Call of the Night Season 2

Episode 11

I just want to begin with a disclaimer that being in love does not make you immune to bullets. Call of the Night is a work of fiction, and Ko has been getting his jugular sucked on the regular for a good while, so you have to consider those extenuating circumstances before extrapolating his miraculous recovery. Don't try this at home.

I hope you'll forgive my tongue-in-cheek introduction, but it's an honest reflection of how this episode affected me. After weeks of flashbacks, mysteries, action, and drama, Call of the Night returns to its roots with long nocturnal conversations about life, love, and dirty jokes. It's refreshing. Because while I like how the series has handled its expanded ambitions, its original inception remains a vibe and a half. Seeing Nazuna, Ko, and Anko squash their beef over some drinks feels like the most appropriate note to end this arc on.

Before we reach that point, though, the plot addresses last week's cliffhanger, which it follows up with ye olde classic “unfamiliar ceiling” scene transition. There's a good juxtaposition between Anko's panicked ramblings and the stillness of Ko's hospital room. Kabura then immediately dissolves any lingering tension or surrealness by pulling the clothes off him, and extra credit goes to Gen Sato for the way he shrieks like a banshee. In other circumstances, this could be tonal whiplash, but here, it sets the audience up for a lighthearted dose of denouement.

It's not all rosy, of course. Anko visits him to apologize and bare a bit more of her heart, because Ko saved her life, after all. Although he's okay now, the shock of that moment confirmed for her that she was too afraid to die, despite her depression. This also allows us to see exactly what happened after he passed out, which the anime portrays with a vivid splash of horror, tinting the room red and contrasting it with the cool blue of the night sky. Their conversation's alternate expository and emotional goals are well-suited to Anko's personality. She's a detective, and information is her specialty. But she's also a person, and while her wounds will take longer to heal than Ko's, she confirms that her hatred has evaporated away.

Where Anko's story really gets to me is her mournful acknowledgement of a decade that came and went. Speaking from the perspective of someone in my late thirties, I find it all too quaint to watch a 28-year-old complain that she's wasted her entire life—not that I haven't been there myself, naturally. However, I think she speaks truth about the accelerating ease with which entire years can slip away from you, all while your brain insists on deluding and hurting itself. When you finally do come up for air, that gasp of relief is marred with guilt and grief over what could have been. The lives we're given are finite. But as long as we keep breathing, we can seize the present and future. There is still time. Plus, like Ko repeats, even women in their forties are young to him, so Anko has nothing to worry about there.

The rooftop scene between Anko and Nazuna draws another parallel between their relationship and Kabura and Haru's relationship. Here, though, they use this setting to officially end their fling, since they didn't exactly part on amicable terms ten years prior. It's wry and bittersweet, and I think that mood is a perfect fit for their fleeting bond, which is actually stronger than ever if the following night out is any indication. Anko (with the aid of some social lubricant) can joke and play flirt with Nazuna, and Nazuna returns some jabs in kind.

The big open question is Ko's psychological and physical state. Nazuna doesn't really know how any of this vampire stuff works, and Anko relies mostly on conjecture for her conclusions. However, it helps to look at the situation from its metaphorical angle. In Call of the Night, vampirism is tied up with romantic attraction, and love is not an all-or-nothing scale. There are many shades and degrees to romance, so it stands to reason that vampirism would possess some similar nebulousness. In the understandably heightened emotional state of having a bullet pass through his abdomen, Ko's synapses lit up with his feelings for Nazuna, and that let his inner Dracula flow out for a moment. Partial vampirism is hardly novel for this genre, but this is an appropriate place for Call of the Night to introduce it, especially as the stakes get raised. Moreover, Ko is happy that he has proof he can love, and that's really sweet to see.

As a side note, it remains funny to me that Call of the Night reserves its most fanservice-y gaze for the guys this season. At first, it was Hatsuka in the sauna, and this week, Ko's shirtless torso enjoys the spotlight multiple times. I compared it to the manga, and the anime gives him a more snatched waist and more prominent pelvis. I'm neither endorsing nor critiquing this. I'm just saying I noticed.

The bottom line is that I had fun alongside the characters this week. They all deserved downtime, and it's satisfying to watch Anko reacquaint herself with Nazuna and Ko as friends instead of adversaries. They break bread and crack sex jokes. Anko is also an extremely entertaining lightweight, so if I were Nazuna, I'd be making the most of my new drinking buddy at every opportunity.

Rating:

Call of the Night Season 2 is currently streaming on HIDIVE.

Steve is on Bluesky for all of your posting needs. They like Anko Uguisu a normal amount. You can also catch them chatting about trash and treasure alike on This Week in Anime.