#Vanitas no Carte Volume Four

[graysongraysoff]

God today is just. Unrelentingly boring.

[raamitsu]

📌 JUJUTSU KAISEN CHAPTER 248 LEAKS WILL BE AVAILABLE ON JANUARY 17th JST.

📌 JUJUTSU KAISEN VOLUME 25 IS TO BE RELEASED TOMORROW OFFICIALLY (JANUARY 4th) + MANGA MUSIC VIDEO OF “STRONGEST VS. STRONGEST BATTLE” WILL BE RELEASED TOMORROW IN COMMEMORATION OF THE VOLUME RELEASE.

📌 JUJUTSU KAISEN CHAPTER 247 OFFICIAL RELEASE ON THIS SATURDAY @ 12 AM JST/FRIDAY @ 11 PM MYT.

📌 GOKURAKUGAI CHAPTER 15 WILL BE PUBLISHED ON FEBRUARY 2nd @ 12 AM JST OFFICIALLY ON MANGA PLUS.

📌 NEXT CHAPTER OF VANITAS NO CARTE RELEASE ON JANUARY 21st/JANUARY 22nd JST

📌 ONE PIECE: EGGHEAD ARC TV ANIMATION OFFICIALLY ON AIR IN FOUR (4) DAYS.

📌 SOLO LEVELING ANIMATION DEBUT TOMORROW - JANUARY 6TH @ 6 PM JST.

🍡 DEMON SLAYER: HASHIRA TRAINING ARC COMING IN SPRING.

🍡 MY HERO ACADEMIA SEASON 7 ON MAY 4th JST @ 5.30 PM JST.

🍡 BLEACH: THOUSAND YEAR BLOOD WAR (THIRD COUR) OFFICIAL TEASER + MORE ANNOUNCEMENTS SOON.

🍡 ATTACK ON TITAN SPIN-OFF: BAD BOY (LEVI ACKERMAN’S CHILDHOOD STORY) ON APRIL 30th JST.

🍡 NEW SEASON OF BLACK BUTLER THIS YEAR + INFORMATION IS YET TO BE RELEASED.

🍡 KIMI NI TODOKE SEASON 3 GLOBAL DEBUT ON NETFLIX THIS YEAR.

🍡 ONE PIECE REMAKE: THE ONE PIECE PRODUCED BY WIT STUDIO.

[bluemooniegif]

besides bungo stray dogs, can u rcm me some manga having thought-provoking theme like that

ABSOLUTELY I CAN!! here are some manga, book and movie recs for you, cause I couldn't help myself :>

MANGA RECS:

1: The Case Study of Vanitas (Vanitas no Carte)

I knowww it's a cliche that BSD fans must also enjoy VNC, but it's genuinely just AHH so good!! it currently sits at 62.5 chapters (10 volumes & 9 uncollected chapters) and it has a 2-season anime adaptation. it's the second manga series by Jun Mochizuki, who's also well-known for her series Pandora Hearts, and is still ongoing.

set in 19th-century France, our story begins with Noe, a young vampire, who's excitedly travelling to Paris for the first time. in his travels, he encounters the strange and enigmatic Vanitas, a human who somehow possesses the power of the Vampire of the Blue Moon- a feared being shunned by the rest of the vampire world.

we learn from the very beginning that Noe is recounting this story to us, and that he kills Vanitas with his own hands- but why? how? nobody knows, but we're bound to find out!

2. Attack on Titan

I doubt anyone was expecting me to mention this one, because it has quite a reputation for being gore-filled and action-packed, but when I say this literally changed my life I'm really not kidding (I wouldn't have this blog or be into anime at all if not for AOT!). it's a completed story, with a four-season anime (including 3 OVA episodes) and 139 manga chapters (in the main storyline; there are multiple spin-offs and 2 bonus mangas/light novels).

many years ago, the final remnants of humanity were forced to flee into a city surrounded by three giant walls. these walls are the only things keeping humanity from perishing at the hand of the titans, giant humanoid figures who hunt and eat them. but a young boy, Eren, wants nothing more than to see the world beyond the wall- until a titan taller than their walls breaks into the city, throwing humanity (and Eren's life) into disarray.

though it's true that a large chunk of this animanga is action, the lore is incredible. I can't say too much without spoiling, but the thought-provoking aspects aren't talked about nearly as much as I think they should be. once you've finished watching or reading, I highly recommend you watch this video, which is one of my favourite video essays of all time!

