Monday, July 29, 2013

Dawnleaf Watches Vampire Knight: Episode 4 – Totally Called It



Hahaha!  I was right! This show actually did something that I said that it should’ve!  Apparently, all humans who get turned to vampires via purebloods go all Level E.  Not instantly, but it’s a sort of slow degeneration.  However, this opens up the question of how non-Level E vampires are created, but I guess it could just be genetics.



All right, one character that I’ve been neglecting to mention has officially made himself notable in this episode: Aido.  I can only remember his name because it’s pronounced like ‘idol’, which a lot of characters (and his fangirls, he is a bishie vampire after all) point out.  Okay, so, if you’ve been looking at my posts in the past, he is the guy who bit Yuuki’s hand in the first episode.  Surprisingly, despite this rather dickish act, he’s actually been a fairly reliable source of entertainment, as he fits rather squarely into the ‘goofball who’s a bit of an asshole’ character archetype, which means that he livens things up a little.  He also has a massive crush on Kaname (huh, I was wondering when the shounen-ai undertones would show up).  It showed up a bit in earlier episodes, but its role in this episode is too massive for me to neglect.


Aido actually is less thick than a brick wall, and can pick up that Kaname’s got a thing for Yuuki.  Of course, he’s jealous.  Thus, in what must have seemed to be a logical course of action to him, at least, he targeted Yuuki with his X-men powers, because that’ll obviously make Kaname like him more. 


Then, he tried to make Yuuki convince Kaname to suck her blood, which is something that he knows would eventually result in her out of the picture.


Of course, then Kaname shows up and bitchslaps him.  You know, now that I think about it, maybe Aido likes it when Kaname does that to him, so he intentionally tries to piss him off.  It has happened before… Hm…


Kaname’s certainly not pleased with the fact that Zero bit Yuuki.  In fact, I can say that he acts possessive.  He talks about it like Zero raped her or something.  I’m not kidding, watch the episode if you don’t believe me.  However, in this universe, it seems like a person can easily bounce right back from a deep cut to the jugular, and Yuuki is more disturbed by the fact that she didn’t know that Zero was a vampire than the fact that he bit her.


However, despite how angry Kaname is, he still hasn’t gotten into a hilarious sissy fight with Zero, so not all of my dreams predictions have come true.


More on Kaname, I’ve think that I’ve managed to nail down exactly what I don’t like about him (well, besides the possessiveness).  Basically every line that comes out of his mouth seems to basically embody exactly what a woman would want to hear.  Okay, this is hard to explain… Hm… Well, essentially, every time he talks, he goes on about how important Yuuki is to him and how he’ll protect her and he always comes in at the nick of time to rescue her and he loves her, and he’s a vampire, so he’s dark and mysterious… He’s basically a fangirl’s dream come true.  I’m supposed to sit at my computer, intently watching the screen and sighing about how romantic he is. 


However, I’m not.  Again, the possessive thing and the fact that I really don’t like his character much just makes how crystallized fanservice (of a subtextual sort, though) he is all the more evident.  In fact, it’s so in-your-face that it actually comes across as insincere.


Despite my dislike of Kaname, it doesn’t exactly mean that I’ve been liking Zero more.  Over the course of the show, his more likeable traits (his snarker tendencies, his acting like a tsundere, his badassery) have been gradually disappearing, only to be replaced by more dark angst. 


I guess that he’s in a pretty bad situation, but there’s only so much brooding in the moonlight and threatening to kill one’s self that I can take before it loses all emotional impact to me and starts to make me dislike the character.  He tried to force Yuuki to shoot him at one point in this episode, and I wanted to reach into my laptop screen and smack him.


He’s so intently focusing on his own despair, he isn’t even really thinking about how, y’know, Yuuki probably doesn’t want to kill one of her closest friends, and she would be wrecked with guilt if he somehow manipulated her into doing it.  I hope that this trend doesn’t continue, or else I’ll start to hate him, no matter how hopeless/sad his situation is.  I know that this guy is a main character, and that this anime has a second season that he’s in.  Thus, I know that he isn’t going to die.  This means that all of this time spent with him emo-ing and wanting to die is completely pointless, because I know that nothing will come of it.


On to things this episode I actually liked… Well, the headmaster made an appearance.  He was being serious business, though, but I guess his comic relief form probably would’ve screwed up this episode’s tone.    He explains all of this stuff about Zero’s epic struggle and angst to Yuuki.


At the end of the episode, it’s revealed that the vampire hunter association (or whatever it’s called) is sending someone to Cross Academy to sort crap out.  I hope that means that something badass will happen, as all of this dark brooding has been giving me a stomachache. 


I also learned that Zero came from a vampire hunting family.  I know that sounds like a footnote here, but it was like that in the episode, too.  I guess it really isn’t that important, but it’s an interesting tidbit to know, and I guess helps further explain why he hates all those bishies so much.



Oh, and, I admit, the scene where Yuuki told Zero that she wasn’t going to ditch him was actually kind of sweet.

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