I'll open by pissing off a very-specific set of Type Moon fans: there's a very good reason this spawned a massive Cash Cow Franchise while Tsukihime is stuck being a well-known Cult Classic. It's just got a much richer premise.
Conceptually, this is more-or-less designed for me. It's something that combines my love of weird Japanese things with my love of world mythology, history, and literature. And it filters it through the terminology of tabletop gaming, complete with D & D alignments and "classes" with "skills."
It also has a well-detailed cast of characters, both human and mythological hero, almost all of whom have gone on to become company icons. Whether they're having fun battles, expressing conflicting or complementary ideologies and cultural viewpoints, or just hanging out and bouncing off each other, they really do manage to shine.
Plus, when it comes to the mythology, the writers really do their homework. Medusa, for instance, draws not just upon the Athenian version, but on a variety of other, older mythological sources, then stitches them together into a coherent story of a Fallen Hero. That's great!
Unfortunately, the work as a whole isn't particularly well-written. Nasu has always been a writer in the vein of Michael Moorcock, mediocre-to-bad but with great ideas hiding some of that. Far too often, the story grinds to a halt so that we can be exposited at, or so that characters can navel-gaze philosophically, and often at these times the text never says things once when thrice will do, never uses one word where three will suffice.
Worse, with the best heart in the world, translations often exacerbate these issues. Shirou in particular is seen as a bumbling idiot misogynist almost-entirely because of a few shoddy lines that make him look like a dunce.
I, personally, can engage with what works well enough to slog through what doesn't... but I understand how and why others might not.
Not particularly well-written, but buoyed up by its great characters and a richly-imaginative premise.
I'll open by pissing off a very-specific set of Type Moon fans: there's a very good reason this spawned a massive Cash Cow Franchise while Tsukihime is stuck being a well-known Cult Classic. It's just got a much richer premise.
Conceptually, this is more-or-less designed for me. It's something that combines my love of weird Japanese things with my love of world mythology, history, and literature. And it filters it through the terminology of tabletop gaming, complete with D & D alignments and "classes" with "skills."
It also has a well-detailed cast of characters, both human and mythological hero, almost all of whom have gone on to become company icons. Whether they're having fun battles, expressing conflicting or complementary ideologies and cultural viewpoints, or just hanging out and bouncing off each other, they really do manage to shine.
Plus, when it comes to the mythology, the writers really do their homework. Medusa, for instance, draws not just upon the Athenian version, but on a variety of other, older mythological sources, then stitches them together into a coherent story of a Fallen Hero. That's great!
Unfortunately, the work as a whole isn't particularly well-written. Nasu has always been a writer in the vein of Michael Moorcock, mediocre-to-bad but with great ideas hiding some of that. Far too often, the story grinds to a halt so that we can be exposited at, or so that characters can navel-gaze philosophically, and often at these times the text never says things once when thrice will do, never uses one word where three will suffice.
Worse, with the best heart in the world, translations often exacerbate these issues. Shirou in particular is seen as a bumbling idiot misogynist almost-entirely because of a few shoddy lines that make him look like a dunce.
I, personally, can engage with what works well enough to slog through what doesn't... but I understand how and why others might not.