First Impressions / Vampire Knight

Summary

Yuki thinks about the words Zero said to her when he gave her the small hand gun resting in her hands. Meanwhile, Kaname watches from the side as Ichiru slowly walks towards Zero’s cell. As the entire school campus slowly turns into a desert, Zero still suffers his transformation alone while he’s locked up, for now. Ichiru soon arrives to relieve him of his boredom, and picks up the gun named Bloody Rose off the floor, aiming it directly at Zero, saying “the time has come.”

Elsewhere that morning, Shiki wakes up in his own room and immediately thinks of Rima. He enters her bedroom to find her sleeping soundly, resting after the recent attack. He remembers hearing her voice while his consciousness was trapped underneath Rido’s, and thanks her. She awakens to accept his thanks, and smiles at him as he offers her some pocky. She asks about Ichijou, and Shiki says that he had something important to do. Entering a dark brick building somewhere nearby, Ichijou enters alone with a sword in his hand.

Kain, Ruka, and Seirei continue to fight and kill all the vampire intruders that cross their path outside in the morning air, and are joined shortly by Aidou. They notice immediately that he’s not protecting Yuki like he should be, but she’s pretty much decided to do whatever she wants to anyway. And besides, the enemy is an incredibly dangerous pureblood who might outmatch them all, yet seems to be waiting for something else to happen before he makes his move.

In his borrowed bedroom, Rido practically has an orgy around him while he kills off handfuls of beautiful women and vampires one at a time by draining their blood entirely. Near the entrance to the school grounds, hundreds of enemies build up. During this time, the day class is locked up, left in the dark as to why. Kaien watches over them, and shuts the door to the area to find a guest waiting outside.

The head of the Vampire Hunter Council orders Kaien to hand over Zero, but he refuses, and they begin fighting. Apparently this creepy fellow keeps blades in the fan he carries around to hide his lipstick, but Kaien deflects them and sends a fierce wave of power crashing towards him with a single slash of his sword to the ground. The council leader tells him to go to hell from the safe vantage point he jumped to (a nearby tree), and disappears ninja-style into the wind.

Both Kaname and Rido express their impatience for Zero to hurry up and fulfill his role (albeit for different reasons), so Ichiru helps move things along by shooting him very near the heart with his own anti-vampire weapon. Everyone on campus can smell the sudden scent of Zero’s blood. Yuki almost runs to his aide, but Kaname appears in her room via the window to stop her. Kaname finally tells her everything, spelling the truth about Rido, Zero, and Shizuka from the very beginning.

Zero has several flashbacks of his childhood with Ichiru, and feels guilty for being so strong and talented while Ichiru suffered with a weak body. He thinks it was somehow his own fault. He must have stolen something powerful from Ichiru before they were even born, inside their mother’s womb (exactly like a vampire). Ichiru thinks he might have kept his deep seated hatred for his family a secret, but Zero admits he noticed it the night Shizuka killed their parents, when Ichiru stood by her side, smiling.

As Ichiru confesses his true feelings of hatred, loneliness, and abandonment from the past, Zero notices a pool of blood forming at his twin brother’s feet. Zero asks why he has such a large wound, and Ichiru says it was all for Shizuka. They had bonded over their shared feelings of deep sadness, but she never allowed him to turn into a vampire, even in her last moments of life. To avenge her death, he stabbed Rido through the back with his sword not moments after he woke up in his own body, but Rido took care of him easily, landing a blow through his chest that will soon be fatal.

Losing his strength, Ichiru slowly falls onto Zero’s shoulder, and is disgusted by the intense smell of blood in the room due to both their wounds. He tells Zero to drink the last remnants of his life away, properly finishing the act that was started even before their births, putting an end to the curse of the twin vampire hunters. He knows it will help solidify Zero’s final puzzle piece to gain enough power to finally kill Rido, but Zero doesn’t want to. Deep in his heart, he truly doesn’t want to lose his brother, especially in this fashion. This makes Ichiru extremely happy, even in his last moments, because he thought he had already died in Zero’s heart long ago. Zero claimed that not only Maria, but even their parents loved him very much. Ichiru understands, and hopes that Zero will not hold a grudge against Shizuka for her actions, even if he can’t forgive her.

Zero thinks that this is not the way things should end between them, but Ichiru says that if he thinks that way, he’ll never be able to accomplish his goal. Memories of Yuki flood Zero’s mind, and after Ichiru drops Shizuka’s precious bell and a silence falls over him, Zero screams in sadness and reluctantly bites his own brother’s neck while tears stream down his cheeks.

Yuki runs through campus, on her way to accomplish what goals she can, while Kaname leaves to take care of things only he can do. Zero slowly stands up walks past his brother’s body on the floor of the jail. He inadvertently rips off the door and some bricks in the wall on his way out, and as he gradually climbs the stairs, his shadow suggests a monstrous power is brewing inside him, finally coming to fruition.

Meanwhile, Kaname enters the Night Class dorm alone, his thoughts urging Zero to fulfill his role – the true Vampire Knight.

 

“Preview”

First Thoughts

While Zero continues to suffer changes in his power levels because of Kaname’s meddling, Shiki has a sweet moment with Rima when they both finally wake up. Ichiru comes to visit Zero and they share many flashbacks together before finally getting the happy brotherly reunion Yuki always wanted them to have. Too bad it lasted all but a few minutes til his death. Ah, but that was his own fault I suppose. It turns out Ichiru was as angsty as Zero, which is fitting since they’re brothers. All this time his real grudge was against Rido, who put Shizuka’s human lover on the vampire death-list, who was then killed by Zero’s parents, who were then killed by Shizuka… who was then killed by Kaname, whose blood Zero drank, and who is now receiving Ichiru’s blood as well! The circle of insanely complex plot twists is complete!

