This month's
Lala Special magazine had a bonus Vampire Knight story about the Kuran family. It's about Juri telling little Yuki a story about Juri and Haruka in the past. It's very cute. It came out last week I believe.
Alessia-chan has scanned the raws and done a text translation. You can
check them out in her VK LJ post.
SPOILERS AHEADI read these a few days ago, but haven't had a chance to make a post on it until now. It's a cute story. I wish it could have been longer... and
*cough* that we could have seen more Kaname in it
*cough* ;) But it was sweet seeing a little more of Juri and Haruka when they were younger, and relating to their kids and stuff. It makes them more like real people and makes you a little sadder about what happened, heightening the impact of their sacrifice a bit I think.
The end was cute too, when young Kaname is looking at his parents' lovey-dovey-ness with a typical little boy
"they are so weird" expression and little Yuki is all sparkly-eyed.
Several
very interesting little points about Haruka and Juri's past came to light, including the fact that Juri apparently got permission to attend a human school (including going to classes during the DAY and all) in a city where no other vampires lived, so long as she took Haruka with her. (LOL although we're kind of seeing it from Juri's point of view, I have to give Haruka a smile for going with her to the vampire backside of nowhere so she could do what she wanted ;D).
So many questions come to mind, including wondering where Rido was all this time (it's indicated that she's been at that school for the past three years) and why exactly Juri wanted so much to get away from other vampires.
It's quite interesting that she got permission to go from her grandfather, or at least that's what the translation says. If that's the case, then that would mean there were signficantly more generations of Kurans alive at that point. The fact that she had to get the permission from Grandpa must mean that either A) their parents were somehow dead or B) since Grandpa was still alive, it was simply a matter of him being the head of the family, the Alpha of that clan, so such desicions had to be approved by him. In either case, I wonder what happened to Grandpa and their parents by the time of VK? Since purebloods don't die except for by murder or suicide? I wonder if Grandpa was the King who abdicated to create the Council, or if it was their parents, or if it was a Kuran before that? Given how old Juri and Haruka were, it's hard to imagine too many more generations before them, but then again maybe not.
That actually brings me to the
biggest question that that story raised with me though...
In the chapter where we saw the flashbacks to their deaths, Haruka and Juri mentioned loving each other for 3000 years. Okay. But if this bonus story was about when they were still kind of falling for each other (or Juri was anyway, as Haruka was obviously already totally gone) then... it would have had to be a couple thousand years ago? But, um... if VK is set in psudo-modern times, then that would put it around 1000 BC and I really don't see there being high school academies, umbrellas or clothes like they were wearing. ;D
This has me puzzled. SO, only explinations I can think of are that:
A) perhaps I am mis-remembering the part about how long they've been around. I must find that chapter and go back and read it.
B) VK is not actually set in modern times at all, but thousands of years in the future. Come to think of it, we've never actually seen any indication of date. Other than cars we've actually never even seen anyone use technology that I can remember (except maybe a telephone? I can't recall at the moment), which is usually the best way to gauge time frame. Ms. Hino's clothing styles are unique enough that they don't really tie it to a specific era either. In that case, we could twist things around and wonder if Juri, Haruka and Rido were born in somewhere close to our times, and then maybe there was the last great Vampire / Hunter war during their lifetime. Maybe it was in that that the previous generations of Kurans still living perished. Maybe it tore the world apart and bought the earth back to a kind of second dark ages, from which they slowly worked forward again until by the time of VK they have evolved once more to sort of like our modern times, only with a distinctly more victorian flair. ;) Could explain why they don't seem very technologically advanced for being so far in the future (although, since we've been seeing mostly vampires, maybe it's just because they've been around so long they don't like 'new fangled' stuff?), and why Juri and Haruka waited so long to have kids too ... yeah... or not. LOL that's just me rambling and thinking and I shall stop now. Not really sure that whole idea works and it's probably not even close to whatever will actually turn out to be the case, but I do think that it
is possible that VK might be in the future, whatever the reason.
C) VK isn't set in earth's timeline as we know it at all. It's an alternate reality earth with a completely different timeline and evolution in which recorded history goes back many thousands of years longer, and things just haven't changed much for the past couple thousand years.
D) Maybe
Haruka loved Juri for 3000 years, but she only fell for him and they got together much more recently than that, in which case the flash back was of a much more recent time, and the start of their little family wasn't really delayed much at all from the time they got married. Although that makes it all even sadder because they didn't really have that much time together once they were actually together. :*(
Again, this hinges on me not remembering the exact wording that was used in that previous chapter. :P LOL
E) Ms. Hino didn't intend for goobers like me to read so much into a light little bonus story and it doesn't really mean anything. ;)
LOL I'm not sure we'll ever actually find out when VK is supposed to be set, as I'm not sure it will ever be important to the storyline, and if it's not, then there's no need for it to be mentioned. But it's fun to speculate anyway.
OOoookay, which I have definitely done enough of now, and shall shut up and go play with my new Zero doll which I got yesterday...
*huge, happy, evil grin as she goes to find the little plush doll that has wriggled under the bed and is glaring at a slightly freaked out looking cat who usually hides under there*Labels: harkua kuran, haruka and juri, juri kuran, kaname kuran, kuran family bonus story, kuran family special, lala, little kaname, little yuki, yuki kuran
