Yuki Cross's earliest memory is of being attacked by a vampire and saved by Kaname Kuran, a pureblood vampire for whom Yuki tries to deal with her seemingly unobtainable love for her hero. Ten years later, Yuki, along with her childhood friend, Zero Kiryuu are school guardians (prefects) at Cross Academy where her adoptive father, Kaien Cross is the headmaster. Their jobs as guardians is to protect the human "Day Class" students from the vampire "Night Class" students and ensure that the human students do not discover the secret of the Night Class. The story follows Yuki's discovery that Zero had been turned into a vampire and her struggle to keep him sane, to prevent his condition from deteriorating into a Level E vampire. Yuki attempts to give up her humanity and be turned into a vampire by Shizuka Hio, Zero’s family's murderer and his master, in a bargain for Zero's sanity. Zero stops Yuki, preferring to kill Shizuka. Neither occurs when Zero's assumed dead twin (Ichiru Kiryuu) shows up, and Kaname kills Shizuka and drinks her blood. Zero’s grip on sanity slides and Yuki continues to help Zero fight his bloodlust while also seeking to recover her lost childhood memories suspecting Kaname knows more than he lets on. Kaname instead gives Zero his own blood to help keep Zero from going insane.
Seeing the threat of his uncle, Rido Kuran, Kaname bites Yuki and awakens her true nature as a pureblood vampire; the Pure blood Princess of the Kuran family. However, Kaname reveals to Takuma Ichijo that he is one of the original vampires and the founder of the Kuran clan, who, born thousands of years earlier, had retired to an endless slumber, but was resurrected by Rido Kuran who desired to consume him to become more powerful. Kaname was instead raised by Yuki's parents, Juri and Haruka Kuran. Rido tries to kill Yuki and consume her power, but is killed by the now estranged Zero and Yuki. Meanwhile, Kaname kills Rido’s allies, the members of the vampire senate who intended to destroy the night class and their hopes for peace. After the fierce battle, Zero tells Yuki that he intends to end everything, by killing all purebloods. After telling her that she should go be with the man who can spend eternity with her Yuki in return tells Zero that she will keep running from him to give him a reason to live. Yuki leaves with Kaname and they return to the family home to hide.

The story then leaps forward a year to find Yuki suffering from bloodlust and refusing to use her fangs. Kaname has restored the leadership of the vampires, taking his place as head. Zero has been attending school by day and hunting vampires at night. Yuki confesses to Kaname that she has an attachment to Zero and his acceptance allows her to succumb to her hunger and use her fangs. After a meeting between the hunters and vampires to reaffirm their treaty, all three attend a vampire ball. After a brief tense meeting between Yuki and Zero, a murder of a pureblood and a hunter at the ball breaks up the party. Although another pureblood, Sara Shirabuki, is revealed to be the culprit, it is passed off as a tragic suicide.

Yuki decides to offer her services as a grim reaper to purebloods wishing to die to prevent unnecessary sacrifices. However after an unprovoked attack by a pureblood, Touma, she is saved by Zero’s arrival. Their meeting is brief as after she awakens, she flees back to her home leaving Aido with Zero. Kaname, after the attack on Yuki finally reveals his past and true identity to her through the memories in his blood.

The anime actually stops at the point where Zero (and Yuuki) kills Rido and Yuuki runs away with Kaname. The manga is still on-going and rather disappointing. The anime is branched off into two seasons: Vampire Knight and Vampire Knight Guilty. The animators weren’t sure if they were going to produce a second season since the first season didn’t do too well. However, fans were demanding closure to the series.

I was reading the manga before the anime came out. I remember being so into the story and then, I lost all interest in it after the manga got crazy after Rido’s death. Where they ended the story in the anime adds a nice touch and I believe that’s where Matsuri Hino should’ve ended it in the manga. I would’ve been satisfied.

I recommend the anime but, not the manga. It will just leave you just as confused and frustrated as me. In this case, the anime is better than the manga. Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy me some Kaname and Yuuki action from time to time.

HELP JAPAN.

