Tsukuyomi - Moon Phase
Remind me again why I should fear the night?
Review by: M.H. "Bone-chilling cuteness" Torringjan
Length: 25 episodes
Genre: Adventure, kawaii, romance
Watched: 25 episodes, subbed
Throughout the ages, vampires have been feared as the harbingers of destruction, the scourge of mankind, heartless, devious, evil, evil things. The sort of thing that makes for a good badass. The stereotypes have been reinforced with series like Hellsing, Vampire Hunter D, and Blood, where some of the most awesome badasses have been vampires (or at least partly so). Now, imagine what a vampire series would be like if the vampire wasn't so badass that his glare could melt titanium (imagine that the vampire wasn't a he, even). Yeah, it was a stretch for me, too. Then, I found Tsukuyomi, and I saw a little bit of something new. But only a little bit.
Plot summary: Kouhei Morioka is a photographer for an occult magazine who specializes in catching spirits on film. The only catch is, he can't actually see them himself. To be more specific, he has no sense of the supernatural, and anything supernatural, magic spells, energy attacks, or the sort, has no effect on him. While investigating a castle in Germany, Schwartz Quelle, he discovers a young girl named Hazuki. The slightly stranger fact besides that she's living in a giant castle seemingly by herself and that she's wearing cat ears (not necessarily a bad thing, mind you) is that she takes him to the roof, where she proceeds to suck his blood. Hazuki is a vampire who insists that he is her servant through the blood contract against his most sincere objections, and then uses him to escape from the castle and go searching for her mother with Kouhei's help. The only problem is that there are a number of vampires who want her back in the castle for no readily apparent reason, and they're willing to get her back at any cost, and hopefully kill Kouhei in the process.
Artwork: The style is fairly standard for most anime series these days, although pretty deviant compared to most vampire anime you'll probably have seen. The colors are more vibrant and a bit less dark and foreboding then other vampire anime, which makes for a nice change of pace. The character designs are, unfortunately, fairly generic, and you might have trouble picking them out if you were on Otaku Week on Jeopardy (it's gotta be in the works, they make anything into a game show these days; I mean, if Fear Factor got made, then how can an anime game show not be in the works?). Hazuki and some of the enemies are the most distinctive character designs, and the rest fit closely to the patterns for their personality types. However, later on in the series, it goes from generic to bad when they start taking shortcuts by using stillframes and recycling footage (during what would have been good battles, to add injury to insult!). Overall, this could have been done better.
Music: Most of the soundtrack is good in its place, but wouldn't work on its own, as is most often the case. The music sets the mood all right, but again, if falls into the generic category for the most part. I swear, there's got to be just one guy that they keep calling for all these soundtracks. They just keep giving him different names in the credits (with the exception of Yuki Kajiura and Yoko Kanno; nobody else can be them) so that they don't piss off the Union. The opening track is an addictively kawaii tune sung by the main character, repeating pretty much the same line over... and over... and over... and over again. Fortunately, most people won't notice until about halfway through the series because, like me, they will probably be sent into a catatonic state by the odd images set to the kawaii voice and the bouncy tune. The closing theme is a techno-esque track with a breathy Japanese woman singing sometimes in Japanese, sometimes in French. I wasn't very impressed. Moving on...
Characters: There really is very little new or interesting bout this cast, since most of them are covered by the stereotypical personality list. You've got
(a) the dorky, stubborn romantic lead male with a sense of honor and some quality that for some mysterious, physics-defying reason makes almost any female fall for him (Kouhei)
(b) the tomboyish, stubborn lead romantic lead female who on occasion decides to show her feminine soft side to the lead male character (for whom she has fallen for the previously mentioned physics-defying reasons) (Hazuki)
(c) the grandfather who likes the younger ladies a lot more than is societally acceptable, but still has a lot to teach the dorky lead male (Grandpa)
(d) the varied female supporting cast who may clash with the lead female due to stubbornness, shyness, or competition for her manmeat (Hikaru doesn't like Hazuki because she's a vampire, so she competes with and makes fun of Hazuki, while Kaoru is the shy, soft-spoken fiancee of Kouhei who competes with Hazuki for Kouhei's attention and fails miserably).
The lack of variety kind of detracts from the characters and makes the humor into the same-old-same-old schtick that everybody's been doing since probably before Ranma (although for some odd reason, I still find it at least mildly humorous, at least the first time through).
Plot: Although the idea of a cute and fluffy vampire series sounds nice and was carried out well for the first half of the series, it failed to capitalize on the strong start and kind of degenerated closer to the end, trying to get by mostly on kawaii. Now, I'll be one of the first to admit that I loves me some kawaii, but there should be more to a series than that. The plot became predictable, and the authors did their darnedest to make the plot make the events make sense. It seems that that's far too much "making" going on there; the plot needs to just make sense on its own without being forced. Another thing that would have helped (and that I'm getting annoyed at seeing more and more often these days) would be if the series would actually finish its plot-line at the end of the series. Here, they literally said, "It's not over, is it?" and about five minutes later, there was a screen that said, "The End." Really. Get your shit together, folks, and figure out how to end a series.
CHICKS!! As I've mentioned, the lead charcter, Hazuki, is very kawaii. She's a cute vampire who wears cat-ears (neko mimi, as they're called in the series and I insist on wearing for Halloween this year in her honor). It was a genius who came up with the simple formula to combine a symbol of carnal lust (vampire) with one of the most irresistibly cute images in anime (cat ears). Give that man the Nobel Peace Prize, because Hazuki could stop wars. Personality-wise, though, you've met a hundred other girls like her (Akane, Naru, etc.), so if you liked the tomboys with soft-spots for dorks (just like I did), then this girl is for you. The only downside is that, being an ageless being, she looks exactly like she did when she became a vampire, which must have been when she was about 12. I don't know how old she is now, but she certainly doesn't look it. If you're looking for a lithe, hot vampire who looks more your age, then her companion, Elfriede is the one you want. She's the loyal friend and advisor character for the series, and follows that type to the T. She also has a body that would stop the hordes of hell and looks great in that tight mini-skirt that she wears whenever fighting the blood-suckers of evilness-ness-ness.
Overall: I started out really liking this show, thanks to its unique combination (well, I haven't seen a series that does it similarly, except possibly Outlaw Star) of cuteness and great action, as well as a pretty interesting plot. However, when they started scrimping on the artwork and losing track of the main plot, as well as submitting cliché plotlines, it just started to lose its appeal. All except for one unbelievably cute vampire who, at the very least, takes her place alongside the cooler vampire cousins as memorable characters. Even if it is just because she's cute.
In a Nutshell:
+ Decent soundtrack
+ Kawaii vampire girl
+ All right action scenes
- Cliché characters
- Cliché plotline
- Artwork shortcuts
Final score: 6.5/10
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