Лунный цветок: О визуальной новелле Цукихиме и её переизданиях.

Japanese visual novel and its adaptations

Tsukihime is a visual novel where the story is presented via text that intermittently presents choices for the player to make. These choices influence the story, some in large ways while others in small ones. Some choices lead to bad endings where the protagonist dies, after which the player can optionally view a comedic section called Teach Me, Ciel sensei!, where a fourth wall breaking version of the character Ciel offers hints on what led to the bad ending. The game is divided into five routes, distributed amongst two scenarios: The Near Side of the Moon (Arcueid and Ciel routes), and the Far Side of the Moon (Akiha, Hisui and Kohaku routes). Every heroine except Kohaku has two possible endings. When the player has achieved all possible endings, a new epilogue part, entitled Eclipse, is unlocked. Tsukihime remake entries are visual novels like the original, and though it features modern amenities, (such as better skip functions) it plays mostly the same. The Teach Me, Ciel sensei! section after a bad ending also returns. Unlike the original, both remakes of Near and Far sides titled Tsukihime: A Piece of Blue Glass Moon and Tsukihime: The Other Side of Red Garden are on separate release dates:
Tsukihime: A Piece of Blue Glass Moon solely focuses on the Near Side storyline. The Arcueid route titled Tsukihime has one ending, while Ciel route titled Rainbow in the Night has multiple endings. Tsukihime: The Other Side of Red Garden solely focuses on the Far Side storyline. This time adds a route that was not included in the original release and left unanswered in the fighting game series follow up Melty Blood in original timeline, which stars Satsuki Yumizuka.

The game's plot follows the perspective of protagonist Shiki Tohno (遠野 志貴), a second year high school student in the fictional town of Misaki. He suffers a life threatening injury at a young age. After regaining consciousness, he gains the ability to see "Death lines"—lines by which things, living or not, will eventually break when they die. Due to his injury, Shiki has immense headaches as his mind cannot cope with the sight of death. Soon after he is given special glasses from Aoko Aozaki that block the sight of these lines. Due to his injury, Shiki is exiled by his father to a branch family of the Tohno household. Eight years later, he returns to accompany his sister after his father died. After moving back, Shiki has trouble adjusting to the old fashioned lifestyle his sister lives by. As the game progresses, Shiki confronts supernatural beings such as mostly two different types of vampires ("True Ancestor" (真祖), a natural born vampire race; and Dead Apostles (死徒), a race of former humans who were mutated into vampires via magecraft or being bitten by a vampire), as well as his family's secret and his actual past. The original takes place in the fictional town of Misaki in 1999, while the remake titles take place in the fictional city of Soya in 2014, which becomes a true direct sequel to the storyline surrounding the character Aoko Aozaki, Witch on the Holy Night. At the next Comiket 57 in late 1999, a demo was sold for 100 yen, with only 50 being produced and sold, also distributed on 3½ floppy disks. At Comiket 58 in 2000, Tsukihime Half Moon Edition was released. 300 copies were produced and sold for 1,000 yen each. This version contained Arcueid and Ciel's "Near Side of the Moon" storylines. The half moon edition came with bonuses including a coupon that would allow purchasers to claim the complete edition in the future. The complete edition of Tsukihime was first released at Comiket 59 in December 2000. Type Moon released Tsukihime Plus Disc developed with NScripter engine in January 2001, a light hearted addition to Tsukihime that featured two short stories: Alliance Of Illusionary Eyes and Geccha. The first edition included wallpapers, the first four chapters of The Garden of Sinners, an early demo version of Tsukihime, a contemporary Tsukihime demo, and two omakes featuring Tsukihime characters. The second edition Tsukihime Plus+Disc added two more stories: Geccha 2 and Kinoko's Masterpiece Experimental Theater. This version used the more capable KiriKiri engine. In April 2003, Type Moon released , a three disc set that included Tsukihime, Tsukihime Plus+Disc, Kagetsu Tohya, a remixed soundtrack, a trial version of Melty Blood and other assorted multimedia. The original visual novel was available to play with Game Boy Advance with the conversion software "Rinkai Tsukihime" distributed by the doujin circle "Inside Cap". In December 2001, Inside Cap released an officially licensed program for Windows 98/Me/2000/XP that allowed customers to convert their PC copy of Tsukihime into a Game Boy Advance rom; the program was distributed via CD ROM through retail and online shops.

A remake of Tsukihime was announced in 2008, with work commencing in 2012. Work was then suspended in 2013 due to Type Moon's work on Fate/Grand Order, before resuming in 2017. The theme songs Seimeisen and Juvenile, as well as the ending themes Lost and Believer were written, composed and arranged by Kegani from Live Lab and performed by Reona, and released on CD on September 1, 2021. The soundtrack was composed by Hideyuki Fukasawa and Keita Haga, and was released as a set of eight CDs on November 24, 2021. Tsukihime: The Other Side of Red Garden, containing the remake's equivalent of the "Far side" part of the original, was teased in an unlockable secret trailer in Tsukihime: A Piece of Blue Glass Moon. The remake modernizes the setting of Tsukihime, having it take place in a large city in 2014 (as opposed to the suburban town in 1999 of the original), and also makes changes to the plot. The remake also adds new characters, voice acting, and new character designs. It also includes the Satsuki route. At Anime Expo 2023, it was announced that the Tsukihime remake entries would get official localization outside Japan, starting from A Piece of Blue Glass Moon on June 27, 2024. It is also confirmed in Type Moon Ace Vol. 15 that Windows version of the Tsukihime remake entries will be included as well. Unreliable source: date=October 2023

Kagetsu Tohya has teasers for a Tsukihime 2, and writer Kinoko Nasu's short stories "talk."' and "Prelude" from Tsukihime material books Plus Period published on October 22, 2004 and the Type Moons Character material published on August 20, 2006 are set before it. References to it have been mostly been made into jokes during recent interviews, and they have displayed no current plans to actually create the project. According to Character material, the sequel would have been called Tsukihime: The Dark Six and would have revolved, at least in part, around a ritual gathering of Dead Apostle ancestors. Arcueid's sister Altrouge would have had a possible role.

