Ranked #1558

Shingetsutan Tsukihime

"There is no Tsukihime Anime."

Ah yes, those infamous words. Before all of you say anything, I DID finish the visual novel and I HAVE read the manga (well, the first three volumes) and guess what, I STILL enjoyed this anime so sit back, relax and let me tell it like it is.

As far as story goes, I don't see what the problem was. Quite honestly, I thought the visual novel was redundant when explaining the differences between a Dead Apostle and a True Ancestor. In the anime, it goes straight to the point and makes easy on the viewers. Dead Apostle is a human turned vampire. True Ancestor is a transcendent race, vampires yes but were never human to begin with. While the plot is still much deeper and complex in the visual novel, don't really undermine the anime's version of it. If you are a huge Tsukihime buff and want to know EVERYTHING about Tsukihime, then you won't like the anime. But if you just want to get in and enjoy a decent anime then won't bore you to death with details, then watch the anime.

The art was done well in my opinion. While they could have brushed up a bit better on some characters (Nero and Roa come to mind) in general, the characters look like they are supposed to. In general, the art is not outstanding but is still pretty good.

The music, especially the opening, is what made this series. Very nice tunes from start to finish. Having only watched the English version of this show, you will probably recognize the voices right away. Arcuied is voiced by Michelle Ruff (Rukia anyone?) and Shiki is voiced by Steve Staley (who voiced Toshiro Hitsugaya). In short, if you enjoyed the Bleach dub (like I did) then you will like the dub in this series as well (since half the Bleach cast is in here.) Cannot comment on the original voice acting.

No doubt the weakest part of the series is the characters. Arcueid comes across as far too clingy to Shiki (she liked Shiki in the visual novel as well but she wasn't hitting on him every other minute), Akiha is well, the same basically, Ciel is meh and Nero and Roa were punked.

Which brings me to another point. All of these guys got severely gimped in the anime. Shiki is on his knees having migraines 99 percent of the time, Ciel gets owned every single time she fights, Akiha is no better, Nero is as scary as a house cat (no Soil of Genesis and 999th Beast really blew hard) the list goes on and on. Seriously, the only one doing anything in combat was Arcuied (when she wasn't trying to molest Shiki) and even then she has trouble from time to time.

Even so, this show does have its moments. I have to say that episode 7, the amusement park episode, was really funny and awkward and the times between Shiki and Arcuied when they are not hunting vampires is also neat to watch.

Overall, the anime is not the visual novel. It is not as good as the visual novel and when compared to the visual novel, it would be considered below average. But I came reviewing the anime and only the anime and found it to be a short yet enjoyable series.

Don't get turned off by all the hate that this series is receiving. Make your own choice and watch it. You might be surprised. (In a good or bad way!)

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So there's a funny little joke that goes around anime communities and it goes along the lines of "There is no Tsukihime anime". I thought it was all in jest when I decided to see what the fuss was about on this show. Sadly though, I too believe there is no Tsukihime anime after watching this monstrosity.

Flashback, its 2000..there's a little doujin game called Tsukihime out there that's taking the visual novel world by storm..3 years later JC Staff..a prominent animation studio makes an adaptation of the wildly popular game. However, they either A: Did not play the game or B: Just made this as a kick in the balls to anyone who enjoyed the visual novel.

For story, it was pathetic..they took a very strong storyline with an incredible amount of backstory and turned it into a shallow excuse of a story. The whole explanation of the differences in vampires was a major part of the visual novel..yet they put in 30 seconds of quick explanation and that's it. This is frequent throughout the anime..they take ideas from the novel throw them in quickly and forget about them. On top of insulting the vivid and excellent storyline of Arcueid's route they add other nonsense such as a whole episode dedicated to a theme park..they must have really wanted to piss off fans with that since one could easily make a 24 episode series out of the route yet they add a filler episode into a 12 episode anime. Among that they completely twist character roles, their personalities and their part in the story. And to top it off..they completely destroy the end to the story and give no explanation at all. They just leave it as an open ending of sorts after completing a route with definite closure. The story gets a 1...it's a monstrosity that mocks the visual novel.

As for art..it's excellent, for 2003 of course. They added a good amount of detail and the characters looked pretty accurate to their visual novel counterparts. It's actually pretty decent looking still even on 2010 standards which is a good thing..yet it's not awe inspiring art like some early anime had. 8 out of 10 for art.

The sound in this anime is the only redeeming quality other than the decent art. The soundtrack is incredible and it sounds much better than the visual novel's. They really did a great job on this part and the wide variety of songs were on point and gave a clear message of the scenes. 10/10 for the music since I very rarely hear such a great soundtrack in an anime thats unique like this one.

The characters in this anime are awful. They are mockery of their respective characters in the visual novel. They are shallow, undeveloped and some of them aren't even accurate depictions of their parent characters. They changed the personalities in nearly every character and gave other characters who didn't play a major role at all major roles in the anime. They completely ruined the dark mood of the story with their characters that didn't fit their parts. Character gets 1/10

Enjoyment? The only thing I enjoyed was laughing at my computer screen over how terrible this was. There is not much to enjoy in this anime, it's a completely hilarious mockery of the parent story. I spent the whole time picking out the horrible adaptations they did to nearly every part of the story..that was my enjoyment. It gets a 1/10 for enjoyment..I could have watched the Tekken movie 12 times and enjoyed it more than this.

Overall, this series gets a 2. The horrible adaptation of the novel is the main cause of this. I can't give it a 1 because the soundtrack is amazing and the art was pretty good for a 2003 anime. If the soundtrack was not an excellent and unique piece of work this would definitely be a 1. I do not suggest watching this show if you have any shred of understanding on what the Tsukihime visual novel is. Even if all you know is that the meme "A cat is fine too" comes from it I would suggest steering clear of this. I honestly wanted to attempt to prove the people wrong when they say "there is no Tsukihime anime" yet now I agree with them. read more