The Vampire Knight: Gothy and Blood-Sucking...Yes, please

[dangermousie]

I’ve been sort of working on this post on and off again for a bit, but finally, here it is. My love can no longer be suppressed. I have fallen in love with a manga!

Giddy, gleeful, ‘oh, this is going to be so angsty and romantic and doomed’ kinda love.

The manga of choice? The Vampire Knight by the same woman who did MeruPuri which I gleed about some months back.


(l-r: Zero, Yuki, and Kaname)

But where MP is cute and cracky and fluffy, TVK is gothy and dark and angsty. But still with that gorgeous, quasi-Victorian style artwork.

The story? TVK is rather like Buffy on crack. Yes, there is fighting the vampires and schools and angsty love and awesome hair. In the TVK world, vampires exist. Some manage to live comfortably with humans. Most fight a war instead, even if the populace is unaware of their existence.

Yuki, our heroine, has no memories of her life before she was five years old. At five, she was saved from a hungry vampire by good-looking and mysterious Kaname (himself a vampire) and found herself an adopted daughter of an eccentric schoolmaster. Now 15, she is a Day Student in her father’s Cross Academy, a school that also has a Night Class, a class composed entirely of young vampires who are willing to go along with her father’s quixotic plan to bring harmony between the species. The leader of said Night Class? Kaname, the hunky vampire who saved her life and is now the object of her crush.

No students or faculty know the Night Class’ secret except for Yuki, her father, and Zero (yeah, it’s his name. I suppose it sounds cooler in Japanese), an angry but gorgeous guy Yuki’s age who was taken in by Yuki’s father four years ago, after a Master Vampire killed his family. Now he is Yuki’s best friend. Yuki and Zero do the night monitor duty: they patrol and keep both the Night Class’ secret and the Day Class’ safety. If Yuki is the starry-eyed optimist, believing in peaceful coexistence (and even finding Kaname himself hot), Zero is an intense, focused loner, someone who hates vampires and everything they represent.

But. But. But.

And here is where my insane love of this manga comes in and makes Zero my favorite character and gives me another ship in Zero/Yuki (though honestly, I have no idea if the mangaka is going for that or for Kaname/Yuki, and Kaname/Yuki seems more likely). What Yuki herself doesn’t know as the manga opens, but as she is shortly to find out, Zero himself is slowly turning into a vampire, as a result of that attack four years ago, during which he was bitten. Zero, child of a vampire hunting clan, someone who wants to avenge his family, is turning into the thing he hates most, and he knows it.

Stick a fork in me, I am done. (If you want a rather spoilery and a bit ‘eeeee, vampires are hot’ take on Zero/Yuki, with some awesome pics, go here.



Zero and Yuki:











Zero getting his freak on? Methinks the mangaka has watched too much Sayuki :D



Cover of the first volume (l-r Zero, Yuki, Kaname):




Panel showing Night Class students:



Most of them gotten here:
http://www.ochitsuki.net/clandestine/yuuki.php

Comments

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

YAY! You like!

Zero was, by far, my favorite. There's something about Kaname I don't trust, and I don't think I'll really like him unless there's something to that,otherwise, he's just too perfect.

But,the more I think about it, the more I think it'll be Zero/Yuki, unless something happens to make Zero completely different. I think that her thing fr Kanameis no more htan hero worship because he saved her when she was little.

*clicks on link*

*returns after only skimming for triangle hints, and is happy*

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Forget 'like.' Try 'giddy squealing love.'

Yeah, Zero is awesome (though his parents didn't think much of him, did they, with a name like this? :D)

Kaname I find somewhat boring. He is nice, he is good, he is dull. He does do some rather hmmm things later on (if wikipedia article is anything to go by). But hey, who am I kidding? basically Kaname's flaw is that he is not an emo! uber-angsty, self-loathing woobie. And Zero is.

I think it'll be Zero/Yuki, unless something happens to make Zero completely different.

Yes, please! *chants* I've never been so strongly predisposed towards what might not be the OTP before, and I want them to be the OTP so badly. I mean, how could I not ship a couple where the guy makes the girl promise to kill him if he goes off the rails?

her thing fr Kanameis no more htan hero worship because he saved her when she was little.

Yeah, I think so too. I don't really see them as equals actually. But then, hey, I am biased. Of course, if in vamp manga first drink=first kiss, than it's definitely going to be Yuki/Zero :D I have to say the girl has weird ideas of friendship. If I am a good friend with someone, they might borrow my purse or I might buy them lunch. I won't be all 'here, woobie, have a drink.' :D

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I think the fact that Kaname is so nice and perfect is why I actually WANT him to be up to something and plotting...like Aizen in Bleach...he was nice and pleasant and dull, and then suddenly, we learned what was REALLY going on in his head, and he was awesome. I get the feeling, though, that Kaname is what he seems to be.

And Zero/Yuki promises to be the best dark messed up "My true love and I try to kill wach other as part of our courtship" pairing this side of Sara/Ian in Witchblade and Sarasa/Shuri in Basara.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

True. I want him to be plotty and complicated. I guess it depends on how many volumes there are.

