Vampire Knight

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VK is not a manga to be taken seriously. After 93 chapters of devotion: hoping that characters would evolve, that you would get some satisfaction or at least closure, you get absolutely nothing - only the bitter taste of disappointment.

Story 6/10:

There’s a great sense of mystery in the beginning, and the relationship between Yuki, Kaname and Zero is so deliciously mysterious and drama-filled that it’s easy to get hooked. You have the basic ingredients for a love triangle and lots of angst. You have the taboo vampire/human relationship and the beauty of longing for something out of reach. There was a sort of self-deprecating ... love/frustration going on with the characters that made you bounce back-and-forth between your feelings for them. So there's initially a lot going on for the story. With that being said, the beginning relied a lot on unknown factors of each character – so their past and motivations – but once that gets cleared (to a certain point) the intrigue drops significantly.

The premise is a no brainer and isn’t too convoluted: vampire school and the stigma between vampire/human relationships; perhaps that’s why it worked. As the story progressed it feels as though the author tried to take her story a little too seriously and added way too many subplots. It became too messy and a lot of characters were lost along the way (no closure) because Hino tried to have too many things happen at once.

After the first arc ends (so approximately after the first 10-12 volumes) that’s when things go completely downhill. The plot begins to become inconsistent with too many plot holes, things are introduced and never fully explained. There are too many scenes that seem to have deeper meaning but they really don’t – they’re for pure ascetic reasons or simply ‘filler’. The last arc until the very end is a complete waste of time. It just became boring and the sense of the mysterious forbidden was practically non-existence, becoming simply ‘a race against time story’. There was too much re-hashing and it became all too glaringly obvious (or confusing since Hino DOESN’T explain). A lot of things took place that seemed to have no impact or significance to the story as a whole.

For anyone who was a fan of the manga, many feel disappointed and angry (such as me) because we invested in the story only to be left with utter BS. So many questions are not solved and there are a lot of things you are left to presume.

It had potential and it started off well enough; however, it feels as though Hino gave up after the first arc ended and didn’t know what to do with the second part. It’s a bit of a mess, but the beginning is worth a look.

Characters 5/10:

This is where disappointment hits you the hardest. I can initially accept characters’ faults in the beginning, so Yuki is a naïve and helpless girl that seems to be a little too clueless. She has a contradicting mix of selflessness and selfishness that sometimes leaves you mind boggled at her daftness. Initially it works for the story; however, when the story progress and the plot ‘thickens’ there has to be some character development, so some maturity on Yuki’s part. Well there’s little to none that happens. Instead I would say Yuki becomes even more transparent, selfish and desperate, to the point that you forget that she’s even the main protagonist and not a crutch for the main male leads to fight over or protect.

The focus turns to the only decent character in the story, Kaname, and you wonder if VK is truly about Yuki. Kaname is a redeeming quality of the manga; he’s vastly superior because he’s such a complex and contradicting character. His manipulation, intelligence, obsession, selflessness and mystery, is what drives the story. He’s really the only character that is never fully predictable and every decision he makes impacts the story and all the other characters. The other male characters are not as engaging or interesting as Kaname. Zero constantly remains the broody, revenge-driven emo that remains very much pathetic until the very end. Everyone else remain the same predictable stock characters, they’re there for exposition sake.

Art 10/10: It is a truly beautiful manga, perhaps it’s one of the reason why I stuck around reading the story until the end (without counting Kaname). All the characters are beautifully drawn and there's a lot attention to detail. The scenery and the character design is a real treat.

Enjoyment 5/10: Beginning is all good but the second part is pure rubbish. It will leave you ripping your hair in frustration and end with great regret or disappointment.

Overall 6/10: The first arc is worth the read but the enjoyment drops significantly that once it ended, it left me feeling sad and frustrated. There’s little closure, the character development is poor and it leaves you hating the manga more then you should.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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!

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.

