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The Case Study of Vanitas ep.19 – In Broad Daylight

Irina

Well this was an emotional journey, wasn’t it? For those of us enjoying The Case Study of Vanitas, this week felt cathartic but a little sad. As the episode, itself stated, some were saved and some were not. Chloé chose one hell over the other and only time will tell if she was right. But day finally broke into the night and it feels like a new dawn.

I’m ready to take on the final arc of The Case Study of Vanitas. At least for now!

I’m not sure how to talk about this episode. When all was said and done, all I could really think about it was: it was pretty. Ok, let me start by just throwing this out. I really liked Vanitas telling Noé that for him Right makes Might. I had never heard that expression turned on itself like that and I love the idea. It’s also very fitting for No. of course. We should use it more, right makes might that is. I think it’s a poetic concept that would apply in a lot of cases.

I also thought that the entire sequence, where Chloé’s frozen nighttime world broke apart revealing a bright sunny day with a gentle shower of flower petals was just beautiful. The backgrounds were pretty, to begin with, be the contrast of colours, the slow and playful movement of the petals and the pale bleu astérix flowers themselves. All of it came together in such a lovely way that I couldn’t help but gawk at it in admiration. I got a little emotion just from the images and touching stuff hadn’t even started yet.

I do think Astolfo’s character is the weaker one this season but I can’t deny that his scene with Roland was touching. Just seeing him reduced to such a fragile little guy after all the bluster is bound to have an effect on someone. And despite standing by the fact that I think Astolfo is not as interesting or well developed as most of the other important characters in The Case Study of Vanitas, I also think he could become a great character. It’s not like he’s bad in the first place and there is still a lot of potential in him.

Of course, this was the culmination of Cloé’s story. And right now, Cholé’s story isn’t as solitary as it use to be. It’s Chloé and Jean-Jacque’s story. I don’t know when it happened. This is so unlike me. I really liked these two together. I thought they were a sweet couple. It does help that their scene was mostly comedic, with Chloé beating the already severely injured man, repeatedly. But it was cute and it made me smile. For all of Vanitas’ ominous warnings, my natural instinct was to believe these two crazy kids were going to make it!

I feel like I’ve already said this at least 3 times. I didn’t like Vanitas and Jeanne at first. I read a few volumes of the manga before the season started. I put them aside because, to be honest, I personally just like the anime a lot more. This said I might pick them up again after this season if we don’t get anything announced for the future. In any case, I first saw these two in the manga and I considered the relationship between the two the low part of the story.

I liked them better in the anime. I guess the scenes they chose just slightly make the couple grow and the voice actors have good chemistry. Of course, I’ve also gotten much further in the story than I ever got with the manga. I’m sure their relationship becomes a lot sweeter on paper as well. But well, once again, I was downright rooting for Jeanne and Vanitas. For some reason, they just make sense together for me. And I really enjoy seeing them discover that for themselves. And Jeanne is such a tease. Just up and leaving like that right after all that murder pillow talk…

I do wish we had gotten to see a bit more of Noé. I feel like we haven’t been spending as much time with him lately. Or maybe it’s just because I like the big dork. And he usually has Murr with him which is a huge plus on any occasion. So now that Gévaudan is technically saved from the beast, we have 5 more episodes to wrap up the season.

The manga is still released but there have only been 9 volumes in all since it started in 2015 with only one volume released in 2021 and 2020 each. So we might not see the conclusion anytime soon but there is a tenth volume already on the way. This said it’s unlikely that this season of The Case Study of Vanitas will wrap up the story unless they go off-book. This makes me happy since we already know that Noé kills Vanitas in the end and I don’t think I’m ready for that. I am very curious to see what the next few episodes will hold. Are they going to go after Charlatan or confront Ruthven? Maybe neither…

Oh, and the last shot of this episode was just so perfect that I had to make it my header. I had no choice!

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