"My true love and I try to kill wach other as part of our courtship"

Mmmm. Yes. I need scanlations.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised I've caved in to so few scanslatoins myself, though I suspect that, before long, I'll cave to Basara and Wallflower.

Oh, speaking f, I saw vol 1 of Goong while I was atwaldenbooks today(I was already getting W Juliet, Mugen Spiral, From Far Away and Saiyuki reload, so it stayed where it was)

[crumpeteer.livejournal.com]

Of course Aizen also had the added quality of going hot when he went evil. His defection apparently included a makeover. The double whammy of "cool, he's uber-evil" and "wait, how'd he get hot" were enough to win him more fangirls than the average evil mastermind.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that was "wha--hey--how...? You...you were cute, bookish and sweet. How'd you turn hot, evil and diabolical so fast?" *will never QUITE forgive him for hurting Hinamori the way he did--not so much the hurting, but the how-- and frsming the kid captain(yes, I still have my name issues...) no matter how hot he got*

[crumpeteer.livejournal.com]

Aizen is true Machiavellian evil. Gin's got a little too much crazy in him to attain the true level of methodic evil that Aizen has.

[crumpeteer.livejournal.com]

There's something very untrustworthy about Kaname. I don't think he's the benevolent force that he likes to pretend he is.

Zero, on the other hand, I love. He's hot, angsty and tough (the very fact that he physically kept himself from turning for so long is evidence of just HOW tough). I'm also sort of enamored with the tattoo on his neck. You really don't see tattooes all that often in anime or manga, so it's actually kinda new.

I love the scene where he begs her to kill him. Zero has so very few options left. Yuuki will either save him or destroy him in the long run, and with shifty Kaname involved, I think it's all going to end in tears.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

There's something very untrustworthy about Kaname. I don't think he's the benevolent force that he likes to pretend he is.


I was getting that vibe too but was wondering if I was paranoid (or if my Zero love was blinding me).

I love the scene where he begs her to kill him.

Oh, I love that too. That sort of angst is right up my alley after all :) It's a question of 'when' he'll go mad and blood-thirsty and horrible, not 'if.' The fact that he was able to live with the knowledge of the fact that this will happen to him, and happen soon, and to function, is really impressive.

I love that bit where Yuki remembers first meeting him and remembering that she kept asking his permission to do anything she did (wash the blood off etc) because she thought otherwise he'd shatter. And if you think about it, it's incredibly impressive he's pulled back from that to be functional and live for a bit semi-normally.

think it's all going to end in tears.

Oh definitely. After all, the mangaka was all but cackling about how she was looking forward to doing the doom and angst.

[tatterpunk.livejournal.com]

... heh.

So, I'm finally reading this now, and the reason I'm rooting for Kaname/Yuuki is because I think he's untrustworthy and I think there's more to him than he's telling.

But that probably means the mangaka will go Yuuki/Zero, because I always pick the wrong 'ship. *is sad*

I will admit I didn't really like any pairing -- until we saw the flashback to when the school began and Kaname purposely drove her away. And he keeps doing it! Because he thinks it's best for her! My heart breaks.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

LOL, someone's gotta ship K/Y (actually on a VK forum I went there is a sizeable minority of K/Y shippers, so you are not alone :))

I just don't find Kaname too interesting. He is too superior to her if that makes sense. He is not her equal...

[tatterpunk.livejournal.com]

*sigh* Being in the minority means the ship's doomed, isn't it? *sighs again*

I think one of the problems is I don't think Yuki is interesting. If she was more of a person on her own I'd be up for Z/Y. But I find her... surprisingly blah, considering how much I enjoyed MeriPuri's heroine. I only find Yuki interesting when she's with Kaname, because it's the only time she's in any kind of emotional conflict -- should she fear him or love him, does she trust him with Zero's secret or not, etc. With Zero's it's all unquestioning "of course I'll open a vein! of course I'll take care of you! of course I'll do anything -- even really stupid things -- in the hopes of helping you!"

Zero's pretty yummily angsty, but I need to see the other half of the (possible) OTP in self-doubt as well. Otherwise it's too easy; at this point I don't understand what's keeping them apart except Zero's silence (which I find kinda dumb) and Yuki's admiration of Kaname -- which, if it's just really a childhood crush (and not a possible OTP), I can't consider a great obstacle.

Dude, you don't think Kaname's interesting? But... but... he's so Machiavellian!

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Oh, I think there is plenty keeping Yuki and Zero apart, like the fact that any romance they would have is doomed with a capital D as Zero is going to turn into a ravening monster she has to put down. (which is probably a big chunk of reason for his silence, that plus guilt).

Part of the reason I prefer Z/Y is because I just adore Zero so I automatically want him to get the girl but I actually do like Yuki quite a lot in general. I think she is adorable.

Re: Kaname. I guess he is, if I think about it, but I am still not getting enough about him...a sense of him (if that makes any sense) to care. It's sort of 'he's pretty, myserious and shady.' But none of the way it comes across interests me.

But that's why there are more than one shipper group :)