Aya Mikage and her twin brother Aki go to their grandfather's home for their sixteenth birthday unaware that it's actually a test to see if they have enough angel or celestial maiden blood in them. Aya is the reincarnation of a powerful celestial maiden called Ceres. When she transforms into Ceres, Aya obtains supernatural powers and abilities such as flight, teleportation, telepathy, incredibly strong and powerful telekinesis, premonition, projecting highly strong, powerful and destructive deep pink glowing energy blasts from her hands, creating incredibly strong and powerful impenetrable shields and barriers of pure deep pink glowing energy, and superhuman speed. According to the legend, Ceres will kill the Mikage family for revenge upon stealing her celestial robe, thus preventing her returning home to Heaven, so Aya's family attempts to kill her. However, she is saved by Suzumi Aogiri, another angel descendant with supernatural powers, (since not all Mikages have angel blood) and Suzumi's brother-in-law, Yūhi. Aya tries to control Ceres's power over her and Aki is taken over by the vengeful hateful spirit and soul of "Mikagi", the ancestor of the Mikage family who first stole Ceres' celestial robe, forcing her to stay on Earth. Aya also wrestles with her growing love for Toya, a servant of the Mikage who are trying to kill her, but lost his memory of his past. He also starts to love Aya in return. Aya promises Ceres to help her find her celestial robe in exchange for not killing her family (especially Aki) who hunts her down, since Aya still loves them. Toya tries to regain his memory. He learns that he was the organism that Ceres's celestial robe (otherwise known as "the mana") created to help it reunite with Ceres.

This is taking it a couple notches away from Petite Cossette. This one also makes my top ten list of anime/manga. Believe it or not, Ayashi no Ceres was one of the first graphic novels/manga I ever picked up and since then I have in love with all of Yuu Watase’s works.

This is soap opera anime. It’s got all its twists and turns with rivals for Aya’s love (much like Twilight’s counterparts, Jacob and Edward). Yuhi and Toya are the ones fighting for Aya’s love and affection (with Aki’s alternate personality trying to get at the goddess, Ceres). I didn’t like Aya’s character as much as I should have; I was too caught up in Ceres’ story to be caught up with Aya’s melo-dramatic life.

Ceres had fallen in love with a human, who had become completely intoxicated by her love that he was willingly to sacrifice their children to be with her. He hid her robes from her so that she was unable to return to heaven (and without returning to heaven she would eventually die a human death). She cursed that man and vowed to find her robes and curse his family for centuries to come. Hell hath no fury like a woman’s scorn. In the end, Ceres’ came to realize that the man was just extremely in love with her and didn’t want to lose her. She eventually forgave him and they returned to heaven together, finally bringing peace to the Mikage family and normality back in to Aya’s life.

Well, somewhat normal, Aya is knocked up with Toya’s child and Toya isn’t sure how much longer he will live because he no longer possesses the “Celestial Robe”. Aya’s mom is in a mental health institute for the rest of her life. Yuuhi goes on being Yuuhi (never liked his character anyways). A lot of the other good characters were killed off so, this is the end to this soap opera.

Very good watch, the animation is a bit botched since it was made in the early ‘90s. But you are just watching it for the story, right?

Enjoy!

Spice and Wolf
(Economics made fun!)



Spice and Wolf's story revolves around Kraft Lawrence, a twenty-five-year-old traveling merchant who peddles various goods from town to town to make a living in a stylized historical setting with European influences. His main goal in life is to gather enough money to start his own shop, and he already has been traveling for seven years while gaining experience in the trade. One night when stopped at the town of Pasloe, he finds in his wagon a pagan wolf-deity girl named Holo who is over 600 years old. She appears to be a fifteen-year-old girl, except for a wolf's tail and ears. She introduces herself as the town's goddess of harvest, who has kept it blessed with good harvests of wheat for many years. Despite her responsibility to watch over the town, she wants to go back to her homeland in the north called Yoitsu; she believes the people have already forsaken her and that she has kept her promise to maintain the good harvests. Holo wants also to travel to see how the world has changed while she has remained in one place for years. She manages to bargain her way out of the village by making a deal with Lawrence to take her with him. As they travel, her wisdom helps increase his profits, but at the same time, her true nature draws unwanted attention from the church.

Now, you are probably saying to yourself, “This anime is going to be no good. It talks about the economy and I already get enough of that in my economics class.” Yeah, I thought the same thing too however, the only thing that drew me in was that a wolf changed into a girl and vice

versa. Yeah, I’m into that stuff…SHUDDUP.

This anime starts off pretty fast with Holo teaming up with Lawerence and cooperating with each other just to survive. Ah, the power of teamwork. However, the anime does slow down quite a bit in the middle. You might want to yank it out at this point in time and go into your local video store and trade it in for some other anime but, I implore you…DON’T! It gets better plus, more Holo nudity for you perverts. I mean I know some people who have mixed feelings about it but, it’s worth watching at least one time.

A second season has already aired but, I do not believe it’s come to the states yet. There’s even a manga and light novel (with a revealing cover…kekeke).

