Vampire Knight

Story
The story itsself is captivating from the very beginning. The whole time I kept wondering what was going to happen next. There were things I would have never expected- excellent plot twists- and even a smidge of humor for good measure. It's got the right balance of everything: Horror, Angst, Romance, Drama, Comedy. It has it all.

Art
The art was beautifully executed. Each major plot scene gave just enough imagery to make it not too gory or not enough. Again, it had just the right balance. Also, there were some different angles thrown in there to make it that much more interesting.

Character
Characterization was amazing. I kept thinking I knew these characters' motives inside and out, and then they'd surprise me completely. There were so many twists and hidden agendas you just couldn't help but want to know what they're going to do.

Enjoyment
How could I not enjoy this manga? It's absolutely amazing in every way. It's one of those mangas that you just can't put down and has you begging for the next installment. It's very thrilling to watch it all unfold.

And as far as I've seen, the anime is just as well executed.

Vampire Knight is a Shojo-style manga. Now to get rid of the elephant in the room, Vampire Knight is FAR better than most other vampire stories like Twilight, and Vampire Diaries. The thing is, it doesn't need to try because those books aren't well liked by many people if you set up a survey (please don't send me hate mail, thank you).
As many of you know, Vampire Knight is about Kaien Cross making a school that teaches human-beings and vampires to co-exist with each other. Vampire Knight has just the right amount of students that are for, or against Kaien Cross's plan. The private school is called "Cross Academy".
It also focuses on a a girl named Yuki Cross who likes a Vampire named Kaname Kuran who saved her life about 10 years ago, and Zero Kiryu, a boy who hates vampires of all kinds. Yuki, and Zero are part of the "Disciplinary Committee" to enforce vampires that try to put the humans in danger. The humans are part of the Day Class, and the Vampires are part of what is called, the "Night Class". Since Vampires are mostly nocturnal, they take classes at night. Despite being part of the Disciplinary Committee, Zero is usually doing every thing he can to torment the Night Class because of his hatred towards vampires. As a result, he is usually being scolded by Yuki, but this may not be the only problem...
This may be a love triangle, but it doesn't get to integrated in the story which is nice, and the art style is amazing. One thing to note, many fans, like me, find characters other than the main 3 more interesting. Needless to say, the main 3 are not as good as characters than the rest of the cast. However, the love triangle is not as bad as you would think. Yuki doesn't spend all day talking about Kaname if you know what I mean. Another thing not to like about V.K. is how long the conversation scenes are sometimes. However the fight scenes are fun to read, surprisingly! And it can be pretty hilarious at times.
Overall, I recommend reading Vampire Knight if you had a long/bad day. If you want something Shojo to read as well, this would be a great choice. Really, it doesn't matter what you are looking for, many will enjoy reading Vampire Knight.

i really like this manga, and the art is particularly compelling to me, but somehow i really feel like the story is repeating itself. something horrible happens, there's like 4 pages of meaningless dialogue, and yuuki and kaname have some sort of 'steamy' conversation. throw in a few shots of zero being miserable, and kaien being silly, and you've got all 54 chapters. i've been watching and reading for about a month now, and i really hope with all my heart that Hino-Sensei makes a bit of a turnaround for this manga, because it's rather promising.

I belive I'm the first one to give this a lower review.

I'm going to go through this bit by bit, please bear with me and do not give me any trouble if you're a fan, this is my right of speech.

Story:
At first I quite liked the story, it was easy to get into. However as it went on I think that the writer has one to many themes that are just way to smiliar to have in this type of story. Long lost family, family stituations in general, unriquited love (and lots of it), 'incest', almost yaoi. While this can sometimes mean a good story, there are almost to many morals being portrayed at once and many lose their way. After a while it felt reptitive and I really just couldn't be bothered reading anymore.

Art and Charater:
I'm going to do these together because they really have backfired on eachother. The only character that stands out is the chairman to me. The rest all seem dark and gloomy and depressed. All of them have some deep past and aching heart. It's a love octagon or something. The art style dosn't help. Well the characters are 'pretty', they all have the same dull look in their eyes. The design in the faces is very un-devoloped and the only difference is again, in the chairman. This was very dissapointing

Enjoiment:
It may have been just me but I found this hard to enjoy when the sub stories and characters were all so similar. Again, this left me bored and dissapointed

Overall I think Vampire Knight is very very overrated, and I know I'm not the only one.

A friend of mine on a forum was raving about this manga and for good reason. It has a very captivating story, great (and attractive) characters, and good realistic conversation and story.

Some thing that bugs me about what people always rave about this manga (though this does not ditract from the enjoyment of the manga) is that the manga isn't as Vampire ground breaking as everyone claims. There are several, less know, stories of vampires who can go out in day light, take pills instead of drink blood, or vampires attending a boarding school in the night class while 'normal' humans attend the day class.

The GREAT thing is though, is that Vampire Knight uses all these things very well. They have there classifications of vampires, the hot troubled main characters, older characters who know more than they lead on, etc.

