Just a random anime fan. @sonitavalentine - Tumblr Blog

hey so these all made me cry

#it's been 10 years ghaaaaa #10 fucking years and no sequel #we're living in hell #yuuri on ice

sorry but yuuki is not kaname's true love. Is kaname yuuki's true love? Yes. Is yuuki kaname's true love? No. If by true love, you mean that kaname loved yuuki madly, truly, deeply and that she was the most important woman to him and to whom his life revolved around then yes I can agree but you can't seriously mean it when you say yuuki is kaname's true love cause if what yuuki did in the story to kaname is seen as true love, then all I can say is that "May no one get this kind of love"

Well, um, while I agree that Yuuki did make mistakes that could've been avoided if during a certain period of time she was fully devoted to Kaname only, I still stand on the ground that we cannot make it only her responsibility while it's more connected to Hino's weak representation of true love as a concept. She was lost somewhere on the path between "true love" and "dark bloody vampire love" and didn't manage to connect those. Therefore it looks the way it does.

What I'm trying to say is that sometimes authors intentionally show us that characters do mistakes and they're read as ones and the narration punishes them for those and then it's indeed character's responsibility, but VK is the case when the author doesn't lay it on character's shoulders, doesn't consider it as mistakes because in their interpretation character A cannot make mistakes. So, what we as readers may see as unfair behaviour isn't considered to be like that in author's head. That's why no, Yuuki is Kaname's true love because this is what narration pushes, it's just that Hino doesn't seem to bother how some Yuuki's actions may look (and Kaname's, if we're going to be fully honest). But it's still framed as true love concept.

#vampire knight #anti hino matsuri #gonna tag my critique of hino like this I guess

hi i love all your takes what do you think the new vk chapter will be about??

Well, my guess it could be two options:

about zeki: Hino always does same things - if one period of the plot it was yume-heavy, then we should expect that later she shows more of zeki, and vice versa (talks about insecurity, yup). Maybe it's some scenes from the past when they discuss how Yuuki's gonna sacrifice herself for Kaname and what Zero's attitude towards that is.

about Ai and Ren after Kaname and Yuuki are gone. But somehow I think that's unlikely.

#vampire knight #anonymous

There were just a few pages and a few scenes so they are not seen as important but it was not just a kiss.

He kissed her yes and he was also caressing her hair like the way he touches Yuuki's hair. The scene where she's looking at him and around her are pieces of a mirror breaking in, during the parting scene. He was bending over broken shards of a mirror, grasping at the scattered shards, crying over the loss. It hinted at someone that also had the potential to be a deep connection but that was lost in the past.

And when he was standing in front of these flames, another sound was heard. The mirror behind him that Yuuki had stepped on. She asks him if she could be a replacement to the HW and Kaname replies "No one could ever be a replacement for anyone else and this is why goodbyes are always painful"

The hw abandoning him was given as a reason for Kaname's fear of loss and the protectiveness he felt for Yuuki, going to any lengths. Only for everything to be given to zero. By hurting kaname, yuuki/hino gained nothing/zero.

Now that ship sank before it could even sail but hino really did show HW as a potential love

Exactly!

It wasn't just a kiss there, there were so many more moments that confirmed that they had a stronger connection. Now again, I emphasize that it's visible Yuuki is Kaname's greatest love and VK is basically a story about Yume, but I don't see it as a problem that he might have had someone in the past. So why is it a problem to imagine he may have mad some feelings for HW, is a mystery to me.

Actually, comparing the way Hino depicted it and how she then backstepped saying that it was all maternal connection and they had only a faint attachment (and narration disproves that as you noted above), I think probably some editors forced her to do damage control? Like, hey Matsuri-san they will read too deep into it, go say you didn't mean that. Who knows.

#vampire knight #anonymous

ericcartmanmeh

To Kaname, she is not so much an object of romantic love or affection, but rather a parent-like figure who gave him a new name, a companion with whom he shared and tended each other's wounds, and someone toward whom he holds a feeling of comradeship.

This is an official clarification made by the author herself in 2015, correcting fans who interpreted their close relationship as romantic love.

