Vanitas no Karte

This anime piss me off. It have potential. It have a solid basis. But it's own structure keep destroying it from the inside like a cancer.

An historical steampunk anime with vampires. Cool, right? Well the characters you meet waste all the tension with stupid Chibi dialogue (I swear, every single conversation have a Chibi "comical" passage).

Potential personalities clashes between eccentric people wasted in pseudo yaoi moments, powers badly explained and a premise that is immediately toss aside. Characters that goes from the Annoying to the boring.

Combat sequences that last SECONDS. It doesn't matter if everything is beautifully animated or the OSTs are gorgeous, when ... the action part is so small. I'm not saying that it must have ridiculous long fights like in Dragon Ball or One Piece, but they're always fast as a blink of an eye.

Just as I said though, the external shell of the anime is awesome: Sound, Animation and the Opening are really, really good as always for Studio Bones. But the inside of the shell is nothing worth to check out.

Not that the story isn't good, it's just that I hate these type of characters with jerk personalities and just plain uncaring but since this is only the first few episodes, hopefully they have some sort of redeeming quality later on.

Usually I wouldn't write a review until I finish the series or just simply giving my opinion, but it's giving me bungou stray dogs vibe which I didn't really enjoy because of their personalities and just the comedic duo of a annoying air head/ jerk and slightly self aware character but at times will still treat others like crap. /:

This is just ... my opinion but you never know this could be a really good, I usually enjoy vampire animes so i'm hoping for it to get better since there isn't really that many decent one's in this genre.

Vampires. A fascinating group of creatures generally depicted as merciless monsters across many works of literature of its existence. Their conventional roles in a story are either misunderstood and victimized, or they’re straight-up one-dimensional adversaries--a hurdle for the hero to get through. And The Case Study of Vanitas is no exception--the series follows the conventional flow of writing.

Set in 19th century Paris, the story follows a vampire and a human doctor that goes around the city to cure the recent phenomenon that corrupts vampires. A phenomenon is known as the “Curse Bearer.” Once the phenomenon corrupts its target, the victim loses all sense of ... normalcy and goes berserk, killing anyone in its sight. This is where the conflict comes in. In the world of Vanitas, vampires and humans have long ended their disputes. There is a harmonious establishment between humans and vampires. However, that’s not to say that there isn’t any stigma between the two races. As demonstrated on the vampire side, vampires, in general, still despise humans to an extent. As for the reasons, they are unknown. But I suspect it has to do with the history between the two and what humans did to the vampires.

Seeing the emergence of corrupt vampires in the human realm, the ministry for the vampires was searching for ways to mitigate the situation before it turned to complete chaos and disorder. Thus, long story short: Noe and Vanitas went against the ministry’s cruel method of dealing with corrupt vampires and insisted on their own solutions for the matter, which was to use a special book to purify the corruptions. Through this journey of curing vampires that Noe and Vanitas were tasked with, the reveal of themselves and the people around these two makes a large chunk of the series. The narrative thus far hasn’t conceived anything new. It follows the formula of a duo protagonist in their quest of eliminating chaos and dissipating fomentations.

The heavy reliance in The Case Study of Vanitas is the character dynamics. Yet, the interaction between Noe and Vanitas, or the protagonists with the supporting casts such as Janne and Dominique, are uninteresting, to say the least. It is shown that there could be more to the characters, that each of them can change one another--the four of them. But that’s barely the focus. We were only being given hints between each episode before it disappears and goes back to lackluster comedy. The poor placement of tone shifts is mainly derived from the cheap comedy, where there’s also dependence on chibi art. Some of the writing and presentation lands, but the comedy is a hindrance for most of the time. The jokes in this show are whatever. We can essentially ignore the humor since it doesn’t add anything valuable to the series. The sole reason for its existence is to provide a tone shift, which, in all honestly, can be done better. But in The Case Study of Vanitas, the transitional scenes are just jarring, which for the majority of the time, ruins the immersion of a particular scene.

