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「ずるい」 (Zurui)
“No Fair”
Compatibility is an incredibly important factor in anime or any narrative art, no matter how we’d like to pretend otherwise. Maybe the most important factor. That’s not to say objectivity doesn’t exist, because it does. But most commonly I think we bond with series that speak to who we are as individuals. Sometimes I watch an anime or read a manga and think “yeah, they wrote this for me”. There are many personal examples I could name but it will come as no surprise to hear that Yofukashi no Uta is one of them. I mean, that’s why I brought it up.
This is a vampire story to be sure, and that was never more true than this week. But the rule with vampires and fiction is irrefutable – they’re always symbolic. Usually a lot of things (always sex), and I think that’s true here. But this thing about the night and vampires really boils down to this: if the day belongs to the extroverts, the night belongs to the introverts. It’s when we’re free to emerge and roam as we will, indulging in our too-many thoughts and observing the world from a distance. That’s why Kou didn’t like the night pool, you see – that was an island of extroversion in a sea of introversion.
Kou is someone who was living pretty happily in his bubble – functional in society and, if seen as a loner, not especially as a weird or dangerous one. But there’s a constant drumbeat telling you that if you live that way, never mind dare to be happy living that way, you’re broken. This is one of the functional realities of modern human existence – extroverts have most of the world designed for their use. They inherently believe, as a rule, that they’re superior to introverts and that’s constantly being reinforced. Eventually the world of the day became so intrusive in Kou’s existence that he had no choice but to check out of it altogether.
The Kou we see here is questing – trying to understand what it is that makes him different. I think that’s why he seems so interested in everybody else’s problems, I think – “meddling”, as Nazuna puts it. That includes Seri, who was the one who engineered his capture by the vamp squad and appears to be Nazuna’s arch-enemy. Kou is actually pretty perceptive, and he refuses to let it slide when he senses that Seri has come to him to unburden herself – even though that leads to violence between Seri and Naz (mostly unidirectional).
Yeah, it always figured Nazuna would never let those two go off alone together but by appearances they do, anyway. Karaoke is a much more introvert-friendly activity despite its reputation – hell, you can go into those rooms alone, and in Japan many people do. At first blush it seems like boredom is at the heart of Seri’s malaise, and that does seem like it’d be an obvious issue for vampires. But Kou can tell it goes deeper than that, even before Akiyama Akihito (Yoshino Hiroyuki) shows up in very creepy fashion. Akkun is the kinder of the two nicknames Seri has for him – “Daruo” (Draggo) is the other.
The malaise of Seri’s existence boils down to the repetitive cycle of luring men to fall in love in with her, an exercise she clearly finds pretty meaningless. How often she’s actually done this I don’t know (and Naz makes is clear later she’s never killed anyone), but it’s the role she’s expected to play. Kou understands her – everything having to be about romance mystifies him. But when Seri declares she’s just going to kill Dauro-san and be done with it, Kou intervenes and drags Akkun to safety. Not only that, they have a heart to heart. Part of this is selfish – Kou longs to know what it is that makes a person fall in love with another person the way Akkun has. But it’s also Kou meddling as he always does.
I don’t know whether Seri would have gone through with killing Akiyama-san had Kou-kun not intervened – that would have been a very extreme way for her to deal with her irritation at developing real affection for a guy, but she is a vampire. We’ve never seen any actual killing in this series, but we do finally see our first turning – Akkun certainly qualifies for it, and once the killing option is off the table Seri has no real pretext to say no. It seems a pretty undramatic process – a nibble on the forearm and boom, a few minutes later Akkun no longer needs his glasses and we have our first confirmed male vampire.
There’s a real irony to this. In order to fulfill what he’s convinced is his dream Kou has to do the very thing his inability to do caused him such trouble in the daytime – fall in love. He was getting along just fine in that world without that part of himself activated, but now to fully enter the world of the night he has to activate it. Somehow we’ve looped back to that same fork in the road I saw way back at the beginning. Will Call of the Night have Kou learn how to fall in love – and in the process become more like most “normal” people – or will it take the more difficult road of having him find peace by accepting himself as he is?
Every time I watch an episode of this series I have the feeling that” this anime is for me”. I can’t always tell why I feel this way, but I never question it. This anime speaks to the adult I am and the child I used to be. As some who enjoys the quiet, solitude, and ambience of the night has always been comforting to me. At some point I feel like I can relate to all of the characters in this show. Maybe that’s because they all are drawn to the night as well.
I’m not sure what I’m saying now lol. I will say I look forward to reading these reviews every week because I know the person writing them loves this anime like I do. So I appreciate you Guardian Enzo for capturing the words I can’t find and sharing it with us all.
That’s one of the nicest comments I’ve received in a long time, Chaser – thank you.
Nazuna intervening to save Kou was quite predictable. She KNEW there would be trouble.
What I have found most fun about the vampire catfight was revival of old cartoonish “dustball fight” where characters disappear into obscuring dust cloud and only random flailing limb occassionally shows up:
https://randomc.net/image/Yofukashi%20no%20Uta/Yofukashi%20no%20Uta%20-%2009%20-%20Large%2006.jpg
I think Seri was angry not with Akkun, but with HERSELF falling in love, which she quite didnt understand.
She was quite likely to actually kill him, had Kou not intervened.
As for the scene with Akkun not needing glassess anymore has reminded me of Jack Nicholson turning to werewolf in the “Wolf”….
The most fun thing about karaoke is dicovering each others music tastes, which is quite a window into the soul of other person, imho. And seeing all the 4 dramatis personae of this episode enjoying it at the end was fun!
https://randomc.net/image/Yofukashi%20no%20Uta/Yofukashi%20no%20Uta%20-%2009%20-%20Large%2039.jpg
I am not sure if Kou will have it easy adapting to vampire life , though… he is pretty much honest to god teenager who would have trouble witnessing killing, let alone killing anyone himself. Yet, the killing as shown is common thing in vampire life….
So now Killing is on the table., and not something the Vamps will do down the line. 10 episodes in it’s just getting spicy now. There better be a second season.
If this current season ends where I think it will, another season is more than likely assured. It wouldn’t be a surprise if an announcement is made on the current season’s final episode. Not to mention that there’s still another character in the OP, portrayed in the form of a grey silhouette, who has yet to make an appearance. And that character plays a significant part in the story’s upcoming arc.
What i’d like to know is what happens to all these offspring. They fell in love with their vampires, but then what? Do they just go off on their own and never heard from again? Wouldn’t they still be in love? If not could they at least still hang out?
I’m not sure if it counts as a spoiler but I’ll give some information to answer your question. (DELETED)
Here’s a good rule of thumb: if your comment begins “I’m not sure if this counts as a spoiler”, you should never, ever type the rest of it.
A good episode and worthy adaptation of the third volume’s final chapters centered on Seri’s exposition. I’ve waited a while to see Ko’s envy of watching someone else gaining what he wants being animated. And there’s the irony in his actions leading to that outcome. He hasn’t met his goal himself but he ended up helping someone else get to it before he does. As Nazuna pointed out, it was all thanks to his meddling.
At least this episode’s run finally puts the speculation on whether or not falling in love with a vampire being a necessary condition to be turned into one to rest.
Good on Seri for gaining a companion she can spend eternity with. However, I can’t shake off the double standards due to her previous discourses. Effectively, she’s been exposed engaging in the very same conduct she was chastising Nazuna for in the 7th episode. That is, hanging around with a human while showing no intent on turning them into an offspring.