Vampire Knight Volume 4   Starring (voice): Daisuke Kishio, Mamoru Miyano and Yui Horie Manga Entertainment RRP: £12.99 MANG9043 Certificate: 15 Available 28 February 2011

Yuki Cross finds herself stuck between two worlds as a ‘Day Class’ Guardian at the Cross Academy, run by her adoptive father Kaien Cross. Her job is to protect the female students of the day class from the boys of the night class. It’s not just their womanhood that needs protecting as the attractive boys of the night class are all vampires, led by Kaname Kuran. The principle, Kaien Cross, hopes to foster understanding between the two races, but some cannot forgive the vampires for what they are, including Yuki’s partner and childhood friend, vampire hunter Zero Kiryuu...

Vampire Knight: Volume 4 (2008) is a gothic romance, based on a manga written by Matsuri Hino. The show was directed by Kiyoko Sayama, and produced by Studio Deen and Nihon Ad Systems.

Once again, the show scores high on style but the discs lose on only having three episodes and no extras. The quality of the animation continues to be maintained with audio options for either an English or Japanese 2.0 track.

And with episodes eleven to thirteen the first series draws to a close. In this volume the story continues to meander its way through a combination of vampire romance and lots of people offering to be bitten. In truth, I found the whole of the first series a bit of a disappointment.

Whilst the designs have retained the striking look of the manga original, the story never really seemed to decide where its focus was. Taken as a whole, the strong start degenerated into repetitive discussions about Zero’s fate.

This would not be so bad if it wasn’t for the fact of the paucity of episodes per disc and no extras, Certainly it’s worth a rental, if you’re going to watch big chunks of it, but I’d find it difficult to recommend it as a ‘must buy’ anime.

5

Charles Packer