Besides the poorly placed comedy and inadequate casts, I am gravitated by its art and visuals. The beautiful depiction of the realistic colors of a city, characters, and overall atmosphere facilitate narrative in an immersion sense. When watching The Case Study of Vanitas, the show was always able to let viewers be placed in situations. Usually, both the writing of its story, characters, themes, and visuals are needed to immerse the viewers, but Vanitas only really succeeded in visuals for me.

The Case Study of Vanitas is a solid yet straightforward story. Conventional writing does have its charms and faults since it doesn’t flourish into anything outstanding. Its major appeals, I would say, are the character dynamics and visuals. If this series was to be compared with others of its similar playing field, I believe The Case Study of Vanitas would stand shoulders above them.

After watching the first episode It looked like an anime combining sexy vampires and paris. When I watched the next episodes, I realized that I was not wrong. We follow the adventure of the main character Vanitas and his friend Noe. Frankly, Vanitas is more like a doctor and they explain it with a bit of humor. ​It is debatable how funny it is, but I was laughing from time to time, so we can look at it more or less as a fun anime.

The story is not that good, you should watch it without keeping your expectations ... too high. I can say that I really like the sounds of the anime. However, the characters were pretty simple, and most of them seemed like clichés. It is very difficult not to have fun while watching the anime, it is a good series in that respect.

OVERALL : 6

(SLIGHT SPOILERS - ep 1-3)

I want to preface this interview by saying I have zero knowledge of the manga this work was adapted from nor do I have any prior experience with Jun Mochizuki's other works.
I watched this completely blind.

When I began watching Vanitas no Carte, I was not expecting to get the story that I ended up getting. The art, story, character design and the fact Bones was animating it, lead me to believe it was a more female-audience targeted shounen, such as Bungou Stray Dogs, Black Butler, KK, etc., however I was not expecting to go into a show that had copious amounts ... of weirdly sexual scenes and romance scenes.

I'll go over it from the beginning:

The story follows the vampire, Noe, and the human, Vanitas, as they try to find and cure cursed vampires using a book that Vanitas was gifted by the previous Vanitas, who was a vampire.
The opening, the premise, the vague promise of gaybaiting shounen, lead me to believe this would be a buddy cop type of story with two worlds colliding and two complete opposites (in terms of race) learning to see past their differences to accomplish the same goal.

However, I could not be any more wrong. To talk about this, I first need to talk about the characters.

Noe, again from the opening and some slice of life moments, is a sweet tooth, a sweetiepie and generally just easily excited over things he cares about. That's what you'd like to think, anyway. In reality, he's somewhat of a mess of a character. At times, he's way too serious for me to think he's being consistent with the character they'd established, while other times he just seems uncaring. We learn fairly quickly about his background story and after seeing, I can't help but to think "is this really the same person?".
So many of his "cute" traits are just completely forgotten at times, his intelligence varies from situation to situation, and all of this just made it very hard to like him.

His relationship with Vanitas is clearly supposed to be "I dislike this person, but find him interesting", which then morphs into "I don't know how I feel about this person, but I still find him interesting", but it doesn't feel deserved. Their feel-good moments are far and between and the show spends much more time showing them interacting with every other person more.

(Slight SPOILER) Then there's Domi. I'm putting a spoiler for this section, because I do dwelve into her background story with Noe.
Domi is shown as a sweet girl who's forced to grown up quickly to help herself and Noe cope with the loss of her brother, however we see nothing of her previous personality. We see no anguish, no sign that the hardships of her loss and personality shifting was taxing to her.

Her and Noe's relationship is also very weird and does not feel as tightly knit as one would expect. Instead, she just feels like a one-sided love interest for Noe. (SPOILER over)


Then there's the character I have the most problems with. Vanitas. I hate this man and I don't say that lightly.
Vanitas is supposed to be the "anguished morally grey antihero who does things on his own premises and doesn't mind lying/being an asshole" and it follows the trope to such an extend that I can almost feel the remnants of Tumblr Sexyman radiating off of him. If Vanitas was released in 2014, he would have invaded Tumblr and I'll just let that speak for itself.
He weirdly sexually assaults a woman and when later asked about it, he tells Noe that his favorite type of person is one who "doesn't want to love him back". Someone put this man on some lists, goddamn. His whole 'relationship' with Jeanne is weird, gross and frankly put me off his character way more than any other thing about him.

