English Dub Review: The Case Study of Vanitas “Recap”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

The episode begins back at the beginning of the show. Noe comes to Paris to search for the book of Vanitas and meets Vanitas himself, who he assists in restoring a corrupted vampire and returning her true name. The two of them team up and set out to complete their respective missions. They run into Luca, who wants the book destroyed, and Jeanne, who wants Vanitas destroyed.

They soon learn that Charlatan is the one behind the spreading of the curse bearers, but finding out why is still a mystery to them, and Noe barely escapes from the ball with his true name intact thanks to a quick save by Vanitas. Back in the human world, they go on the hunt for the Chasseurs and come face to face with Roland. Although unfriendly at first, the three become fast friends and end up tracking down Doctor Moreau and shutting him down.

Then news comes that an ancient beast has reared its ugly head again in Gévaudan. The pair sets off to see what they can find, but once they arrive in the foreboding forest, Noe gets separated from the others and nothing is as it seems.

Our Take:

It hasn’t been too long since we wrapped up the first part of Vanitas’s first season, but the show is already back for more. The show released a recap episode, deemed number 12.5, to bridge the gap and remind viewers of where things stand going into the second part of the season, which has already begun airing with subtitles. All that to say, there’s not really anything new here… but does it work well as a recap?

For the most part, sure. Some good recap episodes are infamous for their creativity while other bad ones are used to fill an episode count and waste viewers’ time. But most recap episodes lie somewhere in the middle, between the two extremes, and Vanitas’s recap episode is in this camp. There’s nothing engaging or creative about the way the show does it. There’s no redone animation, overarching theme, or narration by the character’s themselves (like in Wonder Egg Priority’s recap episode). It’s just a clip show of the first part of the first season.

There’s not much to say about all the stuff we’ve already seen beyond the fact that I think this is one of those shows where a recap is definitely helpful. The pacing in this show is weird in that a lot of things happen but also nothing has happened? We still don’t even know what Charlatan’s end game is after an entire season, and he’s supposedly the big bad of the series. But at the same time, we’ve already been to multiple different realms and cities.

And the next part of the show is heading to yet another locale: Gévaudan. From the sneak peek we get at the end of the recap episode, it looks to be a very tiny countryside area that’s mostly comprised of deep forest. Personally, I’m really excited about this change of scenery. I’m not a huge fan of the steampunk-y retro London vibe the show has had—but even from the little we’ve seen of next season’s storyline, it interests me more. Woods, a witch, and potentially even some strange alternate dimension type stuff if the Noe separation thing continues. Bring it on!

Overall, this was, well, a recap episode. It didn’t recap things particularly well or do it in a very exciting way. It was just clips of the show’s past episodes with a little humdrum narration tacked on to bridge the gaps. But what it did do was serve as a way to remind me of the past while also getting me hyped for the future. And sometimes that’s all you can expect of a recap episode.