REVIEW: ‘Delico’s Nursery’ Episode 12 — “Sweet Dreams”

The steamy vampire dads grow close to wrapping up their case with the last two members of the rebel group Pendulum. Delico’s Nursery Episode 12, “Sweet Dreams,” continues from the previous episode with Juras spotting Krauss, aka the TRUE OF VAMP (TRUMP), in one of the hallways of the Academy. The TRUMP is a deity in human form that has initiative or mental control over all vampirekind.

Juras’ whole motivation for killing the TRUMP is to exact revenge for attacking and killing almost everyone from his hometown, Nebula Village—a town consisting primarily of dhampirs like himself. The sad part is that dhampirs already have a limited lifespan compared to regular vampires.

As easily predicted, Juras’ plans don’t go as planned. The animation for his pointless attacks of slicing and dicing at the TRUMP is goofy looking. It effectively shows that no matter how many times Juras slices away at Krauss’ body, Krauss will not die. But it also feels like there’s no weight to his slicing and slashing. The healing effect animation is more remarkable, though. When physical attacks don’t work out for Juras, he resorts to using his special cocoon phase ability to enter the TRUMP’s mind.

The TRUMP’s mind is one of the most stunning shots from Delico’s Nursery. The art style of the stars in the dark galaxy sky is aesthetically pleasing and borderline tranquil. Delico’s Nursery Episode 12 maintains the epic operatic singing and piano to back the tension of these penultimate scenes. A special recognition goes to the series composer, Shunsuke Wada, whose experience mostly comes from composing music for stage plays.

Wada’s works include Jujutsu Kaisen: The Stage and multiple Haikyu! stage plays. It has been epic to see the music evolve across episodes after lacking in the first half of the season. Once Pendulum and the lives of the Vamp Agency are intertwined, the music also becomes more exciting and impactful with the emotional backstories.

Delico’s Nursery Episode 12 has serious highs and lows in answering some of the story questions built up throughout the series. One of the burning questions for the season was why the TRUMP did what he did to Nebula Village. The TRUMP doesn’t give a great reason other than it was a minute incident that they barely remembered. The brutal truth that the incident was simply a fleeting moment for the TRUMP would’ve worked better if there were more scenes of the TRUMP being depicted as a kind person. This scene ends up being flat without that connective tissue of making the TRUMP a more sympathetic character.

The best part of this episode is seeing the camaraderie Catarina and Juras share,Catarina’scharacter generally appears very mystically and unknown, but she is ultimately a soft-hearted person to the end. Her cocoon phase ability is finally revealed in this episode, and is slightly anticlimactic too. It’s wholesome, but also kind of useless in the sense that she never uses it in the show for any logical plot reason.

This episode shows how well Juras’ voice actor Hikaru Midorikawa (My Hero Academia, Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero) is able to emote everything for his character. At first, it seems like Juras’s evil vibes are easy to understand from his introduction. But in a heavily emotional scene where Juras takes his final breaths, his bandaged and masked face eliminates a visual response to how he feels in this moment. It’s almost poetic that others couldn’t see his heightened anger and resentment of the TRUMP, but he wanted others to understand his frustration.

It’s touching that Catarina can make Juras give himself a ‘sweet dream’ before dying, and it’s even better that Dali allows it. It’s a bittersweet end for Juras, who gets transported into the body of his childhood self, hanging out with his friends in Nebula Village. Visualizing his realization that he’s dying adds to the emotional beat here as his younger self looks at his dying self in Catarina’s arms.

The final moments of Delico’s Nursery Episode 12 are very touching, especially when Dali and his three friends/comrades allow Juras and Catarina to have one last moment together before Juras dies and Catarina has to pay for Pendulum’s actions. The music shift from epic battle music to a softer tone crystallizes the emotional beats in this final scene. The cinematography is thoughtful, mixing a bird’s-eye view of the room with some heartfelt closeups.

Unfortunately, everything gets wrapped up a smidge too fast, and it doesn’t seem like it’ll wrap up all the loose ends by the finale. The head of the Pendulum is still out there, and it’s still unclear what Krauss, as the TRUMP, will do next. The only thing understood by the end of Delico’s Nursery Episode 12 is that Catarina will be going to vampire jail. If the series isn’t getting a second season, getting so close to the ending with many incomplete storylines is strange.

Delico’s Nursery Episode 12 is streaming now on Crunchyroll.