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Vampire Knight: The Complete Series

Score: 92%
Rating: Not Rated
Publisher: Viz Media
Region: 1
Media: DVD/2
Running Time: 325 Mins.
Genre: Anime/Drama/TV Series
Audio: English Stereo, Japanese Stereo
Subtitles: English

Features:

  • Relationship Chart
  • Trailers

Vampire Knight: The Complete Series is the anime based on Matsuri Hino's manga of the same name. It's a vampire story, a love triangle, and a story of privilege and scandal. It covers a lot of ground in 13 episodes, but unfortunately, seems to be cut short (the story doesn't seem to end where it should, usually a good indication that the anime finished before the manga did). There is a new series called Vampire Knight: Guilty that starts where this series leaves off. Nevertheless, it's a good story, and a good bit of romantic vampire indulgence for fans of the genre.

The story of Vampire Knight has its twists and turns, but basically it is the story of an experiment in vampire/human relations. Kaien Cross, headmaster of Cross Academy, hopes to prove that vampires and humans can coexist. His school has a day class and a night class. Vampires attend the night class, and humans attend the day class. Yuki and Zero, however, are the only students who know the secret that the night class is comprised of vampires. As the school's disciplinary committee, they see that there are no "incidents" between the two classes, though the task seems less and less achievable every day. The balance is only delicately maintained, mainly by the powerful pureblood vampire, Kaname. Kaname, however, is mainly interested in getting closer to Yuki. And Yuki's partner Zero has some terrible secrets of his own.

The series is nicely animated, with a good balance between action and still shots. It's not an over-the-top big budget anime, and to be honest, there's not a whole lot of action, but it's still easy on the eyes. Thankfully, it's not totally a soap opera style - "look at face, pan, look at other face, pan." There's some delightful, moody music to go along with the series, as well as some great j-pop tracks for the opening and ending themes. The ending theme is "Still Doll," a really unique, moody piece by Kanon Wakeshima. There's a link to it at the end of this article.

I reserve my right to be a voice acting snob for the right occasions. In Vampire Knight, the English language performance of the main characters can be a little stiff. The most tragic example is Kaname, the quintessential romantic, brooding vampire. He should be calm, and reserved, calculating every word, and able to strike someone down with a mere whisper. Instead, he seems to be just slowly reading a book. It really does kill a character when things like this are done. If you can get past the shortcomings, the overall English performance is acceptable, but I'd recommend going with the Japanese language track otherwise.

The packaging is completely fan-indulgent, with pictures of a tortured Zero and a contemplative Kaname on either side. As far as extras, there isn't much. A set of relationship charts clears up any doubts over relationships in the series that might not have been fully explained in the rush to complete the series. There's also a sampler of the manga included. Overall this is a good series, and addictive if you love mysterious vampires and have any kind of anime fan(girl) in you.



-Fights with Fire, GameVortex Communications
AKA Christin Deville

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