too many vowels in her name, and this is the beginning of a deep and loving relationship with the vampire (Shinso) princess, Arcueid Brunestud. Fortunately she survives getting cut to pieces, and enlists Shiki in her hunt for Roa.
The way I figured, the characters in Fate/Stay Night were pretty interesting, and the premise behind Tsukihime sounded intriguing, so how bad could this 12-episode be?
Boy was I wrong. Tsukihime is incredibly boring from start to finish, and I was just dying on the inside as I marathoned the series. The only part I remember being exciting was the knife fight between Shiki and Roa, simply because you so rarely see knife fights, and they really captured the desparation of the battle (since even a slight cut could obliterate the victim). I can’t explain it, but I almost feel like just reading a text/novel version of the story would have been better than the drawn-out way the story was animated. Not even marathoning could save it.
And then the characters! I took this part for granted, thinking for sure they’d be awesome, but by and large, they totally sucked! While I can appreciate that they gave Arcueid and Nrvnqsr names that represented the timeless battle between vowels and consonants, the vampires were very boring, and seemed quite weak. Essentially, they were just very difficult to kill. But as bad as the vampires were, Shiki’s harem was so much worse. Ciel’s character was so damn absurd, and this Clark Kent method of hiding your identity/power with glasses simply has to stop. Even Shiki with his thickass glasses could tell who she was. There is also Shiki’s bitchy sister, and his twin meido, and while everyone is supposed to be mysterious, they all come across as boring and poorly developed.
This is not to say that Tsukihime is all bad. The music is at times quite good, and the ending was acceptable. I was even a little saddened. I also thought that the romance between Arcueid and Shiki was decent; although how she could love him is beyond me. I mean, how could you ever win an argument against a crazy dude who can slice you to pieces on a whim? This, of course, brings me to my next point: the one thing I enjoyed about Tsukihime is how incredibly easy it is to mock. Just Shiki’s ability and that annoying blurry-cam effect alone had me snickering throughout the series (don’t even get me started on the psycho chibi-knifing flashbacks).
Overall, Shingetsutan Tsukihime (the anime series) is boring and tedious, in a way that will make you wonder how it can seem so drawn-out in so few episodes.
Kabitzin’s Rating: 2/5
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19 Comments
I agree completely. I enjoyed it for the first few episodes, but when they started doing the whole typical dating anime thing I got bored quick.
I remember when I got my hands on the first episode, I could only see a few seconds of it first at the beginning and the ending. So I heard some of the BGM and saw the “Konichiha” scene at the end of episode. That convinced me to watch the whole series. I thought that scene was pretty creepy and mysterious. However, after a very few episodes it became indeed very boring and didn’t deliver what I expected at all. Also, it explained virtually nothing, nothing gets solved. That’s certainly not a requirement in general but if it’s boring and only brings up more questions, that’s not really entertaining. That said it’s not so bad for a rainy day when you have nothing else to watch. I’d say if at all, you should really marathon this because that’s the only way it can be enjoyed.
I didn’t like the ending. Not because it’s a sad one but rather because it was like “OK, we have run out of ideas (never had any in the first place) so let’s get over with this”.
The music is probably the best part of Tsukihime albeit even the music is a bit repetitive since most of it is a varation of the OP music. Tsukihime was probably also one reason why I gave up on F/SN after just one episode. I knew it’s by the same time and failed in similar ways.
Actually, I’d also say forget any anime that’s labeled “Vampire” unless you like the Japanese variant of the vampire theme. Or rather those shows are not necessarily bad but they never deliver the vampire horror very well. In my opinion, Japanese vampires aren’t scary one bit, at least it just doesn’t work for me. The point of vampires is that they are/were humans and just look like humans. Death, graveyards etc. are what make vampires truly scary. In anime they always throw in ridiculous monsters (see also Blood) which are terribly unrealistic and more funny than scary.
I almost want to see this show simply so I can know how to pronounce “Arcueid” and “Nrvnqsr”.
Oh, Tsukihime. Was quite some time ago I’ve watched this anime. What can I say…it was poor and dragging along: even the side chars were bleak, to say the least. I only remember the first and the last two eps. It’s sleeping around come DvD-R, but I doubt I’ll ever watch it again. The initial idea was not bad at all: a guy who tore up his wannabe-girlfriend into pieces is not something very ordinary. But the rest was sooo dragging. I really don’t like shows who try to resolve everything in the last two eps: sadly, Ergo Proxy is one of those. I believe it’s partially because of this “production industry” pacing, who’s stressing the authors into weekly “routine”. Art (if I may -pretensiously- say so) definitely needs his time, imho, and doesn’t cope well with those stringent time-to-market innuendos, especially in Japan. My 2 cents.
In retrospect, I think the anime would have been better off as a five episode OAV. The first two eps. covering the part with Nero, one with dating, another covering the Tohno family and the last with the final fight.
I personally gave it a higher rating then you, but I had a feeling that much of the character development was wasted. If the story would focus on Shiki and Arcueid, why bother with Akiha at all? She could have been relegated to a Peanuts-style “wah wah wah” adult instead of trying to drop this bombshell about their family history and sadly, failing.
