After two episodes which were stylistically quite opposed, we get one this week which kind of splits the difference.  This was arguably the most straightforward episode of Vanitas no Carte to date – a bit of exposition, some important plot progression, lots of Vanitas-Noe development, and a fair amount of action.  It felt a bit like an episode designed to get you from Point A to Point B (and maybe C given the pacing), but managed to be pretty entertaining in a rollicking sort of way.

Roland was effectively the third star of this episode, and an amusing fellow he is.  Formidable?  As a fighter, certainly – though the drugs are a bit of a cheat code.  But he’s a bit of an idiot, frankly.  I suppose that element of his character is necessary for us to buy in to the twists that occur in this episode – Roland has to be both idealistic and impressionable for them to take.  He certainly gives Noe all he can handle while the latter is still dazed from the flash bomb – that trick with running current through his weapon when the enemy grabs it is rather clever.

The most important turn here is no doubt the clarification we get on Vanitas’ back story.  Was he a chasseur at one time?  Yes, that was already obvious.  That’s the reason he knows their lair like the back of his hand.  But the reason he’s here is to search for another ex-chasseur – Dr. Moreau (Douzaka Kouzou).  Apparently after Vanitas’ parents were killed by vampires the chasseurs saved him and took him as a trainee, but he was swiped away by Moreau – later expelled from the chasseurs but now operating under their very noses – for his human experiments.

We’ve already seen Mochizuki-sensei loop the de Sade family into this story as characters seemingly inspired by their literary namesake (but only loosely).  Will the same be true of Dr. Moreau?  The subject of an 1896 H.G. Wells novel and a Hollywood film exactly a century later (mostly remembered as one of most disastrous productions in movie history) – among other entries – he’s a guy who experimentally fused humans and beasts on his private island.  Whether that will have any similarities with this version remains to be seen, but despite his reaction (an act, surely) at their reunion, his time with Moreau seems likely to be responsible for Vanitas’ current twisted personality.

There’s also a lot of talk here about the world formula – and altering it.  There were brief allusions to this and the alchemist Parcelsus (again based on a real person) earlier, but we get a little more detail this time.  Like, the Book of Vanitas has the ability to alter it.  But if we’ve heard specifically that vamps’ eyes could alter the world formula, I’d forgotten it – but then, given that we were told that their creation comes directly from messing around the world formula, that’s hardly surprising.

As to to the Noe-Vanitas dynamic, that remains an interesting part of the larger mix.  The story continues to toy with there being a bit of sexual tension between them, but that’s a supporting player here.  I still see them as effectively a Yin-Yang duality, the light and the dark, but what’s becoming clear is that Vanitas has the ability to bring out the darkness in Noe as no one else does.  Noe is far more formidable with Vanitas at his side, and not just because of combat ability.