Vampire Knight Guilty Volume 1

There may be spoilers ahead. So while there’s moonlight and music and love and ro – 
Sorry. Got carried away there by the heady Gothic atmosphere of Vampire Knight Guilty. But there may indeed be spoilers ahead in this review, so tread carefully.

And…we’re back.

Vampire Knight Guilty picks up where Vampire Knight left off. Pureblood vampire Shizuka Hio is dead. The main suspect is Zero Kiryu, and Zero’s identical twin Ichiru, who was Shizuka’s faithful servant, swears vengeance on the brother whose existence he has always bitterly resented. But we know that the killer was…

Confused? Yes, me too. So, to retrace our steps a little,

Yuki and Zero’s adoptive father , Kaien Cross, has created Cross Academy, an elite boarding school, with a Day Class for mortals and a Night Class for young vampires. The Day Class idolize the gorgeous Night Class but are only allowed glimpses of their good-looking counterparts, policed (with difficulty) by Guardians Yuki and Zero. When she was little, Yuki was rescued from a Level E (feral) vampire by Kaname, the pureblood elite leader of the vampires, and Zero was rescued from Shizuka who murdered his parents. But Zero, bitten by Shizuka, is fast becoming a vampire and will sink to a crazed Level E unless he receives the blood of a pureblood. Yuki, torn between her affection for her ‘brother’ and her confused feelings for Kaname, her rescuer, has been letting Zero drink her blood to try to keep him from losing his sanity. And then Shizuka arrives, with a sinister agenda of her own and Zero meets his twin again…

The Vampire Senate sends representatives to execute Zero for the murder of Shizuka – but they are stopped by Kaname. There are hints of a much darker conspiracy afoot in the world of the vampires, a conspiracy that may be linked with the tragic deaths of Kaname’s parents. And now Yuki begins to remember confusing fragments of her past. Why is she so drawn to Kaname? And why is he so protective toward her?

Zero, still working for the Hunters Society, is dispatched to keep watch at a Vampire Gala taking place at the underground villa of the Aido family. This leads to a brief but ominous encounter with Ichiru, his twin, now working for the Vampire Sentae, who leaves him with a warning about the Cursed Twins. By innocently offering to help a lost child with different-coloured eyes, Yuki has managed to end up in a room at the villa too. Waking from a trance to find herself in a windowless chamber, she thinks she may have been there before and suffers a disturbing flashback that makes her determined to try to find out about her past.

In the third episode ‘The Azure Portrait, ’Aido ‘runs away’ from the Moon Dorm (all the other students have gone home for the vacation) and imposes on Yuki and Zero. Aido obviously has something on his mind but he doesn’t unburden himself to the two Guardians. Instead, we see an extended flashback to his first childhood meeting with Kaname, and learn more about their shared past. By the fourth episode, ‘Devil’s Awakening,’ Yuki and Zero are off with Yagari-sensei to the Hunters Society to try to learn more about Yuki’s missing childhood years. Their researches lead to surprising revelations for the both of them – although no answers, as yet. And as one of the other Night Class members, Senri, goes home to see his mother, an even more sinister surprise is awaiting him in the depths of the cellar– something that will also bring about terrible repercussions for Yuki and Kaname. 

The anime version makes a decent attempt to bring mangaka Matsuri Hino’s bishonen characters to life on the screen, the character designs remaining recognizably faithful to her drawings. The musical score by Takefumi Hiketa (Antique Bakery) does much to enhance the atmosphere of Gothic gloom with melancholy piano passages, chanting voices, and tolling bells. And, as we all know now, vampires and their blood-sucking habits are a potent metaphor for sexual desires and the act itself, with all the implied associated risks and forbidden pleasures of sharing bodily fluids. And, of course, Vampire Knight is not the only a vampire story around set in a high school positively brimming over with pheromones as young people awaken to their own sexuality. The vampire students can scent freshly-spilt blood from a great way off and, although they take blood tablets to suppress their natural urges, sometimes that’s just not enough. Nevertheless, certain horror story clichés occur and recur: in these episodes, we have Yuki dropping a plate and picking up the broken shards, only to cut her finger! Blood drips…the inevitable follows.

In fact, how you, the viewer, feel about Yuki as heroine will probably affect your view of the series. Possibly the heroine with the largest eyes in manga/anime after Tohru Honda (Fruits Basket), Yuki is sometimes depicted as a lovable, comical klutz, sometimes the feisty Guardian, and at, other times, the vulnerable little girl lost. She’s supposed to be steely in her determination to save Zero at all costs, but then she’s heard saying pluckily, “I feel refreshed after crying all night.”

Apart from Vic Mignogna’s excellent performance as both tormented Kiryu twins (Mamoru Miyano is also good), I confess that I prefer the Japanese cast over the US overall, in spite of a lively English script – although Ethan Murray is improving as Kaname.

It’s worth noting that the new Opening Theme ‘Rondo’ is by ON/OFF and Ending Theme ‘Suna no Oshiro’ is by Kanon Wakeshima; the same artists who provided the Opening and Ending Themes for Vampire Knight. And, as before, there are no extras.

In Summary
Intriguing and moodily dark, these first four episodes will please fans of Vampire Knight eager to find out how the story continues; however, new viewers will probably not want to start here.