Comments on: Series Review: Lunar Legend Tsukihime

By: CCYoshi

CCYoshi — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 16:20:00 +0000

Carl: Good point on Nasu's writing; it is pretty confusing at times. The whole "VN = book = adaptation hard" concept makes sense as well.

I will have to look closer now when I rewatch AIR TV, though. A lot of people say it's a relatively weak telling, maybe because it's only 12 episodes, but being my first eroge/VN anime I didn't really catch a lot of details.

Ray: Mmm, the voice actors for Tsukihime didn't strike me as anything out of the ordinary, but I never really got too attached to those. Also, I'm victim to hearing the Melty Blood character voices first.

And I'm going to sound like a broken record, but, play it. :P

TheBigN: I think it's kind of like baby chicks getting attached to a mother (oh, the analogy!); fans will probably like and get used to whichever form of Tsukihime they are exposed to first. Which is why you like the anime designs more, and why I prefer the game's, and why a lot of people just can't get along with the anime. XD

You're right in that the ambience of Tsukihime is very well done though.

By: TheBigN

TheBigN — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 13:00:00 +0000

“Tsukihime, from a Tsukihime fan’s perspective, is a show that kind of hurts to watch, mainly because you know it’s So Much More. “

And that seems to be the problem that I see from people who’ve played the game. From my perspective, as someone who saw the anime first and is only now just playing the game, the series was decently done. And the main points (seemingly just whooping up on Roa w/out much backstory, and Shiki’s romance with Arc) I thought were done pretty well, though many plotholes aren’t covered. I actually didn’t mind the character designs though I like the TYPE-MOON designs, and I think the designs for the anime fit the mood better. If there was one thing I really liked about the anime, it was the ambiance that it built up and sustained throughout. I’m sure that the game has much more to offer from what I’ve seen playing it, and the manga also covers more things than the anime, but for what it is, it isn’t bad. I guess people wanted more. :P

By: Ray

Ray — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 06:56:00 +0000

I gotta tell ya, before this show I have never seen any Gothic related anime, and after this one I haven’t been satisfied with any that I have seen. Because this anime, although confusing at times, has great mood and music. I really like Arc and her seiyuu, Nabatame Hitomi, she’s sassy, cute, strong, and yet vulnerable. the music is excellent and the animation is top notch. My only complain is that it’s too short and too much left unexplained. I’ve never played the H-game so I have no clue that it’s even more complex and intricate than the anime.

By: Carl

Carl — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 06:26:00 +0000

I think this will always be the case with TYPE-MOON projects, simply because Kinoko Nasu writes incessantly complex stories. It's pretty typical with any book or such with very intricate storytelling to not adapt well into a motion picture, short of being handled by a savant director, and Katsushi Sakurabi is no savant. You can pretty much copy-paste the criticism for the Fate/Stay Night anime.

Flipping things around somewhat, some visual novels like Kanon (and it's eight-years-later analogue Sola) make the jump fairly well, and we can place that down to the fact that Hisaya Naoki style storytelling is at its heart an incredibly simple affair, and everything comes down to how well the writer/director can believeably incorporate the (argueably deux ex machina-esque) plot devices of miracles, or dreams, or whatever the order of the day is.

So simplifying the point somewhat, the visual side of things is already taken care of mostly. Just join the various CG stills together with animation (or copy it scene for scene if it's School Days) and try not to screw up in the process. So that leaves us with a novel, and all the pitfalls the come with adapting a book. Of which there are plenty, as history has shown us numerous times.

For what it's worth, I was less unimpressed with the storytelling in the Tsukihime anime adaption than I was with the Air TV series. But then again I'm not much of a TYPE-MOON fan, but am a huge Key fan...