After a childhood of Sailor Moon and Rurouni Kenshin, one of my teenage “second wave” animanga favorites was Vampire Knight. I watched the anime and read the manga as much as was available at the time. I tried keeping up for a couple months, but it dropped off my radar in favor of Naruto. Still, the Vampire Knight anime continues to be one of my “comfort watches.” I turn it on and tune out as nice background noise. Challenging myself to read 150 books seemed as good an excuse as any to devour all twenty volumes in quick succession. Though I place this review on Volume 1, I’ll review the whole series in broadstroke here. No spoilers beyond the first volume.

During the day, Cross Academy is a typical boarding school. Secondary school students do typical school things, such as study, attend dances, and fangirl over unattainable hotties. Yuki and her stepbrother Zero are the strict school Guardians (read: prefects), and the school needs them because of what happens at night. At night, the graduate students exit their isolated dorm and attend classes. Unbeknownst to the general populace, these grad students are vampires. Gasp! This is especially “gasp!” worthy, because vampiric society lives apart from humans and looks down on humans as “livestock.” The founder of Cross Academy wants to change this anti-human prejudice, and has set up the Academy as an experiment in peace. If the younger generations live in closer, peaceful proximity to humans and come to see the humans as people, the future might change.

As this synopsis might suggest, Vampire Knight begins as a more slice-of-life story before disintegrating into a supernatural romantic mystery. With their unique position as Guardians, Yuki and Zero navigate byzantine, vampire plots. The uber depressed vampire Kaname Kuran completes the main trio and love triangle, because this is a vampire story from the ‘00s so of course there’s a love triangle. Clumsy, beautiful, joyful, Yuki Cross is archetypical shōjo heroine. If you’ve seen the anime, know the anime does her a disservice, because she kicks serious ass. Her arc is compelling. I was enthralled with her dedication to joy, even in the most miserable of circumstances. Both Zero and Kaname are Sad Boys Full of Self-Loathing, but go different directions with it. Honestly, with all the narrative foils, erotic rivalry, and parallels among these characters, an air of incest hangs over the series. 

SPOILER:

Then again, there’s literal, full-blooded, and multi-generational incest.

Speaking of things dark and spooky, Vampire Knight is touted as Gothic, and it is, but not in the typical way. The Goth aesthetic is indulged. This manga is brought to you by anime hair and eyeliner, haha. At first, I was dazzled by this heightened beauty, but I was tired of it by Volume 20. The characters looked same-y and only distinguished by how they part their hair. While Cross Academy is a big set piece, it’s no Victorian manor surrounded by mist and decay. In fact, the backgrounds of this series, like the character design, are rather plain. 

Instead, it’s the vampires who represent the cruel, inescapable past. These immortals were literally present for the deep horror and hurt, and not all of them choose to let it go. Kaname fills the role of Byronic, Gothic hero with chilling determination. His stubborn refusal to be happy, despite repeated chances to be so, hit uncomfortably close to home. My interest in his character lessoned over time. He frustrated me. Hino insisted that his self-destructive depression was interesting to the end of the series, after there was really nothing left to say. Kaname’s character arc just hit dead end after dead end. Yes, he’s depressed, we get it! After fifteen volumes, the pain is banal.

Worse, more interesting themes and characters become more mealy-mouthed to make room for Kaname brooding alone in a room yet again. We miss the mess of Zero’s journey towards self-acceptance. After certain events, Cross’s philosophy of peace feels like cheap lip-service, because the narrative refuses to delve into the paradox of tolerance, or take to task its villains. Yuki gains a bunch of powers, but they’re neither explained nor explored. She can Just Do That Now. Society goes through several revolutions and literally a thousand years pass, but technology is stagnant. What’s that about? People throw around the words “being human,” but what does that mean? Vampire Knight has a happy ending, but we hardly get to enjoy it before the series ends. I suppose that’s what Vampire Knight: Memories is for?

All told, Vampire Knight is a middling series. I appreciated the thesis that happiness can’t totally rely on another person, and is more a choice one makes. I’m fully Team Zero. High emotion and melodrama are what I wanted from this series, and it’s what I got. The vampiric twist was quite fun, especially on the standard Gothic damnation resulting from refusal to let the past die. I’d recommend Vampire Knight to those wanting to dip their toes in the genre, or genre vets who want to get into manga and/or turn off their brain and enjoy. It’s angst-riddled fun.