Tsukihime, far side route: here’s to Akiha
Looking at the screencaps I took while reading my way through Tsukihime it struck me how many of them featured Akiha. As a general rule I screencapped whenever I felt a given moment was especially important to the story so the folder of pics that’s sat on my hard drive since I finished the VN really helped jog my favourite memories of it. I don’t want to downplay the significance of the other two leading ladies in this of course: Hisui and Kohaku have well-written backstories that build on the unfolding of the scenario as a whole which, by the way, explains a hell of a lot that the TV show didn’t.
Disarmed me with a smile
There’s also an avenue which left me a little frustrated: Yumizuka was another fascinating character who, in my opinion at least, is crying out for a side-story of her own. Whether the rumoured re-release of Tsukihime will resolve that I don’t know; it certainly continued to give a ‘one rewrite away from brilliance’ feeling because the emotional clout of the story was stretched too thin: after all those replays I found myself wondering if I was able to care about all of them enough. Forgive me then if this post very much about Akiha.
Hisui is, I suppose, deliberately written in as quiet and reserved but I don’t really have much to say about her; my e-PostIt notes from that time don’t help much, either. Like Ciel’s route Hisui’s was more rewarding on the exposition front than the characterisation one but I guess she’s so intrinsically linked to Kohaku that the two blurred together in my head a bit (I rectified a similar mistake I made in the previous post so I hope it’s now factually accurate). Kohaku’s route is a lot darker and tragic, which makes the contrast of her cheerful personality all the more hard-hitting but still takes second place here.
A rare moment of lulz in the Tohno household
Yumizuka could, after a merging of the Hisui and Kohaku routes and a relegation of Ciel into supporting character, make a fully-fledged story thread on her own: there’s this wonderful dilemma of what to do with a close friend who has been turned into a vampire. I recall a similar situation in the BBC series Being Human in which a character is faced with the choice of killing someone he knows when she is turned; after taking pity on her and ending her life, the vampire’s flatmate looks aghast. “I thought you were going to save her life!” he yells. To which the vampire replies, “I did.” There’s a veritable moral goldmine there I think.
At the end of it all though, Akiha was THE heroine of the Far Side of Tsukihime for me. That aura of hers is hard to explain: perhaps it’s the image of her as the Childhood Friend, waiting patiently for years and enduring who knows what until her soulmate returns to her; or it’s the fact that, on a non-romantic level, she shows Shiki the sisterly loyalty, knowing full well that his origins lie in a rival family. I can see where the groundwork for Heaven’s Feel in Fate/Stay Night came from in that the whole basis for the characters’ relationship uses false appearances in a very similar, and similarly effective, way.
Why are they more alluring when classically trained?
My fanboying respect for Akiha’s character was in no small part due to my recent viewing of the sixth instalment of Kara no Kyoukai: if the premise of Sakura Matou’s story was inspired by Akiha’s, the blueprint for Akiha’s own personality lies with Azaka Kokutou. Aside from the similarities in character design between the respective couples, both girls share a similar ability in manipulating heat; Akiha can use her hair as a weapon while Azaka honed a skill of ignition through what I’m guessing is her own magic circuit. There’s also the issue of…well, whatever the female equivalent of a siscon is called. Fortunately in Akiha’s case it’s not really an inappropriate attraction since it turns out they’re related by adoption rather than by blood so once I re-adjusted my view on their relationship accordingly, I couldn’t not respect her.
I’ve taken on the subject of the tsundere archetype a number of times but feel I’m able to justify my personal favourites with genuine reasons. For Akiha then it’s all down to her making a conscious effort to hide her affections and keep Shiki out of harm’s way; the sense of love held at arm’s length is what makes their dynamic so compelling and makes the moments where she fusses and worries over him all the more endearing.
Interestingly the difference in ending to her route depended on a decision concerning Shiki’s self-sacrifice for Akiha’s sake; personally I preferred the True Ending. Not just because I’m old-fashioned in those romantic gesture things, but also because it suited Akiha’s dignified persona better to have her survive unscathed and waiting for Shiki’s return. The image of a zombie-fied Akiha does a personality of her calibre a disservice I think.
“Squee!” moments in the Nasuverse seem to hit me when the woman is holding a deadly weapon. A coincidence, honest
Even without the decision that leads to her route’s True ending Akiha lost her brother not once, but twice. That I think is the real insult to injury and why I felt so sorry for her: in addition she finds herself as the heir to the household and carries all the responsibility that the role requires. She throws herself into it wholeheartedly but taking a step back it’s actually a combination of family duty coupled with a desire to keep her adoptive brother safe and prevent him being tainted by the Tohno curse that has affected her and the ‘true’ Shiki. Akiha sacrifices so much and puts so much pressure on herself, but not for her own ends.
Just for future reference in case any of you are making more cross-franchise connections, I really appreciated the little background details that tied in with Kara no Kyoukai. The Nanaya family are in fact one of several that include the houses of Ryougi and Fujyou, the latter cropping up in the first movie as the antagonist. The mage who is able to help Shiki with the old Stringy Vision is of course none other than Aoko Aozaki, sister of Touko; I’d love to experience the Mahoutsukai no Yoru story between those two.