You can find this information in the last volume (Volume 10) of the following editions: - Vampire Knight Bunko Edition by Hakusensha (JP) - Vampire Knight "Pearls" by Carlsen (DE) - Vampire Knight 愛藏版 by 長鴻出版社 (CN) - Vampire Knight "Édition Double" by Panini (FR)

eternalpassions

Kaname was never in love with the hooded woman

sonitavalentine

Wow, lol

Hino: shows Kaname kissing HW RIGHT ON FUCKING LIPS

Fans: interpret it romantic (bc the context claimed there should've been a woman who started the Kuran line together with Kaname)

Hino: oh no, don't interpret it as romantic, it was parental hihi

Rrrright bc I kiss my parents on the lips every damn day, of course.

I'm not necessarily pro-Kaname/HW, but I'm against bullshit. You can't just show something like that, put it into absolutely tragically romantic circumstances (yeah, I will fight to death that it is, I am a writer myself and have a thesis in literature. God damn it) and then say this. Nobody claims Kaname belongs to HW, we know that Yuuki was his true and eternal love, but 1) it's nothing bad if Kaname had some romantic affairs before Yuuki, it's normal and healthy, 2) it won't make Yume's love less great and deep, 3) it simply sounds stupid.

I think I'm just done with Hino at this point, she's totally unserious.

ericcartmanmeh

I'm not against Kaname having an ex-lover/wife, but he hasn't or it wasnt hooded woman and the dialogue in the manga also states it that way. Kaname did depend on the hooded woman, he was about to develop some sort of feeling for her, but she was already gone.

This is the wording in the manga: By the time he developed a faint attachment to her, she was already gone.

Meaning he hadn't even developed romantic feelings for her before she was already gone.

They worked side by side for maybe hundreds, even thousands of years, and that's what he calls it: a faint attachment. (Yes, the kiss means they're married, they're in love, they have Kuran together, but they're just faint attachment before she is gone.)

Forget centuries. Just a decades of being together is enough for anyone to develop dependency on someone, to get used to that person's company. Not to mention she was the elder who guided him back to his own group when he was at his most lonely and helpless state.

That kiss was a farewell. Part of the reason she cared for him was because she hoped Kaname would inherit her will and carry on her work in her place. "Good boy." "Work hard for me." She had no interest in any romantic relationship whatsoever. She also knew that he battled suicidal tendencies, which is why she stepped in and took the sacrifice meant for him. She wanted him to keep living. She treated him like a fucking child.

Kaname had suicidal tendencies all along. The anti-vampire weapon was his research, and he wanted to end his own life with it. But she got there first and took his place. Guilt kept him from following through afterward, so he honored her wishes and kept working. But he still couldn't help himself, running off to sleep out of "loneliness" and other reasons.

And later, hooded woman comes back to punish Kaname for slaughtering the purebloods, because he went against her original wishes and the words she left him with. Her line: "I will punish the purebloods who brought everything into darkness." This was directed at both Kaname and Sara, and sara was executed on the spot. That chapter's title: "The Arrogant King, The Arrogant Queen." Because for purebloods, arrogance itself is a sin.

The monologue here also implies that they only started breeding after the HW's death. And yes, breeding is the word he used when describing how Rido came to exist.

sonitavalentine

Hi,

With all due respect, a lot of what you're saying about HW is just kind of wishful interpretation of whacky narration. We know absolutely nothing about Hooded Woman, what and who she is, if she's younger or older, what she believes in and what her intentions are, she's just that - a plot device. Not a character, she doesn't have a name, even the Hooded Woman wording is something the fans came up with to somehow describe her in fandom analyses. So to me it's a bit weird to discuss her wishes and views because it's never clear.

What I'm tryin to convey is that we shouldn't look at HW or Kaname's actions and thoughts but Hino's. She's absolutely insecure as a writer, she created this situation, made Kaname more ancient than the pyramids, said he was the progenitor, and then...stepped back. Saying that this creature didn't form ANY kind of attachment, that he went into slumber because of total loneliness when the narration requires him to have a wife and children (he was declared to be the ancestor, for hell's sake), all of this imply high level of stupidity from the writer to me. Or insecurity, okay.

