Creator: Matsuri Hino
Translation: Tomo Kimura
Adaptation: Tomo Kimura
Publisher: Viz
Age Rating: Older Teen
Genre: Drama
RRP: $8.99
Vampire Knight v4
Reviewed by Ysabet Reinhardt MacFarlane

Cross Academy 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.

If the sales figures I've seen mentioned recently are anything to go by, Vampire Knight may well be the Next Big Thing in shoujo, and it's not hard to see why it's doing so well. It's not so much that the story is groundbreaking or innovative--it's not, at least so far--but it's at least putting a few new spins on the old vampire clichés. And the artwork is very pretty, full of soft lines, expressive (usually anguished) eyes, and some elaborate clothing designs.

But what does that add up to, you ask? The answer is: hot--in an ethereally beautiful way--vampire angst. Mix in a stubborn, cute heroine who helps keep the vampires in line while a) letting her friend bite her and b) unashamedly adoring the pureblood vampire who saved her life when she was a child, and you've got a virtually guaranteed ticket to the shoujo lovers' hearts.

I'm not immune to this effect. I don't think this series is brilliant or earth-shattering, but it is gorgeous and compellingly paced; dramatic and emotional moments are lingered on without being dragged out, and that alone is a noteworthy achievement.

But if you've read the first three volumes, you know all that. What vol. 4 has to offer is some complication of Yuki and Zero's friendship, as the transfer student who arrived at the end of vol. 3 turns out to be an intimate part of Zero's past; meanwhile, there are new hints about Kaname's motivations in going along with the Cross Academy experimentation with seeing whether humans and vampires can live in close quarters. Kaname's position and power as a pureblood are an important factor, which does beg the question of what happens when there's more than one pureblood in the neighborhood.

And vampires or no vampires, there are some rituals of high school manga that must be observed, so there's also some time devoted to worries about marks and school-dance hijinks, with the complication of having humans and vampires socializing together. All in all, there's a fair bit packed into this volume, and I'm interested in seeing what happens next.

This volume includes a seven-page bonus comic and several pages of editor's notes on the characters' names and a bit of terminology.

Review copy provided by VIZ Media.

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6 October 2009
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