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Reviewed by Ysabet Reinhardt MacFarlane Not to understate things too badly, but volume 8 of Vampire Knight took the story in a direction I wasn't expecting at all. My usual policy is to avoid spoiling major plot twists in my reviews, even if they're revealed within the first few pages of a volume, but I don't see a way to avoid that here. So if you absolutely don't want to know any details about what happens in the first third or so of this volume, now is the time to back away. (I usually assume that back cover copy for most given books will give away more than I'm happy with, as a reader, but this time around VIZ's marketing people have also very carefully worked to avoid mentioning anything that happens after the first few pages of vol. 8. Nicely done, marketing. The front cover artwork is actually more explicitly spoilery than anything you can read on the back.) What vol. 8 gives us is the vampiric equivalent of a Sleeping Beauty story: Yuki, who's been haunted by bloody visions, is awakened from her years-long amnesia when Kaname drinks from her and gives her some of his blood in return. (To be fair, a vampire's bite is usually taken as a metaphor for sex, not a kiss, but...) But Yuki doesn't become a vampire; rather, the illusion of humanity she's been shrouded in all this time disappears, returning her to her true nature--a vampire whose very own Prince Charming turns out to be her older brother. This raises all kinds of immediate implications and questions. Needless to say, it's a This Changes Everything moment for both Yuki and the readers; it also probably goes without saying that Zero doesn't take the revelation well (and Hino handles his moment of discovery very well). Beyond that, it's interesting to see which characters were and weren't already aware of Yuki's nature, and to watch the reaction of the other vampires, especially since Yuki's blood is as pure as Kaname's. I'm still somewhat adrift when it comes to the politics in this series, probably because I've read most of the volumes so far apart. Since their importance is becoming more obvious with each installment, it may be time to go back and reread from the beginning, which is always a good excuse to look for foreshadowing and see how well the groundwork was laid for any major plot twist. (A lack of solid groundwork won't keep me from enjoying a series, but it doesn't go unnoticed; for example, it's been years since I've read Mars, and the two things I always remember about it are that I really enjoyed it and that its habit of bringing plot twists literally out of nowhere struck me as a real weakness.) To sum up, this volume did an impressive job of completely changing my expectation of where this series is going. Now it's time to wait and see how well Hino continues that momentum in the volumes to come. Volume 8 of Vampire Knight includes a two-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. Think you could have written a better review of Vampire Knight v8? Write us and we'll probably let you give it a shot! --EiC PC |
3 February 2010
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