Tsukihime should be a lesson to just about EVERYONE not to watch an anime adaptation of a vis-novel with multiple story paths. This, of course includes Fate/Stay Night.
ya, indeed.Well, i think it’s difficult to adapt a visual novel into anime & moreover the animators onli made the viewers more confused by mixing 3 different arcs together.The pace is very slow & many parts are quite unneccesary like shirou keeps dreaming about his past.The harem’s parts are not fun to watch too.(at least for me=.=) The onli anime adapted from novel that i like for now is Suzumiya Haruhi No yuutsu.I really wish that kyoto animation would make a second season for it.
BTW, any nice new anime to introduce me plz?
Blah Blah Blah.
Obligatory plug for the Tsukihime English Patch, which will be ready eventually. Hopefully soemtime around September.
Trust Me, the game is much better than the anime.
so the english patch is comming out???
really??
please tell me where i can download it when its out
im waiting too the fate stay night game patch it seems done by mirror moon but theres no a date for the patch release
god this story’s ending is so tricky… it gives u either hope or devastation, and the last scene with the knife, well i can’t understand that part, but the story fit it’s ending song pretty well. That as in like one line of the lyrics is “lets meet at the end of eternity” which is a sweet way of saying we are not going to meet again, and “give me an everlasting promise” which refers to the date promise shiki and arcueid made, which will never happen. I honestly wish that there is a sequel and that it’s about how shiki desperately trying to *find* her.
Aw gawd, I can’t share your opinions at all. When I watched the first episode I already started loving Tsukihime. After each episode there were so many questions left that I forced me to stop and didn’t watch the next one as well. Seldom before I’ve seen such a well-told story that was simply impressing to follow.
It simply isn’t fair for Tsukihime to call it boring, as it’s not one of those action-based animes. I just can recommend Tsukihime to everyone who likes story/characters more than action/humor.
I agree with Tassadar. I simply loved Shingetsutan Tsukihime. It just shows you how much you can do with a minimum of time (12 eps), chars and fantasy/mythology background. It’s brilliant, how the anime constantly keeps you in suspense and you can’t wait to learn the truth behind all the mysteries. The romance between Shiki and Arcueid is captivating and the ending leaves a lasting impact. The absence of action isn’t such a bad thing, since there’s basically no need for it, just like there is no need for hentai in this anime. When there are fights, they are blood chilling and… realistic, if you know what I mean. I don’t know why all of you guys disliked it. The anime is different from the game/vis. novel – so what? It didn’t become any worse because of it.
Just to keep it short, I enjoyed your description more than the anime O_O;
I can say to you that your review for Shingetsutan Tsukihime was quite harsh and I almost completely disagree with your opinion about the series. After I watched the first few episode of this anime, I thought this anime was quite good and I have watched a good amount of anime series to back up my view about this series. Although there was some poor development in some of the characters, this was a 12 episode anime.What the hell did you expect? It would be quite unlikely for them to take up to 3 or 4 episode giving depth to the characters and take 20-30% of the series. Overall this anime was pretty good considering it was only 12 episode and it contained a pretty good story. The only thing that dissappointed me was the ending, which Arucied had to die… I would have liked this anime a lot more if it were to end in a happy note.
hey I was really curious cause it was #33 (8.5, 184 reviews) and a harem/fantasy plus it’s made after 2000s and you know how fanboys are now a days comapred to back then they rave about some of the crappiest animes ever (they seriously need to go back to the roots)
love hina is # 80 with like 7.9 and about 180 reviews too, and this anime blows, fails in story/plot/characters. deserves to be in top worst anime list actually.
thx for the heads up, I guess i’ll chek out any negative reviews on animenfo.
This sounds like what the tsukihime anime would run like…if it existed.
Which it doesn’t.
I guess it is trying to unveil the story from the begining without trying to do flash backs that is making this series being bored . Agrred, there is simply too little development given the story can be told within say, 5 eps. For the story between the 2 main, they should may develop more on the others. There is no dispute however this is series is a facet of a masterpiece. Tsukihime should endure much like Eva even with the end of its anime series.
If there’s one thing I’m surprised with, its how different the anime looks, visually, from the game. Knowing how the characters look in the original game and the Melty blood series, their anime counterparts seem pretty bland/weird in comparison. As one dude on YouTube put it to me; “the girls all have man faces”.
Yes and no.
I found it was entertaining from start to finish. Yes the main character reminded me of all main characters created before him – but it works (and sells). Yes the first level characters seem quite shallow. Yes the second level characters seem like one-two line NPCs in RPGS (”Are you okay? No? Oh how strange.” … 15 mins later … “Are you okay?…” and so on). Yes my brain got cabbaged from the squashing of at least 3 storys into 1. Yes the ending left something to be desired ….
BUT!!
It was fun to watch. When I watched GSeed I would skip past large chunks of story and silence to get to the battles (which were just copy and paste scene), this I actually watched everyting, even the pauses between “Would you like breakfast?” [10 seconds later] “… ah … Yeah …” that all anime seems to have in varying levels (must be to build tension or a japanese social habit *shrugs*)
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Summary:
IGNORE ALL LAST POSTS – if your looking for a quick, enjoyable anime that you don’t mind going “HOW CAN HE NOT SEE *SPOILER* is *SPOILER*!!!” every so often… Oh and replay value is quite low.
To improve simply add – 3 part more episodes, to 3 parts more character development, to 1 sachet of plot hole filler. Mix well… (The heart was there basically, but no brians)
5/10 (I’ve seen worse, and better)
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Oh and a final thought:
“i think it’s difficult to adapt a visual novel into anime…”
Higurashi no Naku Koro ni … brilliant series … done.