The other thing with him is that he has no redeeming qualities in terms of personality. Yes, he's strong, smart, has knowledge about history, etc. but there's nothing about him that truly makes me say "ah, I can sympathize with that".
He's hinted to have a tragic background story, but I didn't see nearly enough of it for me to justify any of his actions or mannerisms.



I'll get some of the other anime standards over with:

Art (8/10): it's Bones. It looks good, it looks pleasing. The actions scenes are cool and nicely animated.
Sound (7/10): The BGM didn't really stand out to me, but the OP/ED are both certified bangers.

Story (6/10):
My second gripe with this show is the story. The pacing is terrible. It might just be Bones, because Bungou Stray Dogs didn't have the best pacing ever, but this one truly takes the cake.
3 episodes of plot, weird episodes filled with establishing things like romance (?) and BG stories, back to the actual interesting plot in like episode 8-9 and after.
Noe's background story was shown too fast, the whole "arc" of them being in the vampire world was shown too soon as well and overall there just wasn't enough time to actually hunt cursed vampires. I wish the show had been more episodic in the start, just to really showcase how Noe and Vanitas interact, but alas.

Enjoyment (6/10): I enjoyed half of the show. The other half not so much.

Overall (6/10):
I'm sure someone is tasting blood right now reading this, but I truly think this anime dropped the ball in many ways. However.
I am willing to chalk this up to Bones weirdness and the team needing more time to properly adapt the work. I didn't enjoy BSD either, I thought the first season was terrible, but now it's one of my favorite shows.

For now, I'm giving Vanitas no Carte a 6/10 and leaving off with a "I'm sure next season will be better".

vanitas no karte should be a pretty serious anime, chibi jokes make the seriousness of this anime lost and ridiculous.

in a pretty serious and tense fight, vanitas suddenly harass the very sexually sexy Jeanne and start a stupid conversation in the middle of the battle. like you're watching a horror movie shrouded in fear and tension but suddenly the main character kisses the ghost and says "I like you". well, I didn't expect that.

I admit that the visual animation produced by Studio Bones spoils the eyes and is very detailed, you can feel Paris in the Victorian era. building, city atmosphere, and futuristic retro technology ... detailed by bones.

the opening song is "Sora to Utsuro (空と虚)" from Sasanomaly, while the ending song is "0 (Zero)" from LMYK. The opening of this anime feels right, you will be brought into this anime and feel the Paris Steampunk vibes in the 19th century.

Vanitas no Karte is not bad at all and actually has a lot of potential but seems like something is missing. While the visuals are good, the plot at times feels vague or even lost. so my final score is 5/10.

Honestly this was mediocre at best, didnt bring anything new to the table, the plot wasnt too exciting to keep me on edge. The protagonist was too loud something contary of what i expected. He was unbearable and just didnt do it for me. I think i would have enjoyed this anime if the protagonist was a cold, brooding character but no they had to ruin this by adding random funny scenes in the middle of nowhere. The forced romance between jeanne and vanitas was just a big no too. The side characters helped save the story a bit. I really loved the animation it ... was beautiful studio bones did a great job.

Vanitas no Karte is a title that has a ton of potential, especially in terms of story. But does it succeed at reaching it's full potential? Not exactly.

While the concept of the story is so vast and good the title doesn't take itself seriously, the seriousness of the story is wasted because of crappy and cringe comedy moments, which doesn't even put a smile on your face, every moment that the story tries to get serious it's automaticly ruined by stupid comedy, to the point that it gets so boring and makes you want to drop it, but at the same time you want to ... keep watching to know what's going to happen (which is worth it actually).
The characters are fun, especially main characters but there's absolutely no logical connection between them. Vanitas is a sick-minded who has no stability in his character, which in fact it's what makes him so cool and loveable.

Art is fine, not the best art but it's okay and you'll like it along side the good musics this title have especially the awesome ED.

Overall I think the concept of the story is so good but it's not narrated that good but it can keep you watch through the end even though it gets boring at soooo many times. I think a 6/10 is a fair score for this title.

