English scanlation

Thanks to Sagakure!

Things will be quiet here for a while since I’m pretty busy these days. I’ll be moving servers really soon, so please bear with me if you aren’t able to view the site properly while the server change is being done. I’ll get the site up and running again as soon as possible. :)

The next chapter will be released on 24 March. In addition to that, there will be a bonus VK chapter in the May issue of LaLa DX (to be relased on 10 April), which features the private lives of the vampires.

One thing I must say though, is that the recent chapters just seem to be getting better and better. With series like this, where a new chapter is only released once a month (or longer if there is a break), I find that I tend to lose some interest after some time, and there are series that I’ve dropped because of that. But with VK, this is not the case at all, and each chapter usually brings something new or interesting. I hope that I’ll be able to see this series till its end. :)

There’s still a few more days to go, but in case I don’t update by then, enjoy the holidays everyone! :)

Have a Merry Christmas!

In short, this chapter is a pretty somber one. It’s revealed to us that Sara killed Ouri. She first bit a hunter, and made him her slave by using her pureblood power. The hunter slave was then made to kill Ouri, and went on to end his own life after that. Sara tried to justify herself by saying that Ouri himself was tired of living on eternally anyway. Sara herself wants to become Queen.

Aidou figures out how Ouri died, but the difference is that they thought that Ouri committed suicide, rather than the case being a murder. Yuuki seems to have some doubt about the suicide part though. We then see Shiki and Rima visiting Aidou and Yuuki. They leave after passing a message from Ichijou.

Next up, Kaname gets mad because he ordered that no one was to be let into the place while he wasn’t around, yet Aidou and Yuuki let Shiki and Rima in. Aidou gets punished, while Yuuki doesn’t.

Kaname teaches Yuuki the names of the 7 pureblood families, which include Kuran, Hiou, Shirabuki, Ouri, Hanadagi, Touma and Shoudou. They go on to talk about more politics.

We get to see the Hunter’s Association talking about the Ouri and dead hunter case, and with that, the chapter ends.

The next chapter comes out on December 24, and volume 11 of the manga will be on sale in Japan from December 4. Sagakure has scanned the cover, and I must say that it looks absolutely lovely! :)

And now, off I go to get some rest. Hopefully I’ll recover fully by Monday.

Before I start, I must say that Zero looks really good on the cover. <3

Here goes:

• “A new game is starting…”
• We start off the chapter by seeing Kaname talking to Sara, which we knew was going to happen from the last chapter.
• Zero is leading Yori-chan away from the crowd, and Yori says that even though it feels scary, she thinks that there’s no need to be overly guarded against the people at the party. One of the vampire guest then comes up to her, and she gets scared of him. Zero brings Yori to Kaito, and asks her to stay near him and not wonder about.
• Aidou finds Zero and Yori, and asks them for an hour of their time to meet Yuuki. Yori asks Aidou if it’s really fine for them to do so, and Kaito pushes both Zero and Yori to go ahead.
• The scene then changes to that of the Chairman and Kain talking in a room… and a couple of panels later we see Shiki, Rima and Ichijou!
• Shiki asks Ichijou why he didn’t return nor contact them since he was fine, and Rima adds that they were worried. Ichijou explains that he was confined, and apologises for getting them worried. Shiki suggests that they should go and greet Kaname, but Ichijou says that he will stay with Sara. He says something about Yuuki finally returning to Kaname, and that he shouldn’t be a hindrance.
• Going back to Aidou, Yori and Zero, they have reached the room where Yuuki was waiting for them. Zero says that he only came along to send Yori. As Zero nears the door, the veins on his hand start buldging out. Aidou opens the door, and Yori and Yuuki immediately embrace each other.
• Kain comes to the room, and tells Aidou that he should have heard about what had happened. Yuuki asks what’s going on, and Aidou tells her that the other pureblood, Ouri, had disappeared.
• Yuuki suddenly sensed freshly-spilled blood. She decides to take a look at the situation, and asks Aidou to stay with Yori. Aidou says that he was commanded not to leave Yuuki no matter what, and Yuuki had no choice but to let Aidou and Yori go along.
• We see Kaname and Sara talking again, and their conversation reveals that Ouri is older, and is Sara’s fiancee.
• Back to Yori and the rest, we see that the ashes of a vampire had been found on a table. Upon seeing this, Aidou stops Yori from going any further.
• Yuuki meets the Chairman, and sees that one of the hunters had decided to kill himself with his own weapon. On his neck were bite marks made by a vampire. Yuuki says that she must find the person who did it, and Zero tells her that to keep out of it, since it’s not a game. Yuuki says she understands, as she is no longer the Cross Yuuki who didn’t know anything and couldn’t do anything. If anything bad happens, she would make a move to protect the things that are important to her.
• Yuuki is asked to leave. She asks about the party, and Zero says that that farce of a party is over.

