Ranked #960

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

Vampire Knights is the typical Vampire story with all blood stained love and unexpected crazy turns. well this is all my personal opinions as i am i pure shojo fan; here goes~

STORY:
Personally i feel Vampire Knights is a really good vampire story to start with. It has a sweet atmosphere and a good concept of creating a school where Vampires and Humans study in different time periods.. Coexistence of Vampires and Humans is a good thought, really nice one but as you go deep and deep into the story it getts totally messed up!!!! Its quite complicated. once you get an analogy (or you can say history or past of a character) right you are lost in cracking another one!! The recent chapters (which follow after the anime) are complicated to understand! At least for me it is!

ART:
SUGOIII!!! thats WONDEFULL!
The art is very sweet and royal ,drawn by Matsuri Hino. Zero is really sexy and i mean it, super sexy! All the vampire hunks look kinda similar but never fail to look impressive. Hanabusa, Akatsuki ,Cross-san, Rima, Ichiru and the great boss- kaname are few characters i really like in art. a Some scenes are really sweet, but her narration on the story needs to improve for all dumb readers (like me!^0^) The blood thirsty scenes are drawn quite nice and the fights are impressive. No complains in drawings^^

CHARACTERS:
As far as the question of justice done to the roles is concerned, VK is in a good par. Many of the characters have significant roles unlike 'hero' oriented works. Yuuki is really irritating sometimes (personal thought ;O ) and recently Kaname is starting to get TOO complicated. Already a messed up story, some parts still don't strike me. Others are very nice parts, though! the sizzling Zero is getting much more SIZZLING!

ENJOYMENT!
hum...... Personally i am reading VK to see the outcome of this super-complicated-vampire-love-triangle. But if u are a try beast with fangs (VAMPIRE) lover, its a good entertainment. But if you are finding the typical SHOUJO content in this story, sorry but thats just a part of the large scale vampire twist.

OVERALL!!!!
VK gets an overall 6/10 from me. Its a good start but if Hino-san works on the style of narration, and tries to make the story anti-complicated then, the scores can go up! VK is not for hard-core shoujo lovers, as some points can disappoint you.Even though the twist-n-turns are great, the heart of a manga is the story. so my verdit is:~
ALL the BEAST-WITH-FANGS, GRAB THE KNIGHTS, OR ELSE JUST ADMIRE HINO'S ART AND STYLE!

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I've read up to the current chapter and have decided to review the series.

Story: 6/10
In the beginning, it was quite easy to understand. It wasn't complicated. It was just a simple beginning. Then, after the death of one of the antagonists, it slowly grew more complicated. There were a lot of twists and a lot of scenarios that did not make a lot of sense. A majority of the aspects slowly meld together. At the beginning, it was interesting, but, 66 chapters later, it's dull. It feels dragged on. If it wasn't so dull and repetative, it would probably still be interesting. Sadly, it has lost almost all of its interesting aspects.

Art: 9/10
The character designs are absolutely gorgeous. I adore how the hair is so detailed because not many people seem like they spend a lot of time just on the hair. A few of the hair designs are quite similiar. The only character who's drawn quite different than the rest is Kaien Cross, the Headmaster. In all the other characters, you can see bits and pieces of someone else who is NOT related to them in them. On the upside, the character designs do fit the character's personality. In the beginning, the eyes were quite detailed, but, now Matsuri does not give certain characters eyes at times. For quite a few of the later chapters, Aido's eyes were never finished or he just didn't have them. The average person won't notice that, but my friend did and she told me so I looked at the chapter again and agreed with her.

Character: 6/10
At the beginning, all the characters had some sort of development a majority of the time they appeared. Less than 30 chapters in, only the main trio were getting developed. Now it seems like its' just Yuki and Kaname who are getting developed (Yuki more so than Kaname). In all honesty, I am getting quite tired of Yuki and Kaname becoming more developed. I think that Matusri should develop another character for awhile or at least stop focusing on those two for at least one or two chapters. The other characters seem pretty undeveloped now-a-days.

Since this is a shojo and generall shojos have main female characters you can relate to, this is one where it is NOT easy to relate to Yuki and her situation. I don't believe anyone's forgotten everything since before the age of five nor has everyone been in a love triangle. It's almost impossible to relate to Yuki. Honestly, it is easier to relate to secondary character Ruka's situation. She loves someone who doesn't love her. That's pretty relatable since the average girl has been in that situation before.