BOOK RECS:

1. Slaughterhouse Five

this is one of my favourite books of all time, and it's only 177 pages, so it's a super quick read! not only is it severely anti-war, but it's deeply though-provoking. I think about it every day. I quote it regularly. I'd recommend it to anyone and everyone, especially now, with everything happening in the world.

I honestly don't have words for how much I love it, so here's the synopsis on Goodreads:

Prisoner of war, optometrist, time-traveller - these are the life roles of Billy Pilgrim, hero of this miraculously moving, bitter and funny story of innocence faced with apocalypse. Slaughterhouse 5 is one of the world's great anti-war books. Centring on the infamous fire-bombing of Dresden in the Second World War, Billy Pilgrim's odyssey through time reflects the journey of our own fractured lives as we search for meaning in what we are afraid to know.

2. No Longer Human

there are so many editions of this, and I would recommend all of them- this is my other favourite book of all time, by the way. I may be barking up the wrong tree when I tell a BSD fan to read Dazai, one of the most accessible and relatable Japanese authors for a Western audience, but hey, I've got to remind you just in case you haven't given it a shot.

No Longer Human follows the life of Yozo Oba, a boy born into a big rich family, who constantly feels at-odds with the world around him. it's an exploration of mental illness, social isolation, self-expression, and compassion. I actually have an entire youtube video talking about it and how BSD-Dazai reflects Yozo as much as irl-Dazai, and it's my pride and joy so please go watch it!

MOVIE RECS:

Okay, I only have one rec for you, but this movie haunts me (in the best way possible):

Forgotten (기억의 밤)

I really need more people to watch this actually because holy shit it was amazing and nobody talks about it!! WATCH IT!!! PLEASE!!!!

Jinseok watches his brother get kidnapped right before his eyes, and it powerless to do anything. 19 days later, he returns, and... something is different about him. Jinseok is determined to uncover the mystery surrounding his kidnapping.

the twists in this are actually insane. I can't tell you anything aside from the synopsis without spoiling major plot points. if you only take one recommendation I bed you to take this one.

okay that's all bye!!

[asbestieos]

asta! asta you're one of the few people awake. well unless the hiragana practice post was a queued thing... uhhhh,,

hey can i please ask you a question (i am assuming the answer is yes, even if possibly a disgruntled one)

do you know what vanitas no carte is? and if so, would you recommend the manga or the anime??

OH MY GOD VANITAS NO CARTE. also known as vanitas no shuki and the case study of vanitas and vnc for short!! i recommend the manga if youre interested in the full, unadulterated story, as the anime unfortunately cuts out a lot of lore and dialogue for the sake of pacing. i havent read the manga myself bc of time constraints, but the anime is beautiful and the relationships between the four titular characters is so queer and strange you will be hooked. and despairful when you remember the author is jun mochizuki famous author of pandora hearts. so um. manga is my number one choice. also bc the volume cover arts are EXTREMELY beautiful and well detailed and full of foreshadowing, character motifs, metaphors, and allusions to each character's story. great stuff in the manga. read the vanitas no carte manga

[mikauzoran]

The Shipping Continues

I’m still reading through the Vanitas no Carte manga to practice my Japanese, and I have some more favourite moments from Volume Four to share. ^w^

First off, Noe completely losing it when Dr. Moreau tries to touch Vanitas.

Dr. Moreau was just asking Vanitas if he could extract one of Vanitas’s eyes to study it, and Noe has had enough.

Vanitas says, “Hey. What are you doing? Stop it.” because Noe is going to blow their cover to which Noe replies, “I’m sorry, but that’s impossible. Dr. Moreau, I’ve got a mountain’s worth of things I want to say to you, but...calling people by a number like you’ve been doing with your ‘Number Six-Nine, Number Six-Nine’...cut it the hell out!!!”

I like that Noe just drops all pretense of politeness here and snaps. ^.^

A side note on Dr. Moreau: I really love the allusion to the 1896 book by H. G. Wells: The Island of Doctor Moreau. (Have people heard of it before? ^.^;) It’s about a mad scientist who’s made these hybrid human-animal creatures on this island that the narrator gets shipwrecked on. My favourite character is the pink sloth creature. It’s an interesting book, and I always love when contemporary fiction references classic fiction. The references make me happy. ^w^ It’s like finding Easter eggs.

This is another great scene. Vanitas was about ready to give up, but Noe inspired him to keep trying. Actually, what happened was Vanitas was going to have everyone leave and seal the room until the monster consumed itself and disappeared on its own because there was no way for them to get the cursed one out of the monster in order to purify them. Noe convinced Vanitas to jump into the monster’s void-like maw in order to perhaps save the cursed one from inside of the monster.

