Vampire Knight

Started watching a new anime after hearing such great things about it; Vampire Knight.  I will update further once I've enjoyed a few more episodes! 

The sympathetic vampire as a character will be interesting to explore through the character of Zero, who lost his parents in a vampire attack four years previous to the start of the series.  Zero's resentment of the "beasts" is understandable, and yet very early on we are given hints that there is more of the beast in Zero than he would care to reveal... 

His 'sister', Yuki, (both child victims taken in by Vampire Hunter/Headmaster Kaien after being attacked by vampires) has an entirely different view of vampires.  Yuki's was saved by the vampire, Kaname, so her loyalty to him is immediately demonstrated however, she also spends much of her time 'crushing' on him.

The vampires are already alluring; their eyes glow red when about to feed, however this feels more like it recalls the Romantic vampire's hypnotic powers than signalling a terrifying monstrous attack.  The night school students are also in almost identical uniforms to the day students, except theirs are white, and in a pleasantly quirky contrast it is the human day students dressed in black.  I quite like this move away from the black-clad vamp - even in The Vampire Diaries and Supernatural it is common place to dress the vampire in black leather or a brooding amount of metal chains.  Understandably this styling aligns them (or tries to) with an appropriation of 'goth' culture and indicate their 'dark' character but I am quite refreshed by Vampire Knight's preppy vampire denied to us in Twilight.  Much like Pam's Walmart sweatsuit, the vampire is as threatening in mundane clothing because their clothing gives nothing away about their identity.    It is comical to imagine a vampire (ala Dracula) in a school uniform but maybe that's how modern vampires want us to react, to laugh when really we should run...