Vampire Knight vol.2 by Matsuri HinoVam­pire Knight, vol­ume 2 by Mat­suri Hino. I grabbed this manga title off the book­shelf  yes­ter­day and devoured it. I know it’s too early to say this but I am really excited about this series. It’s another inter­est­ing approach to the tra­di­tional vam­pire story. Also it helps that it’s a bit angsty and dark. In Vam­pire Knight, vol. 1, we learn that there is a pres­ti­gious pri­vate school called The Cross Acad­emy that teaches vam­pires about humans in hopes of a peace­ful truce between the two races. The acad­emy  is sep­a­rated into Day Class and Night class stu­dents. The Night class stu­dents of course are vampires. The Day stu­dents as well as some of the staff have no idea  what­so­ever that they are attend­ing school with the undead. Except for head­mas­ter Cross and the dis­ci­pli­nary com­mit­tee Guardians Yuki Cross and Zero Kiryu. At sun­set, the Day class and Night class run into each other. Yuki and Zero are the Guardians who help main­tain the peace between them.

When first intro­duced, we learned that Yukie was attacked by a rogue vam­pire 10 years ago. She sur­vived with no mem­ory prior to the attack. She was adopted by the head­mas­ter of the Acad­emy and made Guardian.  On that ill-fated day Kaname Kuran , a pure-blood vam­pire and aris­to­crat saved her from the attack.  Since then the two have been friends. Then there’s Zero who was attacked by a pure-blood vam­pire that killed his fam­ily. Zero hates vam­pires. Zero also hates him­self. His inner tor­ment with him­self is just beginning.

The sec­ond vol­ume more or less goes into more of Zero’s inner strug­gle but also explores a lit­tle of his past. The author also goes on to explain the dif­fer­ent types of vam­pires that exist in this world. Lin­eage is really important. You have the pure-blood vam­pires who are more or less aris­to­crats and are at the top of the pyra­mid that defines their class struc­ture. Then there’s the vam­pires who were for­merly human. They are viewed as being at the bot­tom of this class struc­ture and are con­sid­ered Level E vam­pires. Level E vam­pires are elim­i­nated because of their destruc­tive nature. They are hated by pure-bloods and exter­mi­nated by vam­pire hunters.

I enjoyed this install­ment and can’t wait to read the rest. What attracts me to this series is that Yuki and Zero have a close rela­tion­ship and are friends. How­ever, will their friend­ship sur­vive past Zero’s self-loathing or will things heat up between them? Yuki thinks she can save Zero but can she? Also there’s Kaname Kuran, a pure-blood vam­pire who is also very inter­ested in Yuki. He knows that Yuki sees him as a polite monster. Can Kuname make her see past that? Things should get inter­est­ing as the series progresses. Now onto packaging. The art­work is nicely done. The men are draw beautifully. This series is ongo­ing with six vol­umes total but only two are cur­rently released. The dia­logue in each panel is leg­i­ble and easy to fol­low. Rat­ing for the series is for Older Teens. This manga is worth check­ing out, B+.