All Hino had to do, or NOT do is not declare Kaname the ancestor. He could've been a brother who failed to save, idk, his younger brother??? And kids of those brother formed a Kuran lineage and those heirs hated Kaname bc he failed to save their father, or that he turned them into first vampires bc he was afraid to lose last family members, but they turned their backs on him, which caused his total loneliness. Voi la! No woman in sight, no unclear kisses, loneliness explained. I made up thjs shit within a couple of minutes right now, Hino had a decade to come up with something much better, but instead she presented us a pre-story of the very important character in such a way that up to this day people argue what that means. Why? What for? Unclear. And stupid. She just didn't want to and didn't care. So to me it makes no sense to argue what those characters made in the past when they aren't really fleshed out.

ericcartmanmeh

Hi, I don't think it's fair to write this off as vagueness or laziness on Hino's part. This is a hallmark of East Asian storytelling, where a lot of things simply don't need to be spelled out, and that's tied to the tradition of indirect expression in kanji-using cultures. It's also why so much of the mood/subtext doesn't survive translation into English.

What I'm trying to get at is that VK's worldbuilding, and its central doomed romance, draws straight from Vampire Hunter D. It's a story where a half-vampire, half-human hunter belongs nowhere, crushed by the isolation of immortality, rejected by humans and never at peace with the vampire side of himself either. Kaname isn't a dhampir, but he's the one who founded the anti-vampire weapons in the first place, and his situation takes the same shape: a pureblood who's been around for centuries and never come to terms with his own identity. To pass himself off as human and fit into human society, he never let himself bond with anyone, and over time he forgot his own name, because no one was ever there to say it. He refused to feed with his fangs, but couldn't outrun what he was, ended up back with the race he despised.

And this isn't just me reading too much into it either. In a 2008 interview [1], Hino herself flat-out recommended this exact novel, describing it as "living precariously, teetering on the knife's edge between human and beast." That line pretty much sums up Yuuki, Kaname, Zero, and even Kaien in one go, none of them fully human, none of them able to fully own their vampire side either, all four caught between two worlds and never quite landing on either side.

Kaname mirrors the strongest Vampire in Vampire Hunter D pretty closely too. Hino writes his deep weariness toward an endless lifespan, and his fixation on turning Yuuki human is arrogant, basically the Vampire's line to his beloved: "You don't understand the pain of having to live forever, I don't want you to experience that pain," met with his beloveds response, "That's only what you believe,"[2] which is close to what Yuuki throws back at Kaname. Yuuki had already decided to follow him anywhere, even to hell. In the end of this tv series it's implied the woman dies and the vampire follows her in death. Whether they actually die is never explicitly confirmed, I think that's just how East Asian storytelling rolls.

This also lines up with what Hino's said about VK's origins, her initial concept was an extremely tragic short story, not a school shoujo romance. Her editor at LaLa rejected that pitch and pushed for a school setting with a bunch of hot guys instead, leading to an opening arc that reads like such a generic school romance and pulled in a fanbase that wasn't really there for a dark story, so it backfired on her later.[3]

So no, I don't think this is Hino not knowing what she was doing. She was clearly trying to draw from the Vampire Hunter D concept of an extreme tragic romance, even within the constraints the school setting imposed on her. Yume was arguably doomed to a bad ending from the very start, and the actual ending of VK Memories is Hino's mercy.

Lastly, and to be clear, the narrative logic never required him to have a wife, just a bloodline heir, and that's why the manga keeps hammering words like "breeding" and "beast". VK constantly reminds you that purebloods don't pair off for love, they pair off to keep the bloodline going. Rido has a child and never married. (and the manga also makes Rido a mirror for both Kaname and Yuuki) So why not just make Kaname the uncle, with the Kuran bloodline coming from his brother, because Hino was writing incest on purpose, an ancestor falling for his own descendant, a gothic, dark relationship. There's even a line in the manga that says she inherited his most concentrated blood, that's the effect Hino was going for. Without that taboo, the whole story loses its point.

[1][3] ぱふ 2008年 08月号雑誌 "巻頭特集: 魅惑のヴァンパイア「ヴァンパイア騎士」

In the year 12,090 AD, the world has become the domain of vampires known as the "Nobility." Though showing signs of racial decadence and decline, the Nobility still threaten humanity with their overwhelming power. Among the hunters who specialize in hunting them is a young man renowned for his exceptional skill and striking beauty. His name is "D." He is a Dunpeal — born between a vampire and a human… The series has also been adapted into other media, including OVA anime films, and remains a hugely popular series by Hideyuki Kikuchi.

