If you would like to hear my thoughts on the first volume, please check this post out!

When The Case Study of Vanitas ends the first chapter by spoiling the manga’s ending, I knew I was in for a good time. From the creator of Pandora Hearts, Jun Mochizuki, is a story about the detailed account of Vanitas, a human dedicating his life to saving vampires. A story narrated by Noe, the vampire who killed Vanitas.

I was recommended to read this by Shido from the community. It was a reward for being randomly selected by commenting in my Kagurabachi Part 1 review, but in reality, this ended up being a reward for me as well. If you like me to read one of your recommendations, make sure to watch my MOST RECENT viewer recommendation video on how to submit yours.

I read to the most current chapter which is 68 at the time of this video & watched a couple of episodes from the anime & I just want to highlight a few moments & characters in the manga that I have really enjoyed!

Vanitas

Vanitas is a character I didn’t expect I was going to enjoy reading about as much as I have. His cocky attitude & brashness towards wanting to save all the vampires was a bit off-putting at first because he seemed too self-righteous that it felt suspicious. Also since he shared the name of the cursed book & blue moon vampire, I felt there must have been some ulterior motives.

But he really is that genuine! His brashness does make for some incredible moments like when he decides to intrude into the Bal Masque. It created such a chaotic scene allowing us to really see Vanitas thrive in his element.

And although I didn’t like how aggressive he was towards Jeanne. As we began to learn more about her, I have really grown to love their relationship. Jeanne being this character who felt like her worth was to be a tool, but thanks to Vanitas is realizing her true worth & is becoming more comfortable to let herself live free.

At the same time, through Jeanne, Vanitas begins to develop actual feelings of love leading to a hilarious moment where he explains to Roland & Olivier that Jeanne has cursed him because he cannot stop thinking about her, his chest feels heavy, and his face burns. It is such a humanizing moment for Vanitas who funnily enough despite being the main human of the manga. Is the one that acts the most weird, haha.

We don’t learn much about Vanitas as a person, he has threaten Noe to never biting him because Noe has the ability to read people’s memories through their blood. He doesn’t speak at all about his past. In fact, the only reason, we got a bit of his backstory is through his adoptive brother, Mikhail who used Vanitas’ backstory as a way to make Noe feel like a stranger to Vanitas who told him none of this.

And what we learned about the Vanitas & Mikhail is that they were raised by the Blue Moon Vampire, Luna after rescuing them from being experimented on. For someone who was hated by the Crimson Vampires, we see Luna as this incredibly kind & gentle person. However, we learn nothing about why they created the Book of Vanitas or even what really happened between them & the queen of the Crimson vampires, Fauntina! Lots of really cool mysteries that I’m excited to learn more about!

Noe

Noe is a character I absolutely loved since page 1! His excitement for wanting to see Paris for the first time was adorable! His admiration for his Teacher is quite endearing until you begin to understand how toxic his Teacher really is. His Teacher, aka Saint Germaine, considers Luna to be a “creature” & wants Noe to investigate the truth behind the Book of Vanitas. St Germain is not good guy, but for most of this manga, Noe has always looked up to him.

It was already heartbreaking seeing the arc at the Amusement Park where Mikhail was able to setup an elaborate plan that had Vanitas & Noe fighting to the death. It almost felt like this manga was going to end because I didn’t know how this would resolve itself. Although the fight between Vanitas & Noe ended without no one dying. St Germain being behind this entire ordeal is scary to think. Noe had declared in Chapter 1 that he was the one who killed Vanitas. Will Noe kill Vanitas at the will of St Germain? I don’t think so, but at the moment, Noe hasn’t really taken the time to see how evil his teacher truly is.

I got so sidetrack talking about St Germain because he is a very mysterious & compelling character to learn more about, but Noe is the kind of person who is willing to put his life on the life to save someone.

Learning how much Noe cared for Louise & Domi has also been truly wonderful. Unfortunately, Noe is constantly beating himself up for not putting Louise out of his misery when he lost control. Then again, what was St Germain’s plans. Did he want Noe to kill Louise? Clearly, Noe is apart of some experiment for St Germain or maybe St Germain made a promise to the Lady Archiviste, who knows, but this story definitely has been gripped.

Domi & Noe relationship is wonderful. The mangaka draws some some incredibly spicy vampire bites, which please draw more Mochizuki-san. I love how powerful & stoic of a character Domi is. She is always there to back us up, but her one weakness is Noe. Noe means the world to her & when Louise died. She felt like Noe only cared for Louise, which wasn’t true, but that bit of weakness added a lot of depth to her story that pulled at the heart strings.

Noe & Vanitas

I also love the relationship between Noe & Vanitas. They balance each other out by overcoming each others’ shortcomings. For Vanitas, he gets himself into a whole lot of trouble & Noe is always there to get him out of it. For Noe, he has been sheltered all his life, Vanitas is showing what it truly means to be free. I am very sad for the moment when Noe will kill Vanitas. Speaking of which!

Killing The One You Love

This manga also deals with killing the person you love out of mercy if they lose control. Vanitas killing Luna. Louise & Vanitas wishing to be killed by Noe. Vanitas promising to kill Jeanne. Mikhail wishing to kill Vanitas & I’m sure I’m missing more.

It is a very depressing look at relationships. That I am not ready to dissect, but it does lead me to think if something similar happened between Luna & Faustina.

Racism

Racism plays a large role in this story. Characters with dark or black skin are either killed or ostracized because of their unique abilities. Although, their skin tone doesn’t play a direct role in the story, I do think it was an intentional choice by the author to depict these characters with darker skin.

In the current arc, we also learn about the racism against the Dhampirs. A mix of human & vampire people who are neither accepted by vampires or humans. This bit of racism has been sprinkled throughout the manga, but it became much more overt in this arc because we are learning more about their story.

One of the most powerful moments in this manga happened during a discussion between Vanitas, Noe, Dhampirs, and the other vampires. Noe noticed that when referring to Dhampirs no one called Dante, Johann, or Riche by their names.

Domi, a character who has been extremely kind-hearted & empathic is suddenly hit with this realization that she has been dehumanizing the Dhampirs & it tears her apart. This awakening was such a powerful moment to see in a manga because it does such a good job at representing that even good people can still uphold a status quo that dehumanizes people.

We also learn from Vanitas, that Noe has to check his privilege because the Dhampirs are constantly under threat. They do not have the privilege to see everyone equally because they might die if they ally themselves with the wrong person. For Noe, he is very powerful, he doesn’t have to worry about his safety so he can easily treat people equally.

These were such incredible examples of privilege that I just wasn’t expecting from this manga. I’m excited to learn more about the Dhampirs!

Ending

Also it’s great to see non-binary representation with Luna & lesbian representation with Veronica & Lady Archiviste. Although, I personally, don’t feel like the mangaka needs to justify the existence of these characters’ identities because that same justification doesn’t get applied to hetero characters. I did love that all three characters are some of the most powerful in the series.

And that’s it for my thoughts on The Case Study of Vanitas, I enjoyed my time reading this! If you enjoyed hearing me talk about manga, check out my video on reading viewer recommendations where I read the volume 1 of many manga.

Thank you all for watching & I’ll you all next time!! Bye!