Uknighted Manganime Life is too short to watch bad anime

Vampire Knight : 13 episodes
Genres : Shoujo, Vampire, Fantasy, Romance, Drama, Supernatural

Summary from myanimelist.net Cross Academy is different from other schools. It has a Day Class and a Night Class, with different uniforms and no interaction between these two classes. Secretly, students of the Night Class are all vampires, led by Kuran Kaname, a noble vampire who 10 years prior saved Cross Yuuki from the attack of a stray vampire. Now a Guardian of the Night Class vampires, Yuuki works along with fellow classmate Kiriyuu Zero, a young man with a hatred for vampires deeper than anything she could imagine. Together, they protect Kaname and the Night Class vampires from having their identities revealed, as well as protect Day Class students from any vampire attacks that occur due to a vampire’s natural thirst for blood.

My Spoiler Free Review:
After reading Matsuri Hino’s fantastic shoujo manga, Vampire Knight, I was hooked. I was highly anticipating the anime release, like many other fans. I had high expectations for this anime.
To be blunt, I was rather disappointed with Studio DEEN’s adaptation of the series, as I viewed it from a manga reader’s perspective. As a standalone, however, it was decent enough and worth a watch.

Story: 9/10
Matsuri Hino’s original story was well conveyed in this anime. The series is very plot-orientated and every episode will keep the viewer interested with its dramatic twists and turns, supernatural romance and its overall feel. Definitely one of the highlights of the anime.
The reason the score is 9 and not 10 is because the creators of the anime decided to leave out some of the events and even added in their own little details. It follows the manga well enough, though - and is very decent.

Animation: 6.5/10
I applaud Studio DEEN’s animators for their attempt to animate Vampire Knight’s unique and detailed art style. To be honest, they really could have done a better job. The quality of the animation seems fine near the start of the series, but it slowly decreased as the episodes were created/released.
The animation is sometimes inconsistent and becomes less detailed as the series goes on. Sometimes, the movements of the characters didn’t seem natural.
One thing I did enjoy animation-wise was the great detail put into the eyes. They were very pretty to look at, minus the inconsistencies presented in the style.
Overall, the animation is good enough. It’s nice on the eyes and won’t kill you if you choose to continue the series … and in the end, that’s all that really matters.

Sound: 7.5/10
Right away, you will notice the somewhat spooky yet awesome opening theme song. It is rather catchy and is a good choice for the show, lyric wise.
The ending theme is … a lot spookier than the opening. It will not appeal to everybody, but you may love it or hate it. Who knows.
The background music used for the majority of the series suited the mood quite well, in my opinion. However, there seems to be a set amount of tracks that were repeated over and over again. You may or may not notice this, though.
Sometimes, I found that the sound effects really did not suit the situation at all. This may kill the mood for some viewers, or even make it more enjoyable for some, depending on the scene.
About the voice actors - they did an absolutely brilliant job. If you are a big fan of anime, you may recognize some of the casts’ voices, featuring stars such as Horie Yui (of Fruits Basket and Tsubasa Chronicle), Miyano Mamoru (of Death Note and Ouran High School Host Club), Nakahara Mai (of Clannad and Higurashi no Naka Koro ni) and Fukuyama Jun (of Code Geass). (Note that I’m only listing a few of the more popular shows.)

Character: 7/10
Matsuri Hino created a cast of brilliant, unique and likeable characters, that were, unfortunately, not conveyed into animation properly. Some of the characters’ personalities even changed a bit. That’s rather insignificant, however.
I don’t know why, but some of the characters seemed bland and … not very deep, if you know what I mean. Thankfully, Hino’s original intentions for the characters are kept - they do actually develop and interact properly … kind of. Of course, they are all filled with just as much drama as the manga, but hey, it’s Vampire Knight. Expect nothing less.

Enjoyment: 6.5/10
If I hadn’t read the ongoing manga already, I would’ve enjoyed this so much more, I assure you. I felt as if the anime adaption could’ve been improved a lot. The series had so much potential and I hope Studio DEEN will put more effort into the production of any following Vampire Knight related media. Let’s hope for a better season 2, shall we?

OVERALL: 7/10
(This is not an average. ;P) Worth a watch. Decent enough, but I’d recommend you read the manga afterwards. You will enjoy it for what it is, though.