Vampire Knight Vol. #1
© Viz Media

Mania Grade: B+
Released By: Viz Media UK
MSRP: £5.99 each
Pages: 192
Size: B6
Orientation: Right to Left

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Vampire Knight Vol. #1 and #2

Cross Academy is attended by two groups of students, the Day Class and the Night Class. At twilight, when the students of the Day Class return to their dorm, they cross paths with the Night Class on their way to school. Yuki Cross and Zero Kiryu are the Guardians of the school, protecting the Day Class from the academy's dark secret: the Night Class is full of vampires!

Yuki Cross has no memory of her past prior to the moment she was saved from a vampire attack ten years ago. She was adopted by the headmaster of Cross Academy and now works alongside Zero to guard the academy's secret. Yuki believes that vampires and humans can coexist peacefully but her partner has different ideas…

Vampires, dark secrets, and the occasional gun - oh my!  On paper, Vampire Knight certainly isn't lacking much.  With classes by day and their Guardian duties by night, Yuki and Zero are certainly never lacking for things to do.  Yuki's a bit of a ditz, to be honest - it's more circumstance than skill that has landed her with her Guardian role, although she's slowly becoming more proficient at holding her own.  She's also a determined optimist, believing that vampires and humans can live together, despite having almost fallen victim to one so many years ago.  Peaceful co-existence is also what the Cross Academy is trying to foster (despite keeping the vampire students firmly separate and the fact that they're vampires secret - best not to wonder about these things), so in a way she's in her element.

Zero is another matter, though.  Like Yuki, he's had tangles with vampires in the past, but unlike Yuki he's not so forgiving.  He also has A Secret revealed quite early in the series that will probably force him to reconsider his desire to wipe vampires out.  He's the dark and broody sort, with not much in his personality to make him stand out at the beginning, but as this volume goes on he slowly becomes more understandable - if not likeable.

Being a shoujo series, all the males in Vampire Knight (with the possible exception of the school principal) are unbelievably good-looking, with the girls swooning over them at every opportunity - especially the vampires, on the rare occasions when the Day and Night classes get to meet.  Fortunately, Yuki (and what few other girls you get to see) are equally easy on the eyes - this is a nicely-drawn piece of work, with plenty of the detail and flair that you expect from a shoujo manga.

The second volume puts some of the fun aspects of the story to one side for a while in favour of a more serious tale, with a turn in events that leaves Zero thoroughly dependent on Yuki, and Yuki engaging in severely taboo activities with him kept me thoroughly engrossed.  I can't remember the last time I saw a lead character so heavily in trouble so early in the series, and while I don't doubt that some way will be found around the problem, I like the way the problem is being dealt with.

While Zero takes up a large chunk of the story, though, the other aspects haven't been forgotten, with some decent action pieces filling the story out, a few scenes with the other Vampires to give the ladies something to swoon over, and the arrival of Toga on the scene and the explanation of the hierarchy of Vampires help to flesh out the mythology of the world the story is set in a bit.  The volume is rounded out the a set of bonus strips that are far more on the comedy side of things than the main story, and lighten the tone a little bit.

The more I read of Vampire Knight the more I like it - it's not the most original of subjects, but the way the link between humans and vampires is being dealt with here is making for a really enjoyable story, with some good twists and turns along the way.  A real page-turner, and highly recommended.