Since I am such a normal individual I’ve decided to attempt breaking down vanoé’s character song “Le Formidable”. I don’t hear much talk about it but the lyrics are just as cryptic and wild as the OP/ED.
Before we get into it, in terms of translation, I could only find one on YouTube that thankfully color-coded the lyrics so I could decipher who sings what. If anyone has any other translations, I’d love to know please. So a bunch of the lines you can kinda figure out who’s singing but here’s how it’s gonna be:
Vanitas =💙
Noé =💜
Vanoe= 💙💜
Simple enough let’s get into it :)
💜: /I want to stay in bed feeling the warmth of the sun and drift in and out of this sweet dream/
Already we’ve mentioned dreaming, a running theme in this song. There is the well-known line Teacher says in chapter 55...
Sleeping, specifically in regards to Noé, is something mochijun makes the audience take note. He can’t sleep without holding something. When he can’t fall asleep, it is highlighted like the night Vanitas rejected Noé drinking his blood. He doesn’t want Vanitas to disappear and I personally like how in the recent chapter, Vanitas stays by his side for a while. Almost like callback to that moment on the train but I’m getting carried away. You get the correlation I’m making, it’ll get very important later on.
We also have those warmth and sun connections to Noé, a large part of his character and Vanitas’ gravitation towards him.
💙: /With this grey weather today, this day will go by without any harmony/
We see Vanitas’ pessimistic outlook on life; grey, cloudy, devoid of color. Devoid of comfort and obviously these two contrasting people will clash but mix together throughout the song.
💜: /Tarte Tatin, Altus Paris! Endless interesting things!/
💙: /It’s always like this! Here and there, endlessly losing sight./
This seems pretty straightforward, Noé is getting distracted by all the wonderful things as usual and Vanitas chastises him. But let’s frame this another way, Noé is choosing to not focus. It’s simpler that way. He’s turning his focus elsewhere to better things, more pleasant things. And Vanitas is trying to wake him up. I’ll explain more in my theory soon.
💜: /What to look for today from this city/
💙: /Ah with all these things/
💙💜: /There is no time to rest/
Simple lyrics here. No comment.
💙💜: /Le formidable! Le formidable! It’s really easy. Just colliding, rolling down, and repeating again/
Here we are entering the chorus. There’s a common thread of repetition in every OP and ED in VnC. Like clockwork, these two have fallen into this pattern.
Colliding- Vanoé meeting, two worlds learning how to come together, joining as one
Rolling down- their downfall, incoming despair and tragedy
Repeating again- they find themselves back where they started, fated to be born and to die
Let me say the first part of my theory and keep this in the back of your head while remembering the lyrics: VnC is not a time loop in the traditional sense but rather a loop of memories. Also keep in mind the first ED Zero: “Now I remember, oh I have never lived a day without you. Untie the layer of memories...”
💙: /This worthless-/
💜: /wonderful-/
💙💜: /world we are walking on. Even not knowing is sometimes nice, right?/
Again, vanoé with different outlooks on life meet each other. But more importantly, we see the display of ignorance or blissful unawareness. We the audience have a vague idea on how this story ends and in a way, so do they. Vanitas knows very well he is doomed and has already entrusted Noé to end his life if it comes to it. But we also don’t know the specifics of their downfall and neither do they.
So this line has a double meaning that refers to the characters and the reader. As yeah it is nice to read vnc and enjoy the happy moments without knowing the painful details of what’s to come.
💜: /Over there something is flapping their wings/
💙: /And these uncountable days pass by. It’s not worth worrying about. So many unknown things, without meaning/
💜: /Escalier! I want to see the bright colors beyond!/
Noé, again giving his attention to supposedly insignificant things as Vanitas tends to see the larger picture, not caring for the mundane. Uncountable days can be matched with the grey weather mentioned earlier. But that also means things are murky, blur together, cloudy. They don’t make sense to Vanitas (such as love, his self-worth, the nature within people) while Noé wants to experience all the brightness of the world.
💙: /I told you to be quiet today, yet here we are!/
💜: /Now you loud person!/
💙💜: /I told you I hardly have time to breathe/
So, hypothetical scenario if we take this song literal: Vanoé is exploring the city because Noe wanted to Vanitas couldn’t say no. Vanitas is fed up and Noé thinks his complaints are aggravating. But this part shows a lack of understanding. They’re yelling about their own hardships but don’t see the other’s perspective.
💙💜: /Le formidable! Le formidable! It’s a simple thing. It’s just finding, losing sight and repeating again/
💜: /I want to dream/
💙: /It’s just a dream/
💙💜: /The world keep walking while not knowing the truth at this point/
Ok there’s a lot to dig our teeth in here. First of all, the finding, losing sight, repeating is another way of describing the colliding and rolling down said prior. Vanoe find each other, they lose each other, it’s fated to happen all over again. Now the big piece here, I want to dream/It’s just a dream. Surface-level interpretation > another instance of their differences. Noé wants be surrounded by dreams and wonder. While Vanitas looks at that beauty and scoff at it, since it isn’t real therefore not worth caring for. But if we read into this carefully, Noé wants to dream. He wants to stay in these memories, he doesn’t want to live in a world without Vanitas.
