VaniJeanne

VaniJeanne is the het ship between Vanitas and Jeanne from The Case Study of Vanitas fandom.

Canon
Vanitas and Jeanne first met when Jeanne was travelling with Master Luca to find Vanitas and retrieve his book. Luca believed that The Book Of Vanitas was the source of corrupting vampires, and had planned to destroy it to save his brother. Luca tried to be civil at first, offering Vanitas to hand the book over to him with no complications, however Vanitas rejected the offer. Vanitas told Luca that he was a doctor and the book helped vampires rather than corrupting them. Luca did not believe him and tried once more to take the book peacefully. Jeanne acted quick and attacked Vanitas, telling Luca to give her an order. When Vanitas denied his offer again, Luca then orders Jeanne to get the book back from Vanitas without killing him.

As they fought, Initially Vanitas is afraid of Jeanne due to her power as the Hellfire Witch however this changes after she concedes the fight in order to protect Luca, something that Vanitas considers weak. Aside from her beauty, voluptuous figure, title, strength, and expressions, it was her determination to protect someone even if it meant staking her own life that made Jeanne a subject of Vanitas' fascination. Vanitas thinks about the way Jeanne makes his heart beat faster when he's around her and concludes it as "love". However, this was merely a way of distracting her during their fight. In the middle of the battle Vanitas kisses Jeanne, which flusters her. A blushing Jeanne then gets away from Vanitas and swears that she will find him again and kill him, to which Vanitas smiles and says that he'll be happy that she's coming to see him again.

Later in the series Vanitas and Jeanne have more encounters. At the Masked Ball, Vanitas baits Jeanne (who was suppressing the urge to suck blood) into drinking his blood and he uses that secret as a form of blackmail and makes Jeanne call him by his name instead of "human" and makes her swear to only drink his blood for as long as he lives. They also go on a fake date set up by Jeanne to get Vanitas to hate her (that doesn’t go according to plan). When they encounter each other again, an example of their growing affections is Jeanne nursing Vanitas back to health after he takes a poisonous hit in her stead, which leads to Vanitas getting annoyed with Jeanne for helping him. Later on, A worried Jeanne hugs Vanitas and asks him if he's okay. Vanitas tells Jeanne that he won't die, because he promised that he would kill her if she were ever to not be herself anymore. Vanitas then tells Jeanne that he loves her and asks Jeanne for her wish and he would grant it. Jeanne tells him to heal her friend Chloe so she would be free, and so he does without hesitation. To thank him she drinks his blood and gives him a kiss. This throws him into an emotional crisis where he is confused by his feelings and soon discovers that he has actually, truly fallen in love with Jeanne.

Behind The Scenes
"Well I really like Jeanne so~ I'm glad. Like when there are a lot of THOSE scenes. She's cute! She's not just cute, Ummm... I think in episode 4? there's that scene where Jeanne sucks Vanitas' blood, right? You know that part? Like~ she was really trying to supress the urge to suck blood. That Jeanne <3 That was just a 100/100~ :D. It was masterfully cute. But it was also sexy~"

- Natsuki Hanae about Jeanne. "Jeanne is so cute. Jeanne was the best."

- Natsuki Hanae on Twitter.

Fanon
VaniJeanne is the most popular ship involving Jeanne and as the second most popular ship involving Vanitas, the most popular being Vanoé. While Vanoé is the more popular ship, VaniJeanne still has a big fanbase, this is helped by how much ship tease the latter receives compared to the former. Fans of this ship also tend to ship Noénique, the ship between Noé and Dominique. VaniJeanne first became popular when Vanitas kissed Jeanne in Chapter 4 and then received a significant increase in popularity when the two went on a date in Chapter 20 and Jeanne began to realise that she might have genuine romantic feelings for Vanitas in Chapter 20.5. VaniJeanne eventually received another increase in popularity when Vanitas began to realise that he himself might have genuine romantic feelings for Jeanne in Chapter 44. Many fans support VaniJeanne because even though Vanitas at first had an ambiguous behaviour and probably aimed to something being with Jeanne, it didn't mean overtime he didn't develop develop true feelings for her. And Jeanne who initially hated Vanitas slowly grew affectionate for him and understood him better.

Vanitas taking the time to light up the fire and cover up Jeanne with her cloak before leaving at the beginning of chapter 28 is what increased the ship's popularity even more. Whether he did it from a feeling of obligation (Jeanne saved him from hypothermia, so he repaid in kind by keeping her warm) or because he's a "kind child" and projected his struggles with cold on her, Fans think that this was a very clear sign of him genuinely caring about her.

VaniJeanne currently has 74 works on AO3.

Trivia

 * Natsuki Hanae is a VaniJeanne shipper.


 * Natsuki Hanae, Vanitas Japanese VA's favorite character in the series is Jeanne.


 * The English VA's of Vanitas and Jeanne, Zeno Robinson and Molly Searcy are both VaniJeanne shippers.


 * Vanitas and Jeanne were second place on the Top 10 COUPLE-SHIPS in the Summer 2021 Anime Season.

Quotes
"At any rate, it means we have excellent physical chemistry! Go us!!"

- Vanitas to Jeanne. "Hey, I won't die! Not before you do, anyway. Remember? I told you I'd kill you. I promise... I'll kill you."

- Vanitas to Jeanne. "I love you. I'm the one who will make your wishes come true. It has to be me. So spit it out. Tell me what you really want. No matter how trivial it is. Whether it's an ugly emotion... Or even a curse. I'll accept it for you."

- Vanitas to Jeanne. "Huh? Love... so that really is what it is? This is the real kind...?"

- Vanitas after he truly falls in love with Jeanne. "I first became aware of the symptoms... After Jeanne drank my blood in Gevaudan. My face suddenly grew hot. My chest felt constricted, and it hurt. And the palpitations wouldn't stop! And as the crowning touch... No matter what I do, I CAN'T GET JEANNE'S FACE OUT OF MY HEAD!"

- Vanitas about falling in love with Jeanne.

Fandom
FAN FICTION