One of the few anime whose manga I wasn't even aware of. It started off pretty well and was engrossing for the first couple o' episodes, but I eventually lost interest in the plot as a whole. The last few episodes were a drag that I just watched so as to finish up on the season.

The character development was a saving grace for me. Combining that aspect with the modern, yet classical feel, I managed to get through the entire season in one piece. I got some similar vibes to BL type anime, sort of like a Seraph of the End/07-Ghost meets an Ecchi ... Maid Sama?

All in all, I'd give it a solid 6/10, as it was watchable, but nothing out of the otdinary.

A case study in over-indulgence. Vanitas wants so passionately to be so much more than it can fit in its 12-episode runtime.

The characters are the highlight here, or at least, their portrayal. The series is set in an alternate steampunk Paris, and the costumes and locations are all regal and spectacular. All of the main characters have interesting designs and charismatic acting, which makes them consistently interesting to watch, even when they don’t seem to be talking about much.

There are elements of all sorts of genres at play here. There’s some interesting lore at the backdrop of the story. The title character is a human ... with a mysterious past and a magic book from an ancient evil vampire which can alter the “formulas” of the laws of reality and recover the true names of vampires who have been converted into cursed spirits. Unfortunately, not all of this comes across very clearly as the story progresses. Since this is a vampire story, the plot is told less through action packed confrontations and more by way of leisurely conversations in elegant rooms between two people who equally hate each other and want to bang.

Of all the confused elements at play, the character’s sexuallity is clearly the actual focus. The action often feels flat. Characters attack with large CGI weapons and spells that clash against the rest of the art, and the story doesn’t even try to establish any sort of scale of power or mechanic for how these powers work. This compounded with the wishy-washy tone that permeates each episode turns what would be an engaging premise into a meandering chore.

I think the series would be better if each character had clearer motivations. Vanitas’ origin and goals are left intentionally mysterious to at least some effect (he wants to “save the vampires” from the cursed ones, but seems to have controversial theories as to the origin of said curses), but other characters seem to gravitate around him nebulously. This is in part a common trope among vampire stories (vampires following humans they find “interesting”) but it’s a weak point for the plot regardless.

There’s always the chance that the plot picks up from here (I haven’t read the manga, I wouldn’t know). The post-credits scene of the finale teases a seemingly big important arc for next season, but that follows two episodes of melodramatic nothing. In the end, Vanitas is a series for viewers who just want to see pretty rich anime vampires suck each others necks and moan.

The Case Study of Vanitas / Vanitas no Carte (ヴァニタスの手記) looks great and had a concept I was on board for. Vampire, action, some romance and best of all very attractive characters that are easy to fall in love with. But it’s misleading, you might hate the show or you’ll love it until it sets in that it’s only mediocre. And that what happened to me. I became obsessed with the main character, loved the design and the tragic mystery background but then it sets in that this show really isn’t anything amazing other than character designs.

-Plot- Decent
The plot is okay. But remember, there really ... aren’t any bad guys, and even if they’re bad they’re probably not actually bad, they’re probably just tragic characters. And that can become annoying. I’m not saying a antagonist can’t have good qualities, but is anyone here really an antagonist? I’m not so sure. The characters bounce around ideals. One second they go against or towards something out of character and another they just seem like they shouldn’t even belong in the story. The story is obviously not finished, but so far I’m not very impressed.

-Characters- Mediocre
Like I said, the character designs are what sells the show. Only thing after that is the tragic backstories which is something I personally like, and these characters really do go through a lot. But some characters only get tragic back stories and tHATS IT. No other qualities. It doesn’t expand on them, rather it says “oh look at how sad they are” and that’s all.

-Animation- Decent.. Bad?
Animation is the WORST. The first episodes, great, they’re fine. It looks good. But the more you watch the more and more the panels barely move. Scenes of objects fall become flat and characters disappear behind dust or glass. If you disagree I want you to go watch the scene with the Doctor and the book case and the fairest wheel and try to tell me that those weren’t lazy. Because they were. This was my biggest issue with the anime to be honest.