Dialogue: 5/10
The dialogue is really cheesy at times and only parts of it are interesting. The characters sometimes repeat things they've said earlier in the manga or on a previous page of a chapter. Sometimes the dialogue is hard to follow. At times, they say things that are confusing. During those lines, you have to re-read them at least once for them to make sense. Other times, they say something that contradicts what they said earlier and/or their personality.

Enjoyment: 5/10
It was quite enjoyable until the main villain's death in the school arc, which is when I believe it should've ended, then it slowly got dull.

Average: 6/10

If you do plan on dealing with Vampire Knight, I suggest you watch the anime adaptations, Vampire Knight and Vampire Knight Guilty. The anime is far less confusing and is easier to deal with. If you choose to watch the anime, I suggest you stick with the english subtitles since the dub is not the greatest. read more

I belive I'm the first one to give this a lower review.

I'm going to go through this bit by bit, please bear with me and do not give me any trouble if you're a fan, this is my right of speech.

Story:
At first I quite liked the story, it was easy to get into. However as it went on I think that the writer has one to many themes that are just way to smiliar to have in this type of story. Long lost family, family stituations in general, unriquited love (and lots of it), 'incest', almost yaoi. While this can sometimes mean a good story, there are almost to many morals being portrayed at once and many lose their way. After a while it felt reptitive and I really just couldn't be bothered reading anymore.

Art and Charater:
I'm going to do these together because they really have backfired on eachother. The only character that stands out is the chairman to me. The rest all seem dark and gloomy and depressed. All of them have some deep past and aching heart. It's a love octagon or something. The art style dosn't help. Well the characters are 'pretty', they all have the same dull look in their eyes. The design in the faces is very un-devoloped and the only difference is again, in the chairman. This was very dissapointing

Enjoiment:
It may have been just me but I found this hard to enjoy when the sub stories and characters were all so similar. Again, this left me bored and dissapointed

Overall I think Vampire Knight is very very overrated, and I know I'm not the only one. read more

Matsuri Hino is a great artist, but unfortunately the story of ‘Vampire Knight’ is sorely lacking when it comes to story elements.

The main three of the story are completely unequal when it comes to development:
Hino writes such a complete and compelling story for one male character, and get fans on his side, only to have things go to h*** in a handbasket for him.
The other male character is left completely in shadow, yet is ultimately the one who makes *All* of the pivotal plot decisions. Readers don’t know about his personality during any of these decisions, though, and this leaves only his looks to make him a likeable character. This lack of development is not the yummy “Ohhh ♥ , who is that?” kind, but rather it comes off as a “Ohhh, he’s hot... Wait, what did he just do?! Who does he think he is?! @$%#!”

It is not ‘tragic,’ it is overdone.

Vampire Knight would be a tragedy if readers could identify with the leading lady, Yuuki, which was impossible from the very beginning. It is a fundamental part of the shojo genre to have a main female character that is likeable. Yuuki is just a dip from the beginning, and after the events/choices of chapters 40+ unfolded, fans dropped the manga. Calling Yuuki, the *Main Female Character* of the manga, whom you are supposed to be kindred to, "ruined," "unworthy," and "dirty."

Other minor characters have valiant attempts at background stories, but these are ultimately left undeveloped or quickly killed-off (literally, killed) before details can be explained.
Readers are left frustrated and unsatisfied.

Good manga gone wrong.
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A friend of mine on a forum was raving about this manga and for good reason. It has a very captivating story, great (and attractive) characters, and good realistic conversation and story.

Some thing that bugs me about what people always rave about this manga (though this does not ditract from the enjoyment of the manga) is that the manga isn't as Vampire ground breaking as everyone claims. There are several, less know, stories of vampires who can go out in day light, take pills instead of drink blood, or vampires attending a boarding school in the night class while 'normal' humans attend the day class.

The GREAT thing is though, is that Vampire Knight uses all these things very well. They have there classifications of vampires, the hot troubled main characters, older characters who know more than they lead on, etc.

