English Dub Review: The Case Study of Vanitas “Those Who Hunt Crimson”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Noe and Vanitas manage to escape from Roland after a hard fought struggle. The two of them flee through the underground tunnels, but they know they can’t run for long. And what’s worse, Vanitas senses that his old doctor, Moreau, is alive. Noe forms a plan and is able to break through to Roland through dialogue. The two of them bond and Roland agrees to accompany them on their hunt for the doctor—who Vanitas suspects is behind the recent string of kidnappings.

Our Take:

This week’s episode of The Case Study of Vanitas keeps us underground like last week. But instead of the cunning foe we met in the form of Roland, the guy turns into a big softie in Those Who Hunt Crimson. It’s not a bad episode, but there was potential for a much better episode underneath.

My main complaint is that the show struggles with tone and pacing. Maybe it’s just the kind of show Vanitas is content to be, but the frequent breaks from deadly vampire business to a cut of chibi Vanitas argueing about silly things with chibi Noe just knocks me out of it. Which is kind of a shame, because this episode does have a lot of things working in its favor.

After opening with a battle between Noe and Roland, Noe manages to get away with Vanitas. This sets the stage for a thrilling caper through the underground as they’re tracked down by Roland and his holy thugs. The episode title even seems to allude to this, as Roland hunts for them. But while it could’ve been a tense and spooky affair, it’s mostly just scenes of Roland being the comedic relief and Vanitas and Noe being overly dramatic with each other like usual. The scene where Vanitas tells Noe about his parents being killed by vampires was very hard to take serious, and the gags about their faces wasn’t helping.

The most tension filled part of the episode comes when Vanitas agrees to let use Noe use him as a false captive to buy time, but then Noe goes rogue and I almost thought he was going to get bite-y with Vanitas for a moment—until he throws him at Roland in order to distract him enough to listen to reason? It’s definitely a little anticlimactic, and Roland agrees to help them out way too fast for my liking—although it’s possible he’s still playing them.

We end with the newly formed gang entering Doctor Moreau’s hideout, which is apparently inside the church’s secret tunnels and yet has gone completely unnoticed by Roland and his cohorts before now. After hearing about how the doctor treated Vanitas as a child, and how he may be behind the kidnappings, I’m looking forward to seeing how the show handles this big meeting next episode.