Ranked #335

Vampire Knight

If you think that shojo series are all flowery, romantic (comedies) and cheerful, you're quite wrong, and Vampire Knight will prove that more than anything else. Keywords for VK are drama, emotional struggles and tragic pasts. Throw in a dash of vampire, and there you have Vampire Knight in all its glory.

The story revolves around the students of the Cross Academy, which is divided into the Day Class for humans, and the Night Class for Vampires. The main characters, Zero and Yuki, both have very sad pasts; Zero had his family killed by a vampire, and Yuki's first memory was a vampire attacking her. These pasts, which are revealed fairly early in the series, make a good base for their relationship and their emotional struggles.

During the course of the story, the characters face one event/experience after another, which makes room for emotional struggles, lots of character development and, of course, some romance (hey, this is a shojo series after all), though the latter is overshadowed by the other stuff.

The artwork is both standard shojo and something else at the same time. We have the pretty bishonen boys in place, complete with all the fallen-head-over-heels girls, and there's also the standard shojo eyes; large, with pupils that are almost larger than the actual eyes. But since the series has a darker, sadder tone to it, there's no lack on that end either. The coloring is often very dark, and the occasional lighting effect helps on this aspect of the series.

The soundtrack is good, with sad pieces helping the sad mood, and overall good quality. There's nothing spectacular about the soundtrack though, and while the OP theme is very good, the ED theme isn't very cool, though it fits with the dark mood of the series. Voice acting is perfect; the moods are portrayed very well and there's an overall good quality.

One of the things I love about this series is the characters. I mean, I really love them. They're very deep, with their pasts and emotional struggles. Off course, there's superficial characters as well, but they're mostly supporting characters; the main characters are mostly deep and they have a lot of character development for such a short series. Their relationships with eachother are very deep too, and a pleasure to watch.

Overall, I enjoyed the series very much; this is a candidate for the best Spring 2008 anime. It's a bit open at the end, but I just read that there's a second season coming in October, so I'll accept that, and look forward to it.

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Vampire Knight is the 13-episode anime adaptation of the famous manga by renowned manga-ka Matsuri Hino.

Revolving around a cast of teen-aged characters, or rather some teener-looking century-old vamps, the story unfolds with a female character named Yuki Cross, a renowned student who keeps one of the biggest secrets her school has to cautiously conceal, as the point-of-view. The typical shojo anime protagonist, she exhibits the traits (candy eyes, cheerful attitude, encouraging words, beautiful face, and most specifically attractiveness) many viewers would like her to. As the main of the main characters, she, of course, is most likely to have different interactions with the other characters. Some of which are Zero Kiryuu and Kaname Kuran, of which both are considered in the anime as the 'guys' girls often have in their little dreamland. Of all the other characters, these three make the story move on to a different chapter. Other characters play a not-so-catchy role as the mentioned three do, but practically their 'existence' in the series would prove them essential to the story. Evolving in a slow phase, the characters-- of which most female viewers would note their totally 'hot' appearance— make up most of what the audiences really stick their ass to. Since the bishies in this anime are the ones made to stand out, most VK-tard viewers are females! But don't consider this show "gay!" It's good, I tell you (and no... I'm not being bias)! All the characters, be male or female, are candy-eyed. The main characters themselves have, obviously, their own life stories. They evolve in the same phase as the story does, of course. In my case, I hate none of them. Given equivalent weights of parts in the story, such characters are highly guaranteed to please us the viewers; thus, I give them a commendable 8 ^_^

The story, on the other hand, evolves in the same phase as the characters do: not rushed yet not slow. To put simply, the story it features has an assortment of drama, romance, and, noticeably, a bit of horror (quite a good "chemistry" if you ask me). The "horror" part is not highly emphasized, even though the title itself suggests it would offer a good hair-raising experience. What I call true horror would involve ugly demoniacs. On the contrary, there ain’t any fugly bad guys—just them who have killer smiles! What I think is the main highlight is romance (I relate it with the "Knight" in Vampire Knight)! Consider a girl interacting between two dependent guys a romantic story featuring a tense love triangle. The genre drama is given the same importance as romance— good romance must involve good drama! I take back what I said about it not plunging into a deep plot. I admit the story is nice! Following a stream of media res, there's quite a good number of flashbacks. The first episodes of the anime don’t really offer a good number of twists. It was only at the latter part that things turned out to be the unexpected. With these ingredients in the story, it deserves an 8 ^_^

I have not read a single page of the manga, but many say the art of the manga was a lot better than in the anime. Perhaps it is. I do think that the art and animation aren't exactly that good. There are quite some distortions in the face of the characters. Some viewers commented that the manga was just too ‘sketchy’ for the art to be animated. Then again, it wasn’t at all that bad. I give the art and animation a 7.



The music or sound, on the other hand, furthermore adds eeriness to the already-creepy theme, or whatever emotion the scenes require. The music presents a good vampire-ish theme. There is nothing more to say about the sound, so I give it a 9 ^_^

Vampire Knight is not exactly my type of anime, but it still gives me the urge to watch it… and as they say, “let VK show you a sweet dream next time!”
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