English Dub Review: The Case Study of Vanitas “The Witch and the Young Man”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Jeanne treats Vanitas for his poisoning, and the two of them spend an embarrassingly cozy night together. In the morning, Johann arrives looking for Dante, who soon shows up with the news that Noe has been captured by the witch and her minion. The group sets off in search of her castle while Astolfo departs for the  same destination. Meanwhile, Noe awakens in the witch’s castle to find his blood being sucked by Chloe. Later on, he goes down to eat and sees a scary sight: strange-looking automatons… and Charlatan?!

Our Take:

The first episode of the second half of The Case Study of Vanitas was kind of a disappointment for me. After 12 episodes of steampunk urban adventures, I was excited to get into the witchy haunted forest vibes, but they didn’t last for very long in last week’s premiere. Thankfully, they come back again in The Witch and the Young Man in the form of Chloe. But before we get to the spookiness, we have to get past the steaminess.

For the first five minutes of the episode, we’re treated to the aftermath of Vanitas and Jeanne’s battle with Astalfo. It involves a lot of fan service for those who ship the two of them, which means it was pretty boring for me. I had hoped we were done with this kind of romantic foolishness between them after the drag of an episode last season where Jeanne agreed to go on a date with Vanitas in hopes that it would end his fascination with her, but alas. Their night alone in the cabin is really dumb, and features highlights like taking off their clothes and sharing a single blanket to stay warm, and drinking water out of each other’s mouths. It kind of feels like there are two shows mixed into one with Vanitas, and this segment was not from the creepy mystery show.

Luckily, everything after the Jeanne/Vanitas junk is pretty good. Johann, Jeanne, and Vanitas reunite with Dante at the cabin, who tells them that he saw Noe being captured by the witch, A.K.A Chloe. Apparently Jeanne visited her once when she was little, and promised to come see her again. But the next time she did was while working as a Dham and with the mission to capture her. Jeanne is fairly certain that her old acquaintance is the Beast, and so is Vanitas. He storms off in a hurry to find Noe, which will be endearing to some, but not to me because Vanitas is probably my least favorite character in the show.

While all that was going on, Noe wakes up in a strange bed to find Chloe sucking his blood. It’s a very strange scene that I did not enjoy. It seems like the show is trying to play it off half jokingly and half as a kind of rape? Noe repeatedly tells her not to suck his blood and that it’s illegal to do so without consent, but Chloe goes ahead and does it anyway until her caretaker/butler guy puts a stop to it, while also saying he might kill Noe because he only wants Chloe to drink his blood. It’s all very icky but not exactly surprising coming from the sexy vampire show.

Despite the fact that this episode had a lot of ups and downs for me, I do have more faith in the direction this half of the show is going now. Between Astolfo, Jeanne, and the Witch, there’s definitely plenty of interesting plot to unfold in the coming weeks. I think I’m most curious about Chloe and her whole situation as the Beast (although after that incident with Noe, I’m definitely not on her side anymore.) It seems like she and her assistant dude have a sort of Let The Right One In relationship going on maybe, which could be fun to see. One thing that won’t be fun to see is Vanitas’s face if he realizes how Chloe is treating Noe.