More whiplash. From the kitchen sink heavy “shounen” arc, we slipped into arguably the most purely comedic (and certainly romantic) episode of Vanitas no Carte last week. Now we get a dead-serious throwback to the first season. A bit too much so, actually, in the sense that it used a ton of (money-saving – and labor-saving) recycled material. Aside from that though this was pretty effective – probably the closest to what I would have considered a “default” Mochizuki Jun mode before this series premiered.
The big kernel of new information out of that extended flashback sequence was that Vanitas apparently killed “Father” (who I take to be the Vampire of the Blue Moon). That is if you can trust Mikhail, who certainly possesses the potential to be an unreliable narrator. He’s quite the Mochizuki chestnut – a little vixen who clearly enjoys performing the role of villain. Given that he was prostituted out by his mother and dressed as a girl before passing into the hands of Moreau (after a brief stopover with the Chasseurs) that’s hardly surprising.
Now Mikhail – or #71 as Moreau and Vanitas refer to him – has come into possession of Dominique. How exactly he’s controlling her I’m not certain, but she’s basically bait to draw in Noe (successfully so). Why? #71 says he wants to know why “Onii-chan” Vanitas (#69) killed Father, and that Vanitas will never voluntarily offer up the information. He summons Noe to that most classic of all clandestine gothic horror meeting places, the abandoned amusement park, to offer him an ultimatum – suck Vanitas’ blood and find out the truth, or Onee-san Domi will be splattered.
Obviously there’s a lot we don’t know about Mikhail, but certain things can be assumed. If Dr. Moreau had possession of him we know he was fucked over and fucked up in a major way (the physical evidence is a metal arm, but it surely goes much deeper). We also know that Vanitas – patron saint of lost causes though he is – seems to regard #71 as highly dangerous and seemingly either unworthy of or beyond saving. What we don’t know is whether Mikhail is still actively in the clutches of Moreau, and if he is, whether the information he seeks is for his own interest or that of the mad doctor.
There’s a lot more I’d like to know here, not least how Vanitas and Mikhail came to move from Moreau’s clutches to the VotBM in the first place – did Vanitas escape and take his “little brother” with him? There’s not that much new in the Domi flashbacks, which were largely a rehash of (the excellent) Episode 5. But they do accentuate the extent to which Dominique blamed herself over what happened – her survivor’s guilt (the twin tidbit was in fact new) even driving her to cut her hair to look more like Louis.
As for that final scene, well – it is what it is, and this is Mochizuki to the core. You can’t have it both ways with the symbolism – if the act of vampirism means what it does where the likes of Vanitas, Jeanne, and Noe are concerned, so it does with Mikhail even if he is a child. And child he may be, Mikhail is certainly no innocent – this week’s narrative definitely shows us that much. He’s a character with an interesting niche in the story – Vanitas is all about saving the seemingly unsavable, and we know that Mikhail is human – and not only that, but one with close ties to Vanitas – yet Vanitas seems uninterested in saving him. Apart from Naenia there haven’t been many abject villains in Vanitas no Carte – so slotting Mikhail into that role would be a bit of a course change.
