Case Study of Vanitas Season 2

Episode 20

The French and Japanese (English) titles for these episodes don't always complement each other, but this one is spot-on: the French, “mal d'amour,” translates to “lovesick,” while the other title is “incurable disease.” That certainly reflects the way that Vanitas feels about his emotions where Jeanne is concerned – like he's contracted the illness to end all illnesses and that his life will be forever ruined by it. (Oh, Vanitas. There's about twenty more years before that sort of thing is doomed to hit the streets of Paris. Incidentally, the mention of the Expo puts us at some point before May of 1889.) The contortions he puts himself through in trying to figure out what's wrong with him stand in very funny contrast to Jeanne's similar realization – he's having a total freak-out with Roland and Olivier at a café while she's happily stuffing profiteroles in her mouth with Luca and Dominique. For Jeanne, the realization of love is a good thing, a gentle emotion she thought she'd never be allowed to have, although perhaps “gentle” isn't the right word what with her very carnivorous approach to her beloved. But for Vanitas it seems to be something sinister, or at the very least terrifying, although why that should be we don't know.

The easiest answer would simply be that it's a distraction from what he sees as his mission and that he's more upset with himself for allowing such a thing to come between him and his work. But his reaction, funny as it is, seems to go beyond that. He's upset, but he's also frightened, as if falling for Jeanne is so much worse than anything else that could have happened to him. I feel like there must be more behind his reaction than just a successful attempt to milk it for comedy. Given what we extrapolated from the previous episode about his blue tattoo, he could simply be afraid that he doesn't have time for love, because his life's expiration date is rapidly approaching. That may be borne out by his hourglass earring as well – while I can't say for certain that it looks a bit less full on the top than it did before, there's a striking disparity between the two glasses, and it could have the same function as the lifetimers in Discworld: measuring the days of a person's life. That again would explain why the earring vanished in Chloé's closed world: with no time passing, there was no need for the hourglass. It disappeared once Vanitas entered Gévaudan and reappeared when we see him back in Paris, and I don't think that can be a coincidence – especially when we factor in the tattoo's growth.

The other piece of the puzzle could be that Vanitas is scared to care too much for anyone. We don't know what happened to his teacher or the other student(s), but we do know that for much of his adult life, Vanitas has done things alone. It wasn't until Noé that he took on a partner, and that could be because he doesn't want to lose anyone else he loves. The easiest way to avoid that is simply to not love anyone – and then Jeanne and Noé go wriggling their way past his barriers. Noé he can fool himself about a bit more easily because there are no romantic feelings involved. Jeanne is a whole other kettle of fish.

This explanation would feed very nicely into the horrible revelation of the episode's final minutes. It's mentioned in passing that a vampire has been attacking humans since Vanitas and Noé left for Gévaudan, and it didn't take a huge leap of logic to figure out that this was the next foe for the dynamic duo to take on. But in a well-done gut-punch of a move, we learn that this vampire is none other than Dominique, and she's clearly not doing it of her own free will. I'm not sure that she's a curse-bearer, because some evil small child appears to be calling the shots, and he's chosen Domi specifically because she's a line to Noé. That doesn't mean that he's not linked to Charlatan, but it would frankly be more frightening (and tragic) if he wasn't. We know Charlatan and Naenia. This kid is an entirely new brand of evil, and while we can guess that it's Noé's Archiviste blood he's after, that's by no means certain…nor does it mean that he has to keep Domi alive.

There may be more than one person's time being measured by Vanitas' dwindling hourglass, and human or vampire, not every body part can be reattached with some bandages and a sling.

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The Case Study of Vanitas Season 2 is currently streaming on Crunchyroll and Funimation.