-Sound- Good
The music really fits the theme. Many animes in this environment (English environment) really fit the same feeling in regards to music. I really wish there would be a show that revolutionizes that feeling/sound but this anime took it safe. And I’m not mad about it.

-Enjoyment- Fair
I didn’t hate the series, I watch it all and then even went and read the manga even. However, after reading the manga, rewatching the anime and really stepping back… I enjoyed the show much more before I was able to see all the issues with it. I loved certain scenes and would rewatch them over until I started to notice the flaws.

-Manga- Not worth it right now… maybe come back in a couple years
Yes I went and read the manga. The art is much better (but not like amazing). But panels still hide action with convenient smoke/glass/props of course. The mangaka has works such as Pandora Hearts (which I watched forever ago, and heard the manga was better but never got the chance to read) and so I thought I should read this one because I’ve heard good things. However… I cannot recommend it, it’s not any better than the anime and it’ll be years before any new anime content will come from this series. The release dates of this manga is insanely frustrating. Single characters will have count downs for a month and then still wont be released for another 2 more months after the counter has already hit 0. Waiting 3 months for 1 chapter is awful, the manga is barely ahead of the anime and if you go to the manga after the anime you’ll read like maybe 5 chapters of practically nothing. Nothing has happened yet after the anime. I plan to put on hold the manga for a couple years, maybe we’ll get another arc by then but who knows.

—OVERALL—
Overall the anime is fine, it’s nothing special. The animation is lazy, and if that bothers you, you might not make it through this one. The plot is okay but chapters don’t develop enough. Although that could be because the story is new, practically just begun, the manga is so slow to be released we probably won’t know anything for this story for a couple years. The story is carried by attractive characters and falls on its face for most other things. I think watch it don’t, you aren’t missing out if you plan to not watch/read this anime/manga. It’s really up to you if you can look past sloppy writing/animation and enjoy how hot these characters are (Vanitas is the most attractive, my opinion).

The execution is good sometimes, but its general idea is horrible.

Although I think that common tropes do have to be subversed, the idea of a book that cures vampires just doesn't click. It's not well-explained, at least in this first season.

There are some good fights though, and the steampunk worldbuilding is great. I like some characters, especially Joan. I also the protagonist, how direct (or tête-à-tête, to use a fancy French term) he is. He doesn't pull any punches, like most Shōnen protagonists do.

But not every episode is good, and I don't feel invested to keep watching, mostly because I don't like the idea ... behind it.

That's why I dropped it.

(Note: Haven't read manga, no regard for similarities or differences)

Vampires, period piece (19th Century Paris), steampunk. All things I love. This first set of "Vanitas" is fine, but the second half gets worse.

"Vanitas" has Boy's Love themes, which is how I stumbled across it, but this series never gives us That Gay Shit™, and has no intention of doing so beyond baiting. Instead, they develop a straight relationship (Vanitas & Jeanne) that's based on Vanitas making unreciprocated advances and taking advantage when she's weak. Cringe-y for 2022.

This show does have humorous elements, and parts of it are fine detective-partner stuff. As it progresses it gets ... more convoluted and the pacing of the 2nd part is just terrible.

Overall I don't regret watching these first episodes and enjoyed parts of them, but the second batch is bad and I won't watch any more that get put out.

As a fan of Mochizuki - Sensei, I feel like Vanitas is an overrated series, especially Vanitas and Noé. I was initially interested in the relationship between the two characters. Since the teacher gave an interview But when you really look at it, Vanitas and Noe are an easy-to-understand couple. But the chapters are boring and the plot doesn't move. and looping with the same idea In the end, who doesn't like fan service? vanitas&jeanne and vanitas&noé recommend another story.

Vanitas and jeanne​ have good ideas. but never responds to the expansion of the story Both anime and ... manga Focus on fan service, not different from a pair of vanitas and noé

(The role of Vanitas and Noah was weaker than I thought.​ Compared to the main characters of PandoraHearts​ her old works)

A priori I didn't feel very captivated in watching this anime after its first episode, so that made me very inattentive with episode 2 (which I watched after a long time) and thus compromising my initial understanding of the story. In short, I almost abandoned it.