To be completely honest, I never finished this manga.
There are plenty of reasons that one should read it, yet the drawbacks to this series, in my opinion, outweigh the good.

ARTWORK
The artwork was simply wonderful, some of the best I've seen. Everything is done in careful detail, and it's clear that a lot of time and effort went into crafting every scene. If only just for the beautiful drawings, I feel that this manga should be, at the very least, skimmed through. I did have issues differentiating some minor characters, as their depictions were very similar, but that doesn't take away from the fact that they ... were all done extremely well.

CHARACTERS
The characters are charming and funny, though most weren't as fully developed as I would have liked. However, as the storyline progressives, characters begin to become muddled and confusing. Still, they were at least explained well enough and don't all have the same dull backgrounds.

STORY
And here's where my opinion took a nosedive. In the beginning, I was interested in the plot, already choosing my favorite characters and trying to figure out what was happening. However, as twists began to appear, I found myself more and more distanced from the plot. For one thing, some of the twists made questionable character backgrounds and relationships, and I found myself less and less willing to continue reading something. It got to the point where I no longer knew what was going one, and I finally made the decision to drop the series, something I've never done before.

OVERALL
I wanted to like the series, I really did, because it was so nice to look at and I like the characters. However, the storyline really killed it for me, and eventually forced me to drop the series entirely. So it wouldn't be my preferred read, nor would I waste my time trying to convince someone else to read it. However, I know that many would enjoy it, and as a result, I feel that if one has downtime, they should at least sample it, because they may find it much more enjoyable than I did.

Vampire Knight was the second manga I ever read. At that point I wasn't really familiar with the whole Shoujo genre, so I didn't realize that most of the other Shoujo stuff is boring love story crap. Still, for a shoujo, Vampire Knight was a lot better.

STORY: 5
The story starts off with the cool idea of vampires and humans coexisting, and the first two or three books aren't bad. Sorry, this spoiler is unavoidable but I have to say that from the time Yuki gets her memories back and onward, the manga sucks so badly I wondered why I was even reading it. As ... of the plot twists and such, they are so predictable that I could just stamp a "thank you for that, captain obvious" sticker half way through the first book, not even, more like one third into it. That was let down, but at least it's better than Twilight, which has no storyline at all except for an angsty teenager and her vampire boyfriend (hey, I swear I've heard this somewhere before). :P Sorry for that, I really dislike Twilight. Anyway, to reiterate, the father you read in, the more demented and hard to follow the plot becomes. Books eight through thirteen were full of so much pointless fluff that it could have been condensed into one book.

ART: 6
Like all shoujo mangas, guys tend to look like girls, and the eyes are way to huge. Not just like regular manga big, I mean flipping ENORMOUS. Also, apparently the vampires' eyes glow red when they desire blood. the artist didn't manage to get that point across at all. The author had to point it out before I actually noticed it. I like the creativity for the uniforms though. That was basically the only thing I was impressed with. The backgrounds are good when there are any, and though I have said I don't really pay attention to backgrounds, I have felt more confused about where characters are in Vampire Knight than in basically every other manga that I've read. To me, all shoujo art looks the same, so there isn't really any uniqueness to it.

CHARACTERS: 4
Zero is the tortured teen with the bad past. Haven't we all heard this before? "Yuki I wanted you to stay away from me because I didn't want to hurt you." It's nothing new. Isn't that like every single Vampire romance thing out now? The guy is mysterious and emo, and the girl is the ray of light for his salvation, but he had it ripped away from him because she's torn between two loves, and of course she's only considered her childhood friend and friend. This isn't the mild, appealing cliché that's mixed with new ideas, it's basically a lack of creativity. The only one who has any kind of depth is...actually wait, I can't think of anyone. As you've probably noticed, this review contains 100x more bias than all my other ones. Oops, but I can't help venting because Vampire Knight showed at least some promise, but now it's just assing around. Disappointment. D:

ENJOYMENT: 5
Vampire Knight really let me down, and I probably would have been better off not reading it. It would have spared me and extra week of my life I could have used to do other things, but I was basically only reading it because I thought Zero was kind of cool, and then the author turns around and goes LOL nope! DX He's an emo! Anyway, it didn't hold my attention.