Vmapire Knight also does something that is perfect to keep readers interested in a manga:
1) A possible love triangle
2) Adults in the story who know things the other main characters don't
3) A main character whose life is possibly in danger
and 4) Side characters who are interesting but you know little about (very vampire)


Vampire Knight takes you basic vampire/human-love story and perfects it with great story lines and believable characters. Highly Recommend. read more

To be quite honest, I think the only really good part of this manga is the art. However even so the talking bubbles can be confusing and all the characters are too "undeniably beautiful". It's a beautiful style but just having good art isn't enough.

It's boring. I'll admit at first I thought I was curious and found it interesting. But over time, the repitiveness becomes annoying and irritating. It seems as if the same three main characters of this manga receive too much attention while all the others, who are probably even better than the main protagonists, receives a very minimum screentime. (Or linetime, w/e)

Yuuki, the main protagonists whom apparently the whole world revolves around, is your typical girl in a romantic story. There's nothing special about her whatsoever.

As for enjoyment... the odd love triangles in this story are appalling. There is much... incest and the story itself is confusing at points. I also think that the author, Matsuri Hino, is merely beating around the bush and isn't getting straight forward to the important parts in the story. I think in her attempts to lengthen the manga, she is just adding in bits of boring panels.
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i first got into vampire knight after stealing a classmate's manga in our free period, i've been hooked ever since.

there are a few key elements that i think, make this a very decent manga.
the first, and probably most important, is the interpretation hino give us of vampires. i'm be blatantly honest, i truly believed i would hate this manga just from the title. in my experience vampire/horror manga all contain the same basic element which make the storylines very predictable. what i love about vampire knight is that they don't stick to vampiric rules.
there is no aversion to sunlight, no fear of garlic or stakes, these vampires could just as easily be human... which i think makes them more accessable as characters.

the other element i really enjoyed in this manga was the characterisation. i will admit that not all of the characters (infact very few of them) have been properly fleshed out, but if anything this adds to the appeal of the story. alot of the mystery would be lost if you could completely understand the characters and their motives.

overall this is a very well exacuted manga, one which asked many questions. you'll have to read to the end to find the answers. read more

= Story =
- So... this Shoujo manga actually has a plot of some sort. Though, I can't really explain it w/o saying some major spoilers here and there. Though the plot itself seems like a 'go with the flow' type, it's not b/c everything is somehow tied together in some sense or another. Let's see... Kuroso Yuki is a day class student who is part of the disciplinary club that is in charge of hiding the night classes' secret. If you read the synopsis, the night class students are vampires. If you didn't, well now you know. It starts out like that until *MINOR 'spoiler'* you find out that Zero is a vampire. I honestly feel that there were a lot of plot twists here and their in the story and the vibe was just right. However, that pace is inconsistent as more secrets are being revealed. I honestly can't explain the plot well... esp. with mangas where literally every other chapter or so has a spoiler of some sort. So I apologize for that. -

= Art =
- Matsuri Hino's art style is... wow. If you've read her previous works, then go to Vampire Knight, you can see that she has a distinct style. However, as you progress through the series, her art becomes even better than it was. I literally have no words to describe how she draws her characters and her art style except, wow. -

= Character =
- The character development stared out very well. We got some insight into Zero's past, then Yuki's half way through and then Kaname's shortly after that.

Yuki = main protagonist
Zero = main protagonist
Kaname = main protagonist/antagonist
Everyone else = supporting

Yuki and Zero are childhood friends and it's quite obvious that Zero loves Yuki, but Yuki adores Kaname who loves her b/c he saved her from a vampire 10 years prior to that. Kaname is also a pureblood and Zero absolutely HATES them. Why? Read it and find out. There is also a lot of tension in this 'love triangle' if you can call it that. Yuki can't decide mentally so she just physically decides... She's not really my favorite character in the series. Zero is definitely my all time favorite and Kaname... the douche... He's just to hallow. He has a justification for all that he does, but they make no sense. They're cheesy and just empty with promises and stuff a vampire/human wouldn't really care much for. Again, development is nice in the beginning and just... is lacking now. -

= Enjoyment/Overall =
- The series used to be quite enjoying, but I'm only still reading it b/c I want to see what happens with Zero and Yuki... if anything interesting were to happen. I would recommend it for any Shoujo readers or just manga readers who need a decent Shoujo manga to read. It's not cheesy everywhere, but when it gets cheesy, it's cheesy. - read more