The Case Study of Vanitas: Things to Remember

The VnC Anime and the Recontextualisation of Chapter Titles

I've wanted to talk about the vanime for some time but my thoughts are varied and messy so I found it difficult to put into words. However, I have found something specific and simple I wish to address because it has interesting implications for how one interprets the series.

The manga and anime are very different versions of the same story and the way the adaptation handled things has massive effects on characterisation and overall story structure. Here I plan to discuss a relatively minor quirk of the anime, that being the episode titles. The titles are taken from the manga but where they are applied changes the meanings of these titles.

For both the anime and manga an episode or chapter has two titles (or a title and subtitle). For instance the first episode and chapter are both called Vanitas - In the Event of Rusty Hopes. With these titles the emphasis is switched between anime and manga with Vanitas being the primary title in the manga and In the Event of Rusty Hopes being primary rather than secondary in the anime. This change is not especially noteworthy but it is the case for all episodes of the anime. The secondary title from the manga tends to be the more important one anyway, or at least the most descriptive in any case.

I don't plan to go over every episode title, only those that make a significant difference to their context as compared to the manga. For example In the Event of Rusty Hopes is a fairly 1:1 adaptation of the first chapter so there is not much to say. I also won't talk about things like episode 2: Noé - In the City of Flowers because despite that episode including chapter 2 (of the same name) and chapter 3 (Jeanne - The Hellfire Witch) the interpretation of the episode's content is not changed by the title for chapter 2 being used for all of it.

The first really interesting episode title is that of episode 7: Femme Fatale - Love. It's interesting because this episode adapts only memoire 12 but does not use its title (Pause - 𝄻) and instead takes its name from memoire 4. Memoire 4 being, rather notoriously, the chapter in which Vanitas forces himself on Jeanne.

The original title positions memoire 12 as a break, a time for the characters to catch their breath, further reinforced by its secondary title being 𝄻, the musical notation for a whole note rest. Primarily this title communicates a sense of peace, the calm before the storm even. It even concludes with Noé narrating and musing about the future in a rather wistful-seeming tone: "I would not understand... the meaning of the stirring I felt in my heart... Until quite some time later."

It is also immediately followed by memoire 13 Glissando which continues the musical theme, a glissando representing a rapid change in pitch for their confrontation with Ruthven and the very beginning of the catacombs arc.

Episode 7 of the anime instead communicates something very different. While the title Femme Fatale - Love was originally used for purely vanijeanne's relationship by superimposing it over an adaptation of memoire 12 it becomes about more than just them. You could already read the femme fatale as either Vanitas or Jeanne in memoire 4 (and arguably it describes Vanitas better in that chapter considering he's the one using his wiles to achieve his goals) but it's even more ambiguous in episode 7.

Because memoire 12, and by extension episode 7, is about the feelings of not just Vanitas and Jeanne but also Domi, Noé and - to a lesser extent - Luca. For most of these characters the titular femme fatale would be Jeanne, she certainly is for Vanitas and Luca. Even for Domi the character who is in her eyes fulfilling that role is Jeanne. Domi thinks Noé's become romantically interested in her after all. And she even draws Domi's eyes during their dance, regardless of her love for Noé she does fully acknowledge her attractiveness.

For Noé however his "femme fatale" is up to your interpretation. If you trust Domi's assessment then it's also Jeanne but if you don't then for him it has to be Vanitas. He's jealous of Jeanne and wants Vanitas's blood and they later share a dance together. Vanitas, if nothing else, is the reason Noé starts asking about love, because he doesn't understand his relationship with Jeanne. Vanitas can also be interpreted as Jeanne's femme fatale for the same reasons as memoire 4 - he's using her attraction to him [his blood] as a way of manipulating her.