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vnc 55.5: some scattered thoughts

Heya fellow vnc simps, long time no see! I apologize for now empty this blog’s been in the past two months, but can’t… exactly… say it won’t continue in the future, as it probably will. however I do have tHoughts and eMOTIONS on vnc 55.5, so here’s some scattered thoughts on the incredibly beautiful im in agony oh god mochijun whychapter 55.5

as always, massive spoilers for VnC 55.5 ahead!

new year new vanitas

VnC 55.5 feels like the midpoint of VnC as a series. It might not actually be the middle, but it feels like a huge turning point for both Vanitas and Noé’s relationship and the narrative as a whole. VnC 55.5 neatly answers two of the biggest questions the story’s been following from the very start— 1) why does Noé kill Vanitas, and 2) why did Vanitas kill Luna. The two driving mysteries behind the Exposition Universalle arc and the story as a whole are given… if not exactly complete answers, definite outlines of answers.

It almost feels too abrupt.

I think a lot of this abruptness comes from Vanitas’s sudden change in attitude and demeanor. He’s taken a complete 180 from how he was acting just a few hours ago. Why did Vanitas change his outlook on sharing the secrets of what happened “that night” so quickly? Why didn’t Vanitas just tell all this to Mikhail and Noé last night? Did he think Mikhail wouldn’t have accepted that answer, or would’ve told Noé to invade Vanitas’s memories to check? Why was Vani so insistent on hiding this perfectly reasonable explanation for killing Luna in the first place?

Let’s try and think about some possible reasons for this sudden change in behavior.

Firstly, it seems like Vanitas has finally given up the security he got from insisting that his ‘revenge on Luna’ was born out of a hatred for them. He still calls his mission revenge upon the vampire of the blue moon, but it seems like it’s closer to revenge for Luna than revenge upon them. Vani seems to be slowly accepting the fact that he didn’t truly hate Luna, and is doing what he’s doing at least partially because he saw them as the mother he never had.

Secondly… something definitely changed in the VaniVerse after that conflict with Comte. I still can’t get that expression Vanitas had right before Comte left out of my mind. I’m pretty sure he realized something, or remembered something, or came to some sort of conclusion. I’ve no idea what that realization was but I feel like that little moment was important.

And thirdly, most crucially, Vanitas has given up on making Noé kill him.

The most devastating part of this chapter for me was the realization that Vanitas didn’t keep Noé around to protect himself from others. Vanitas kept Noé around to protect others from himself. After their initial fight, Vanitas determined that Noé would likely be strong and sturdy and morally good enough to kill him if necessary. So he recruited him. Ostensibly as a shield, but in truth as a failsafe.

Despite being incredibly strong, Vanitas never goes on missions involving cursebearers alone. The only time we see him intentionally go off by himself is when he’s facing the human Chasseurs. Even during the first chapter, Vanitas has Dante by his side. He seems largely disinterested the whole time and provides no considerable help to Vani during the fight. But Dante is there, watching, the whole time. And Dante has a gun.

With this we can read Vanitas’s behavior throughout the past 55.5 chapters of VnC in a whole new light. His constant cheerful responses to Noé’s animosity back during the Parisian Excursion arc were goofy funtimes back when I first read ‘em, but now I just see Vanitas pulling what we see him later do with Jeanne— acting like a complete asshole in order to push people away from him. Remember that bonus comic from a while back, where Vanitas asks Noé if he’s really that interested in kisses after their first encounter with Jeanne and Luca? I thought that was just more cute adorable funtimes with some extra fanservice on the side. But now… holy shit, Vanitas was actually flirting with Noé in an active attempt to make Noé dislike him.

Vanitas’s cheerful responses to Noé’s animosity aren’t him being goofy or arrogant, it’s him purposefully acting like the type of person he likes the least. He wants Noé to keep disliking him. Because Noé can’t get too close, or Noé might hesitate when the decisive moment inevitably arrives.

But Noé doesn’t do what Vanitas wants. He just pushes and pushes and gets closer and closer. And every time Noé starts to get too close, we see Vanitas shove him away. But Vanitas can’t keep this up forever, and when his latest and most violent attempt to make Noé despise him fails, Vanitas truly gives up on making Noé do what he wants. He gives up on making Noé kill him. And because of that, he’s now able to tell Noé the truth about the past and his intentions behind their partnership.

