Vampire Knight ep.03

April 22, 2008 | 22 Comments

Sorry for the late entry but I have another problem with my server. I'm getting really sick of this but I haven't got the time to research other good service provider. Anyway, this turns out to be quite good. The first half of the episode is actually an original work because the writers don't want to go beyond the 3rd chapter of the manga. Because of this, they create a humorous story where Yuuki and Zero gets to act as student disciplinary members (as opposed to their usual guardian roles). The second half of the episode is altered slightly so that it's more action-oriented and tense. Personally though, I think it could be a bit darker. I love horror film and I think the series can afford to be a bit more morbid. I personally am looking forward to the upcoming arc involving a certain woman. I hope the writers can make it as morbid as possible.

The headmaster starts the day by cooking for Zero and Yuuki and taking their picture. He then tells them that today they are not guardian but committee members in charge of student discipline. This means she and Zero will conduct surprise inspection at both Sun (humans) and Moon (vampires) dormitory. Inside Moon dormitory, Cain warns Aidou because the later has the tendency to collect junk items in his room. Aidou thinks that his items are precious until scary Kaname comes to his room. Kaname destroys the chandelier in Aidou's room and true enough, like a junk collector Aidou swoops in to catch the broken glasses of the lamp. At the Sun dormitory, Yuuki confiscate picture albums belonging to students because they contain peeping pictures of the night students. The class Iinchou then comes, claiming that Yuuki doesn't understand their feeling until Zero comes and confiscates Iinchou's Luca's picture collection. Fast forward a few hours later, Yuuki manages to confiscate every single picture album from other students. I'll bet she's popular at school.

She, however, admits that she understands their feeling since the vampires are all good-looking. When she looks out of the window, she notices Zero sitting underneath a tree so she asks him if he neglects his duty again but Zero claims that he's finished his job. The two then head towards the Moon dormitory and Yuuki admits being a bit tense since this is her first time entering the place. Inside, evil Kaname has ordered the other vampires to take out Aidou's junk elsewhere, causing the later to sob himself silly. Outside, Yuuki wants to check Zero's pocket before they enter Moon dormitory because she knows he's hiding something. Because Yuuki is clumsy, she slips on the steps and falls down. Zero quickly catch her body and uses his own as a cushion. Yuuki, however, uses the opportunity to grab the medicine cabinet in Zero's pocket. Zero immediately grabs the medicine back and tells her that this is none of her business. He then runs away from the place while Yuuki follows him around. Aidou is not happy to know that there won't be any inspection after all. XD

Yuuki ends up going all the way to the city in her attempt to find Zero. She, however, becomes terrified all of a sudden and sees visions of the time when she was attacked by a vampire. She then sees a little kid whose red balloon gets out of his grasp and lodged onto a tree. Yuuki gets the balloon for the kid but the kid runs away so Yuuki follows the kid as well. She eventually finds the kid at an open space area but when she's about to give the balloon to him, the kid grabs her hand and turns into a vampire. Zero who's inside a ramen cafe hears Yuuki's scream so he runs out to find her. Yuuki herself is now being hunted by both the vampire kid and his vampire mother. Because of this, she runs into a clock tower. Yuuki refuses to believe that what attacked her just then was a vampire because the vampire that she knows are pretty and are adored by everyone. Outside, the vampire mother is about to attack Yuuki when she smells another person nearby. That person is Zero, who notices Yuuki's blood outside the clock tower. The vampire quickly jumps on Zero but Zero easily kicks her away. When the vampire is about to attack Zero again, she senses the vampire blood in Zero and mistakes him as an ally.

Zero, however, has no such feelings for her and proceeds to shoot her with his gun. The woman promptly disappears, leaving the kid vampire alone. Zero is startled upon seeing the kid and for some reason is reminded of someone called Ichiru. The vampire kids just laugh before leaping up to the clock tower to attack Yuuki. Yuuki tries her best to fend off the vampire's attack but only gets her face scratched as a result. The vampire then cleverly rings the tower's bell, forcing Yuuuki to cover her ear and drop her staff. Before the kid can attack her, however, Kaname appears saying that he feels sorry for the kid for falling this low but the kid hurt his precious thing. As he said this, he covers Yuuki's eyes and uses his power to send blast of wind towards the vampire kid, sending him down to his death. Kaname then tells Yuuki that the creature was a Level E. Yuuki tries to convince herself that the creature wasn't a vampire but Kaname firmly tells her that was a vampire. Kaname tries to be smooth by inspecting Yuuki's hand but Yuuki snatches her hand away, telling Kaname that she's here looking for Zero. Kaname, however, lies and tells Yuuki that Zero has gone back to dormitory.

