Tsukihime

This review was originally written by Stripey on 2004-04-21 but somehow wasn't exported from the old blogspot site. I'm putting it up again for the sake of completeness and for my final 'from the ancient times' post to link to.

Tsukihime is one of the two animes that I REALLY want to see re-made. (The other being Mahoromatic 2.) That is not to say Tsukihime is a bad series per se. In fact everything about its production is outstanding; artwork, music, animation, cinematography and character design. However, the story and poor pacing sank the series and J.C. Staff has utterly no excuse for it since the intricate world of the original game exists for them to import the story wholesale.

Tsukihime had an excellent start. The series oozed much tension/suspense and had this strong undercurrent of epic horror that constantly kept me at the edge of my seat. The well crafted atmosphere and the many intriguing characters also served to heighten this underlying unrest. The character design is wonderful and is the anime’s only improvement over the game. By ep 3, I was totally smitten with the series and Hisui/Kohaku (twin maids in the series, Mahoromatic meets Onegai Twins?)

However, J.C. Staff went on to squander all that they had so painstaking built in the initial three episodes. A superbly crafted atmosphere and excellent character designs, by themselves, cannot drive a series and Tsukihime’s poor, erratic pacing eventually starved the viewers’ interest. There was little plot movement for most of the remaining episodes. Major revelations were released in sudden, short spurts and often too late to revive the viewer’s ashen interest. The horror/mystery component of the series was also ousted out by harem fun and an overdose of Arcueid "goodness".

Nevertheless, my greatest lament for the series had to be J.C. Staff’s inability to realize the immense potential of the story. Yes, Tsukihime was one of those hgame-turned-animes. As always, the challenge for such conversions would be to integrate the many game storythreads into a coherent, singular anime experience. Their first failing would be the choice of ending. The anime closed with the “Aruceid” ending which is the most BASIC of the game endings and leaves many issues unresolved. This might be barely acceptable if they didn’t try to set up elements which are only revealed in other game endings. The careful viewer would have made a mental one of it, thought the series to be intricate in details, only to be let down eventually with the lack of answers. I personally feel that J.C. Staff should have taken the “Kohaku” ending (which explains EVERYTHING) and expand the series to 24 episodes to accommodate the full richness of the grand but dark tale of Tsukihime.

Where most games and their anime counterparts are symbiotic, Shingetsutan Tsukihime has deviated from the trend by being mutually destructive with its game predecessor. Fans of the game would condemn the anime for mutilating their beloved gameworld while those, whose first contact of Tsukihime is via the anime, would be unable to enter the richness of its game world without disappointment since the art rendering of the anime characters is vastly superior. Yes, in Shingetsutan Tsukihime, everyone loses.

Related posts:

1. Tsundere for Tsukihime?
2. Shingetsutan Tsukihime 01-02
3. Shingetsutan Tsukihime 08