Call of the Night Episode 9 Explores the Heresy of Friendship (2024)

Call of the Night is a supernatural rom-com anime series making its debut in the Summer 2022 season, telling the tale of the insomniac boy Yamori Ko and his quest to find true happiness in the peace and dark of the night. In Episode 1, he met Nazuna the playful vampire, and later, he met an entire coven of them as well. However, they have a few strict rules.

Nazuna, by becoming Ko's genuine friend, is almost like a heretic in the eyes of the coven, as vampires should only view humans either as cattle or potential offspring. For now, the coven will make an exception for Nazuna, but in Episode 9, they'll have to make an exception for the blond Seri too, or there'll be trouble. Vampire rules are meant to be broken, it seems.

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In Episode 9, Seri meets up with Ko and invites him to a karaoke club, where they rent a room together. Halfway through their musical adventure, a certain young man arrives and pounds on the door, and he's got business with Seri. This fellow is Seri's friend, but now he's turning into a male yandere, being obsessive with his vampire lady friend and chasing her everywhere she goes. Ko won't defend unhealthy behavior, but then again, he wonders if Seri's yandere friend might not be such a villain after all. To that end, Ko makes sure Seri can't just kill her friend when things escalate, and Ko even runs off with the other boy. In the privacy of an alleyway, they talk things out.

Once the young man cools his head, he explains himself. He's not a true villain; he's simply lost and hurt, longing for true friendship and love after being a less-than-stellar boyfriend for his now ex-girlfriend. The young man, named Akiyama, knows he's not on his best behavior, but he's ready to give it another shot and fix his relationship with Seri, unaware that Seri is actually a vampire. That's when Seri arrives, followed by Nazuna, and the four of them negotiate. This isn't how vampires usually handle humans, but with Ko and Nazuna bridging the gap between vampires and humanity, this meeting might turn out well after all. Akiyama isn't a bad person, and for that matter, neither is Seri, even though she tries to kill Akiyama twice in Episode 9. They simply need to understand and properly express their feelings.

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Just like her human friend Akiyama, Seri had been distraught about the odd nature of their friendship, unsure how to handle herself in this taboo relationship. Vampires are not supposed to befriend humans, and so far, Nazuna is the only known exception to that strict rule. This is so overwhelming for Seri that she once thought killing Akiyama was the solution, but in reality, this is just Seri's way of running away from her feelings, and that's not healthy. Similarly, Seri once thought that killing Akiyama would be a brutal way for them to end their relationship before it could turn sour -- a twisted form of "quitting while you're ahead." But no matter her intentions, her words or her vampire nature, Seri cannot bring herself to do it.

Instead, Seri and Akiyama make up and renew their friendship, starting a new and more wholesome chapter in their relationship. In fact, Akiyama has fallen for Seri by now, and Seri rewards Akiyama's feelings later in Episode 9 by turning him into a vampire with a bite. All's well that ends well in Episode 9, but even so, Seri is playing with fire. She knows the coven's rules, just like Nazuna, and she can't help but break them. Her wholesome feelings are now more important to her than the coven's traditions, and if two vampires are acting that way, then a trend has started.

It's not unthinkable that if both Nazuna and Seri can break vampire tradition to embrace true friendship with humans, other vampires may do the same. These vampire ladies view their human friends as their equals, something unthinkable for most vampires. But change is now in motion, and it just might come to a head later in Call of the Night where these opposing views come into conflict -- or if that doesn't happen, then more power to Nazuna and Seri, who may embrace their wholesome side in the obscurity of the night. No one else needs to know of this sweet heresy.