Another Vampire Fail In Manga.
If you're a certified VK fan who can't take rants or whines about the series, please spare us all your flaming and stay away from this post. These are my opinions, not yours.
It’s not often that I come across a premise that entails a vampire being turned into a human. Countless vampire stories often involve that the human should undergo the change first and into the life of the Undead. Unusual premises like this often hooks me first into the story. Then it is followed by the hope and expectation that the story would be a fresh twist to something somebody would’ve written before, and I pick up that book (or in my case, manga), and read.
And then the potential that I saw got horribly thrashed and disregarded.
Understand that I’m a reluctant Vampire Knight fan. As I waded through much of the nine volumes of crap (with only few and far between worthy little stories), I kept hoping to see some improvement, or at least that my preferred ending be granted some justice (I ship ZeKi mostly, as I’ll explain later). But as far as the chapters go, well, every update lately makes me squirm and want to throw up, and then grab my copies of the nine volumes and kill them with fire.
I have lots to say against this manga, but I’ll try to keep it brief.
THE PLOT SO FAR.
Volume 1 to 10 of Matsuri Hino’s Vampire Knight comprises the school arc, where most of the initial action (or is there action?) takes place. We are introduced to the heroine, Cross Yuuki, her childhood friend Kiryuu Zero, the apparently gorgeous President of the Night Class and Moon Dormitory Kuran Kaname and his horde of beautiful Night Class students who are apparently vampires. Yuuki and Zero act as school prefects slash mob control slash secret-keepers in the sense that they try to control a mob of rampaging fan girls who gather every evening just as the Moon Dormitory opens its gates and lets the gorgeous people in white out to take their walk to the classrooms.
Yuuki apparently adores Kuran Kaname, who saved her from being bitten by a rogue vampire ten years ago when she was five years old. There is also the twist that her childhood friend Zero has been bitten by a vampire, and he hates himself for what he’s become. Later on, we discover that Yuuki is in fact a vampire princess turned human by her mother, and that she and Kaname are ‘apparently’ siblings and have been engaged to one another since they were born. Her revelation drives Zero nuts and he vows that he would wipe out every single pureblood there is. They part ways sworn enemies.
Ker-timeskip of a year. Yuuki is still mostly kept in the house and is still annoyingly obnoxious, ignorant and stupid despite efforts of other vampires loyal to Kaname to educate her. In the latest chapters, we see her going around offering older purebloods death by her hands so they need not sacrifice other innocents if and when they decide to end their mostly boring lives.
My list of unbelievables, questions, rants and other disappointments concerning plot.
· My first major concern was as to how Zero Kiryuu, who was supposedly from an ancient and highly skilled vampire hunter family, could be easily bitten by a pureblood vampire. Understand that when Shizuka Hiou attacked him and his family, his parents who were qualified vampire hunters should have been more than capable of defending their children. It should have been imperative for vampire hunters to expect assault any time from enemy vampires and their servants. Was it simply coincidence that they let their guard down on that one fateful day?
· Yuuki, as far as we know, has been raised and apparently ‘trained’ by the greatest vampire hunter in history - the school chairman Kaien Cross. She spends the first few volumes not even able to take down one rogue vampire. She usually gets wounded and just extends her anti-vampire staff, but that’s as far as she goes - the little display of her acrobatic abilities (jumping from windows, jumping from the floor to a balcony, etc) give little testament to her supposed abilities.
· Kuran Kaname, who is supposed to be the very first vampire whose spirit was forcibly sealed within the body of Yuuki’s real older brother, is inexplicably, irrevocably and madly in love with Yuuki. How is it, for someone supposedly so old and wise, someone you expect to have encountered all kinds of female vampires before - be so interested and even attracted to this one little girl who can’t even kill a stupid rogue vampire on her own?
· In volumes 3 to 5 we are introduced to another pureblood, Shizuka Hiou, who enters the school under the guise of Maria Kurenai and gains admittance into the Night Class. She’s after Yuuki’s blood, Kaname’s blood and possibly Zero’s. And yet she dies in not more than three chapters, because Kaname waited until she was wounded badly by Zero’s gunshots and tore her heart out of her chest. I admit that when I’m about to be treated to a vampire battle, I expect lots of gore and fighting. I perfectly well know that Vampire Knight is a shojo manga, but a little more page of the fight couldn’t possibly hurt. Oh but then again Kaname is the almighty first vampire, and everyone should just keel over randomly and die when he says so. Amazing.
· In the early volumes of the manga Yuuki is battling with amnesia, as she has no memory of anything before she was five years old. Is she so stupid she wouldn’t begin to wonder if she was human all along? Why does every book or record she touches about the events ten years ago burn? Ah, apparently she is so busy mooning over Kaname to even ask for answers. You’d think she would even pester Chairman Cross for answers, which would have been an easier route. But no.
· For all of Yuuki’s I love you, Kaname-sempai!!!!!1111oneoneeleven, we don’t even see her doing something really worthy for Kaname’s affection. Okay, so she refused Shizuka’s offer that she’d save Zero if Yuuki kills Kaname for her. And then what? She doesn’t even cook Kaname lunch or something. On the other hand, she goes around buying clothes for Zero, give him the last bit of chocolate she made for Valentine’s day and would even risk to be turned into a vampire just to prevent him from turning into Level E.
· From volume 6 to 9 we are introduced to Yuuki and Kaname’s uncle, Ridou, who apparently caused all other bad things to happen. He’s the one responsible for the waking and sealing of the First Vampire (aka Kaname), and drove Yuuki’s parents to suicide for no apparent, weighty reason. Ridou strikes us as a cunning and powerful vampire, being 3000 years old or more. And then he gets killed off by a seventeen and sixteen-year-old vampire, one of whom just got awakened twelve hours before. Is Ridou simply stupid or overly-confident? You would have thought that for a vampire who lived through all those centuries of war against vampire hunters, he would have known how to defend himself. Hmmm. Something IS fishy.
· Yuuki’s parents, Haruka and Juuri, raised Yuuki in a windowless basement because they ‘do not want other vampires to go in contact with her’. Well, gee, thanks mom and dad, for making me grow up useless and stupid. They even have the gall to commit suicide and leave Yuuki all amnesiac. Responsible parenthood, anyone?
· After the timeskip we see Yuuki struggling to regain her footing as a pureblood vampire. After everything that has transpired and all of her promises that she desires only Kaname’s blood and what other slapstick things, she suddenly pops the news to Kaname that his blood alone cannot quench her thirst, and that she is thirsty for Zero’s. Huzzah.
· Yuuki is the youngest pureblood princess, being only seventeen years old. Yet she now goes around offering easy death to older purebloods so they won’t drag any other innocent people in their elaborate, theatric and corny suicides. Why, honey, come back to me with that offer again once you pass two thousand years and have experienced all the joys and sorrows of the world, will you?
· And the saddest bit, I think, Zero lost much of his spunk when he sunk into the Pits of Unending Emo and just stands there filling space. :|
· Yuuki keeps saying that she wants to protect all those she loves. How exactly? She can’t even venture out of the house without another vampire tailing her because she’s apparently too idiotic to go around on her own. Hmmm. Maybe she’ll hire some thugs to do it for her?
Do you think the potential of Vampire Knight will see some light? ASDHDKSJDKSL.