The first show in the First Impressions series of blogs is Vampire Knight.
Quick Synopsis: At a boarding school, there are two classes of students – the day class, which is normal humans, and the night class, which are vampires. To keep the secret that the smart and handsome bishies (there are a few females too) of the night class are actually vampires, Kurosu Yuki and Kiryu Zero, another bishie with a Sasuke-like emo personality stemming from a tragic past, work as prefects to keep all day class screaming girls from mauling their vampire/bishie idols. Of course, Yuki also has feelings for the dormhead of the vampire bishies and other main male protagonist, Kuran Kaname, who saved her from a vampire attack when she was young. There are a lot of contrasting views on the vampires – the head of the school, Yuki and Zero’s adoptive father, wants humans and vampires to learn to coexist, which fits well with Yuki, who sees that there are good vampires like Kaname, but not so much with Zero, who hates them because of his tragic past and thinks of them as monsters hiding in human form.
Notable seiyu:
Kusosu Yuki = Horie Yui – Fruits Basket (Tohru Honda), School Rumble (Tsukamoto Tenma), Love Hina (Narusegawa Naru)
Kiryu Zero = Miyano Mamoru – Deathnote (Yagami Light), Wolf’s Rain (Kiba), Soul Eater (Death the Kid)
So I’m typically not very enthusiastic about starting a bishonen series (wasn’t a big fan of Fruits Basket or Hana yori Dango, but I did like Ouran Host Club and X), but thought I was obligated to take a look at Vampire Knight, which many people (I’m thinking a female majority) seem to really like. It starts off as expected with one girl and two lead guys as the most likely love interest candidates and what they give initially of Yuki and Zero’s backstories is pretty standard, but I can def. see why Zero would make some fangirls squeal, and he only gets cooler after showing off that sleek handgun (the unnecessary chain connected to it is clearly for stylistic effect :p). But even when he starts getting whiny/emo like Sasuke after ep2, I still prefer him over the more conventional “mysterious hero who saved me when I was little and I got lost in his bishie eyes” that Kaname brings to the table. And with the end of ep3, how can any fangirl not love the “deep internal struggle that he was tragically and unavoidably destined to face” that goes along with clearly as cool a name as Zero. Just shows how well designed a bishie anime Vampire Knight really is.
In re-reading above, I thinking I’m a little too hard on this show for its bishie stereotypes, and I should say that I’ve honestly enjoyed the show so far. It hasn’t been hard to watch at all (there have been no boring or stupid points that make me want to fastforward or bash my head in) and Yuki seems like a strong interesting main character, which is huge because one-dimensional or weak main characters like Honda from Fruits Basket and Yuji from Shakugan no Shana have easily made some series disappointing to me. And some of the powers the different vampires use hints at the potential for good action later on in the series.
Bottomline impressions:
Vampire Knight – B, continuing with some anticipation.
Reminds me of: Ayashi no Ceres, but with modern animation and a more interesting/broader appealing fantasy element