Vmapire Knight also does something that is perfect to keep readers interested in a manga:
1) A possible love triangle
2) Adults in the story who know things the other main characters don't
3) A main character whose life is possibly in danger
and 4) Side characters who are interesting but you know little about (very vampire)


Vampire Knight takes you basic vampire/human-love story and perfects it with great story lines and believable characters. Highly Recommend.

To be quite honest, I think the only really good part of this manga is the art. However even so the talking bubbles can be confusing and all the characters are too "undeniably beautiful". It's a beautiful style but just having good art isn't enough.

It's boring. I'll admit at first I thought I was curious and found it interesting. But over time, the repitiveness becomes annoying and irritating. It seems as if the same three main characters of this manga receive too much attention while all the others, who are probably even better than the main protagonists, receives a very minimum screentime. (Or linetime, w/e)

Yuuki, the main protagonists whom apparently the whole world revolves around, is your typical girl in a romantic story. There's nothing special about her whatsoever.

As for enjoyment... the odd love triangles in this story are appalling. There is much... incest and the story itself is confusing at points. I also think that the author, Matsuri Hino, is merely beating around the bush and isn't getting straight forward to the important parts in the story. I think in her attempts to lengthen the manga, she is just adding in bits of boring panels.

VK is not a manga to be taken seriously. After 93 chapters of devotion: hoping that characters would evolve, that you would get some satisfaction or at least closure, you get absolutely nothing - only the bitter taste of disappointment.

Story 6/10:

There’s a great sense of mystery in the beginning, and the relationship between Yuki, Kaname and Zero is so deliciously mysterious and drama-filled that it’s easy to get hooked. You have the basic ingredients for a love triangle and lots of angst. You have the taboo vampire/human relationship and the beauty of longing for something out of reach. There was a sort of self-deprecating love/frustration going on with the characters that made you bounce back-and-forth between your feelings for them. So there's initially a lot going on for the story. With that being said, the beginning relied a lot on unknown factors of each character – so their past and motivations – but once that gets cleared (to a certain point) the intrigue drops significantly.

The premise is a no brainer and isn’t too convoluted: vampire school and the stigma between vampire/human relationships; perhaps that’s why it worked. As the story progressed it feels as though the author tried to take her story a little too seriously and added way too many subplots. It became too messy and a lot of characters were lost along the way (no closure) because Hino tried to have too many things happen at once.

After the first arc ends (so approximately after the first 10-12 volumes) that’s when things go completely downhill. The plot begins to become inconsistent with too many plot holes, things are introduced and never fully explained. There are too many scenes that seem to have deeper meaning but they really don’t – they’re for pure ascetic reasons or simply ‘filler’. The last arc until the very end is a complete waste of time. It just became boring and the sense of the mysterious forbidden was practically non-existence, becoming simply ‘a race against time story’. There was too much re-hashing and it became all too glaringly obvious (or confusing since Hino DOESN’T explain). A lot of things took place that seemed to have no impact or significance to the story as a whole.

For anyone who was a fan of the manga, many feel disappointed and angry (such as me) because we invested in the story only to be left with utter BS. So many questions are not solved and there are a lot of things you are left to presume.

It had potential and it started off well enough; however, it feels as though Hino gave up after the first arc ended and didn’t know what to do with the second part. It’s a bit of a mess, but the beginning is worth a look.

Characters 5/10:

This is where disappointment hits you the hardest. I can initially accept characters’ faults in the beginning, so Yuki is a naïve and helpless girl that seems to be a little too clueless. She has a contradicting mix of selflessness and selfishness that sometimes leaves you mind boggled at her daftness. Initially it works for the story; however, when the story progress and the plot ‘thickens’ there has to be some character development, so some maturity on Yuki’s part. Well there’s little to none that happens. Instead I would say Yuki becomes even more transparent, selfish and desperate, to the point that you forget that she’s even the main protagonist and not a crutch for the main male leads to fight over or protect.

The focus turns to the only decent character in the story, Kaname, and you wonder if VK is truly about Yuki. Kaname is a redeeming quality of the manga; he’s vastly superior because he’s such a complex and contradicting character. His manipulation, intelligence, obsession, selflessness and mystery, is what drives the story. He’s really the only character that is never fully predictable and every decision he makes impacts the story and all the other characters. The other male characters are not as engaging or interesting as Kaname. Zero constantly remains the broody, revenge-driven emo that remains very much pathetic until the very end. Everyone else remain the same predictable stock characters, they’re there for exposition sake.

Art 10/10: It is a truly beautiful manga, perhaps it’s one of the reason why I stuck around reading the story until the end (without counting Kaname). All the characters are beautifully drawn and there's a lot attention to detail. The scenery and the character design is a real treat.

Enjoyment 5/10: Beginning is all good but the second part is pure rubbish. It will leave you ripping your hair in frustration and end with great regret or disappointment.

Overall 6/10: The first arc is worth the read but the enjoyment drops significantly that once it ended, it left me feeling sad and frustrated. There’s little closure, the character development is poor and it leaves you hating the manga more then you should.