The World of ‘Vampire Knight’

I’ve known about Vampire Knight for quite some time now, but it wasn’t until recently that I learned how majorly popular it is. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen people in the bookshop huddled in the corner with a copy of the latest Vampire Knight manga, and well, I figured that’s all it was, a fun little manga series. But it turns out I was so ridiculously wrong (it happens… occasionally). After getting my Google on I found out that not only is it a widely successful manga series, but that there’s also an anime adaptation and a video game. Apparently I missed the bandwagon when it went by, because I am just now learning this. So in an effort to appease all of the Vampire Knight fans here we’re going to check out the vast world of Vampire Knight!

Vampire Knight follows the events that take place at Cross Adademy. The school is attended by two groups of students: the Day Class and the Night Class. At twilight, when the students of the Day Class return to their dorm, they cross paths with the Night Class on their way to school. Yuki Cross and Zero Kiryu are the Guardians of the school, protecting the Day Class from the Academy’s dark secret – the Night Class is full of vampires!

The manga’s main character is Yuki Cross, who has no memory of her past prior to the moment she was saved from a vampire attack ten years ago. She was adopted by the headmaster of Cross Academy, and now works alongside Zero to guard the Academy’s secret. Yuki believes that vampires and humans can coexist peacefully, but her partner has different ideas.

Vampire Knight is an ongoing shōjo manga series written by Matsuri Hino and published in chapters in Japan’s Lala magazine. Every chapter is eventually collected and published in volumes in both Japan and the US. As of right now there are eleven volumes available (check out Vol. 1 here). There are also a two light novels which aren’t part of the main story but are side stories, the first is Vampire Knight: Ice Blue’s Sin and the second is Vampire Knight: Noir’s Trap.

On top of a huge manga series, there is also a 26-episode long Vampire Knight anime currently available in three parts (don’t let the “Complete Series” DVD collection fool you, it’s actually missing the second part).

But it doesn’t end there, for there is also a video game. Vampire Knight DS came out a few years ago and is a fairly simple dating simulator, unfortunately it’s only available in Japanese.

Yeah, Vampire Knight is a BIG deal. So, who here is a Vampire Knight fan? What do you love about the series? If you are new to it, do you think you’ll check it out?

– Moonlight