Later on that night, the headmaster praises Kaname's power. He believes Kaname is feared by other vampires due to his position as pure-blood. It's because of him that other vampires behave well up to now. Kaname, however, cuts off the headmaster's sentence and tells him that he hasn't said anything due to his respect for the headmaster. However, for the sake of other students, he feel that Zero must be controlled. He wants to know if the headmaster intends on allowing Zero to destroy everything that they've achieved. The headmaster explains that Zero's parents were killed by vampires and Zero was the only survivor so he thinks there must be another way. Kaname, however, argues that the one who killed Zero's parents is not just a normal vampire but a pure-blood like him. Meanwhile, Zero is seen looking sick near the stairs when Yuuki comes to talk to him because she's disturbed by her previous encounter with vampires. She tells him that she finally understands what Zero said about vampires: they are beasts who take the form of humans. Zero orders Yuuki to stay away but Yuuki insists that she wants to tell more since they are the same.

Zero denies this causing Yuuki to be upset. Before she can leave, however, Zero grabs her hand and pulls her close. Back to Kaname, he tells Cross that a human who has been bitten by pure-blood vampire, will turn into a vampire. Cut to a shot of Zero licking Yuuki's neck before biting her. Yuuki freaks out and is shocked upon noticing the blood tablets on the floor. Eventually she manages to push Zero away and notices that his eyes are now glowing red and long fangs protruding from his upper lip. He's a beast who takes the shape of a man. At the same time, Kaname explains that once a human is bitten by a pure-blood vampire there are only two possible outcomes: if he's lucky the blood is toxic enough to kill him. Otherwise, the person will undergo a slow, painful transformation until he turns into vampire himself. It's a torture that no other vampires can imagine. For Zero to be able to suppress his desire for blood will take more strength than Kaname would ever able to comprehend. At the same time, Zero manages to snap out of his vampire mode and apologizes to Yuuki for biting her.

Impression:

The additional material presented at the start of this episode was pretty funny. It'd be weird though if later on in the manga Aidou turns out to have a different kind of hobby than collecting junk. I also enjoyed the part where Yuuki confiscates everyone's photo album. I'll bet that the only person who doesn't have photo album is her classmate, Yori. Speaking of which, I wonder what's her story? She seems to be level-headed in comparison to other students. There must be more to her than meets the eyes. Moving along, Zero's ability to suppress his desire for blood most likely stems from one thing: hate. If a person hates something, he/she would try their best not to become the very thing that they hate. It was amusing to see the vampire woman recognizing him as a vampire but Zero was still in denial about it and blasted her off instead. Still, it's impressive that he manages to hold his bloodlust this far. Yuuki must be some kind of vampire magnet since her blood seem to attract all sorts of vampires to her. I did wish that she'd fight back a bit more but I guess they need to show a scene where Kaname uses his pure-blood power to kill that Level E vampire.

In general, I like this adaptation because in the original manga, Yuuki's fear of vampire is re-ignited when she gets bitten by Zero. In this version, his bite is just something else on top of her already terrifying experience when she was hunted by that pair of mother and son vampires. I am just happy that there are a lot of Zero/Yuuki moments scattered within this episode. I do think the biting scene could have been more sensual though. Maybe more closeup of Zero biting Yuuki or something. I also like the fact that the writers have dropped some additional informations about who bite Zero without actually revealing the identity of the vampire. This way when that arc arrives, it'd be a total surprise to those who haven't read the manga. Although mentioning Ichiru is a bit of a spoiler. One thing that I'd be interested to know is how a vampire hunter like Cross Kaien turned into a happy home-maker/headmaster. Does he always have pacifist slant towards vampire or is this just something that he developed very recently? I wouldn't be surprised if he turns out to be a very capable vampire hunter though since there's no better person to handle a vampire/human school than an ex-vampire hunter.

© memento 2003