25. Shiki Tohno
Here we have our favorite anemic migraine-after-migraine protagonist. As a character he doesn't have many personality traits that interest me, but he DOES have his moments here and there. The main problem is that Tsukihime doesn't exactly make you care much about Shiki. In every route the focus is either on the heroine and/or the villain, and despite seeing the events through Shiki's eyes and seeing him do some badass things, it usually doesn't come off as memorable save for a few exceptions during the climaxes of each route. It's hard to define his character and his anemic/headache fits can get pretty annoying. I am glad though that Nasu actually wrote a decent backstory for him, but it doesn't appeal to me that much. The split personality aspect of him admittedly did not make me care more for him that much, but did serve to make him stand up to the enemies in the story.
So what I do like about him are said moments during the routes' climaxes, where he becomes a demonic killer that can even scare the likes of Arcueid. The fact that he's frail but deadly is also pretty cool. He also introduced me to one of my favorite powers in fantasy, the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception. I mean, literally cutting existence. That's just great.
And really with moments like THIS CHAIR THIS CHAIR THIS CHAIR how can you not appreciate the quality of writing that went into Tohno Shiki?
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~KF~