Welcome to the most X-rated episode of Vanitas yet.
What They Say:
“Night of Mocking Masks”
The Teacher explains the World Formula theory. Vanitas is put off by Noé and Dominique’s relationship. Dominique rakes Vanitas over the coals. Vanitas encounters Jeanne again and reveals himself to the ball guests. Chaos ensues when gate crashers arrive.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Vampires are easy to accept. Steampunk may be less so, but it’s common enough that certain elements tend to get a pass. But when a series plops you in a world it claims to be a real-life location at a specific time in our real-life calendar and bombards you with these fantastical and stylistically scientific elements as a fact of life, it can be nice to have some explanation.
As it turns out, the explanation for all of these things ties together quite neatly, albeit with a vagueness that may be explained in further detail but so far gives us enough to go on while still hand-waving away the specifics. It’s an interesting connection, particularly because of how surprisingly science-based it is, echoing imagery of the great scientists of history. To be able to decode and rewrite existence is essentially the ultimate dream of scientific fantasy, something many have longed for and in some sense the path that science has been gradually progressing down for as long as humans have been practicing it. However we’re meant to imagine this Babel incident, it is surely a convenient way to establish a world of vampires and cool technology in an era with a bit more charm and mystique, but I’ll give credit for at least offering some kind of reasoning, and a fairly interesting one at that. We’re still very early in the story, so there’s certainly plenty of room for greater exploration of this incident and what it really meant.
As I mentioned in the first episode, vampires are by nature extremely sensual creatures, and this episode leans into that hard. Two extended scenes of bloodsucking can be viewed as borderline pornographic despite no actual sexuality or nudity, and that’s something that can be said for a lot of vampire media. While the designs and some of the interactions between the protagonists can seem a little fujoshi-pandering, the series has given both of them surprisingly intimate interactions with women almost immediately. Noe claims that Dominique is only a friend, but Vanitas can see what that “friendship” looks like just as well as the rest of us can.
When Noe gets distracted and loses the other two, comically shaking his head at them for going off on their own, Dominique takes the opportunity to do a little bonding with her friend Vanitas. She may be a tad harsh, but it does force us to realize that perhaps Noe has been too trusting. To be fair, Vanitas was always the initiator and Noe tried to get rid of him plenty of times, but their relationship was always pretty amiable regardless. Vanitas loves to put on a show, though, and in the absence of a big action spectacle this episode, he finds the perfect backup stage for his climactic performance of the week. He’s a born showman, but most important are the declarations he makes and how they inform his character and motivations. And of course, he gets the piss taken out of him as soon as he’s done, because he does still need a little balance each time this happens.
Vanitas and Jeanne have a follow-up to the former’s dramatic… assault last time. Vanitas basically gets exactly what he wants, which perhaps he doesn’t deserve, but it’s certainly a lot less tender than the earlier scene of ostensibly similar content. Even if the desire was there, at least Jeanne gets to be absolutely in control over Vanitas, although she doesn’t have much control over herself.
In Summary:
The brief look into the science behind the supernatural phenomena of this world is the most fascinating part of this episode. The rest has plenty of racy material involving vampires, but it’s still about characters.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Funimation