Only, they didn’t know that that was going to work. For all they knew, they were going to their deaths. Instead of letting Noe go in on his own (because Noe wasn’t giving up, and he was going whether Vanitas went or not), Vanitas decided to go with Noe, knowing that it could be a suicide mission. It’s kind of romantic in a twisted way that Vanitas picked possibly dying with Noe instead of letting Noe go alone and then sealing up the room to let the monster eat itself out of existence.

But what I really like about this scene is the dialogue!

Vanitas: That’s the cursed one who created “Predator”. (The kanji says “shadow figure”/“silhouette”/“shadow monk”, but the furigana reads “puredatouuru”.)

Noe: It’s okay. We can win.

Vanitas: Ha. “So long as we’re together”?

This is a callback to a scene in Volume 3:

Here, Vanitas has just asked if Noe can win against Roland (I’m guessing that’s how you spell his name. In katakana, it’s “rooran”. I’m guessing that’s the French name “Roland”). Noe says, “I don’t know...but we can win. So long as we’re together.”

A note on my translation: That’s not literally what Noe says, but that’s the vibe. In Japanese, it’s “oretachi nara”. Literally, that means “so long as it’s us”. The emphasis is on “tachi”. “Ore” would just mean “me”. “Tachi” makes it plural, so Noe is emphasizing that so long as it’s him and Vanitas, they can win. It feels more natural in English for me to translate that as “so long as we’re together”. 

I love the above scene of Vanitas and Noe laughing together after having pulled it off and narrowly escaped death. I also love Roland looking on in awe at a vampire and a human laughing together. 

You can tell he ships it. This is his “and then a shipper was born” moment.

Above is another great scene. Amelia comes in to give Vanitas a message, and Noe is still sleeping. He’s just fallen out of bed with a loud crash.

Amelia: Noe-san?!

Vanitas: Oh, so he’s fallen out of bed again?

Amelia: Uh... Is this...really okay?

Noe: *soft, breathy snore*

Vanitas: Hey. Don’t get close to him. He’ll turn you into a body pillow.

I love the implication that Vanitas knows this fact from personal experience. How else would he know that Noe latches onto and snuggles anything and anyone within reach when he’s asleep? Vanitas has definitely gotten snuggled before, and I want fan art. XD

Honorable Mentions from Volume Four:

This scene. I won’t translate it word for word, but Vanitas is getting worked up because Noe refuses to take one of the Chasseurs hostage. Vanitas says that if Noe doesn’t like Vanitas’s way of doing things, he can just go because Vanitas doesn’t want to be around people with Noe’s soft way of thinking. Vanitas is afraid that if he spends time with people like Noe, Vanitas will eventually go soft too, and then he’ll end up dead.

I really love the depth of Vanitas’s character. Sensei has done an excellent job with him in particular (though, all of the characters are wonderful). His psychology is fascinating. He’s obviously been through a great deal, and he’s adapted in order to survive. He’s scared of letting people in because being the way he is and being a loner is what’s kept him alive and safe up until this point.

I’m really looking forward to seeing how Noe slowly chips away at the walls Vanitas has built around himself. ^w^

This is my other honorable mention. After Noe and Vanitas escape from the catacombs, Vanitas collapses next to Noe and slumps against Noe’s back. It’s really precious.

He closes his eyes and sighs, “I’m tired”. I love the trust and vulnerability here. Vanitas obviously feels safe enough around Noe to let his guard down. ^.^

My Love Letter to Yen Press:

Once again, if you’re interested in reading Vanitas no Carte, you can get it in English from Yen Press. I really love this publisher because they do an excellent job of staying true to the original text. When I was in high school and couldn’t read manga raw yet (either because I couldn’t get my hands on it or my reading level wasn’t sufficient for what I wanted to read), Yen Press was my favourite because I felt like I could trust them to translate the manga how I would myself.

When I was little, you couldn’t trust the people who were dubbing anime into English. They did ridiculous things to sanitize anime for kids’ consumption like editing out all of the cigarettes and guns. They changed dialogue so that characters who had been hinted at being queer in the original were no longer queer in the English dub. They did silly things to localize the anime like changing onigiri into donuts and whitewashing the characters. That was my main motivation for teaching myself Japanese. I wanted to be able to tell for myself what was actually being said and going on. Yen Press was one of the companies I could trust to be faithful to the original in their translations until I was able to read the original on my own, so I’m sure they’ve done a fabulous job with Vanitas no Carte, if you’re interested in checking it out. ^.^

Okay. That’s it for me for now. Do you guys like me talking about my favourite scenes? ^.^; I know my Ladybug followers are probably like, “What is she on about?” XD Thank you for indulging me.

