subject: Vampire Knight Episodes Are Full Of Clever Elements And Spins [print this page] The tagline for this show really ought to be "Twilight Done Right!" Just teasing, put down the pitchforks. It is a highly entertaining series though, and I think Twilight fans who like a good vampire tale, should give it a try. I like vampires (in small doses) and I like stories about boarding school life, so it was startlingly appealing to me from the get go. It also threads really clever elements and spins on themes throughout it which a casual viewer might miss. You really have to pay attention.
The story starts off with our plucky heroine, Yuuki, being rescued as a child by Hot Love Interest #1, Kaname. Kaname is a vampire, but one of the good ones, or so Yuuki and the audience assumes. The story skips ahead a few years and Yuuki is now a teenager. This is when the story shifts slightly from a classic vampire tale to a boarding school drama. Yuuki has been adopted by the chairman of the private school and is helping with the running of an experiment: to see if vampires and humans can co-exist peacefully. The school is divided between the Day Class (the humans) and the Night Class (guess). The vampires attend classes like normal students, just with a little more lounging and a little less studying, and try to satisfy their cravings with something called blood tablets. Yuuki and Hot Love Interest #2, Zero, help keep everyone in line with their awesome prefect powers, though the most daunting part of their job seems to be dealing with the human fan girls rather than the super powerful vampires. But just when Yuuki's strange life starts to become routine, her partner, Zero, starts getting growly with the head of the vampire students, Kaname. Yup, the same Kaname who rescued her years ago. And then Zero starts getting REALLY weird and a new teacher with a lot of scars shows up...
As I said before, the show does a good job of taking something that should be trite and does subtle changes to it. For one, the vampires never cease being otherworldly and scary. The best example of it is Aidou (or Idol as everyone nicknames him). He is the stereotypical sunny boy that functions as heart throb and comic relief, until he gets angry or just bored. Then Yuuki and Zero usually have to pry him off someone's jugular. It's unsettling and it's good that it's unsettling. It reinforces that as romantic as they might seem, or as rational, vampires don't function on the same wave length as humans. This is in fact rather crucial to Yuuki's character development. She's starting to realize that not all vampires are as nice as her Kaname and in fact, there might be more going on in his pretty head than he lets on.
I am liking all of the characters in this, which is rare for shoujo. The main character is usually flatter than cardboard, because everyone is supposed to be able to see themselves in her. Even though there is a reason for it, it doesn't make for an interesting character. Yuuki might be a bit "every girl", but she is winning with her spunkiness and her confusion as events unfold is completely believable, especially from a teenager. Also in stories that feature a love triangle there usually is one obvious True Love and one obvious Here For Conflict. It's not fun if you know from the first episode who the girl (or guy) is going to end up with. But with Vampire Knight, I really can't tell! And the person I think the show is leaning towards, isn't necessarily the one people were expecting. Fun times.
If you're a fan of vampire stories, love triangles, or just plain ol' school dramas, give this show a try! It's a bit on the slow side, most shoujo usually is, but you get the feeling with each new episode that it's building towards something big and catastrophic. I can't wait for DVD volume three to come out!
