Ranked #961

Vampire Knight (Manga)

The drawings are gorgeous, that's a given. It's a lot better than those silly flowery scenes in typical shoujo manga. I first started reading Vampire Knight yesterday, and it was really interesting enough for me to pull through all of the fifty-nine chapters (as of this writing), so I can not deny its appeal. However, there are some points that I feel need significant improvements.

For me, Vampire Knight is a guilty read. Why? Certainly not because of Twilight (okay, maybe so). But it's because of the tension in this manga. For me, the character interactions between all characters were appealing, even though their actual development was lacking in a way. For instance, the love triangle between Yuuki, Zero, and Kaname. I can see how that would appeal to the fans, but there are other undertones such as boy love and incest. There's enough subtext that could appeal to any type of love.

The worst part about Vampire Knight, even though I enjoyed the beginning, was Yuuki herself. Initially, she can be described as a cheery person, a bit idealistic and pacifistic like her "father" but she really means her best. In the beginning, the story starts out simple and nice: Yuuki and Zero are assigned extremely important jobs as the "guardians" to prevent the truth of vampires at Night Class from being revealed to the Day Class. However, as the story progresses, Yuuki descends into darkness and loses her personality. This bothered me a lot, and I'm sure it also bothered other fans as well. It seemed like Yuuki lost her personality that had made her in the beginning.

Come to think of it, there is not a wide variety of personalities in this manga. I hope the mangaka can remedy this. Her manga's tone is getting darker, which is appropriate for a vampire manga even though it can make some characters annoying to the readers. All have a dark past, but then again, they're involved with or are vampires. I like Hanabusa, and I really appreciated the fact that the mangaka gave further consideration to other vampires besides Kaname later on in the manga.

The plot is decent, though I definitely was a bit confused about Rido and Shizuka at first (I had to read Wikipedia to make sure). It's more about power struggles and romance conflict. Arcs are not as obvious, which can be pleasing, because sometimes arcs give you expectations for the next and follow the simple formula: sudden conflict arises! characters realize! characters fight! conflict ends! all is well! But they're there.

I felt that the time skip was needed but alas, it did not show any character development, except for maybe Yori. Yori seems to be a device needed to advance the plot, but I would rather think of her as a friend who genuinely cares for Yuuki. Even if this means putting herself at risk of danger.

I'm probably ranting a bit, so might as well wrap this up. Read Vampire Knight if you're looking for a romance to fantasize about and if you're interested in vampires in general. Also read it if you want to know what is the heck that makes it so popular. It's definitely a good manga to appeal to the romance fans, even guilty pleasure ones, but for those who are highly critical of characters and dark atmospheres, this would not be it. Especially Yuuki at the point in time when her past is revealed. So don't expect the manga to be light-hearted and fluffy; it's actually angst (for Yuuki). read more

VK is like that senior year head cheerleader you had you eyes on as a freshman, pretty on the outside but an absolute airheaded, superficial, lack of direction mess on the inside.

But I'm just sterotyping.

VK was a shoujo with potential, and although I usually avoid that genre like a plague due to it's crappy weak characters, their faggy male counterparts and generally weak cliche plotline, the stunning art of VK drew me in. Admittingly the bishie's had a large pull factor, but it also got a number good reviews so I decided sure, why not?

Storyline: 4/10
To begin with the story seemed sure simple enough, admittingly it didn't have any wowfactors (school full of vampires, how original), but it was different as it had a sense of mystery to it. Unforetunately it's sure to say that the mangaka should really stick to drawing rather than writing, because as the series continued the story got more complicated. Unneccessary sublots began to spring up, characters left undevelopment, incest, yaoi not properly dealt with, plot holes were created deep enough to go to china and you were left with a what would happen if Shoujo tried to leave it's superficial cliche overdone storlines: grandscale failure, mass confusion and each character being whiny tits. I've got no idea what is going on in VK and not from a lack of trying. I even wikipediaed the plot to wrap around my head and I don't even think wikipedia knows (and wikipedia knows all.) As you read on the story becomes increidbly complicated and incoherent to the point that I'm pretty sure the only reason why many fans read is only because of Zero's hot ass.

Art: 9/10
Alright so the art is, I've gotta say, really really really really good, i'm pretty sure every character has been offered a modelling contract at some point in their life.

Characters: 4/10
A lot of shoujo have incredibly pathetic female characters, whose only role is to dote over the lead male counterpart. This is Yuki for you. She's an incredible mixture of rightousness, blandness, naivity and general lack of coherent thinking. I don't mind selfless characters at all, but the way Yuki is depicted puts her up on a pedastal with a: 'I'm righteous badge'. In summary she's your average Mary Sue with a dark retarded past making her that tragic mary-sue (making her all that more special xD). Zero hasn't much of a personality either. In fact he's basically just a douche when he's not being a sulky shit. I have never read such a deadshit character so hellbent on unsubstantiated revenge (hell, he makes Sasuke from Naruto seem like he's got more depth/ have these characters ever heard of getting the fuck over things and moving on?). Kaname sort of makes this manga for me due to his mysterious need to mindfuck people and his selfish devotion to Yuki, even then, the mangaka manages to troll his character.

Enjoyment: 4/10
While I like to perv on bishihes, I would have enjoyed this series a whole lot more if it didn't try to take itself so seriously. Every direction it turns it feels as if the story is trying too hard and trying to be too tragic. There's no such thing as a happy character in vampire Knight. Either someone's brother or mother was killed or gave birth to quintuplets and was killed in their past. It's just reason for angst after angst after angst. Getting hit by a bus and paralyzed would be a happy ending for one of these characters.

Overall: 5/10
You'll enjoy it if you like to read mangas on a superficil level that lacks general substance or direction. I get the general appeal to this story which all just comes down to the art, but when it comes to a manga what's important for me is the story and the characters and no matter how hot Zero might look sucking on Kaname's neck, it's not enough for me to continue reading. read more