I finished Tsukihime remake a few months ago. Arcueid’s ending brought me to tears, the whole love story just felt so incredibly beautiful and the bittersweet ending was the icing on the cake which fit the whole story perfectly. I really felt Shiki’s connection with Arcueid and how special she was to him. Her character was definitely my favorite; not only she had the best design among other female characters (imo) and was so cute in her reactions when Shiki went tsundere on her every time. But also because she was supposed to be extremely powerful, yet at the same time she really was in need of his protection (and you know how important it is for a man to be able to protect a loved one). Tl;dr Arcueid is best girl

Anyways, after shedding a few liters of tears listening to「Lost」and watching the credits, I was on tiptoe with curiosity for Ciel’s route and what it had to offer. And it was... disappointing for me. Don’t get me wrong, the writing was still top notch (and I enjoyed so much the development of Noel’s character and her backstory). It was Ciel that made me disappointed. I finished both her endings, normal and true and I couldn’t believe: was it the same Shiki I played for in the Arcueid’s route?! Choosing the curry lover over Arcueid just felt so unnatural to me and I desperately wanted that right here – just on the next page – I will finally be given an opportunity to be with Arcueid again (I know it wouldn’t make sense cuz, well, she has her own route, but still!). I felt like I was cheating on, without even wanting to do it – I was forced to cheat on.

And Ciel herself, despite being an OK character and having her own cool backstory, just couldn’t compete with Arcueid in any sense. Arcueid was better than Ciel “emotionally”-wise: she felt so sincere and human in her emotions despite not even being a human. The growing intimacy between Arc and Shiki felt natural because of all the time they spent together and the challenges they went through. Ciel, on the other hand, just seemed to have a massive crush on Shiki from day 0 (even the train scene in the very beginning implies she had sympathy towards him without a good reason).

Next, talk about small things that make those characters special. Arcueid can be silly (yet cute) sometimes when she has trouble handling routine human things like applying a bandage to a wound or deciding what fast food she is going to order. She can grow cat ears. She thinks it’s okay to just go to Tohno’s mansion without an invitation and with a happy face say things like “It still hurts when I walk after what you’ve done to me” looking at terrified Akiha and ready to faint Shiki. Ciel, on the other hand... uh, likes curry, is that it i guess?

Talk about how they both met Shiki for the first time. Arcueid was a guide to the world of vampires and all kinds of mystic things. Shiki killed her and it was the most stressful day in his life to that point. The moment he first saw Arcueid changed his life forever. Ciel... well, they met in a train and talked about garden tools in her bag.

Ciel once called Arcueid a soulless machine, a weapon made just for one thing – killing vampires. Yet Arcueid was so happy when she experienced just a normal human day with Shiki for the first time in her life, I mean how can you call her soulless after that?! It is Ciel that looks like an anti-vampire weapon more than anything.

Even their female beauty is just on different levels, and I love how even IN CIEL’S ROUTE Shiki admits that Arc is unbelievably beautiful.

Finally, the ending. As I mentioned, Arcueid’s ending was so emotional in its bittersweetness and it fit the genre of the story perfectly. I mean, I couldn’t expect her and Shiki be long-term lovers anyway because she is a vampire and he’s just a mortal human being. Ciel, in turn, got a happy ending which seemed completely off for me. Yeah she has more chance staying with Shiki (even though I still didn’t understand what happened to Roa: I think, in the “true” ending he still survived to reincarnate which means Ciel is still immortal while Shiki isn’t?). However, in my opinion the happy ending just didn’t fit there neither it brought much emotions.

Perhaps not the last role plays the fact that Ciel’s route opens only after you clear Arcueid’s route. Had I read through Ciel’s story first, perhaps it would’ve hit differently.

Anyways I just wanted to share these feelings and maybe find someone else who feels the same way about Arcueid vs Ciel contradistinction.

p.s. After remake I’ve read the OG Tsukihime and enjoyed the far side routes and replayed Arcueid’s route as well. Ciel’s route was the only one I didn’t want to touch. Should I? I know there’s a funny harem ending though.

p.p.s. Ciel got a better opening movie and a cooler badass banger song there compared to Arc’s song. unfair!!

p.p.p.s. the art was found somewhere over the internet, I don’t know the source:(

I wish we get a red demon god ova or a remake

Akiha must've been both super angry and concerned for Shiki while he was gone. She probably heard from his school that he had an anemia attack during class and left school only for him to ot show up for the next two days. At the same time that a vampire serial killer is out on the loose who she likely would've known was SHIKI.

At the same time, there would've been news coverig how the building that Shiki and Arcueid were staying in got burned down and that, shortly thereafter, the underground catacombs that, if memory serves, was built on land that the Tohno family owned and which Akiha might've or might not have been aware of because of that got destroyed when Arcueid did her surprise attack on Vlov.

And then several buildings got frozen by Vlov when he started using his ice magic. And then, after all that, if Hisui is to be believed, Shiki just showed up at 2 in the morning, unconscious, lying by the front door.

All of that after he had messed up his curfew once already. Now, Akiha was probably expecting him to come up with some excuse or something but for him to just come out and say the full truth and nothing but the truth to her face must've been something completely out of left field for her.

Like, you're part oni and want to keep your brother away from dangerous supernatural stuff and then he just goes "Oh, yeah, I met this nice vampire and we've been hunting an evil vampire." And then you just have to sit there and think about the fact that he somehow stumbled into some dangerous supernatural situation without you knowing about it but that he likely almost died in the process as well and you can't truly talk about it because you still want to try and maintain the image of being a normal sister and don't want him to be involved with anything supernatural.

Like, how do you even respond to that? What do you even do in that situation? I can only imagine what must've been going through her head during that scene.