However, after giving it one more chance, I started to see nice points in the work. Its direction is different, using creative angles and scene transitions, it is a very animated anime in general and the final stretch of its first half is very interesting, with an extremely good episode. Afterwards, the anime remains regular, with some interesting mystery plays ... and others not so much.

About my dissatisfaction with the work, much was given to the character cast being very weak. Only Vanitas and Roland provoked me throughout 12 episodes. As for the other characters, they are not necessarily bad but their weak background is notorious. A curious case is that of Noé, who despite having a very interesting past, mainly linked to his "teacher", the character does not support this in the present of the work. The interaction between Vanitas and Noé is very reasonable in my point of view, but I understand that you find it very good. It just didn't really captivate me. It would be more interesting if both assume themselves as a couple hehe.

Anyway, I'll keep watching, as much as the cliffhanger of this season has been something, I believe it can improve, because there is potential.

Vanitas no Karte was an entertaining show. It's visually appealing, has an interesting setting, and has underlying mysteries to keep the audience invested. However, the characters leave much to be desired.

Story: 7

Vanitas no Karte takes a spin on the European Vampire setting and turns it into a fantasy. An alternate universe where vampires exist, but without many of the traits that are considered common within other media. Without going into any spoilers the setting and worldbuilding is quite interesting. Information is given gradually to the viewer throughout the series, and an underlying mystery and conflict come to surface. I wish there was a deeper dive ... into the history and lore of the worlds. Where the story falls short is how it interacts with the main characters. Vanitas goes around curing crazed vampires and Noe follows him around. Throughout their efforts the overarching plot is slowly revealed and ties into the issue with the vampires. I feel their personalities and dynamic gets in the way of the story, and that's where ill talk about characters.

Characters: 3

I dislike the characters. A flawed character can be done well, but this is not the case of Vanitas. Vanitas is selfish, edgy, and has a tragic backstory. His interactions with others feel shallow, and he really just annoys everyone around him. He has the mindset of anything he does has to be on his terms. He is shown to have good intentions for perhaps the wrong reasons, but its hard to sympathize as he doesn't feel real. The viewer will have a hard time relating to him and his flaws just make him insufferable.

Noe is naïve, selfish and immature. He acts very childish, especially with the sights around him. The audience gets some information due to his lack of understanding of both worlds. He's like a free spirit, neutral to factions and does as he pleases. He will stand his ground and act mature when he needs to, but the contradiction in those moments makes his naïve childish scenes feel awkward.

The way the duo interacts is honestly annoying. They need each other to advance their own goals, but I find little pleasure listening to their bickering.

As for the other characters Jeanne is cute, but I wish the showed more of her strong side. She was introduced as terrifying, but shortly turned into vanitas's plaything. Its creepy at first how he treats her but the teasing is quite enjoyable later. Her strength is pushed aside completely for no reason, and it feels like wasted potential.

Dominique is the childhood friend of Noe who is closely related to his past. Somewhat of a rich girl who was innocent when young but had to step up to her family name. She is shown to be caring to Noe, but I wish there was more frequent interaction between the two.

Dante and crew are just there lead Vanitas to the next case.

There are several factions with multiple characters. In the human world you have the Vampire Liaisons and The Chasseurs who hunt crazed vampires. The vampires appear to have noble families, dukes, and a queen. Both the Chasseurs and the vampire nobility almost feel as if they came straight from Demon Slayer.

Overall I feel that the characters don't interact naturally, and its a chore to watch.

Visuals: 8

I tend to not pay too much attention to visuals and sound, but Vanitas no Karte looks very appealing. Taking place in Paris with backgrounds to match the Japanese tourist dream, and the characters are all very good looking too. The lighting is something that stuck out to me, changing the mood or impact of a scene.

Conclusion:

If you took Bungou Stray Dogs and added the Demon Slayer factions you would get Vanitas no Karte. Not my first choice but it's still a very enjoyable show with great visuals, hampered by its mediocre character interactions. I would probably watch the next season to see what will happen next, and perhaps after reading this review you may be as well.