Shingetsutan Tsukihime started as a doujin visual novel by the team Type-Moon, and JC Staff adapted it to animation. It's the story of one Shiki Tohno, a young man who accepts the role of reluctant sidekick to a vampire named Arcueid, who seeks to kill another vampire, Roa. Pop quizzes should be the most dangerous thing Shiki has to face, but he got bored one day, and decided to chop a pretty girl to pieces. Instead of lying there and feeding the buzzards, Arcueid managed to put herself back together and go on dates with her murderer.

I'm getting ahead of myself.

For reasons that the series vaguely explains, Shiki can see "death lines" on every object, animate or not. If he traces these lines with his trusty pocketknife, the object disintegrates. To avoid the temptation to destroy everything he comes close to, he wears a special pair of glasses that make the lines go away. Shiki must have gotten a speck of dirt in his eye right when he passed near Arcueid. He's a bit fuzzy on the details, he says.

Speaking of details: the story as presented in the series is necessarily an abridged version of the game, which has no shortage of text and characters. The series identifies Arcueid as a princess of the "true ancestors" — a pure-blooded vampire — but does not really get into what that means.

We learn that the story's villain, Roa, acquired the ability to reincarnate, by tricking Arcueid into drinking some of his blood. This is presented as a parallel to the Original Sin, in the Book of Genesis: the serpent Roa seduces the princess into taking of the forbidden fruit — his blood — which places some of the power of the true ancestors into the hands of the less worthy (or some such).

Briefly, the other main characters that come into play are: Ciel, a "senpai" (upperclassman) of Shiki's, with a closet full of dark secrets; and Akiha, Shiki's overprotective sister, and representative of a family with their own holding cell full of dark secrets.

Getting shish-kabobed by Shiki turned out to be an inconvenience for Arcueid. She now is lacking in reserve power for her primary mission: to kill Roa again. (We learn that she does this a lot.) She convinces Shiki to take responsibility for what he did, and help her hunt down sundry creatures of the night, on the path to the one who's causing all the mischief.

Ignoring the outlandish (one might say absurd) premise, the series plays out like a common thriller, gratuity included. It works well within the bounds of lawful indecency, but pays homage to its roots* in overall atmosphere, and it also throws a couple juicy scenes our way. While said scenes cannot be said to, ahem, contribute to the philosophies of the show, they are pretty seductive. Case in point: the young representative of a rich family is found drinking her barely-dressed maid's blood...from the chest. And in true anime fashion, the maid does not appear displeased.

Much focus is applied to Shiki and Arcueid's developing relationship, which is compelling, if for no other reason than most worlds-collide stories are. Arcueid has a carefree, almost naïve disposition, despite being on a quest for redemption. By contrast, Shiki acts the part of fate's little slave, but scarcely has reason to.

It's hard to identify an underlying philosophy in Tsukihime. The Original Sin parallel does provide a backdrop for a handful of related ideas, though. That the snake is human, in this case, affirms the biblical idea that man, given knowledge of good and evil, cannot be trusted with eternal life; but it also says: man seeks power with the express intent to do evil. The princess is the fool who gives into temptation and loses her innocence, and she must take responsibility for her weakness. Shiki serves as the wildcard. He disrupts the cycle long enough that Arcueid finds a way to end it.

Tsukihime relies on its creepy and vaguely sensual atmosphere to carry it past its myriad plot holes, and this winds up working pretty well. Toshiyuki Omori's excellent soundtrack provides the foundation, and the exciting fight scenes help keep things moving. (The showdown with Roa is especially good.) Like myself, viewers might find the character dynamics interesting, despite the lack of concrete development. Whether the series is worth a purchase is hard to say. The soundtrack, without a doubt, is.

* The game is usually classified as eroge (erotic game).