OVERALL: 5
It is far from the best manga I've read, but, if you love the tortured vampire and his love who doesn't love him back type shit, then trust me, you will drool over Vampire Knight.

As other people said, the first part of the story is great. But after that, it just gets really tedious and you don't really understand exactly what's going on. And yes, Yuki never really changes, and don't believe that Kaname even really loved her. You don't get the kind of ending you would hope for. For the last good portion of the manga Zero practically ignores Yuki while still loving her. I don't think you know who the villain is toward the end of the series. I didn't like the ending, and really would not recommend it. The art was very good though, they made ... the characters very beautiful. Not much romance in it, just Yuki is upset and confused with her own feelings.

I started to read the manga after watching the anime because the anime is good and interesting. But I ended up getting very disappointed.

Story: The main plot is interesting and probably one of the reasons why it became so popular. It started out as good but ended up being very confusing and messed up. I think the mangaka wanted to please the fans of the two male lead and so the story ended up getting messed up. The only good thing about this manga is the fact that up until the end, you can't really tell who will end up with Yuki. If that ... is what the mangaka wants then she did a very good job but because of that the story ended up getting very messed up.

Art: The art was good. They all looked good and detailed. Although sometimes the characters have too large eyes it still doesn't change the fact that it looks good.

Characters: Yuki the main lead is just as confusing as the manga. She thought of nothing but her love interest. She ended up just like a doll being lead by Kaname and just do nothing but follow him.

Zero - is someone whom you can't help but wonder if the mangaka based him on someone she hated. Because she really did torture this guy, from the beginning to the end.

Kaname: Is obviously the mangaka's favorite. I think the mangaka wanted to make him look mysterious but failed. He is nothing but someone who is bored of his life. The reasons behind his actions are very lame and not understandable.

Other characters: Are just there for display, an added eye candies for the manga and for the fans but they all ended up as displays. Their powers became very useless.

Overall it's not that bad and not great either. If only it didn't have a messed up ending then it could've been good.

If I am being honest, I fell in love with this when I was younger. But it is both good and bad, the anime and manga. Good by the fact it has beautiful art, and a good story. Bad by the story doesn't fully add up. It seems like they are trying to just throw random people in, I mean, you get Yuki and Kaname as siblings, you get Rido, and its just to much to keep track of with everyone being related. Don't get me wrong, the manga is well written and I love the ending. But, It just seems like it is to ... thrown together.

I would not be surprised if many of the readers of this manga got interested after they watched the anime, my story is similar. I watched it about 10 years ago and finally got my hands on the manga. 10 Years is a long time and I wasn't a teen when I watched it so I have my biases.

I found the first half intriguing and the pacing was relatively moderate, it didn't feel too slow or fast, and if you're into vampire world then you will simply like the atmosphere. Towards the end of the first arc all of a sudden the pacing started ... to increase and things felt really all over the place. (The anime had the same effect on vamipre knight guilty, stuff were happening way too fast and randomly). Many people say the second half of the manga is really bad but I think it's still average, the first one is just better. But the pace really speeds up towards mid way of the manga and sort of goes really fast.

As for the characters. I like Kaname and Zero the most. I can't really say I liked Yuki as the main character. She was more like a filler to me. I actually liked her more as a human, but perhaps it's the dynamic between a human girl and "king" of the vampires. I found it kind of strange all these things about vampires mingling with their siblings (incest) and they already had sibling supposedly a future to be bride or groom. Maybe it's non sexual I don't know, give it benefit of the doubt...

I'm a person who likes to get whole collections of manga if I want to read somethign so I purhcased the whole collection. If you are on a budget or frugal then buy a few volumes and go from there.