Kagetsu Tohya is a sequel released in August 2001 and set one year after the events in the main Tsukihime storyline. Shiki gets into an accident and has a repeating dream sequence in which he must relive the same day over until he finds Len. As the player repeats each day they are able to make different choices which affect the flow of the narrative and unlock extra content in the game, including ten short stories. Melty Blood is a PC dojin fighting game series developed by Type Moon and French Bread, originally released at Comiket 63 in 2002. The game features characters from the Tsukihime games as well as new characters specific for the games. Multiple updated versions of the game have been created as well as a sequel. It later spawned an arcade version, titled Act Cadenza, that was developed by Ecole Software and was then ported to the PlayStation 2. A decade later, Type Moon and French Bread collaborated once again to develop the fifth installment and reboot, Melty Blood: Type Lumina, featuring the characters from the remake titles.

A 12 episode anime television series adaptation titled Lunar Legend Tsukihime (真月譚 月姫) was directed by Katsushi Sakurabi and produced by J. C. Staff. It was written by Hiroko Tokita and features original music by Toshiyuki Ōmori. It first aired between October 10 to December 26, 2003 on BS i. It also aired on Animax Asia in Southeast Asia and South Asia. Two pieces of theme music are used for the episodes; one opening theme and one ending theme. The opening theme was titled "The Sacred Moon" by Toshiyuki Omori, and the ending theme was "Fumiko Orikasa#Singles (Rinne no Hate ni") by Fumiko Orikasa. The reason for choosing "Lunar Legend Tsukihime" instead of the title "Tsukihime" is that the trademark of "Tsukihime" had already been used. Geneon announced it had licensed the series for distribution in North America in 2004 under the title Tsukihime, Lunar Legend. Upon Geneon's American operations having shut down, the newly instituted licensor Sentai Filmworks acquired the North American rights to the series, with Section23 Films handling its distribution and marketing, along with other titles.

A manga adaptation using the same Lunar Legend Tsukihime title as the anime, illustrated by Sasaki Shōnen, was serialized in ASCII Media Works' shōnen manga magazine Dengeki Daioh between October 2003 and September 2010 issues. The plot largely follows the game's Arcueid route with a mix of the other routes. The chapters were collected in ten volumes published by ASCII Media Works. Tsukihime creator Kinoko Nasu has praised Sasaki's manga, saying that the settings mentioned in Tsukihime and Kagetsu Tohya are integrated without damaging the atmosphere of the original. Nasu also went on to say that Sasaki Shonen's manga was the greatest rival to the remake game project, and that Sasaki's stamp of approval after he playtested it meant there was "nothing to be afraid of". In 2005, DR Master took over the publication of ComicsOne's manga titles including Tsukihime. Six out of ten volumes were published. Tsuki no Sango is a short story by Kinoko Nasu for Maaya Sakamoto's Full Moon Recital Hall, a project organized by the Japanese online magazine Saizensen, that consisted of Sakamoto reading short novels in a theater while an accompanying short animation was aired in the background. Tsuki no Sango was the first of the recitals on December 21, 2010, and it was aired live on Ustream. The short movie was animated by Ufotable, which also animated The Garden of Sinners and Fate/Zero, and features drawings by Takashi Takeuchi and Chihiro Aikura. The animation used Frédéric Chopin composed music. The concept is "Tsukihime 3000" and the Princess Kaguya folktale. There is also a 42 page booklet version of the story with illustrations by Takeuchi and Aikura. Tsuki no Sango also got a manga adaptation with story and art by Sasaki Shōnen. It was serialized on the Saizensen web magazine from July 7, 2012 until January 22, 2019. The chapters were compiled into two tankobon volumes published by Seikaisha Comics. The first volume was released on March 10, 2014 and the second volume on May 26, 2019. An omnibus version was also published on May 26, 2019.

A remake of the visual novel's soundtrack was released on February 24, 2004 titled Ever After ~Music from "Tsukihime" Reproduction~. Two soundtrack compilations were released for the anime Lunar Legend Tsukihime, titled Moonlit Archives and Moonlit Memoirs. The music was composed by Keita Haga. The Tsukihime: A Piece of Blue Glass Moon theme songs by Reona were released on CD on September 1, 2021 while the eight disc soundtrack, which was composed by Keita Haga and Hideyuki Fukasawa, was released on November 24, 2021. Frontline Gaming Japan reviewed Tsukihime: A Piece of Blue Glass Moon stating that it "does a fantastic job of modernising Tsukihime, with an exceptional presentation and enough changes to make the story feel like something new to old players while retaining its identity." The manga series has shown high sales figures in its later volumes, with volume seven staying in the Japanese comic ranking for two weeks, while volume eight stayed in for three weeks. Carlos Santos of Anime News Network's opinion on the anime's third DVD release is that it "is a show that's all about creating a mood, which it does very well with its carefully planned color schemes and evocative music score." He states, "It's an ending that takes its time, however, as this show's deliberate pacing ensures that the story is revealed only to those who are patient enough."