Title: Tsukihime, Lunar Legend
Genre: drama, horror, supernatural, romance
Released date: 9 October 2003 – 25 December 2003
Episodes: 12
Director: Katsushi Sakurabi
Animated by: J.C.Staff
Comment: In Tsukihime, there were vampires, wolf like monsters, lots of blood and gore and deaths but it was actually the story of a lonely vampire princess who had spent 800 years hunting monsters and a young man who hated and feared himself because he possessed deadly powers. For horror fans, this anime would disappoint them. For action fans, this would not satisfy them. But for those who enjoyed drama and character driven anime, this one might be unexpectedly good. Not only Tohno Shiki and Arcueid Brunestud had secrets, other characters did too; Akiha inherited non-human blood, Ciel was working for the Vatican, Yumizuka was secretly in love with Shiki. These characters and their interactions were the most interesting element of this anime. Although the ending was really sad, it was memorable and wrapped up all the loose ends well.The soundtrack was nice. What would displease many viewers was its slow pace and long boring dialogues which were always left incomplete and did not take the story anywhere. After I finished the series, I could not help feel that the screenplay had too little to tell for a 12 episode long anime. Conclusion: Tsukihime was a decent and interesting drama anime but it was very slow that many people might fall asleep before they reach half of the series.
Rating: C+
Look this is based on an erotic visual novel game. (In the anime the erotic part thankfully has been cutted off!) I have played the game from which the anime is based on. And like any other visual novel game, it was extremely slow on it’s pace. It is better than they made the anime so short, because I don’t know what they should put on an additional 13 episodes other than more dialogues and detailed explanations on the two kinds of vampires and of the power of Shiki, basically more more slowness. The only way for avoiding it would be make original filler episodes that do not take the plot onward. Or else they could change the original plot, but I would not reccomend that. Anyhow this is basically a story of an impossible love, very touching.
I secretly wished it was a 6 episodes OVA. That would be great :)