REVIEW: ‘Vampire Knight’, Vol. 5 with Story and Artwork by Matsuri Hino

Vampire Knight (2008), vol.5 with story and art­work by Mat­suri Hino, is an ongo­ing series that is syn­di­cated in Shojo Beat mag­a­zine pub­lished by Viz Media in the US. Vo.5 col­lects Feb thru June 2008 issues.

This manga is avail­able in paper­back and is rated for older teens. The retail cost is $8.99 and story reads from right to left.

Vam­pire Knight serves up plenty of angst, drama, vam­pire pol­i­tics and romance to make this one of my favorite series. Vol­ume 5 does not disappoint.

To briefly recap, the Cross Acad­emy is attended by two sets of stu­dents: The Night Class and the Day Class. The Night Class con­sists of vam­pires and are led by aris­to­crat pure­blood, Kuname Kuran. The humans in the Day Class are unaware that they are attend­ing school with vam­pires. Guardians Yuki Cross and Zero Kiryu are appointed to ensure that the humans remain obliv­i­ous and that two classes do not cross paths.

Paci­fist Head­mas­ter Cross thinks that humans and vam­pires can co-exist in peace if only they are given the oppor­tu­nity to under­stand each other. His social exper­i­ment may be more than he bar­gained for since the peace within the vam­pire com­mu­nity seems ten­u­ous. There are oth­ers who oppose the peace between vam­pires and humans.

Yuki, the adopted daugh­ter of Head­mas­ter Cross, is aware of what the Night Class is since she was ran­domly attacked but luck­ily saved from a rogue vam­pire ten years ago. Kuname was the vam­pire who saved her and since that day she has devel­oped a spe­cial rela­tion­ship with him even though she later finds him both “fright­ful and kind.”

Dis­ci­pli­nary com­mit­tee mem­ber, Zero Kiryu came from a fam­ily of vam­pire hunters. His entire fam­ily was mur­dered leav­ing him the only sur­vivor of a vam­pire attack. He is also taken in by Head­mas­ter Cross and is given blood tablets to pre­vent his need for human blood. Alas, the blood tablets do not take and are not enough to sup­press Zero’s true nature. Only Yuki, Head­mas­ter Cross and Kuname know Zero’s secret.

The vam­pire that mur­dered Zero’s fam­ily was a pure­blood who goes by the name of Shizuka Hio. The moti­va­tion behind the attack is addressed in this entry. It is a story that engen­ders the reader to feel some­what sym­pa­thetic towards Shizuka.

Shizuka Hio and Zero do meet face to face. She pos­sesses the body of Maria Kure­nai and attends The Cross Acad­emy as a trans­fer stu­dent. She even brings along his twin brother, Kiryu Ichiru, who Zero thought dead. Zero has sworn revenge against the vam­pire who made him what he despises. He gets his chance at revenge but the story pro­duces a dif­fer­ent outcome.

In vol.5, we learn that Zero is being held respon­si­ble for Shizuka’s death and that the Sen­ate, com­posed of pure­blood vam­pires, has ordered his exe­cu­tion. The Sen­ate is the reg­u­lat­ing body of law for vam­pires. Kuname being a pure­blood, is moved to pro­tect Zero and blocks the actions of the Sen­ate but at what cost? Kuname seems pre­oc­cu­pied lately and his actions from the pre­vi­ous two entries promises to be the start of an inter­est­ing new development.

Pure­bloods are rare and pow­er­ful vam­pires. Lin­eage is very impor­tant as are the laws gov­ern­ing their soci­ety. Pure­bloods have unique pow­ers in that they can seal human mem­o­ries and pos­sess the body of unsus­pect­ing humans. Drink­ing the blood of a pure­blood allows for the trans­fer of their pow­ers. Also, to kill a pure­blood is to sign your own death warrant.

As for the romance, well, Yuki knows Zero’s secret: that he’s a vam­pire. She also knows that he is barely con­trol­ling his blood­lust. How­ever, she has cho­sen to pro­tect him against oth­ers and most impor­tantly, against him­self. Yuki does a taboo thing in that she allows Zero to drink her blood in order to pre­vent him from turn­ing into a Level E vam­pire (rogue vam­pire). Zero hates to do it but often times his need for blood over­rides his best intentions.

Both Zero and Kuname each have feel­ings for Yuki. Often Yuki is caught in the mid­dle of these two vam­pires and she is often used as a polit­i­cal pawn against both men. The dynam­ics of their rela­tion­ship is ever evolv­ing and in this entry, their rela­tion­ship is fur­ther complicated.

There is plenty of angst, drama, romance and pol­i­tics to enjoy in here. I think the char­ac­ters are drawn even more clearly in this entry and the ten­sion is amped up a notch and the story arc is moved fur­ther along. I can’t wait to read what hap­pens next. Must men­tion that the end­ing is very touch­ing and some­what heartbreaking.

Again, this is one of my favorite series. I think romance fans would enjoy Vam­pire Knight and while each entry see­saws back and forth in com­plex­ity, vol.5 proves to be one of the bet­ter entries in this won­der­ful series. There is much that I left out so do pick up your copy soon.

My grade for Vam­pire Knight, vol.5 is a B+. There is a lot to enjoy in here. The art­work is awe­some as are the men who are beau­ti­fully drawn. Do your­self a favor and check out this series. Vam­pire Knight gets a B+ from moi.

For Fur­ther Reading

• Vam­pire Knight Story & Art by Mat­suri Hino
• REVIEW: Vam­pire Knight, vol.2 by Mat­suri Hino
• Ikigami: The Ulti­mate Limit, Motoro Mase (Author, Illustrator)
• Under­whelmed with “Chil­dren of the Sea” by Daisuke Igarashi
• Reviews Of Two Note­wor­thy Graphic Novel(s)
• Real (Vol.4), Take­hiko Inoue (Manga)
• REVIEW: ‘Girl Got Game’ by Shizuru Seino
• REVIEW: ‘Mon­ster’ Story & Art­work by Naoki Urasawa
• REVIEW: Blood Alone by Masayuki Takano (vol.4)
• REVIEW: Vagabond, Story & Art by Take­hiko Inoue

Tagged as: Manga, Matsuri Hino, Vampire Knight