Geeze, talk about your darker anime’s. I got into Vampire Knight last night and finished the first 12 episodes this morning. If you’re interested in it, I’ll put the synopsis of it below. It’s an ongoing anime that’s pretty new too. It started in April 2008 in Japan and the second season is due to come out in Oct 2008. I can’t wait!

Vampire Knight:
Yuki’s earliest memory is of a snowy night in winter, when she was attacked by a vampire and was saved by another, Kaname Kuran. Ten years later, Yuki Cross, the adopted daughter of the headmaster of Cross Academy, has grown up and become a prefect for the school with two purposes: to protect the Day class students (humans) from the Night class students (vampires) and to protect the true identity of the Night class students from being discovered by the Day class students. Her fellow guardian, Zero Kiryu, a childhood companion whose parents were killed by a pureblood vampire, is now determined to kill them all and refuses to trust them. Through a cruel twist of fate, Zero becomes a vampire himself, having been bitten by a pureblood vampire four years before, Shizuka Hiou. Kaname, Yuki’s savior, leads the group of Night class, with the help of Takuma Ichijou (the vice president).

I also just finished watching the first episode of Death Note. Here’s a synopsis so you know what I’m talking about. 

Light Yagami is an extremely intelligent young man who resents the crime and corruption in the world. His life undergoes a drastic change when he discovers a mysterious notebook, known as the “Death Note”, lying on the ground. The Death Note’s instructions claim that if a human’s name is written within it, that person shall die. Light is initially skeptical of the notebook’s authenticity, but after experimenting with it, Light realizes that the Death Note is real. After meeting with the previous owner of the Death Note, a shinigami named Ryuk, Light seeks to become “the God of the New World” by passing his judgment on those he deems to be evil or who get in his way.

So this anime has me thinking about the age old question, “Who are we to play God?” I mean, if there really is a God then shouldn’t it be God’s right to decide who lives and who dies? How is one human to judge who is worthy to live and to die. It’s basically taking one’s private moralities of right and wrong and running with them.

According to John Austin, society cannot live like that. If everyone listened to their private morals, then everyone would have their own interpretation of the law and would choose to only listen to the one’s that they think are good. Society would descend into chaos. Laws are based on public morality (which is basically when the majority of the sociey to agree upon something, like killing is bad) and they are there for a reason, to keep people in line. We surrender ourselves to the law in order to keep order in the world. That’s basically what Austin believes, more or less.

I think he’s right in some ways. In this case, who is Light to judge who is bad and who is good. While he is killing only “bad” people, his idea of bad might differ slightly from someone elses. Once he runs out of major villians, who’s next for him to kill? He then wants to be the ulitimate ruler of the new world. We’ve seen in history that absolute power does not work. It just doesn’t. The Sun King tried it and look how well that worked out for him.

That’s just my opinion though. Feel free to agree or disagree.