- Title: Vampire Knight
- Studio: Deen
- Genre: Shoujo/Drama
Ratings (out of 5):
- Story: ♥♥
- Animation: ♥½
- Characters: ♥♥♥
- OP/ED Themes: ♥♥♥♥ (Totally forgettable OP, but the ED is pretty sexy, though the visuals for it are a little odd.)
- Overall: ♥♥♥½
Thoughts:
Let me say from the beginning: I adore the shoujo soap opera cliche trash bag that is the Vampire Knight manga. And I know plenty of you do too, boys and girls– yes, BOYS and girls. Actually, a remarkable number of dudes have ashamedly admitted to digging Vampire Knight to me. I’ve even seen people trying to justify that VK isn’t shoujo because there’s supposed to be “action” later on. So let me just say: it’s a-okay to like shoujo, guys. Just like it’s fine for chicks to dig shounen. IT’S ALLOWED.
That said, the plot: Yuuki Cross is the adopted daughter of the administrator of the Cross Academy, a 24/7 school where, during the day, the “Day Class” takes its lessons. At night the Day Class returns to its dorm and the Night Class goes to the campus buildings. The Night Class consists of a bunch of people (particularly men) who are so attractive that the two campus guardians have to hold the Day Class at bay and escort the Night Class to school.
Yuuki is one of the two guardians, along with Zero Kiryuu, another sort-of adoptee of the school admin’s. But the guardians know a secret that the Day Class doesn’t know: the Night Class actually consists of vampires, and the guardians are there to ensure that the Day Class is kept safe should any of the allegedly pacifistic vampires slip.
The adaptation of Vampire Knight has a stellar voice cast– Mamoru Miyano as the troubled vampire hunter Zero, Yui Horie as the sweet pacifist Yuuki? Yes please! –but not such stellar visuals. Mangaka Matsuri Hino’s art is well-known for being detailed (sometimes overly so), dark, and striking. VK’s aren’t bad, but they’ve definitely lost the majority of Hino’s style. An added distraction for me is the lack of defining lines in the style, particularly on people…in fact, almost entirely on Yuuki. She winds up looking kind of like someone did a color-by-number but then removed the lines to separate the sections, if that makes sense. Here’s another cap:
I found it a little off-putting. All in all, I really hoped that this series would be a bit more big-budget looking, but we’ll see, I guess. As I mentioned before, the OP sequence is entirely forgettable, with pretty boring music and standard visuals. The ED “still doll,” on the other hand, is incredibly sexy– produced by Mana and performed by Wakeshima Kanon. Love it! The visuals for the ED are a little odd though; most of it is a still shot of Yuuki looking all broken doll-like, which is fine, but there’s this random chunk that features Yuuki spinning around as a ballerina. But not as a ballerina doll like in a jewelry box or something, but as a regular human ballerina doing spins. It’s very odd and out of character. But the song is so hot, I kind of don’t care.
Overall: if you’re up for hot and heavy shoujo cliches, complete with smexy emo vampires, this could be a fun ride. Sort of the Interview with a Vampire of the anime world. But if that dramatic gothy style doesn’t attract you…yeah, you should probably stay far away from this one.
