This new series from Geneon takes a look at vampires but gives the monsters an Eastern twist. Tsukihime, Lunar Legend doesn't stop there though, it creates a unique world.  One that looks like our own, but with some interesting characteristics.

Shiki is a young high school student who was in a very bad accident when he was eight years old.  This has left him weak and fragile, prone to memory lapses and blackouts.  As the story opens, Shiki finds out that his father has died.  He is to leave the care of his aunt and uncle, who he has been staying with since the accident, and move back into his family's house now in the care of his younger sister.  Shiki is feeling bad not only because he has to move in with a practical stranger, but because he has been having a lot of black outs.  As he sits in the park after school, not wanting to move into his new house, a beautiful lady walks by.  Shiki takes a knife out of his pocket, and brutally kills her.  He cuts her into more than a dozen parts in an instant and then passes out.

When he wakes up, Shiki finds himself in bed in his family's, or more accurately his sister's,  house.  A maid found him laying in the park, all alone, and brought him home.  He is puzzled by his memories of killing the woman, it seems like a dream and he can't see why he'd do a thing like that.  But things get even more odd the next day when he runs into the same woman in the park.  "I know you" she says, "you're the boy who killed me."   A great way to end the first episode.

It turns out that the woman, Arcueid, really was attacked and killed by Shiki, but she's a vampire, actually a True Ancestor, one who makes vampires, and can't be killed so easily.  He has hurt her significantly though, and she demands that he protect her from her enemy Nero.  All of this information sends Shiki reeling, but when Nero attacks, he has no choice but to go with her.

After they escape, Shiki reveals that he can see lines.  Lines in everything: chairs, trees, cars, even people.  If he cuts those lines, the item falls apart.  That's how he was able to slice up Arcueid so quickly.    He has a very powerful ability, called The Mystic Eyes of Death Perception, and now Arcueid wants him to use his talents to help her destroy her vampire enemies.

This volume did a great job of getting the story rolling.  The cliff-hanger at the end of the first episode took me by surprise and wanting to jump into the rest of the disc.  This show is atmospheric, but not terribly dark.  They wisely put a lot of drama into the story so that the violent fights have more impact when they arrive.  I have to admit that I get tired of horror shows that are just one blood splattered fight after another.  This series doesn't fall into that trap, and many of the battles are surprisingly brief.

The show has an oddly unsettling feeling at times, but not when you'd expect.  When Shiki is dealing with vampires, you're on fairly stable ground there, and know what to expect.  Its his home life that is strange and feels creepy.  Shiki's sister, Akiha, has some very odd rules, including not closing off the compound at 7pm and not letting anyone out of there rooms after 10pm.  There are no TVs because she doesn't like the sound, and the whole building has the feeling of a prison.  I really like the way they were able to effectively reverse the roles and make Akiha more sinister than the vampire Arcueid.

There are other odd things, like the fact that Shiki doesn't take anything with him when he moves into a new home except the clothes on his back, that make you suspect that there is more Shiki's background than meets the eye.

A good start to this brief series which only last 12 episodes.  I am very interesting is seeing how they unfold the rest of the story in only two more volumes.  My main hope is that they explain why Shiki attacked Arcueid in the first place.  It was the only thing that seemed really out of character.

Audio:

This disc offers the viewer the choice between the original Japanese stereo soundtrack and an English dub also in English.  I watched the show, as I usually do, alternating between languages with every episode.  I liked both soundtracks, though I thought it was curious that the levels on the Japanese track were higher across the board.  The English dub was very good with the voice actors doing a good job of bringing their characters to life.  The soundtrack was very clean and had a good amount of dynamic range.  There wasn't any hiss or other defects in either of the tracks.  A nice sounding disc.

Video:

The anamorphically enhanced video is very nice, if a little soft   The lines were not as fine as I would have liked, but the colors were nice and the contrast was good.  There was some digital errors, but these were more minor that usual.  An above average disc.

Extras:

The only extra on this disc is a non-credit opening.  There are also previews for other titles.

Final Thoughts:

I liked this vampire tale with a twist.  The power that Shiki has is incredibly powerful, but it doesn't make him too strong and the vampires are a real threat.  There is enough mystery and unusual events that I'm eagerly waiting for the next volume to see how the story unfolds.  A very high Recommendation.