Vampire Knight for me was one of those inexplicable series where I lost patience with the manga, but fell heads over heels in love with the anime. I was perusing the manga section at Borders a little while back and decided to flip through the first volume, but I couldn’t get very far into it at all. It might have been a combination of the heavily stylized artwork (which usually doesn’t phase me; in fact one of the reasons why I checked it out was because I really admire the character design for the series), typical plot intro, or maybe just because I was in a rush for time and found the reading more tedious than I was in the mood for. However I did think with a fair amount of certainty that I’ll probably love this as an anime. So when I heard Vampire Knight was being released this spring I was really excited to see if my hunch proved itself right. And happily it did – the first episode made me go, “THIS is why I love shoujo!!”

So to recount all the things that made me go slightly gaga over the first episode – firstly, bishounen, bishounen, bishounen XD It’s been a while since I’ve watched any anime that had any bishies. My list of recently finished anime consists of Moyashimon, Genshiken 2, Denno Coil, EVA… it’s been a while. Having so much eye candy not only in the two main male leads but also pretty much the entire supporting cast made my dormant shoujo heart leap with renewed joy. The fact that Yuuki is a spunky, likeable, decently skilled heroine was another big plus. And the OP sucked me in. I adore this song – fits the series well, and ridiculously catchy to boot.

For the first two episodes I really enjoyed the mix of humor and moody hints at dark things that have been/things to come. Funny bits were usually provided through Chairman Cross as well as interactions between Kaname and the other vampires. The gaggles of fan girls from Day Class are also given chances to lighten the story up, but I haven’t cared for those bits as much – probably because the main instance of this that I can think of involving the Valentine’s Day celebration felt a bit too typical and filler-y.

Things really kicked up in episode 3 with regards to interactions/reveals between Zero and Yuuki, Kaname and the Chairman. Unfortunately this episode also made me pause a bit because of the appearance of two full-out zombie-like vampire monsters. As most people who know me will know, I have a three-year-old’s tolerance level of horror… maybe not even as much since kids nowadays are exposed to so much more stuff. It’s also because I live alone that I try not to touch anything resembling horror with a ten-feet pole. Now my tolerance level has increased slightly in the last year or so, so when I was watching Yuuki’s chase of the little monster kid (seriously though, why, WHY do people always have to go chasing after freaky little kids?!?) or Zero’s fight with the deformed woman vampire I wasn’t cowering beneath blankets, but a part of me was definitely going “eeeee….” I definitely should’ve seen it coming given that this IS a series about vampires, and furthermore the ED definitely hinted at impending scariness with the red eyes, sitting in the dark and such. I guess the first two episodes just threw me off how dark the series will be xP

With all of the whining about scariness (that really isn’t so bad) said I’ll definitely be sticking Vampire Knight out. My favorable first impression was too strong and it’s been too long since I found such enjoyment with eye candy bishies. And despite the scariness, I love where the story is going – good hints at the drama that is to come and also great development so far of relationships between the three main characters. In a nutshell, really too intrigued to drop this one haha. I’m not sure how the humor bits will play out in the next couple of episodes given how much the second half of episode 3 just kicked up the darkness factor, but I’m definitely hoping that it won’t go completely away.

Related posts: