English Dub Review: The Case Study of Vanitas “Just the Two of Us”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Jeanne is desparate to complete her mission and kill Chloe, but Vanitas talks her into believing that Chloe deserves another chance to live. But first, he’ll have to find the book of Vanitas. While he and Noe work on starting up the Alteration engine, Astolfo arrives on the scene and his hatred for vampire kind is revealed to have been rooted in him from an early age. He and Noe fight while Jeanne and Chloe fight. Meanwhile, Roland is cornered by wolves and Jean-Jacques has a heartfelt farewell once he realizes Chloe’s true plan.

Our Take:

The Case Study of Vanitas gets one step closer to the end this week. The new dubbed episode is called Just the Two of Us, and the name could apply to a lot of things. We have the classic coupling of Noe and Vanitas, but also a number of other pairs like Chloe and Jean-Jacques, as well as Astolfo and his childhood frenemy. It’s a tale of betrayal and heartbreak, and it’s just as melodramatic as fans have come to expect from this series each week.

When in doubt, just make your character laugh maniacally while vowing to destroy everything and/or everyone. That’s the crutch Vanitas leans on this week since it can’t be bothered to actually have its characters behave with nuance or complex emotions. Chloe hates herself, so she wants to destroy the world. Astolfo hates vampires, so he also wants to destroy the world. Vanitas may or may not hate the world, but he doesn’t want to destroy it.

Astolfo’s flashback is the most out of place thing in the episode. We haven’t really spent much time with him lately, and picking this moment to go back in time and see his childhood trauma is not what I would have liked to happen. It’d be another thing, maybe, if his story was interesting, but it’s so stupidly predictable, just like Noe’s own childhood, he had a friend who betrayed him, it’s treated without a hint of subtlety. One minute this vampire boy is acting all kind and friendly, and the next minute he’s killing Astolfo’s entire family and saying ‘haha, you’re all alone now just like me’. It’s hard to feel sympathy for these characters when they aren’t even treated like people by their own show.

The plot doesn’t really go anywhere in this episode, either. Chloe is still stuck in her weird metaphysical form, and Vanitas is still trying to save her. One thing that does happen is Jean-Jacques recognizes that her plan has been in the making for a long time. Apparently she made weird weapons and dressed them up like historical family members? And her big idea is to have them all kill her and somehow that will avenge their deaths? It’s really stupid in such an overdramatic way that it’s perfect for the show. And speaking of overdramatic, how about Jean-Jacques’s goodbye speech to Chloe? What a simp, am I right?

Overall, this was a pretty boring episode of Vanitas. There’s a lot of chaos happening, and a lot of moving pieces on the surface, but not too much going on underneath. I wish we got into Jeanne’s head more, but like usual, Vanitas pats her on the head and she agrees with him about everything. Not even the s0-called villains are fun to watch, as they just foam at the mouth and scream about destroying everything. I say, let them go for it! Maybe the new world that comes about will make for more entertaining television.