天下制覇

Finally, a vampire that actually wants to chow down.

Impressions:

A significantly better episode than the last few since it feels like we’re finally moving again. Kurenai Maria shows up, who is pretty obviously the woman that slaughtered Zero’s family in the past, or at the very least, extremely closely related to her. We got some cute moments from Yuuki too. I loved the blob look on the banister. I don’t think we’ve seen too much of moeblob Yuuki since episode one or two. They’ve been too focused on showing the tragic life of being her vampire brother’s blood donor. WHAT A WORLD.

I want to know what the hell was up with the animation at 17:00 or so though. That shot of Ichijou walking was just horrendous. It’s like half the frames were missing or something. The rest of the episode was perfectly fine. Nothing impressive, nothing horrible. Those few seconds though… gah. Somebody clearly missed something during the editing phase.

Anyway, I like Maria a bit more now than I did when she was just a random shadowy figure that laughed like a hyena. Like Aidou, she actually possesses some degree of sinister menace, what with telling Yuuki how delicious she is constantly. The rest of the vampires… eh… At least Zero is willing to point a gun at them, but so far, they’ve just been posing pretty boys, Kaname included. We could use more vampires a hair’s breadth away from nibbling on people. It’d certainly add some more interesting drama to the series.

A woman sits with Zero in her lap, both are covered in blood. She tells him to hurry up and grow up. She’s his belonging.

Zero wakes up in shock.

Yagari tells the Headmaster that ‘that woman’ is near.

The EYELESS GIRLS are spazzing out in front of the Night Class gates while Yuuki thinks about Zero; how he’s a hunter, and how he’s a vampire, etc. He jolts her out of her daydreams and tells her to prepare herself.

The Night Class comes out. Yuuki holds them back by force, but Zero just glares at them and they know not to cross the line.

 Yuuki gets swept along with the torrent of the girls to the front door, where Aidou pulls her inside.

She tells him to let her go, but he wants a word of thanks first. Kaname calls a stop to things and tells her to try hard. Zero opens the door and pulls her out and off.

The Night Class talks about how everybody was especially annoying today. Or fun. They disagree somewhat.

A carriage rolls up at night. A woman steps out in front of the school. Zero watches it from the parapets.

The headmaster informs Yuuki that they’re getting another student that she needs them to keep an eye on. She hasn’t been around people (HUMANS… WORD CHOICE! HA!) for awhile because of her health and has been up in the mountains. The door opens and the girl comes in. Yuuki instantly recognizes her as a vampire.

Introductions all around. She’s Kurenai Maria. She remarks on how delicious Yuuki seems, which makes the headmaster flip out, reminding her that such things are forbidden.

Yuuki shows her around the school. Maria’s worried about not making friends or being accepted. Yuuki tells her that if there’s anything, she can rest assured that Yuuki will be there for her. Maria hugs her and caresses her hair. She holds Yuuki close and says that it looks like she’ll LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE her.

The Night Class snacks on Aidou pocky which thinking that this night seems mysterious. Maria’s laugh alerts them all that she’s there. Aidou wonders who she is, calling her ‘you’ (omae, informal). She leaps up and takes his head in her hands and stares into his eyes, mildly musing aloud about him calling her ‘you.’ Kaname calms down the situation by calling her name. She floats over to him and humbly apologizes, then nuzzles his hand. The rest of the vampires are shocked at her forwardness. She sees that and excuses herself.

After she leaves, they’re all pretty pissed. Aidou just storms off on his own.

Yuuki starts her patrol. She sees Zero and hops over to him. She thanks him for saving her earlier, but he’s determined to be a rainy day. Blah blah, they never really talk, first time she could take care of him, etc. Zero is a bit annoyed, but tells her it’s nothing to do with her when she brings up his family. She tells him that it does have to do with her now.

Zero gets all grumpy again, so she open hand slams his chest with a smile. He coughs and scoffs at her, but then something comes up on them, a girl with long silver hair. Zero is shocked.

Yuuki greets Maria. She was taking a look around. Zero immediately pulls out his gun and points it at her. Yuuki gets in his way, demanding to know what he’s doing. He lowers the gun… he’s wrong, something feels wrong. Maria introduces herself while still cowering behind Zero. He holsters the gun and Yuuki apologizes. She tells Maria all about Zero and her as the guardians. Maria thanks her and says that she really does like her and thinks that she’s… delicious. Aidou watches it all from above.

The next day, the Day Class is being stupid as usual. The Night Class sort of glares at them. Rima pulls a dance invitation out of Shiki’s pocket. Maria grabs it from her to check it out. It’s a dance between the Day and Night classes coming up soon. She then scampers off.

Yagari comes in to start class and sees Maria. The two exchange a look, but then class starts. Zero’s watching Maria from outside the window. When he looks away, Maria looks up to the window and giggles.

Later, Maria is brought to Kaname’s room. She talks to him about fitting in with the Night Class. Kaname’s noncommital and gives his permission. She scampers off.

Aidou and Kain discuss Maria’s background. Kain doesn’t think there’s anything too unusual, but Kain can’t shake the feeling. The feeling she gave him was how he imagined a woman vampire called Hiyuu Shizuka and the rumors surrounding her. Aidou’s not entirely certain there’s a connection… but he thinks there’s something.

Yuuki, Zero, and whose-her-face-her-friend wander around making brainless small talk. The random other human male comes up to be all stupid at them about dancing and the Day/Night Class mixer and Yuuki dragging the class’ grades down. Something about  them not getting to go or having to do extra work if they suck it up.

Zero suddenly senses something. The Night Class is out and wandering around… looking for Maria who has wanderout out to mingle with the Day Class.

May I point out that the animation during that part was atrocious. It was stuttery and jittery and seriously… what the bloody hell happened during those 3 seconds?

Yuuki runs over to stop them, but Zero grabs her arm and warns her about revealing too much about herself and them. Aidou walks up and hugs her, making all the girls scream.

He lets her go after a second and Zero threatens him. Zero leaves to go off with Aidou, but not before warning her to be careful of Maria.

Yuuki runs off before the rage of the fangirls and hides herself up on the banister. Ichijou is up there… but he’s basically lost Maria entirely. She wanted to go mingle the Day Class and he couldn’t stop her. He does wonder aloud about Kaname. Even though he could use his abilities as a pureblood to keep this kind of chaos to a minimum, he doesn’t, but then again, that’s why they all respect him.

Aidou and Zero have it out. Actually, Zero thinks that Kurenai Maria has something to do with ‘that woman,’ Hiyuu Shizuka. Aidou thinks he’s a bit presumptuous to refer to the most pureblooded among them as "that woman," but supposes that it can’t be helped. Kurenai is a distant relative of the Hiyuu family, but he doesn’t know the abilities of the purebloods and whether or not she could alter her form.

Maria was watching them from the window. She runs off when Zero looks up.

Kaname talks with Ichijou about that new student. Kaname tells him that it won’t be a problem with the school, but at the same time, Ichijou thinks that there are no coincidences.

Maria says aloud that Zero really is cute. She goes to bite her masked servant thinking that he’s jealous of Zero, but stops, to his disappointment, and scampers off. Such fun, she says.