Vampire Princess Miyu Episode 11 Discussion

Agreed, it's very confusing as to what they wanted to say. You probably don't even remember this episode and don't care but if you're interested, here's my attempt to interpret this episode and make some kind of sense out of it.

From the preview. "Today he obtained a new face, a new self, and a new life. That is a life of illusion given by a shinma."

"I'm tired of this life. I want to have a whole new life. Let me ask you: if you could be reborn, who would you want to be?"

"Huh? I don't know. I probably wouldn't change a thing."

I think this is about a man who tries to turn a new leaf but can't escape his old ways; his reformed self is merely an illusion. His girlfriend says that she was abused as a child and now she finds herself unable to escape the cycle of getting attached to bad men. He's trying to break the cycle of criminal behavior in himself and in doing so he's creating a new face, so to say, that's in conflict with his old one. You can say that this episode is more about a split personality disorder than a second life story, with the new life thing being about the birth of a new persona. When the shinma dies, so does the illusion. When his original face, or perhaps his true face, comes to surface, his girlfriend can't stand the regression and kills him. From the lines, "I probably wouldn't change a thing", "I never asked for this", and "That is a life of illusion given by a shinma", this indicates that although he got a second chance he didn't really want to change his ways. Broadly speaking, even when people are given second chances, they keep repeating the same mistakes.

Or maybe they had no idea where they were going with this and just threw that last twist in there to be edgy, I don't know. Because really, if this was just about a guy genuinely trying to leave his old ways behind but the consequences of his past life catch up to him, that's so cheesy and it's not saying anything interesting. Oh so you tried to be a better person but it's too late? That sucks. Or if it's a lame Faustian tale about the price of getting a second life, that's even dumber.