English Dub Review: The Case Study of Vanitas “His Wish”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Despite Mikhail’s pleas, Vanitas refuses to end Noe’s life even though he drank his blood. Mikhail can’t seem to understand this kind of affection, and orders Domi to jump. But she finds inner strength she didn’t know she had and resists. The Shapeless One appears and reveals itself as the reason Mikhail believes Luna can be resurrected. There’s a massive explosion and when Noe wakes up the next day, Vanitas is finally ready to be genuine.

Our Take:

The Case Study of Vanitas is the kind of show that can be expected to go out with a big bang in the most extreme, dramatic way possible. And the final episode, His Wish, does that—at least in the literal sense of the word. There’s an explosion big enough to jump the timeline ahead by a day. Narratively, I’m less sure that the ep succeeds is this way, but let’s get into it.

Last episode left us on a bit of a cliffhanger as Vanitas leaps at Noe with a knife. We find out right away in the finale that Vanitas can’t bring himself to kill Noe, even if his ‘little brother’ is demanding it. This sets the base for the main emotional arc of the finale, which is that Vanitas is finally admitting that he cares about Noe. It’s one of the things that I think the episode does well, which is to connect all the dots and bring us back to the underlying tension between the two of them and wrap that up—at least as much as I expected. Of course there’s no outright romance between the two, despite all the hinting and subtext, because this show doesn’t have the guts to do that.

Speaking of bravery, Mikhail displays a bit of unexpected spunk in the latter half of the episode, returning to Vanitas on the roof to just ask him straight up what happened to Luna. Vanitas tells him the truth, which is that he killed Luna before the curse could take effect. That’s why he’s devoted his life to curing curse-bearers, because he wants to find the one who stole Luna’s true name. Is it an unexpected revelation? No. Do I still hate Mikhail? Yes, he’s the worst kind of anime villain. But this did redeem him a little, I guess.

Another thing I really liked was Domi being able to find the strength inside her to stand up for herself and be her own best hero. The show doesn’t have a great track record with how it treats its female characters, and Domi has felt a bit like she only exists to be a bargaining chip of late, but her inner transformation into a warrior was cool.

At the end, the finale leaves us with unanswered questions about what’s really going on with the Shapeless One and exactly what it is after. I guess that’s just a tease for another season. As unsatisfying as that may be, we do get a great Vanitas/Noe moment and the show ends with our heroes sitting on the rooftop as they stare into the rising sun. The concluding chapter may not have been as suitably epic as I was hoping, but it did have its moments.