Shingetsutan Tsukihime

This series is somewhat violent but not over the top. After seeing the first episode how Acruied gets sliced to shreds, I thought I was in for a super violent series however, it wasn't really that bad thereafter. If you're into vampire stories, you may not be too overexcited about this one. Sure, there's a character (Acruied) that's a vampire, sure there's a vampire-ish theme going on but that's about it. Acruied really doesn't do anything as a vampire. Infact, she's not your typical iconic vampire figure. She can walk in daylight, don't "really" crave blood, or sleep in coffins and don't turn into a dozen bats at will.

What this story really is about is her "vengance" if you will, to slay a particular figure between her 800 year beaty rests. Then of course, you have a developing love plots long the way, and not to mention quite a bit of school scenes with various characters. One of the characters (Ceil), was a disapointment in the end. Only for the fact that there were really no time to develop her background. She really didn't do much either but toss her weapon around a few times.

Overall, it was enjoyable to watch but left me wanting more... alot more.

After watching Blood+ and Last Exile, I thought, oh god not another one of those animes with some "simple" mystery/strange power/history surrounding the main character and it takes 50 eps just to find out what it is. Instead Shingetsutan Tsukihime was different. It just took 1 or 2 eps to find out the character's ability/history/purp­ose. I thought, "cool, i respect that." The director concentrated on the "story" rather than all these bs emotions (crying/questions etc) the character's would go through for 50 eps just to find out who/what they are.

The director was very good at building the back bone of a character so you could feel what they were thinking.

It was just an overall very good anime to watch, and not frustrating! Eg, you know how most animes have things that are very obvious but they drag it to 10000 eps before they act on it? For one example, in Shingetsutan Tsukihime, Shiki eventually falls for the blonde vampire, who already had a crush on him and he knows it. I thought, "i hope they get together". what happens next? they get together like Ros and Rachael from Friends but not 50 million eps later. simple.

Having said that, the main story of Shingetsutan Tsukihime wasnt just all straight forward. It had twists and turns that kept me up all night wanting to watching the next ep, knowing very well i had to get up 5am the next day.

There wasnt many fight scenes and the ones they had wont very good. But it didnt matter because the story line made up for it.

Wow, I don't usually watch Vampire types but this is very good. Good story with a mix of Mystery and Romance at the same time.
I have NO IDEA why I like this anime, but I do. Vampires is defintely not my thing (I almost didn't watch Gungrave because of the first 10 minutes and I haven't watched Hellsing at all) but this really clicked and I love all the backstory that isn't even touched by the Anime.

OMG This is now one of my favorite 3 non Comedy animes! (Gundam Seed and Elfen Lied being the other 2). I will post more thoughts and some better screen shots than a side view of Arcuied soon.
This really sucks that it is only 12 episodes. They only had time to delve on the Arcuied arc, if you click the link below you will see that EACH of the girls (Arcuied, Akiha, Ciel, 2 Maids, and the other classmate) has a full backstory with Shiki and they only decided to use Arcuied's because hers is considered the 'true ending'.

For Chibi : BTW Get it during the periodical Geneon sale at RightStuf, I got the whole set for $12 new. For JC : I changed the Pic because while it is beautiful, it doesn't capture the feel of the anime. (Arcuied never appears in that form in the anime).