English Dub Review: The Case Study of Vanitas “Point of Departure”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Jeanne and Vanitas manage to escape from the eye of the Chasseur’s thanks to Dominique’s quick thinking distraction, but Jeanne can’t escape from her strange feeling for Vanitas. The two of them appear to be on the verge of some sort of realization when Vanitas’s intuition tells him something might be up with Noe. He races back to their apartment to find his friend sleeping and unharmed… or so it seems.

Later, they try to track down a giant werewolf creature, but Noe gets distracted by the blood on Vanitas’s arm. He can’t contain his thirst, and asks Vanitas if he can have a drink. Vanitas rebuffs him and things get awkward—but the two of them try to put it behind them as they set out for Gevaudan in order to continue investigating the Beast.

Our Take:

Here we are at the last episode of Vanitas’s first season. It’s been a wild ride at times and a pretty boring ride at other times. Point of Departure finishes things off on a note that sits in-between the two extremes, being less boring than some of the previous outings but never hitting the highs of some of the more exciting episodes.

Last week’s episode was pretty much a straight rom-com between Jeanne and Vanitas, and that’s where we start off this time. The two of them have just made a hasty escape from their rendezvous in the park and Jeanne is beginning to come to terms with her feelings for Vanitas (maybe?) but before they can make any forward progress, Jeanne mentions how she received permission from Ruthven to come out with Vanitas that day. He, rightfully, is suspicious and rushes off to find his friend.

This is the part where I expected the finale to kick into high gear, but alas, Vanitas merely finds Noe sleeping like a log at the apartment and the tension is dropped almost immediately. That said, we do get treated to a flashback of what really happened after Ruthven attacked Noe—and it’s not pretty. Basically, the only reason the vampire lord left him alive was to cause some mischief in the future, as he was made to swear that he would carry out a promise of Ruthven’s choice at some undetermined time to come. He’s also in league with the Spider dude, which is surely cause for concern… but the finale ignores this for the rest of the runtime in favor of some good old fashioned Vanitas/Noe drama.

Noe can’t seem to resist the allure of Vanitas’s fresh, sweet blood from his makeup sesh with Jeanne. There’s a long, drawn out sequence where Noe tries his best to ignore the scent. It’s very trippy and weird and exactly what I would expect from this show at this point. But it ends up creating a riff between the two of them that serves no real purpose. We’ve seen them at odds before and they always get over it, just as they do here. We don’t really learn anything new from this exchange except to reiterate what everyone already knows—Noe thinks Vanitas is intriguing and Vanitas knows he is.

Aside from that stuff, there’s a few more little cameos this episode, including one from everyone’s favorite blonde boy Roland. The Chasseur is starting to realize that vamps might not be all bad, which is good; but just because he’s had this realization doesn’t mean that the rest of his church pals have, and Olivier tries to intimidate him into backing down from his heretical pursuits. Roland, of course, is having none of it, so it’ll be interesting to see where that plot goes eventually.

The finale ends with Noe and Vanitas on a train bound for Gevaudan, where they’re hoping to track down more clues about the so-called Beast of Gevaudan. In this way, Point of Departure is a pretty good set-up for the next arc—but it’s a pretty bad way to end a season. There’s no payoffs, no conclusions, just a couple scenes that felt like filler and then a couple more to plant seeds for season two. Still, at least that means there should be plenty of material to start out next year with: Ruthven, Roland, Jeanne, and of course, the Beast.