Nice.
What They Say:
“Number 69”
Vanitas reunites with Dr. Moreau, who speaks of his work and a powerful backer. Will their reunion be tearful or violent? Vanitas has a flashback to his time with the Vampire of the Blue Moon. Vanitas and Noé try to save a curse-bearer with Roland’s help.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Yuki Kajiura’s music is the best part about this anime to such a high degree that I feel a little bad. It’s a film score, but sometimes the content feels like a music video because of how powerfully that one aspect, traditionally meant to stay in the background, overwhelms everything else. That sounds detrimental, but it’s quite the opposite. Still, it makes me want to just talk about the music every week, when surely I should be focusing on all the things that are a bit more variable. After all, I basically signed up for the series for her music, and her work is always incredibly consistent.
The episode begins as the last one ended, in a strange state of absurd comedy despite covering extremely disturbing themes. Vanitas smiles and endures to try to stay on Dr. Moreau’s good side and get him to let out the information they’re seeking, but has to be reminded of the hell this man put him through as a child and hear him, in all his ridiculousness, laugh idiotically about doing the same or worse to countless others. This would be a difficult ordeal for anyone, but Vanitas has always been shown as someone who lets his emotions run wild, and never shies away from letting people know what he thinks.
Fortunately, or unfortunately for the plan Vanitas had in mind, he has a good friend by his side, and he takes the role of the audience self-insert to provide some much-needed catharsis, not unlike an iconic scene from One Piece. This of course immediately puts them at risk of attaining no information and in imminent danger, but it’s so worth it, and a good brawl is more fun than just standing around and talking anyway, especially when that talking is so unimaginably unpleasant. Even Roland, yesterday’s mortal enemy, praises Noe for stepping up for his friend’s sake and said he almost did the same, though even if you hated Vanitas, it’s impossible not to hate Dr. Moreau more after this exchange.
Although it doesn’t go into nearly as much detail as Noe’s episode-long flashback or even the glimpses we’ve gotten of how Vanitas was treated by Dr. Moreau in these past couple episodes, we do get our first taste of his past with the original Vanitas, the Vampire of the Blue Moon. It’s something that makes sense to dole out in small quantities to keep us wanting more, and it’s good to see at least some sign of it now.
As per the show’s standard structure, the breakneck pace continues to jump between several plot points within the single episode, some more interrelated than others. It’s not as if we needed to spend any more time with Dr. Moreau, unless it’s to see Vanitas finally get some revenge, but the erratic nature of it all still feels a little off at times.
I hope I don’t have to tell people this, especially since everyone is used to it in things like Marvel movies, but please don’t assume the episode is over when the ED begins. Sometimes there are very valuable scenes to be had post-credits, and that’s as true for today’s episode of Vanitas as it is for today’s new Marvel movie.
In Summary:
Dr. Moreau is likely the most absurd character we’ve seen so far, a comical clown but also disgustingly evil. Sometimes this is a combination that can be likable; here, we’re all just waiting for that comeuppance that we get just in time. As we’re used to by now, the episode leaps all around in plot, but we get some valuable looks at how Vanitas got to this point, and the music is always spectacular.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Funimation