Vampire Knight: Memories Volume 3 manga review

Vampire Knight: Memories Graphic Novel Volume 3 cover image

Vampire Knight is a vampire romance and shojo manga from creator Matsuri Hino.  It was published in the magazine, LaLa, from 2004 to 2013.  It has been collected in 19 tankōbon (similar to a graphic novel), and VIZ Media has published the manga in the United States as an English-language, paperback graphic novel series.

A few years after the end of the original series, Hino began producing a series of “special chapters.”  These are episodes of Vampire Knight that take place after the events depicted in Vampire Knight Volume 19, which contained the final chapters of original manga.  VIZ Media is publishing an English-language translation of the new chapters in a graphic novel series, Vampire Knights: Memories.

Vampire Knight focuses on Yuki Cross, a student at the vampire (the “Night Class”) and human (the “Day Class”) school, Cross Academy.  Headmaster Kaien Cross is her stepfather, but Yuki eventually learns that she is a pure-blood vampire.  Her first love interest is Zero Kiryu, a human suffering from the curse of the vampire.  Yuki eventually falls in love with Kaname Kuran, a pure-blood vampire.  At the end of Vampire Knight, Kaname sacrifices his body to create new vampire-killing weapons for the vampire-hunting Hunter Society.

Vampire Knight: Memories, Vol. 3 opens with the chapter, entitled “Bond.”  Yuki and Zero encounter old friends, now aged, and new enemies.  All that pales next to the strength of their bond, and now, they have decided to become a couple.  In “Memories of Those Who Have Gone,” Kaien Cross reminisces about the photographs he took and the memories they recall.  Vampires Ruka and Akatsuki become engaged in the story, “Wedge,” and they marry in “Till Dust Do Us Part,” which also finds Yuki and Zero make decisions about their relationship.

[This volume includes the bonus stories, “A Vampire Who Claims that Friendship is the Source of Life” and “What is to Come;” a four-panel manga, “Memories of Little Consequence;” and “Editor's Notes.”]

THE LOWDOWN:  In general, I enjoyed the Vampire Knight manga, although I was not a fan of the final graphic novel, Vol. 19.  I liked the first volume of the Vampire Knight: Memories manga, but I thought the second volume was stronger.

Vampire Knight: Memories Graphic Novel Volume 3 maintains the increase in the quality of drama that Vol. 2 presented.  I like that Cross Academy is back in play, but I am also intrigued by the increasing tensions between various factions of humans and vampires.  Intrigue will apparently yield acts of terrorism, double-dealing, double agents, and perhaps, some kind of biological warfare.

Best of all about Vol. 3 is the romance.  We have a wedding, a beautiful one that occurs at night.  The new state of affairs between Yuki Cross and Zero Kiryu promises a resurgence of Vampire Knight.  How long will this “sequel” last?  Hopefully, it will last several more volumes – if love and war are the order of the Day (Class) with the creatures of the Night (Class).

I READS YOU RECOMMENDS:  Fans of Vampire Knight will want the Shojo Beat title, Vampire Knight: Memories.

A
8 out of 10