It’s a school holiday, which means it’s the perfect time to slow down the plot and explore some of the series’ mystery.
Creative Staff
Writer/Artist: Matsuri Hino
Translation: Tomo Kimura
What They Say
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!
Yuki sneaks into an exclusive vampire party and sees Aido’s parents introducing their daughter to Kaname. They, like many other Night Class parents, desire an alliance with the pureblood. Kaname is the most eligible bachelor in the vampire society–but will he choose Yuki?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Yuki, still stunned from her likely romantic near-encounter with Zero, finds herself in Kaname’s care after she has a run-in with a vampire child. He is attending a vampire soiree hosted by the Aido family, and though Yuki is supposed to hide from the guests, she ends up with a new grasp on just how different the vampire world–and Kaname’s world–is from her own. There are some immediate changes to her character after this experience, and though I wasn’t fond of them, the author does hold off on a development that would have dramatically altered the course of the volume. Instead, Yuki decides to spend the winter holidays searching for information about her parents. Zero’s presence as she investigates this mystery is also handled well; though Yuki has some lingering doubts about their near kiss, she isn’t consumed by it.
There is plenty going on in this volume that doesn’t involve Yuki, as well. One chapter is composed of Hanabusa’s remembrances of how he and Kaname met and how their relationship grew. It’s pretty standard fare in terms of childhood flashbacks (or at least as standard as it can be for a pair of vampires), but there’s some tantalizing teases at the end of the chapter for a future plot. The most action occurs in the final chapter; Yuki encounters an unexpected stumbling block in her search that indicates just how hard it will be to learn about her parents, and Senri’s visit to his family takes an unexpected turn. Though they do introduce some real tension, these events are still just laying down more plot points for future developments. Even the author admits that this is a slow volume, and I can’t do anything but agree with her. The events could have been carried out in a more exciting fashion, but the gradual, ominous progression is far more atmospheric and lets me believe that these events are actually being carried out in this time frame.
In Summary:
Though it was slow, this wasn’t a bad installment in the series by any means. There’s a nice blend of story elements present, including Yuki’s realizations of how the vampire world operates, the mystery surrounding the death of her parents and Kaname’s, and Zero’s methods of rationalizing his eventual fate. Even the flashback chapter, something I’m usually not a fan of, is a nice chapter for Hanabusa that explores his relationship with Kaname. It all builds up to the final chapter in the volume, which leaves one character face-to-face with someone literally rising out of a coffin. So, while this release might not have contained the most thrilling action, it’s an effective set-up for future events that still manages to end on a tense cliffhanger.
Content Grade: B
Art Grade: A-
Packaging Grade: B+
Text/Translation Grade: B
Age Rating: 16+
Released By: Viz Media
Release Date: March 10th, 2009
MSRP: $8.99