Well they managed to make the scene with Ichiru fairly touching and I hardly noticed any yaoi tinting to the scene. If it’s there, I don’t think it’s the studio’s intention, which for once I sympathize with. What touched me much more was the brotherly bond that was tearfully and painfully reunited, and Zero’s most recent power-up shortly afterward, symbolized here by the creepy shadow on the wall when he began to climb the stairs.

Things are winding up into a smashing ending – and by ending, I mean cliffhanger. It would be nice if they found a way to wrap it up but I highly doubt it. Still, at least the action is picking up (as much as still frame action can pick up), so I’m much more entertained with the second half of this season than the first. If they keep this up I might pull them off my unforgivable atrocities list of studios.

24 Comments

  7. I can’t believe it. I actually felt a glimmer of emotion when Ichiru died, too bad that feeling was more along the line of: FINALLY. I know this stuff was moving slower than hell the last few weeks but I can definitely see why with all the crap that has happened when it came to Zero & Yuuki.

    Fast-paced fighting isn’t this series style but I wouldn’t mind seeing that at all with with the next fights. Another thing is that they ended every episode with some kind of cliffhanger, with the level of intensity increasing with each episode. It does get kinda old for me because its so darn predictable, but I do admire them for their persistence.

    Megas
    Reply

  8. “All this time his real grudge was against Rido, who put Shizuka’s human lover on the vampire death-list, who was then killed by Zero’s parents, who were then killed by Shizuka… who was then killed by Kaname, whose blood Zero drank, and who is now receiving Ichiru’s blood as well! The circle of insanely complex plot twists is complete!” These two sentences summarizing the twin’s position is great. Poor Ichiru. =( Anyways, awesome as always. Looking forward to the fuller summary.

    Anonymous
    Reply

  10. Zero’s scene with Ichiru is really touching. But i still cant believe the anime did not follow the manga in the part which Shiki touched and hug Rima. Instead they replaced it with a pocky scene!!! *fangirl scream*

    Shima forever
    Reply

  18. I admit that the scene with Ichiru was probably more touching as I wrote about it than when I watched it the first time. Pretty weird. Maybe I’m soft-hearted after all.

    Unknown: Yeah, the orgy thing was definitely not in the manga, but they had to insert Rido’s presence into this episode somehow to make sure we didn’t forget about him for 21 minutes, so I’m sure they were trying to figure out what a character like Rido might be doing in his spare time. Orgies seem to be the answer they came up with… silly studio writers.

    Megas: You are so critical. (That’s not a bad thing, I’m just surprised to meet someone almost as critical as me. It’s weird.) Though I try to be *somewhat* unbiased and open minded when I write here. — Fighting as expressed through VK could only be done with intensely long breaks while the characters talk each other to death and maintain cool poses. Also, if they suddenly ended an episode without a cliffhanger I think I’d have a heart attack and start calling everyone doppelgangers while I ran in fear. It’s just not possible in this reality.

    Olivia: For once I tried to post the episode before the fansub release so that my growing to-do list might get a chance to shrink, and people will stop complaining about the delay. (Damn reality for screwing with my online life.) I don’t want to post all my reviews a week late, so I bumped this and Kannagi up, skipping over Kuroshitsuji for the moment. Ideally it will always be posted a day or two after its release, pre-fansubs.

    Fangirls: Enjoy, the “ending” is almost here!

    Trillian
    Reply

  19. Rido sure likes to drink a lot of blood i mean the guy was really into it and those poor girls

    obedient vampire groupies were all over the guy while the others were turning to dust. I didn,t feel

    any emotion when Ichiru died, he deserved it at least he got away with technically destroying his

    family leaving zero to clean his mess with the way this Vampire Knight Guilty is going they might end

    it like claymore with a weird ending.

    Nello & Nano
    Reply

  21. I’m just hoping they won’t end the series with a cliffhanger. 25 cliffhangers for one 26 episode series is enough. But I’m completely prepared for that as well. There have been plenty of shows that ended with somewhat of a closed cliffhanger. Although this series has bored me to death at times, I will definitely think more of it if they give us an ending.

    Kaname set up some cookie-cutter ending for us with Zero vanquishing the true evil. Due to that, I think it will end with a ton a plot twists & ultimately a cliffhanger of sorts. I really hated the 1st season of this mess but the 2nd season definitely gotten me to look forward to the ending. Its entertainment value for me went from about 15% to 93% in that timeframe…and I thought I would never feel the way I do now about this show 6 months ago. At this rate, I may rewatch the whole thing when it ends 😛

    Megas
    Reply

  22. honestly, this eps could have been better but then that’s what u get when u animate one chapter in one whole eps, shessshh..the portrayal of Zero’s emotion in the manga is way, way much better..my eyes tear EVERYTIME(ok, hell I CRIED T_T)i read the chapter but this eps kills it-i dunno, by making Zero a bit brash to Ichiru when Ichiru first came, I was surprised O.o (Zero was soft and concerned in the manga) and those bloodfest scenes with Rido and Zero imagining Yuki for soooo long (the manga had it like, 2 panels only) though his twin is actually DYING in his arms aaarrggghhh (hear the roar of an angry fangirl lol)But credit must be given To Miyano, especially when he screams after Ichiru is not moving-superb!!

    Oh, and they CUT OUT Shiki hugging Rima on the bed ala Love Story which is very, very sweet, not mentioning the coveted Kaname x Yuki kiss *double shock and pities KanamexYuki fans*

    whoa, i’m actually disappointed now so i’d better just read the manga j/k 😛

    danie
    Reply

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