[2] Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust (2000)

sonitavalentine

I see what you mean, I'm familiar pretty well with East Asian literature because I read it a lot, I know what you're talking about and I understand the concept. However, when we interpret things (no matter what culture they're coming from) we often forget that they're made by humans, and humans make mistakes. So the problem with a lot of interpretations is that in many cases we just don't realize that we actually try to analyze mistakes.

Even taking into account the fact that Hino is Japanese and that her storytelling isn't as linear and straight as ones we're used to seeing/reading in Western culture, there's a line between "it's not spelled out because it doesn't seem necessary" (like in Vampire Hunter D, I like this anime) and "it's not spelled out because the author made a mistake by leaving it open or presenting a wrong idea". Now, the ideas Hino present about immortality being a burden is great (although nothing new), however a lot that involved romance looks insecure.

Actually, I understand that I don't want to talk about it much, because I see in the end we will agree to disagree - you're obviously trying to defend Hino's skills which I respect because once I was on that side too, but now I'm too tired to believe in her narrating abilities, and where you see hidden meanings and well crafted implications, I see mostly writer's mistakes. Nobody's free of them, all of our favorite authors do them, but every one of us has to decide whether we're ready to overlook them to enjoy the story or see through them. I was forgiving Hino her failures for too much time, now I'm just exhausted with her storytelling.

I was reading the first chapter of your fanduc. I like this line. Kiryuu Zero is the fly in the ointment. 😂

Ahaha, oh yeah. I remember this line :D

#anonymous #answered

what kind of a kiss do you think it was? It was Kaname kissing this woman he has purely maternal feelings for or a friend he had sexual feelings for? And if she would've lived longer, he would've ended up having sex with this woman he had pure maternal feelings for? And what about romantic feelings? are they a separate category. I know in today's times, there's labels for every small relationship style now. He did mourn this woman and seemed to carry symptoms of PTSD . And by the way, do you think she loved him? Did she sacrifice her life for him? Or she was just concerned with her humanitarian work and couldn't care less about him? I think their last scene was tragic and full of feels where she tried to touch him as her tentacles? where entangled all around his body but she couldn't and just scattered away.

Hi,

Well, I'm against this thing that kissing someone on the lips would mean not only romantic but also maternal feelings. Like, it's weird to me. And it's difficult for me to imagine that there's culture that accepts such kissing as normal for parent-kid dynamic. All Hino had to do is show them not kissing but embracing, and we'd have been good. Because they still were comrades therefore it was difficult for them to lose each other anyway, so embracing is something that would really show their attachment to each other but nothing extra. But somehow, Hino thought it would be cool (because let's be honest, yes it does look cool) to show them kissing - it did add unnecessary romantic tension, but then she decided to do damage control because some readers appeared to think that HW was a greater love for Kaname (which is false and the entire manga is basically about that).

It's hard to say what kind of feelings HW had for him because the narration is never clear about it as we know, but. I'd love to imagine that they both started to feel something - mainly because I'm a fan of the idea that having romantic affairs for Kaname in his deep deep deep past before he met Yuuki in flesh (we aren't talking about the vision of her on the battlefiend, it was just that - a vision) isn't a crime, it's fine and normal, and it won't make Yume any less meaningful. At the end of the day, Yuuki herself had relationships with Zero after Kaname, so not a big deal for him to have someone before her. So if Hino showed us him kissing HW, why not her? She's just an option. I don't insist, I'm just pondering on possibilities. It could've been someone else and maybe not even one and maybe not only women, but we saw only her, so. Not much space for more thoughts.

And if we go this route (that she had slight feelings for him) then yeah, she did it for him. And from the way it was narrated it looked obvious to me that she was trying to save him from the fate of being sacrificed, but also, of course, she did that to save the humanity as well because they both shared same views on how the world should've been constructed with vampires and humans in it.

And I agree that their last scene was very tragic and sad, and yes, it presented additional tension (unnecessary, if we accept what Hino wants us to believe about them). Sometimes I think that maybe it would be good if she made HW male? But then again, it wouldn't stop readers from suggesting romantic tension (yay, more bisexual Kaname!) and probably he would be shipped with this version of HW even more openly and harder. So, Hino made this trap for herself with her own hands. The story should've been built differently if she wanted to avoid romantic insinuations.

#vampire knight #anonymous #answered