Let’s go back to OP 1: “I love this world and the light only you give me.”
We know OP 1 is Noe’s POV so let’s ask ourselves why would the Noé we are seeing, the one smiling at all the colors of the world say Vanitas is the only light he has (emphasis on “only”). Because the Noé singing the first OP is operating with far more knowledge and despair. We don’t know the truth at this point. “This world” is not real.
Allow me to offer what I think is happening. Noé and Vanitas meet, they go on this journey of understanding, trust, and love, Vanitas reaches his end and is killed by Noé. Noé lives on. We can tell the Noé writing this story is full of regret and sadness. But why is he writing this all down? He’s retelling the memories, putting them down physically on paper. Two things happened:
a) He exchanged his name with Naenia, wishing to remain in a world with Vanitas in it. Because that wish is still very present, Naenia has great interest in Noé. She mentions seeing him before in Louis but it could be a classic mochijun misdirect and it’s actually from receiving his name in a different iteration. There is that official art with Noé wearing Vanitas’ coat with that goat entity he saw in Gevaudan, pinned to his vest.
However this can only work if Naenia is still around and isn’t resolved/defeated in the memoirs.
b) This is more likely in my opinion. Noé uses the Books and the memoirs act as a catalyst for him to have the world become his memories or for him to live in them. I know only those with blue blood or something can use the books.
Which is why Dr. Moreau had those experiments with Vanitas and Misha. Don’t worry, I already have a theory that Archivistes are some form of blue moon vampires but that is a whole other discussion. Point is, I think the Books of Vanitas are like an Elliot sword situation. Yes, Elliot owns the Nightray sword and carries it around but you don’t know its true purpose in the story until Leo wields it.
Noé causes these memories to replay, perhaps to save Vanitas or simply to dream again. Go back to when he was last happy. But here’s the thing, the Noé in this memory is unaware or ignorant of this, sees his present world as the real one and undergoes the events of the series. Vanitas dies, he lives on, and creates a memory world for himself. Rinse, recycle, repeat. Essentially, the first ED gave it away. The entirety of VnC is a layer of memories. Even the narrator Noé we are hearing is a memory that is trying to manifest a world of his own.
Reality and dreams are all intertwined now and Noé got lost in it. There are leaks in the cracks, for example when Vanitas cries and tells Luna his mother died at childbirth why would he call to her. Initially, you can read this as he’s just missing what he never had. But what if Vanitas’ mother was present in his life 9 memory loops ago but because these memories get further from the truth the more it happens, Noé simply forgot that detail when making the memoirs at some point in time. So now, in the memory layer #52 Vanitas has no mother.
💜: /We will see what we “cannot see”/
💙: /We will know what we “don’t know”/
💙💜: /The final stop of this world that seems to be changing, seems only further ahead/
Noe’s line possibly goes into his Archiviste nature and how he experiences reading memories. It can as well build back into the dream/memory loop thing, he’s seeing things he can no longer “see.”
Vanitas’ line can be drawn to what Noé said during their fight.
Vanitas acts like he has the final word and has a full grasp of how this world/himself works. But he really doesn’t and Noé is living proof of that, proving him wrong on several occasions that there’s still hope, they can’t give up yet, he won’t leave him etc. The final stop of this world is changing, but it’s further ahead. This is a story, a preserved section of time from the past. We gotta ask ourselves... why would the last stop be changing? Again, Vanitas’ death is the final stop but it’s changing, perhaps from the countless iterations we’ve gone through Noé writes the memoirs in a way that delays the ending. So he could remain just a little longer…
💙💜: /Le formidable! Le formidable! Everything is fine. While forgetting, hiding, and repeating it/
💙: /This worthless/
💜: /wonderful/
💙💜: /world we are walking on/
💙: /I don’t know but even so/
💜: /If it can make you smile.../
After this, it ends the song by repeating the first chorus with the colliding-rolling down part so I’ll make this the cutting point. The “everything is fine” totally doesn’t stick out in a story where we know everything will not be fine. The forgetting and hiding goes back to my dream-memory theory, Noé is hiding from the truth in these stacks upon stacks of memories and is possibly forgetting things as they really happened as a result. We already know he isn’t the most reliable narrator. But Noé wants to see Vanitas’ smile.
If it can make you smile again, if it can replay your laughter, why would I ever leave this wonderful lie? In OP 1: “Your laughing was reflected by a daydream”.
I’ll conclude this by saying two things. If you want to get even deeper, you can interpret Vanitas in this song as the voice in the back of Noé’s head. Its just a dream, this world is actually worthless, and Noé is trying to drown out those thoughts. Because yeah they sing lines together but the only time they’re directly speaking to each other is when Vanitas scolds Noé and Noé shouts back, calling him loud. Finally, I could be wrong in all this. I am aware how crazy I may look and I'm so thankful if you read this far.
But yeah if this is anywhere near canon, mochijun must be the most unhinged, absolutely cracked author I’ve ever seen. We’re going into Pandora Hearts levels of intricacy here. I hope you enjoyed my insanity 👍🏼