The Tsukihime remake was confirmed a while ago, with Sacchin listed as a heroine.
Yeah, the Far Side is my favorite set of routes – Akiha’s path is my favorite (in no small part because of its wonderful character/plot development), and Hisui’s path had the single best ‘What-the-hell-is-happening?!’ scenes in the entire game… Seriously, it got plain creepy at times. Try replaying the game after Kohaku’s path – a lot of her scenes get rather cringe-inducing once you know what she’s been through. Also makes you question exactly *how* much of the story’s events were a result of her drugging Shiki, any food/drink that she was involved in is suspect (it was chilling when I realized the truth about that particular “dream” where he met ’someone’ after killing some people)…
And if you’ve played this you’re probably already playing Plus+Disk (introduces Seo Akira) and Kagetsu Tohya. Heh, I look forward to seeing your reaction for trying to beat that completionists nightmare (its virtually, if not impossible to see all the scenes without a 100% complete game file for the scene select).
Sweet i’ve been waiting for this overview of the far side route!
Far side route is the better piece of work, Hisui and Kohaku’s two routes combine to make a truely chilling reading. I read the two route on a 2 day bender recovering after post exam celebrations, and going through Kohaku’s with the other route was a bit of a mind bender. Arc is pobably my favourite character despite it all of it though, much like saber was my favourite dispite the brilliance of Heavens feel.
As for Kagetsu Tohya, ergh…
Don’t get me wrong, its brilliant but terribly frustrating, a completionists nightmare is a understatement, I still actually haven’t finished the main story. Though despite that there are some gems there for some of the side characters, Arihiko past is explained along with his reason for his friendship with Shiki, the Con game is funny and theres other amusing things in the main story.
Hunt for the 100% completed save file download at beasts lair – it has a bunch of easter eggs and (more importantly) the scene select option when you click ‘FUN’ on the main page. Never would have seen a *ton* of easily missed great scenes without it…
(Spoilers below)
That said, for me one of the best scenes was the hidden story, it totally cemented who I thought was the most tragic figure of all Tsukihime – SHIKI. Think about it: he had an abnormally violent awakening from a vampire taking him over from the soul outwards, and then had Kohaku of all people taking care of him (ie drugging, brainwashing, and generally screwing with him to make things worse for the sake of her revenge). Poor guy never stood a chance, he’s actually really nice when sane.
Damn you google!!! j/k
Just posted earlier when I was hunting down info on Fate/Stay looking up info on the Heavens feel route.
Ok after reading the post I do agree that the Far side stories were much better then the near side stories, However as for overall favorite characters I am having to point to the maids, And to be precise Kohaku. I think the reason for this is the fact that the maids are in every single story both near and far side, yet they are almost always overlooked or made to look like “subcharacters” when in all honesty most of the events that occur in tsukihime have some link to either one of these maids in one form or another. Then again the sheer story behind these 2 really did catch me off guard and really showed how much the Anime Epic Failed on story telling.
my 2 cents
as for Kagetsu Tohya….. I need to find the save file its just too tedious to go through… however I do enjoy getting Shiki into trouble and watching the fireworks.
Haha, “its needle time!” Shiki in trouble is amusing.
probably gonna have to find the save file for KT, being stuck is no longer fun. Even when i delete the save files to start again they magically come back after I turn the machine off.
@Nanaya: I haven’t played any of the sequels or spin-off actually – I’ll have a look over at Mirror Moon and see what else they’ve been able to release translation patches for. I’m sure a replay would be really interesting but damn…these Type Moon VNs are so long and involved!
@narkins: it’s funny how you get so attached to these characters…for some reason Akiha is one of my favourites, even though Kohaku and I suppose Hisui too had a lot of trauma to put up with.
@Stampeed Valkyrie: hope I didn’t spoil too much for you! Yeah, the maids’ importance is pretty understated. The anime ought to have been twice as long as it was…funnily enough, the anime adaptation of Fate/Stay Night is actually not half bad now I’m rewatching it after the VN, but that’s probably because it concentrates on one route (the Fate one).
im sure of 1 thing… you cant live with your beloved sister Akiha, whatever you do, u cant be with her, its a very sad ending but i like the story, and u are right akiha have an special aura that makes u love her. Well ill wait for the Remake of Tsukihime, meabe there come another way to be with Akiha
@Martin – mirror moon didn’t make a KT patch, beasts lair’s doing the spin-offs. Just remembered I had the patch link on me from a while ago – http://www.megaupload.com/?d=OO4IVMYW
@LeoNanaya – you’ll like the follow-up KT has to Akiha’s path then, it’s really nice.
And now I have something else to point to when I’m asked why I like Akiha. I think the only thing else I feel is that they not only made her “incest” story between adopted siblings, but that they actually wrote it so it’s plausible (avoiding that pesky Westermarck Effect). Other than that, you hit on pretty much everything I’d give as a reason for why I loved the Far Side routes so much, and it’s gratifying to see I’m not the only one who felt Hisui was sort of double-staged by her sister for the main role of her own route.
And I have to admit, even though ultimately Kohaku is my favorite, Akiha (and Hisui) isn’t far behind, and I’ll admit cheering when I finished “A Story For the Evening” in Kagetsu Tohya!