REVIEW: Vampire Knight (Vol.1) by Matsuri Hino

Vampire Knight (Vol.1) by Hino sounded interesting. As a reader who has self-proclaimed that she was sick of vampires, I’ve been reading my share of them lately. Heh. However, there are those few exceptions that still grab my interest. I chanced a copy of this book as it was the last one on the shelf. It’s a fan favorite in Japan so says the cover. I’m all for manga that are hits and here is a description of the plot for your perusal:

Vampire Knight primarily takes place in Kurosu/Cross Academy, a prestigious private school with an unusual class structure. The student body is divided into two classes: the Day Class, which is made up of ordinary students, and the Night Class, an elite group of ‘beautiful people’. Unbeknownst to the majority of students, and even most of the staff, the Night Class is made up entirely of vampires. The heroine, Yuki, is one of the few humans who know the school’s secret. She serves as a Guardian, dedicated to maintaining the peaceful coexistence of the Day and Night Classes with her childhood friend Zero, who lost his parents to vampires at an early age.

It seems that a school was necessary for peace so that vampires can better understand humans and vice versa. There’s a century old, bloody conflict, between humans and vampires that didn’t want to stop anytime soon. So we have The Cross Academy. It’s a private school. The Night classes and the Day classes are separated. Yuki and Zero are the guardians of the school and are on the disciplinary committee. They make sure that none of the day classes are aware of the night class because they are full of nothing but vampires. Humankind’s worst enemy.

In this entry, we learn right at the beginning that Yuki has had her share of rogue vampires as her life was saved from one ten years ago. Kuname was the hero who saved her and she’s had a girl crush on him ever since. Meanwhile, Zero seems to have nothing but apathy for vampires as he was the only survivor of a vampire attack. The author does make a distinguishing feature between pureblood vampires and those that are not. It seems that pureblood vampires are the only ones that can turn humans into monsters like them. This entry goes into the academy’s daily routines and eventually the thread starts to pick up and things start to get a bit more sinister.

I really enjoyed Vampire Knight. It is a very busy manga full of action sequences and sound effects. It was often rather confusing as to who was speaking to who. Almost had me believing that I wasn’t getting this right to left reading thing down flat.  This one would not be a good place to start unless your up for it. The artwork is nice. I really like Kuname. He is the hearthrob vampire who is forbidden to humans.  However, the complexity of Zero has my full attention, too, as he is a truly tortured soul. All the vampires are just gorgeous. This is a series that I’ll keep my eye on. My grade, B+.