Forum - View topicREVIEW: Vampire Knight DVD 1
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ayashe
 Posts: 123 |
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Vampire Knight is one of the most overrated series ever. If this anime was near perfection, the manga must be really bad.
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Pocky Monster
Posts: 237 |
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It's certainly overrated in my opinion, but for a shoujo series, you could do much worse. I have to admit I was hooked, even though I really didn't (and still don't) care who Yuki ends up with. Speaking of Yuki, I didn't care for her much at all.
Same. The pretty character designs are what caught my interest... 
VK isn't amazing, but it isn't terrible. And its gothic aesthetic and bishounen/bishoujo are definitely appealing. |
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marie-antoinette
 Posts: 4136 Location: Ottawa, Canada |
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I think one of the most impressive things about this series is that it manages to do melodrama well. It has crazy emotional moments but they never quite go over the top, at least IMO. Very few narratives are able to do that.
I definitely will be picking this anime up because I definitely enjoyed it. It's pure guilty pleasure but it's a very good one. |
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Melinda-chan
Posts: 6 |
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Meh. Except for the music and the last few episodes of both seasons, I wasn't exactly happy about the VK anime overall. Maybe because of the episode constraints but everything seemed rushed and some characters acting out of place at times. The art too seemed to be inconsistent. The storyline seem to do a better job when it sticks closer to the manga though. And I do like Hino's depiction of vampires as a separate race with their own customs and beliefs. Overall I'll give this a B for sure.
I am not familiar with the dub so I'll let it pass for now. And I really hate it when people compare other vampire works with Twilight. Please stop it. It actually cheapens the review when people compare stuff with other stuff that may fit the genre but is no way related to one another. |
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Joe Mello
 Posts: 2295 Location: Online Terminal |
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I personally can't stand Vampire Knight, but I do agree with this, to the point that I was watching some scenes in S1 thinking to myself "how did this not get censored?" So credit where credit is due. I do think that the levels of romantic angst is comparable to Twilight, though. |
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Youkai Warrior
 Posts: 505 Location: Sarayashiki |
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You'd be surprised. Real vampire lore really isn't all that sexy. The vampire wants his blood and he'll get it in a non-sexual way. In fact, vampires are supposed to be downright violent. Anyway, I'm surprised Vampire Knight got a good review. It's just angst fest for teenage girls. I may try out Hellsing after all, like that other person said. But, I hate to say this, but Vampire Knight doesn't due vampires much justice, sorry. |
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Dark Elf Warrior
 Posts: 228 |
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CCSYueh, you have made some good points, and I don't mean to nitpick, but I though you mentioned once on the forums that you weren't into vampires? Anyway, you give some good points. I've loved vampire stories since I was at least 10, and I absolutely love Dracula by Bram Stoker. In my mind, all vampires should be evil and powerful like Dracula. (I won't get into it now, but I hate that there hasn't been a decent adaptation on that classic novel.) I was doing some research in fact just the other day, and traced today's lame vampires back to Barnabas Collins from Dark Shadows, which influenced Anne Rice, as well as two soap opera series called Port Charles and Passions. Passions was actually translated in Japanese, and I suspect that's where some of Japan's( and the west's) angst-filled vampires came from, and of course Rice and those two soap operas gave birth to other lame angsty vampires. I actually plan on reading Rice's books, but I don't know how much I will like them. You're not missing anything in Twilight either. Back on topic, I don't care for Vampire Knight. It may be supposedly better than Twilight, but it still doesn't jusitify vampires for me. It's just an emo/angsty teen-girl melodrama that uses vampires and "gothic" (I've seen things that are gothic and this doesn't compare much) because it adds to the melodrama and because emo angst stories tend to carry that stuff. Plus I can't stand Yuki, another dumb girl in yet another anime that isn't really that great.
