Vanitas no Karte | Vampires are not my thing

I am not one to watch an anime with the “Vampire” tag attached to it. But, “Vanitas no Karte” looked fairly interesting so I thought to myself “Why not give it a try?”. So here I am.

Scorned by others of his kind for being born under a blue moon, the vampire Vanitas grew afraid and desolate. According to legend, he created a cursed grimoire known as the “Book of Vanitas,” and it is said he would one day use it to bring retribution upon all vampires of the crimson moon.

In 19th century Paris, Noé Archiviste is searching for the fabled Book of Vanitas. Whilst traveling aboard an airship, he is saved from a vampire attack by an eccentric doctor who calls himself Vanitas and carries the very tome he seeks. Ironically, the self-proclaimed vampire specialist is a mere human who inherited both his name and the book from his master, the same Vanitas of legend. As the odd case of the Charlatan’s Parade crops up, the doctor’s ability to restore sanity to vampires by recovering their true name will prove most beneficial.

There were a few things about the anime that I didn’t quite enjoy, like for example, whenever the “Book of Vanitas,” was used it would play the same cut scene and it got real boring real fast, three episodes into the anime I thought to myself “I feel like I’ve seen enough”. “Vanitas no Karte” tosses out everything I thought I knew about vampires. For example, I’ve always thought that vampires melted in the sun, but alas we have our characters here having the time of their lives during the day time, while most of the action happens at night.

Anyway, with regards to characters, Noé is a very frustrating character. His indecisiveness is extremely annoying furthermore, his blind trust of Vanitas is also very annoying. It’s like he wants to do good, he wants to help the cause; but at the same time he doesn’t like the way Vanitas goes about his business because he’s a loose cannon.

Vanitas is no better really, I don’t really understand him. To me, he’s a character who wants to do good but it feels as though he has some sort of evil intent to him. It’s very interesting to be honest. Half the time I kept thinking to myself “can’t Noé just kill him already?”. Like the dude runs his mouth like there is no tomorrow and it drives me up a wall.

When it comes to the story itself, I didn’t find it particularly interesting. Everyone is trying to find the cause of these “curse-bearers” are trying to find a way to put an end to their evils. For example, the vampires have a different way of putting an end to them, while Noé and Vanitas have their own way.

But as characters go, Noé and Vanitas are a duo that I find hard to understand. They often contradict one another, but at the same time compliment each other. They’re both using each other it’s almost like a toxic relationship.

Anyway, moving onto another topic, the story. There is something about the story that I’m missing. I’m sure the story itself is a lot more complex beyond what I can comprehend. But I’m watching this anime as a simpleton, a complex story is hard for me to understand.

Hence why, although I wanted to enjoy the anime, I couldn’t because it was a little to complex and hard to follow for me. It wasn’t particularly linear. At times it felt as though the story blurred leading to us watching a vampire (Noé) blindly follow Vanitas around for no reason. I don’t even remember what Noé’s original mission/goal was to begin with, this dude is blindly following Vanitas and it’s kind of annoying.

Oh and let us not forget that “Vanitas no Karte” made the act of sucking ones blood highly suspect, it was almost like a fetish. It made me very uncomfortable to say the least.

I have mixed feelings when it comes to “Vanitas no Karte“, for the most part, I wasn’t entirely sure about what I watched nor if I understood what was happening. The characters were a little too complex for me and the story was hard to follow. Will I watch the second season? Most likely, but I probably will end up not understanding that one as well.