[gladiatortale]

re: my post from a few weeks ago...

I KNOW WHAT THIS STORY IS ABOUT NOW AND I’M FUCKING HYPED.

- cleared version of the 5th cover -

[mayoiayasep]

nyx i hope you know that you liveblogging your reading of pandora hearts is making me really want to read it; and i still haven't even finished vanitas no carte. don't do this to me /j

anyway i hope you are having a wonderful day!!! <3

i am so sorry i missed mochijun's artstyle sm and i have the last four volumes of the manga staring at me on my shelf and i have almost nothing else to do

[dazais-guardian-angel]

Thanks @maginpui for tagging me <3 it didn’t notify me of it, annoyingly, but I happened to see it so

5 things you can find on my blog

Tales of

Bungou Stray Dogs

Akatsuki no Yona

Vanitas no Carte

the last few weeks, my moody depressing rants about how life hates me lmao

5 things you’ll find in my bag

my flash drive for school

my Japanese stuff that I bring to and from my tutoring sessions

on my purse, which is a separate bag, a crapton of animanga themed pins/keychains that I’ve made my con bag why do I even bother though

Nothing else really lol

...

5 things you’ll find in my bedroom

a lot of crap, including unopened packages, posters not hung up yet, and other things, that I need to organize better

anime figures

manga volumes

my art sketchbook

medical equipment... lots and lots of medical equipment... *sighs heavily*

5 things I always wanted to do

Go to anime cons with complete satisfaction

Go to a foreign country

See my online friends irl

Write a longer, multi-chaptered fic for once

Learn different languages

5 things that make me happy

My online friends

Games

Shows

Books

Writing

5 things I’m currently into

Tales of Berseria

Tales of Zestiria

World of Final Fantasy

Re:CREATORS

Made in Abyss

5 things on my to do list

Write a Berseria fic I owe someone soon

Continue plotting out the longfic I’m co-planning with a friend

Draw more things

ORGANIZE MY DAMN ROOM ALREADY

Finish up WOFF’s trophies so I can get to my game backlog already gdi

5 things you might not know about me

this is probably sooooo obvious with everything I’ve said on here lately lmao, but I really struggle with self-consciousness about my appearance and my disability when I’m in public surrounded by friend groups and I’m all by myself; what exacerbates that feeling of isolation is having to deal with my parents, who I feel like don’t really support me in the things I love, and hold me back from the few instances I have to try to put myself out there because they’re not interested in it, and it’s a hassle for them, and they give me grief about it. Most of the time, I’m not bothered by any of this, but sometimes at cons it’s really really hard.

I can be extremely petty about the littlest things; I try to never let those instances show on the outside, but I still feel terrible inside for feelings of jealousy or frustration that I know aren’t deserved.

I’m very much a “can’t start something new until I finish the current thing” kind of person; the exception to this is seasonal anime, of course, and if I’m playing a story-heavy game at the same time as a mindless lighthearted game, but with everything else, this applies. I can’t start a new RPG until I’ve 100%d the current one (though I broke this rule with Berseria because the trophy requirements are honestly making me cry at their utter insanity; I’ll come back to it s;ldkjgjfkdlsl), and especially with fics, I don’t start writing a new one until I’ve finished my current one (though this is also true because it’s so hard for me to come up with ideas lol), lest I get out of the mood for the first one if I start a new one while that one is ongoing. I’ve gotten even more OCD about this lately because I have insane urges to write for like every new fandom I get into, which means I stick with one game/show for a long time in order to write for it so that I don’t get out of the zone for it by moving onto another fandom lmao.

I’ve been to New York City four times; it’s pretty much our chosen “big” vacation place and I doubt that will ever change lol.

I have a really really bad habit of picking my eyebrows (it used to be my eyelashes, and I still do that, too, but more so my eyebrows now...); it’s really bad, one of my eyebrows is nearly gone, and I’m not sure if it’ll ever grow back, especially with me still unable to keep myself from stopping pulling at it, ahaha...

tagging @nighttime-sabbatical, @the-masked-barona, @goldeneyedshinah, and @seleniahanabira, but only do it if you want to, as always <3