Noe and Vanitas crossover into Altus Paris, the Vampire
Mirror World of Paris. Here they find
dazzling sights, curious intrigue and dark threats looking around every
corner. When the forces of the Curse
Bearer corrupting Charlatan appear, all Hell is about to break loose. But Vanitas stands ready to disappoint both
Charlatan and Vampires alike as he unleashes the power of his Grimoire. Under a radiant moon in a blood red sky, will
Vanitas prove himself a Messiah for the Vampires or bring their ultimate doom?
Before I get into this weeks second part of The Case
Study of Vanitas, I wanna talk about one thing that’s been bothering me.
It’s not a detractor from enjoying the show
but for some reason it’s hard to overlook: the OP.
Both the song and the animation would have
you believe that Noe is the one dragging Vanitas around on a whirlwind tour of
Paris and driving the hapless, self proclaimed Doctor ragged.
However, this is pretty far from a buddy
comedy Anime about the escapades of a Vampire and a Human.
It’s a lot more serious than that and I’m
kind of happy for it.
Granted, it does
ruin Noe a bit as while he’s still a man of wide eyed wonder, he’s far less
energetic than Vanitas, who never misses a chance to steal the show.
I’ll talk about that a bit more as we get
into the review, cause there’s actually a lot that goes down in this second
chapter and for the most part, it’s pretty cool and even subverted a few of my
expectations.
Flashing back to Noe’s childhood gave us some of the best
Noe material yet.
We got to see how he
met his “Teacher”, Domi and Domi’s realist and kind of cruel brother,
Louis.
There’s a lot of cliché dark
Anime history tropes here as we watch the strong bond these three make
eventually become decimated by tragedy.
My theory that Louis might become a present day rival for Noe isnt 100%
dead in the water…but Louis himself sure as heck is, yikes.
I didn’t see the poor kid getting bumped off
as he tried to attack Noe when he went full Curse Bearer.
What worries me more though is the
“Teacher”.
He knew about Louis’ Curse
Bearer status and yet seemingly did nothing but let it happen just for his own
observation.
Not to mention, that
nightmare fuel grin behind a shroud of darkness he gave Noe after saving his
life…Louis might not be Charlatan but the Teacher is at the top of my list of
suspects.
The most tragic aspect of
Noe’s flashback has now become: how much of it was a lie from the people who
raised him?
Sadly, all of that intrigue about Noe’s history doesn’t
help improve Noe as a character.
It
makes my sympathetic sure.
But his
character is still stuck with the same wide gaze expression he carries with him
when he’s not freaking out over some new sight or food.
Like I said, the intro paints him as the more
energetic between him and Vanitas, when the truth is, it’s the opposite.
Vanitas is crushing every scene he’s in and I
both love and question his stubbornness for getting into situations I’m amazed
he can walk away from.
The dude is
asking the right questions about the Queen of the Vampires being absent from
the public eye…and given that charred and shriveled hand we see when Luca’s
sitting by her bedside…Vanitas might not be far off.
However, Ruthven couldve killed everyone in
the room singlehandedly for that transgression, so quickly it was actually
frightening.
Vanitas wanting to learn
the truth is fine but the dude is playing with fire…and loving every second of
it.
Well not every second as he had to
destroy a young Curse Bearer who was too far gone to restore, that was rough to
watch.
Not everything was doom and gloom though.
Remember how I talked about how hot and
steamy Vanitas and Noe’s scenes were with Jeanne and Domi respectively?
Well Episode 7 dials that up and breaks the
dial to leave the room nice and toasty.
Personally,
I find Vanitas and Jeanne’s would be romance more fun.
Sure it kind of ruins the tough girl persona
of Jeanne’s intro.
But Vanitas is right
in that she’s cute when she’s vulnerable and just how easily he can get her all
hot and bothered.
By comparison, Noe and
Domi have a romance more mired by history than anything else.
We know Domi’s been in love with Noe since
they were kids and she really, really wants him.
However, Noe being the naieve guy that he is,
cant even begin to understand how he feels about her, so much so he even asks
Vanitas to tell him about love (annnnd cue “I Wanna Know What Love is by
Foreigner” during their dance scene).
Yeah, Vanitas is proving to be one of the hottest mainstream Anime I’ve
seen as it’s love scenes are increasingly risqué and make Vampire bites the
hottest turn on ever.
Any downsides to this second set of episodes? Yeah, there
are a couple.
I didn’t talk about them
in the premiere because they barely factored into things but there’s a faction
of Half Human/Half Vampires called Damphirs who assist Vanitas in the real
world.
There’s three of them and their
Three Stooges schtick does nothing for me.
All they do is fight with each other and I feel like Vanitas and Noe
could have gotten their intel from anybody else and nothing of value would be
lost.
Their only real role is to let us
know Damphirs exist.
Ok, do they do
anything other than bicker?
And then
there’s the Chasseurs.
I really hope
these guys get more time to be shown as more threatening in the next
episodes.
Their wide eyed representative
Roland and his carefree persona felt to…idk cliché for me before he pulled the
rug from under Vanitas and Noe.
I also
think when it comes to Anti Vampire Hunters, I’ve been spoiled by the wild,
crazy and fun likes of Alexander Anderson from Hellsing, now HE is something to
be feared…and excited for.
The Case Study of Vanitas follows up its promising
premiere with a sophomore set of episodes that ups the ante and deepens both
the world and the plot for both of our heroes.
It doesn’t rectify every issue I had with the opening, such as Noe still
being way less entertaining than the shows opening credits would have you
believe.
But it succeeds at making the
threat of more emerging Curse Bearers feel like a true threat and also has some
fun showing us how hot and bothered our leads can make their love interests
without even trying.
It has its flaws
for sure but I’m still having fun with this one.
We’ll see if improvements can be made to Noe
and the Chasseurs when we return to The Case Study of Vanitas, Next Monday
right here at the Gundam Anime Corner.
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