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.