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

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Noe is force fed the blood of Jean-Jacques and relives the man’s memories, seeing how he came to know Chloe as well as the true identity of the beast of Gévaudan. When Vanitas breaks into the castle, the two of them meet up and Noe relays what he knows. Vanitas promises to try and help Chloe—and find his book, of course. Noe stays behind to hold off Astolfo, and Vanitas finds Chloe using her Alteration Engine to give Naenia a physical form and slay her.

Our Take:

The Case Study of Vanitas got pretty crazy this week! Not only do we finally learn the true identity of the beast (props to you if you guessed it early), but we also find out what Chloe’s been working on all this time and what she plans to do with her newfound knowledge. The Beast is one of the more exciting episodes of the show in a while, but it doesn’t really start out that way.

We open with Jean-Jacques locking Noe in a cell and forcing him to drink his blood. We’ve seen the standard encounter where a vampire forcibly steals someone’s blood, but it’s a little much for Jean-Jacques to force a vampire to drink his own blood. There’s a reason, though, which is that Jean-Jacques believes he and Chloe aren’t long for this earth and wants someone to remember them when they’re gone.

This leads into the worst half of the episode, in which we’re treated to yet another flashback to explain more of Chloe and Jean-Jacques’s backstory. It’s not that it isn’t interesting; seeing how the two of them were bonded through similar experiences is nice. But we already had a healthy dose of expository flashback fest previously, and I wish the show would’ve condensed and cut the historical stuff to make it less long and more dynamic. Finding out Jean-Jacques is the beast is kind of a big deal, yet it just kind of happens when Noe sees his memory and is like “Oh, I guess he’s the Beast.” There are so many better ways for the audience to find this out.

Luckily, after Vanitas shows up and assists Noe with an escape, the episode gets much more fun. The two of them run into good ol’ Astolfo, who is very sad to see them alive. Noe wants a rematch, and I think that’ll be a fierce fight to follow next week. But the back half of The Beast is focused on Chloe and Vanitas. Vanitas originally didn’t necessarily want to save Chloe, since she voluntarily became a curse-bearing vampire. But having seen her memories, Noe is insistent on trying to save her, and Vanitas, as we all know by this point, has a soft spot for Noe.

When he shows up, however, Chloe is using the Alteration Engine for a surprising purpose: to manifest a physical form for Naenia that she can then slay. Apparently that’s what she’s been working on all this time? I have to say, her whole motivation and goals are kind of unclear up to this point, and the switch up definitely left me feeling a little lacking. I don’t mind it, but I wish there would’ve been more set-up and foreshadowing. (Side note, the fact that Chloe plays a kind of musical organ to make her invention work is funny, and gave me Classicaloid flashbacks.)

The Beast certainly isn’t a perfect episode by any stretch of the imagination, but it was a step up over recent outings. We learned a lot of things in the first half, although I think it could’ve been carried out in a much more dynamic way. And the back half of the episode took place in the present but still presented surprises of its own.