Someone has done their research!  Sexuality is actually a human trait, but people/humans have been known to put their own prejudices on the vampire. They'll use vampirism as a metaphor for sex or genitalia-free relationships, but that actually isn't so in real ancient vampire lore in which vampires are demonic entities that feed off of humans and really don't care for them at all (except their blood). If you look at all monster lore, this is actually the same for many creatures. Vampires also aren't the only ones that like blood. All manner of "dark" or evil monsters have a thing for blood. From vampires to werewolves, goblins to demons, even dark elves. (For those who don't know, dark elves don't just "exist" in RPGs and Dungeons and Dragons, they come from Norse mythology.)
Last edited by Dark Elf Warrior on Thu Aug 26, 2010 10:50 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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keikanna44
 Posts: 155 Location: Virginia |
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I thought the character designs were great as well as the background images. It’s a well animated show. The story is a little weak but it’s enough to keep you interested. The only thing that put me off was the dub of this series. I appreciate Viz taking this show and dubbing it but I felt everyone wasn't taking it seriously and sounded awkward and like amateurs. I was disappointed the most about the performances of the English voice actors of Yuki, Kaname, and Zero. Their voices don’t fit the characters at all. I know it's not possible but I think this series should be recast if not I'm sticking with the sub on this one.
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rinmackie
 Posts: 1040 Location: in a van! down by the river! |
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Well, vampires are mythological characters but within the realm of fiction, you can create your own version and alter or ignore the original myths. I like my vampires to be as interesting as any human character. Plain old evil or just too good vampires don't do it for me. I really think vampires can't be "good" at least in the human sense of the term but they don't have to be outright wicked, either. My problem with Twilight is that it's too tame, too vanilla. As for the characters being too "emo" or angsty, I think it's actually more a lack of good character development.
So yes, i like Zero from VK even though most people like to dismiss him as "emo" but he's not irritating to me because he's a well developed character. He has actual reasons for being the way he is. So I like angsty vampires but I like the butt-kicking bad-ass ones too. (And Zero has some moments like this too.) So yes, I like Zero but I like Alucard from Hellsing too. |
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CCSYueh
 Posts: 2707 Location: San Diego, CA |
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I believe my copy of "In Search of Dracula" is the original paperback printing from the '70's. I want to say I read it in 5th grade, but that's really too far back (around 1971) to remember. I refuse to read Twilight or Anne Rice's stuff & overall I've never really liked Japanese takes on vampires. It's not their folklore & they rarely get it right, but Vampire Knight isn't bad (But I did discover the author with Meru Puri). It's not unlike Hollywood's idea of ninjas. I have a pretty narrow range of vamps I like.
I do hate how every time the genre revives, it seems to get tweaked in the direction I dislike most. I appreciate the sensuality of literary vamps, but dislike the drippiness/sappiness/powerdown most vamps weitten by gals seem to undergo. Vamps should be like Dracula-noble, proud, & powerful. Saberhagen actually had a pretty solid mythology built up for his & one of them even brought in Merlin very well. Depending on the folklore, vamps are everything from brainless ghouls to something a bit more cunning, probably depending on how impressive the tale teller was trying to come off or maybe even the level (peasant vs nobility) of the vamp. There are actually various types of undead. This is also seen in some vampire literature in the form of varying levels of vamps (Renfield for example never making it past slave level). There's actually a variety of ways outside of being bitten of becoming undead (Born on Christmas qualifies for vampire & werewolf, but mostly in history accused werewolves allegedly sold their souls & most of the potions used by people believing they were werewolves seemed to include hallucinogenic substances. Reflecting a corpse in a mirror was also thought to cause the dead to rise) My sister commented there are papers to suggest Stoker planned a sequel & that Dracula was indeed not destroyed. (I've always been iffy on his being staked. Wasn't it just on the edge of sunset or sunrise?) Actually there was another emo vamp in the past-was it Polidori's? Or one of the penny dreadfuls? I forget. Barnabas was a fricken jerk-very much "Oh no! I'm a vampire at no fault of my own!"(except he slept with his fiancee's maid who just happened to be a witch) while he drains all the ladies of the evening in Collinsport. He was sent back to the past to prevent Quentin from dying as he did, yet without knowing how Quentin died, Barnabas is prepared to kill Quentin when he discovers Quentin had learned his secret. He did kill Quentin's brother Carl. So I'm in Kaname's camp for Vampire Knight. God, I hate Zero. Yuki showed a few moments of backbone, but overall she's too entrenched in the stupid shojo heroine mode to be the sort of lead I enjoy (Angelique/Dark Shadows. I prefer strong females which we don't get often enough in shojo) All that fey stuff is sort of muddy, but overall fairies/elves/etc are not creatures to be trusted. Humans usually get the short end of the stick in dealings with them. I've seen something to suggest there was possibly another group of people in the British Isles which possibly served as the basis for some fairy lore. |
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britannicamoore
 Posts: 2618 Location: Out. |
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The real question: who does singles nowadays?
