Review for Vampire Knight: Volume 3

Introduction

You still can't change the audio or the subtitles on the fly, and your player's display will be locked to title time elapsed while the disc is being spun. But you know, I'm beginning not to mind so much now that Vampire Knight has revealed itself to be quite the entertaining diversion. UPOPs are still the work of the devil though, and need to be eliminated. It's also everything that I have come to loathe about the vampire genre, moody, handsome vampires making teenaged girls go squee, but if there is one thing that anime excels at, it's moody handsome character designs that make teenaged girls go squee. It's a natural fit, but Vampire Knight backs it up with a compelling story and some very well thought out characterisations. I have been anticipating this third volume, despite the low episode count.


The Cross Academy is a boarding school with a difference. It's also the venue for a unique social experiment, where vampires are trying to co-exist with humans. Of course the humans can't know about this, so the school is divided into the Day Class and the Night Class, and the only time that the human students interact with the vampires is at twilight, when the classes change and the Day Class return to their dorm. All they know is that the Night Class is full of handsome boys and beautiful girls, aristocratic and elegant. It's down to the Guardians to keep from the Day Class from learning the truth about the Night Class, two students, Yuki Cross and Zero Kiryu who have to protect the humans, should the worst happen. The school's headmaster adopted Yuki when she was five, after a trauma that left her with amnesia, while Zero's own traumatic past has left him with an abiding hatred of vampires, and a secret that he keeps hidden.

The next three episodes of Vampire Knight are presented on this disc from Manga Entertainment.


8. Gunshot of Sorrow
Following recent events, you wouldn't be surprised that Kaname is being even more moody and isolated than usual, even retiring to his room away from his fellow student vampires. It's the worst possible time for this, as Ichijo's grandfather is paying the Night Dorm a visit, and he's very highly placed in vampire society. Kaname will have to be at the top of his game if he is to match wits with Asato 'Ichio' Ichijo. Zero's got other problems, with the Hunters' Society wanting to assure that he still has the skills to eliminate vampires. Zero gets his first mission to find and eliminate a Level E vampire. Of course when Yuki sees him sneaking out of school, she has to follow. But she isn't the only one watching Zero.


9. Crimson Gaze
The heat between the Day Class and the Night Class is more blistering than ever, as the school ball approaches, the one night when vampires and humans can ostensibly intermingle, and all of the Day Class girls are planning their strategies as to how to ask the elegant Night Class boys out. That means that Zero and Yuki have to work twice as hard in their roles as Guardians. If that isn't enough, a new student is transferring in to the Night Class, a grey haired vampire named Maria Kurenai. She brings her own masked servant with her, and it also looks as if she isn't too concerned about following, or even learning the school's rules. It isn't long before she is turning the establishment on its head, playing mind games with Yuki and even Kaname. But it's when she encounters Zero that the situation ignites, and he pulls a gun on her. Apparently Maria is a distant relative of Shizuka Hio, the pureblood vampire that slaughtered Zero's family. And the resemblance is waking long buried memories in him.


10. The Princess of Darkness
Naturally Zero warns Yuki away from Maria, and with good reason. She isn't just a distant relative… Naturally Zero goes to confront her, and once again he misses Yuki stealthily following him. It's an inconclusive face-off, as it turns out that a 'Servant' can't act against the vampire that turned him. Yuki wants to intervene, but Kaname is there to stop her, and mask her memories. That isn't good enough for Maria, as she has plans of her own for Yuki. When she remembers what happened, Maria is there to make Yuki an offer, a way of stopping Zero's eventual degeneration into a level E. If that isn't shocking enough, Maria's masked servant pays Zero a visit, but Zero doesn't even need him to remove the mask to recognise who it is, someone he had considered dead these last four years.

Picture

Vampire Knight gets a 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer, which as is often the case, is an NTSC-PAL standards conversion. That said, it's an exceptionally good one, clear and smooth throughout, with no ghosting or judder immediately apparent, and signs of blended frames at a minimum. The only telltale is the overall softness inherited from a lower resolution image. Vampire Knight is a series that is originally aimed at the wobbly-kneed demographic, so you can expect a whole lot of pretty male characters in this show, tall, elegant, moody, while aside from Yuki herself, most of the female character designs are fairly generic. The world design is stylised but effective and quite detailed, but I did feel that the overall animation was static, or it saved up most of the animation for the action sequences. This is a show where you expect to see a whole lot of rose petals fluttering past moody tableaux.

Sound

You have a choice between DD 2.0 Surround English and Japanese, with player locked signs for the English track, and player locked translated subtitles for the Japanese track. The sound is fit for purpose, and opting for the Japanese track, I found that a favourite voice actress of mine, Yui Horie was voicing Yuki, which certainly added to the show's appeal for me. The dialogue is clear, and the theme songs are the expected power ballads to go with the romantic vampire action. The surround sound is appreciated, but it's hardly a surround intensive show. The English dub didn't immediately strike me as amazing, but it's not immediately bad either. I'm sure dub fans will be perfectly satisfied with it. There needs to be an English cast credit reel after the programme, as the credits aren't translated.

Conclusion

I'm debating whether or not to just cut and paste from the previous review, for my reaction to this latest volume of Vampire Knight is unchanged. It's still the attractive, entertaining, and flawed vampire anime, and once again, it's the strength of its characterisations that lifts it head and shoulders above its peers. You want to know how the story unfolds because the characters are so nuanced and interesting. In these respects, you could say that Vampire Knight maintains its high level of quality, and delivers much the same as before. In other words, this review really is one big ditto.


Of course the contents of the disc differ, the story does move ahead, and there are some hefty revelations to get the blood pumping a little faster, to deliver that little jolt you get when you happen upon a deft turn in narrative. Early on though, it seems as if we are heading more into a storyline cul-de-sac, when we venture into the comparatively dry world of vampire politics, as Ichijo's grandfather pays a visit to the Night Dorm. Everyone is on edge at the arrival of such a high bigwig, and the meeting between Ichio and Kaname is more an undeclared war than it is a social gathering, with veiled words and hidden motivations. The air is tense, frictions intensify, and sides are chosen. But it is hard to see just what this means in terms of the Kaname, Zero, and Yuki triangle.


If this does have one useful point to make, it's to emphasise just what a lofty position pureblood vampires like Kaname hold in vampire society, which makes all the difference to the next development in the story. This is the interesting stuff on this disc, two and a half episodes worth, as Zero's past comes back to haunt him with a vengeance, and we learn exactly what happened to his family all those years ago, that left him orphaned and well on the way to becoming a vampire. The arrival of a new student unleashes mayhem in the Night Class, and drives Zero further down the path to madness. Maria has only a passing similarity to Shizuka Hio, that woman responsible for the murder of Zero's family, but it's enough to awaken Zero's barely concealed hatred. Of course nothing is as it appears, and Maria's connection to Shizuka is a shocking one, making it impossible for Zero to act. And then there is the temptation that she offers Yuki… What makes it really interesting is that it's Kaname that recommends Maria for the Night Class, bringing his motives into question.


Once again, Vampire Knight really is a series that I shouldn't like, but its storytelling and characterisations lift it way above the average. Low episode count and the disc's technical issues fade into insignificance when the story is this compelling. Vampire Knight really is a show worth checking out.