I’m absolutely intrigued by how Vanitas is gonna behave around Noé from now on. Because this feels like… this feels like the huge turning point their relationship has been building towards from the very start. This feels like the culmination of everything they’ve been through and everything they’ve been building towards. They are finally at least somewhat able to admit they love each other [platonically or romantically] without veiling it behind walls of dislike and animosity. And I seriously can’t wait to see how they adapt to this change in the status quo in whatever challenge they’ll be facing next.

oh noé

The tragedy of all this is, of course… even though Vanitas has given up on making Noé kill him, we as the readers know how the story’s going to end. Noé is going to fulfill Vanitas’s wish. He’s going to kill him. It isn’t a matter of if, just when and how.

The moment Vanitas started talking about his wish I knew it was coming. I knew he was gonna say it. I knew he was gonna have that same wish Louis had, the wish that’s haunted Noé since the day Louis died.

I knew it was coming and it still feckin hurt me.

Interestingly, Noé doesn’t react the way he did with Louis. He doesn’t immediately refuse. He just quietly starts to cry.

Noé’s definitely upset here, but I can’t help but feel like he’s also just a little bit relieved. He couldn’t save Louis, because by the time he reached that crucial moment when Louis could have told him anything it was already too late. But now Vanitas has told him, and now he knows, and now he can do something about it. He can sit next to Vanitas, lean on him so he can’t just run away, and talk to him properly.

And then, of all things, Vanitas apologizes to Noé, and tells him that even though this is what he wants Noé to do, he’s accepted that he can’t make it happen. They can talk to each other properly, and maybe Noé can reach out and save Vanitas.

Except he can’t.

Instead, he’s going to kill him.

mochijun why do you do this to us

mikhail

One of my main questions going into 55.5 was whether the Exposition Universalle arc was over or just getting started. This chapter really makes me lean towards the former. Mikhail gets what feels like a temporary farewell in this chapter, and it seems like we probably won’t see him again for a solid amount of time. If I had to make a guess, I think Comte and Mikhail’s story is gonna get set on the back burner a bit in favor of a few other arcs in the meantime (@/ gano and the vampire eradication faction, @/ the senate and its hunt for chloé and JJ, @/ the dhams, @/ loki, @/spi—-).

So Mikhail was all over the place this chapter, as he always is. I feel like the kids psyche is just so completely broken that at this point even he has a hard time determining when he’s actually displaying genuine emotion and when he’s acting in a certain way to get what he wants. At his core Mikhail has an incredibly simple motivation and value system (hates pain, likes kind people, wants to be happy with Luna and Vanitas forever), but his morality was completely twisted by his upbringing before he even hit the human experimentation lab, and then the complexities of the situation he’s ended up in with Luna and Vanitas have just made things even worse. (side note, I still don’t understand why Vanitas didn’t just tell Mikhail what happened to Luna on that night, and it makes me think he’s still hiding a considerable portion of the truth of what happened to Luna from the fam, if not outright lying.)

Mikhail seems genuinely horrified by the idea that Luna’s death might be his fault, and he seems genuinely upset when Vanitas tells him he’d prefer it if Noé were the one to kill him. But I also think Mikhail knows when to play up his childish emotional response and when to turn it off when Vanitas isn’t responding to it. And it just. Mikhail… just… holds head in hands… he’s so broken. I wish Misha could just feckin cry without wondering if someone will respond to his crying. Express his emotions and his childishness without also using them as an attempt to manipulate someone into doing what he wants them to do. But that’s what the world around him has shaped him into.

While we’re on the subject of Mikhail… Noé’s guilt over Misha’s injuries is palpable and I love to see it.

other neato stuff this chapter

In no particular order,

we get solid confirmation that Luna made Mikhail their kin before turning Vanitas. Strangely, Vanitas seems much more competent with his Book than Mikhail is— were they turned at around the same time? Or did Luna refuse to teach Mikhail to use the book after turning him for fear that he might be rewritten?
Mlle. Amelia actin kinda sus this chapter ngl
I love how Dante has now been threatened by both Dominique and Jeanne
speaking of Domi and Jeanne I’m delighted to hear that they’re talking and desperately hope to see their conversation in the next chapter
Noé’s face goes really weirdly blank when Vanitas mentions Comte; gotta wonder why
love how the smoke effect throughout the chapter looks similar to Luna’s hair

the end (for now)

As always, all the theories/ interpretations here are based on my current understanding of the manga and I am likely dead wrong about a lot of this. So! Please take everything here with a grain of salt. Thanks for reading these scattered thoughts on vnc 55.5! I can’t wait to see what mochijun has in store for us in vnc 56…