Well, my latest craze is Hino Matsuri's "Vampire Knight". It's an ongoing series which has apparently taken the manga and anime world by storm this year. And yours truly is definitely going along for the ride - blood, fangs and all.
The series starts with a little girl who is lost in the snow and has no recollection of her past. A rogue vampire sees her and intends to suck her blood, but is killed by another vampire before being able to do so. With bloodstained hands, he then reaches out to the little girl. Even though she is terrified by the attack on her, she trustingly puts her small, mittened hand into his outstretched one and he holds her close in a tight embrace...
Fast forward to the present day. Cross Academy prefect Yuuki Cross is once again trying (and failing) to push away the hordes of Day Class students - the majority of which are girls - from the gates of the Moon Dorm, where the Night Class students reside. The gate opens and a group of gorgeous people walk out - they are the Night Class students.
The series starts with a little girl who is lost in the snow and has no recollection of her past. A rogue vampire sees her and intends to suck her blood, but is killed by another vampire before being able to do so. With bloodstained hands, he then reaches out to the little girl. Even though she is terrified by the attack on her, she trustingly puts her small, mittened hand into his outstretched one and he holds her close in a tight embrace...
Fast forward to the present day. Cross Academy prefect Yuuki Cross is once again trying (and failing) to push away the hordes of Day Class students - the majority of which are girls - from the gates of the Moon Dorm, where the Night Class students reside. The gate opens and a group of gorgeous people walk out - they are the Night Class students.
Yuuki is promptly stampeded by the fangirls and falls on her bottom. A concerned voice asks her "Yuuki.. Are you okay?" A young man wearing the white uniform of the Night Class reaches out to help her up and she has a flashback of the incident that happened 10 years ago.
This is Kuran Kaname - Leader of the Moon Dorm and vampire extraordinaire. He was the vampire who saved little Yuuki in the snowstorm 10 years ago and is her secret crush. Just as he fondles Yuuki's head affectionately, a hand grabs Kaname's arm and pulls it away. This is Kiryuu Zero, another school prefect like Yuuki.
To the Day Class students, the two prefects are just students who take care of disciplinary matters in the academy, but in reality, their jobs are much more important than that. They are the school Guardians, responsible for keeping the Day Class and Night Class away from each other, guarding the school from danger, and also to prevent the truth from leaking out that the Night Class students are actually vampires.
Vampires have been very popular lately in works of fiction. It's not hard to see why. Vampires nowadays are depicted as unnaturally beautiful beings who have superior abilities compared to normal people - perfect predators. Of course, we mustn't forget the detail that they live off fresh blood, particularly that of humans.
And since we're still on the subject of vampires, my all time favourite vampire novel is "Twilight" by Stephenie Meyer. They're making it into a movie! I really, really hope they don't mess it up like other novel adaptations.
Anyway, I've finished reading all the available chapters (39 chapters and counting!) of the Vampire Knight manga online at OneManga today. So far there are only 4 episodes of the anime available. Character development is pretty smooth and detailed, while the plot is very intriguing with lots of twists and turns. Courage, loyalty, romance, power, conspiracies and even a little bit of incest can be found in this dark yet fascinating story. There's even some lighthearted comedy thrown in, although it is noticeably reduced in later chapters as the story progresses.
Well, it's up to you to decide...
Do you want to descend into the darkness of eternal night?
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