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CareyGrant
Posts: 453 |
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Is it just me or does the whole premise of this anime sound like some Far Side cartoon? I mean... it'd be like setting up a hungry tiger farm right next to a camp for slow, overweight children who roll around in bacon fat all day! What must the brochures for the academy look like!
"People send your unsuspecting daughters to our prestigious academy were their chances of being horrible murdered/savaged/raped by vampires increases a billion fold!" What's the matter, can't they pay the bills without renting out to Vampires? Other than that, everything about this Vamp, emo angst fest is a pass. Although, I do like Kiyoko Sayama. It's just too bad she's stuck with this tripe. |
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jr240483
 Posts: 4427 Location: New York City,New York,USA |
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I'll GLADLY take Vampire Knight over the entire Twilight series.
True on both points but it's cause of it that'll makes the series great . Also the mockery wont matter if our friends are fangirls and yaoi lovers who are addicted to it. (Even though i am not a yaoi or a bishouen fan) Also dont give up on the english dub as well . Sure people says here that Vic's take here is as badly miscast as his role as tamaki on Ouran Host High School , but it's a very decent dub if you ask me. then again I am a dub only prusuit so who am I to judge? But my point is give it some time. Eventually both sides will get better when the epsiodes gets later and the story line gets deeper. |
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littlegreenwolf
 Posts: 4796 Location: Seattle, WA |
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Twilight was first published in 2005. Vampire Knight was first published in 2005. It doesn't matter what came first because then you're just counting weeks/months between the two. A comparison to Twilight is going to happen, and has every right to happen because it is similar to the hundreds of other vampire romance school story-lines out in the world now that target teen girls. Twilight just happens to be the most popular of the bunch so it's going to be compared. And Vampire Knight and it'll ride to some degree on the popularity coat-tails of Twilight because girls are eating up everything in this genre they can get their hands on. CCSYueh: Why no Anne Rice? If anyone in modern lit handles vampires with respect, it's her. Those vampires rarely dabble with humans, and they follow a lot of traditional folk tales/myths quite well.
You've pretty much described everything in Anne Rice's books. Lestat for one was born to French nobility, where as Claudia was a poor, starving Irish immigrant born girl in the slums (Anne Rice was one of the first to play with the concept of a child made vampire, and did so deliciously in the books). Marius was a Roman who eventually dabbled with the Renaissance painters, and Akasha, one of the first vampires was an early Egyptian tribal queen who had an very interesting way in how she became a blood sucker. The strength of the vampires depends on how old the blood of their maker is, and there are other types of "vampires" out there other than the main characters of her series. The Old Ones are full of themselves, with pride and history, and don't even like being near the "newer" creations. As a fellow fan of supernatural lit completely sick to death of the flood of supernatural romance, I have to say you're missing out unless you give the Vampire Lestat or Blood and Gold by Anne Rice a try. Full of rich, accurate history, and everything a vampire should be. None of this, oh look, a cute little human girl, I want to have sex with her stuff. |
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Aylinn
 Posts: 1684 |
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I vaguely remember that in Anne Rice's books there is a supernatural romance between vampires of the same sex* or are you just complaining about the flood of supernatural romance between a vampire and a teenage girl? * spoiler[Wasn't Armand Marius’s lover?] |
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