Tsukihime

Did You Know?

• The game is divided into five routes across two scenarios: The Near Side of the Moon and the Far Side of the Moon.
• When all possible endings are achieved, an epilogue part titled Eclipse is unlocked.
• The Tsukihime: A Piece of Blue Glass Moon soundtrack was composed by Keita Haga and Hideyuki Fukasawa.

Story

The game follows protagonist Shiki Tohno, a second-year high school student in the fictional town of Misaki. After a life-threatening injury at a young age, he gains the ability to see 'Death lines'—lines on things, living or not, that will break when they die. The sight causes immense headaches, so Aoko Aozaki gives him special glasses that block the lines. Exiled by his father to a branch family after the injury, Shiki returns eight years later upon his father's death to accompany his sister. Tsukihime takes place in the shared Nasuverse universe, set many years after Witch on the Holy Night. The original 2000 release is set in Misaki in 1999, while the 2024 remake is set in the fictional city of Soya in 2014 and serves as a direct sequel to the 2022 remastered Witch on the Holy Night. After a horrible accident, young Shiki awakens to his Mystic Eyes of Death Perception and is guided by an older Aoko Aozaki, who gives him glasses to deactivate his Eyes. Exiled to live with relatives, he returns seven years later upon his father Makihisa's death.

Characters

Shiki Tohno is a high school boy with mystical eyes that see the 'Lines of Death'; tracing them destroys the object or being, but only when his glasses are off. An accident eight years prior led to his excommunication from the Tohno clan, and he lived with the Arima branch family. He returns home after his father's death at his sister Akiha's request, wielding a switchblade with his Eyes to kill supernatural enemies. Later, he is revealed to be adopted, his real name Shiki Nanaya, a survivor of a demon-hunting assassin clan with the same eyes. The accident permanently damaged his eyes, leaving them always active and his past life sealed, but the seal on his cold Nanaya instinct progressively breaks. Arcueid Brunestud is a princess of the True Ancestor vampire race, lacking some vampiric traits like needing blood (though she suppresses the desire) and being nocturnal. She is knowledgeable but naïve about modern ideas. Killed by Shiki in their first encounter, she regenerates and recruits him to hunt Apostle Ancestor-type vampires. Her design was loosely based on a model in a fashion magazine; online research suggested the model was Amanda Dyer, a Canadian model, which Dyer later confirmed. Ciel is Shiki's upperclassman and sole member of the Japanese tea ceremony club, also a secret agent of the Church's Burial Agency. Her birth name was Elesia; before joining, she was the seventeenth host of a Dead Apostle, and after Arcueid freed her, she was cursed with immortality as long as the Dead Apostle lives. Akiha Tohno is also a character.

Development

The original story of Tsukihime was based on one of Kinoko Nasu's ideas for a novel, featuring Arcueid as a cold stereotypical vampire opposite her finished incarnation. The basis for Shiki was a middle-aged, worn-down vampire who says to Arcueid, 'I have no interest in women I've already killed once. The tone was the complete opposite, and only the tagline 'a biting relationship between a murderer who can see death lines and a vampire' remained. During development, they pictured Arcueid as a cool, princess-like 'Noble Vampire' but thought it overlapped with Akiha's 'Lady' character. All heroines spoke politely to the main character, so they decided Arcueid would be the one who did not speak politely, eventually creating a 'pure white' vampire character very different from the original. A Satsuki route was planned but later cut. The complete edition was first released at Comiket 59 in December 2000. In February 2026, a fan and collector named Keripo reported that one of the 50 existing floppy disk copies of the 1999 Trial Edition, purchased for a Type-Moon museum exhibit, was destroyed by United States Customs and Border Protection personnel while in transit.

Related media

The sequel Kagetsu Tohya came out in August 2001, taking place a year after the main Tsukihime story. After an accident, Shiki is trapped in a repeating dream that loops each day until he locates Len. The player can make different choices on each loop, which changes the story and unlocks bonus content, including ten short stories. The dojin fighting game series Melty Blood was made for PC by Type-Moon and French-Bread, debuting at Comiket 63 in 2002. It includes characters from the Tsukihime games along with original ones. Several updated versions and a sequel followed, plus an arcade release called Act Cadenza developed by Ecole Software, which later got a PlayStation 2 port. About a decade later, Type-Moon and French-Bread worked together again on the fifth game and reboot, Melty Blood: Type Lumina, which uses characters from the remake titles. A 12-episode anime adaptation, Lunar Legend Tsukihime, was directed by Katsushi Sakurabi at J.C.Staff, written by Hiroko Tokita, with music by Toshiyuki Ōmori. It aired on BS-i from October 10 to December 26, 2003, and also on Animax Asia. The opening theme is "The Sacred Moon" by Toshiyuki Omori, and the ending theme is by Fumiko Orikasa. The title "Lunar Legend Tsukihime" was used because the trademark for "Tsukihime" was already taken. Geneon licensed the series for North America in 2004 under the name Tsukihime, Lunar Legend. After Geneon's American branch closed, Sentai Filmworks obtained the North American rights, with Section23 Films managing distribution and marketing.