Plus, you could probably learn a thing or two for that upcoming Economics test.

Tsukuyomi: Moon Phase
(Makes Twilight series look good)



The story is about the relationship between freelance photographer Kouhei Morioka and Hazuki, a teenager who descends from a royal vampire lineage. At the beginning of the story, Kouhei travels to a castle in Germany to take photographs of paranormal phenomena for his friend Hiromi, who is the editor of an occult magazine. At the castle, Kouhei meets Hazuki, who feeds on Kouhei's blood and claims him as her unwilling servant. Although this "blood pact" is supposed to bind Kouhei to Hazuki as her obedient slave, her act has no effect on Kouhei. Following an action-packed sorcerers' battle in which Kouhei and his cousin manage to free Hazuki from her captivity in the dreary castle, Hazuki travels to Tokyo, and takes up residence with Kouhei in his grandfather's house in Japan. Hazuki claims that, because she fed on his blood, Kouhei is now her servant, but Kouhei continually refuses to obey her, especially when he thinks her requests are unreasonable. Despite their fighting, the relationship between the duo progresses over time — even in the face of repeated attacks by opposing vampires — until Kouhei becomes determined to protect Hazuki from the vampire servants of her family, who are determined to retrieve her by whatever means necessary.

Oh my god, I’d rather sit and watch Twilight than watch this. This anime was boring and had no plot line, whatsoever. I guess…it is kind of like Twilight in some respects. /shot by many twi-girls. This is purely a filler anime for all your fan boys who fantasize about girl vampires. Hazuki is hardly a vampire at all! Sure, she’s got strong magical powers but, she never wants to bite Kouhei! WHAT KIND OF VAMPIRE DOESN’T WANT TO DRINK THEIR VICTIM’S BLOOD?! That’s not a vampire! If it were me, I would’ve torn his throat out!

Kouhei’s uncle makes Hazuki wear cat ears when she works in the antique shop. He’s a perverted old man but, claims he makes her wear the ears for the sole reason of hiding the fact that she’s a vampire. DOES ANYONE SEE THE PROBLEM HERE? How are cat ears going to hide the fact that you’ve got sharp, pointy teeth?! This anime is bad, I tell you, BAAAAD.

The only positive thing you get out of this anime is a wonderfully composed soundtrack by Yuki Kajiura. Other than that, can’t say too many good things about Tsukuyomi. I’d have to say that Tsukihime was a better vampire anime and it’s done by the same person!

I’m really sad I wasted money on the entire box set. /sad face

Directed by anime legend Hayao Miyazaki, Spirited Away is the tale of Chihiro, a young girl who is taken down an unusual road by her parents while moving to a new home in an unfamiliar place. The curiosity of Chihiro’s mother and father (who were based on two colleagues of Miyazaki’s) leads the reluctant child into what appears to be an abandoned amusement park. Soon her parents are greedily feasting on various delights from an enticing food stand (Seriously, shit looks good. Makes me turn into a fat kid) and are literally turned into pigs. The frightened and bewildered girl then encounters a young name named Haku (quite attractive, I might add), who explains what she must do to navigate this strange and magical realm. Finding employment in a bathhouse for spirits and other odd characters – including kimono-wearing frogs, lumbering tentacled monsters (HEHEHEHEH), and a mysterious apparition named No Face – Chihiro attempts to figure out how she can free her parents from the clutches of the resort’s owner, a powerful witch named Yubaba (Her head is the huge). In the process, she makes some very eccentric friends – and has to deal with some notoriously stinky customers (I imagine if you did work at a bathhouse, it can get really smelly).

Spirited away reminds me of Lewis Carroll’s, ALICE IN WONDERLAND. Chihiro finds herself in this strange and wonderful world – making new friends, defeating enemies and growing up in the process. Chihiro’s character annoyed me in the beginning because she was whiny, pessimistic and lazy (I’m sure all of us will admit we were lazy when we were children). You really watch Chihiro grow as a person inside and out. It’s beautiful! I love these kinds of movies when characters are on the road to self-discovery!

The visuals in the movie are top notch. The artwork is amazingly detailed, character designs are likable and the scenery is breathtaking. Dazzling and enchanting, I’m trying to find so many words to describe this piece of art.

Don’t be afraid of the tentacle monster because, this is indeed a family film. Hayao Miyazaki is a storyteller and targets the younger audience. It is indeed fun for everyone!

I highly recommend it.

Score – 10/10

Update: Just bringing some of my posts over from nerdnations until I put out some new articles.