The next chapter comes out on 24 November, and the furoku is a 2010 calendar.

The trio meet again after a year! I’ve been waiting for this to happen. :) They’re all looking lovely at the ball, especially Yuuki. She’s grown so much over a year.

• We get to see how the vampire society is really like, and how the other vampires certainly do not have good intentions towards the purebloods, unlike the members of the Night Class. It must have been really difficult for Kaname to grow up in such an environment, with Haruka and Juuri no longer being around to shelter him.
• Yuuki held herself really well during the ball, even though it must have been scary with all those vampires surrounding her. She seems confident and in control, even if she might not have felt entirely that way.
• Yori really throws all caution to the wind in order to meet Yuuki. Imagine if Zero wasn’t there – I can’t be sure what Sara or the other vampires would do to her. Is everything that happened so far within Kaito’s plan? I really can’t see how he can just stand around and not do anything. >< What exactly is his plan, and what if things don’t happen according to it?
• Zero asking Yuuki not to touch his hand… that was such a sad scene. If only their first meeting after a year wasn’t at the ball but somewhere more private – I wonder if things would turn out a bit more different? I’m sure he still cares about Yuuki.
• The most intriguing part of the chapter has to be about the new pureblood – Ouri. I’m really curious as to what happened between Sara and him, and that scent of blood. Will this in anyway tie back with the sleeping purebloods we learnt of a few chapters back?
• The teaser says that something gruesome is going to happen in the next chapter. It might be an exaggeration, like how these teasers are sometimes, but in any case, it’s interesting to see how the events will unfold. There are so many possibilities out there. I’m hoping to see more interaction between the trio!

By the way, if anyone noticed that Yuuki’s clothes in the manicure scene this chapter is different from the previous chapter, it’s because Hino-sensei made a mistake. She mentions in her blog entry that Yuuki’s clothes was drawn wrongly in chapter 53, and it will be fixed so that she’s wearing the same clothes in this chapter when the new manga volume comes out.

(In another entry, Hino-sensei draws a picture of Yuuki for Horie Yui, the seiyuu of Yuuki, as a birthday present. Too bad the picture is so small, but still, it looks really lovely.)

Just a note about raw scans before I end off:

The first scans of this chapter that was released were not complete – the scanner did not want to post up the complete chapter because she faced issues with stealing. It seems that fewer people are scanning VK as compared to the past, and it’d be really sad if we no longer get to see the raws because of this. So, please don’t repost the scans from other sites. Linking to the page itself is usually fine though. :)

Please continue to support Hino-sensei and Vampire Knight! The next chapter will be out on October 24.

Edit: Scanlation is up!

As usual, some thoughts about this chapter: (SPOILERS!)

• I enjoyed this chapter, with the appearance of Kaito, Shiki and Rima, and of course, our trio getting to meet again! Kaito first appeared in the first VK novel, and now we get to see him all grown up! He seems to have become scarier though… (For those interested in the VK novels, they are unfortunately not available in English, but I think I’ve come across a summary somewhere. Look in the VK LJ community if you’re interested? There are Chinese translations available online, for those who can read it.)
• Why does Yori trust Kaito to sneak her into the ball? I really dislike the fact that Kaito is using her as bait, and I hope nothing bad happens to Yori. I do want her and Yuuki to meet though. I really wonder what Kaito’s true intentions are with regards to everything he’s done in this chapter. I just hope he doesn’t make things worse between the vampires and hunters.
• Yuuki does make people rethink their image about the purebloods sometimes. XD But you know, that’s what I like about her!
• I wonder why Kaname is so skilled at manicures. Did he learn how to do it, hoping that he could help Yuuki with her manicure some day? What else does he know? XD
• Yuuki has this lovely pureblood feel when she appears in front of the vampires. The look on Zero when he sees her though, is kind of worrying. I wish that one day we’ll see him looking at her with the same kind of expression he had when she was still human. I’m looking forward to seeing what will happen between the both of them.
• We’ve yet to see Sara, and I wonder if she turned up at the ball? Present or not, I do think that she’ll cause some kind of trouble.

The results of the cosplay contest are announced in this chapter, and the winning idea is that of “angels and demons”, which is what Hino-sensei drew for the cover page. While the picture is nice, I wish that some other idea had won, since the theme of angels and demons is so common. Some of the other submitted ideas include:

• Halloween Night, with Kaname as Dracula, Yuuki as a fairy, Aidou as a native American, Kain as Frankenstein, Rima as a black cat, Zero as a zombie, and so on.
• Alice in Wonderland, with Zero as Alice, Aidou as The White Rabbit, Kain as The Cheshire Cat, Ichijou as The Mad Hatter, and Kaname as The Queen of Hearts.
• Kindergarten
• Mafia, with Kaname as the boss, and the Night Class as his subordinates. Yuuki will be Kaname’s girlfriend
• Sherlock Holmes, with Yuuki as Sherlock Holmes, Zero as Watson, and Kaname as Professor Moriarty.
• 金さん – Not too sure what this one is about.
• Gakuran (学ラン) – It refers to a type of Japanese school uniform for boys, often with a stand-up collar with long jacket and loose trousers, and the contributers wanted the characters to be dressed in these.
• Cross Ranger – Aidou as Red, Kain as Blue, Kaname as Black, Yuuki as Pink, and Ichijou as Yellow. Their opponent is… Zero?! There’s another version with Kaname as the evil boss, and the other characters having different colours.
• The Kuran family
• Opera – Aidou as heroine
• Love, running wildly (愛、暴走) – There has to be a better way to translate this! There are 2 suggestions for this theme. One of them has Aidou wearing a T-shirt with Kaname’s picture printed on it, along with “I <3 Kaname-sama” as the logo. The other one is about Kaname and Yuuki cross-dressing.

I didn’t translate all the details, and there are some parts that I’m not too sure about, but I’ll add those in if I have time to do so. I’d love to see the Alice in Wonderland theme being done!

Some useless ramblings of mine:

• Lots of Kaname x Yuuki in this chapter, and despite being a Zero x Yuuki shipper, I wasn’t too upset with this development. I guess I saw it coming after reading the last couple of chapters.
• Zero looks so good no matter what he’s doing! I can’t help but stare at the panels with him…
• Sara and Takuma… just what is Sara planning and what does Takuma have in mind? Has their relationship changed? It’s not surprising that Kaname knows where Takuma is. I don’t think anything escapes him.
• The most interesting part of the chapter has to be the other sleeping purebloods. Who are they, and where will they stand when they are awaken? (I’m pretty sure they they will be.) Just how many pureblood families are there?
• What’s the story with the ancestor? What happened before his slumber? Why was he in such despair? I hope we get to find out more about him soon.
• I really hope that the next chapter will have the trio meeting – we haven’t seen them together in so long! I really want to know how they would react to each other’s presence. Also, will we get to see Shiki and Rima during the ball? We haven’t seen them in a while.

The next chapter will be out on 24th August, and it will be 40 pages long with colour pages. Please continue to support Hino-sensei by buying the manga!

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In other news, Viz Media has licensed the VK anime! There’s not much information about it yet, and I’m not sure if VK Guilty is included in their license as well. But still, it’s good news for those wishing to own the DVDs, but not getting the Japanese releases because they can’t understand it. :)

Edit: Scanlation is here!

Just some thoughts about the chapter: (SPOILERS!)

• I thought that Kaname, Zero and Yuuki would meet in this chapter, but it turns out that Hino-sensei had different plans. Not that they are bad though!
• I’m glad that Yori and some of the other Day Class students decided not to have their memories erased after all that’s happened. With them able to accept the idea of vampires living with them, and understanding that not all vampires are evil, perhaps there’s a chance that humans and vampires can co-exist peacefully someday. The Chairman must be glad about that!
• I hope that Zero has changed his stance about killing Yuuki.
• So Yuuki has finally accepted the vampire side of her! It’d be interesting to see how things change because of that.
• My favourite part has to be when Yuuki admitted that a part of her is still attached to Zero. <3 With Yuuki having feelings for both Kaname and Zero, will she stick with Kaname till the end, or will she somehow end up with Zero? It’s pretty hard to say, with how things are right now. I’m for the Zero x Yuuki pairing, but what matters more is that all the main characters are happy and able to move on with their lives, even if the Kaname x Yuuki pairing turns out to be canon instead.
• Does anyone else miss seeing the other characters? Ichijou, Kain, Shiki, Ruka, Rima… what has happened to them? I hope we get to see them in the coming chapters.

The scanlation should be out soon, so do keep an eye out on them! Please continue to support Hino-sensei by buying the manga! I *think* the latest issue of Lala should be out in Kinokuniya (Singapore branches) on Wednesday, but it’d be better to check before heading down.