REVIEW: ‘Delico’s Nursery’ Episode 9 — “The Battle of Gray Cat Town”

The journey of Delico’s Nursery appears to be building up to a major climax, and this episode shoves some heavy steam into the plot. Delico’s Nursery Episode 9, “The Battle of Gray Cat Town,” is split into two halves. The first half focuses on Banri’s backstory, one of the survivors of the massacre of the Dhampir community at Nebula Village a couple of years back. This still leaves the Dali and the Vamp Agency questioning how the TRUE OF VAMP/TRUMP lost control of his initiative enough to slaughter the dhampirs who highly worshipped him.

The Vamp Agency dads head straight over to Pendulum’s hideout immediately when Banri reveals the truth about Juras, aka Shad, the initial dhampir who survived the massacre. Juras told Banri that he could always help if he called for him in Gray Cat Town. This is why the Vamp fathers head over to Gray Cat Town. While the parents manage to rescue their children, Pendulum escapes with Lord Johannes, who is still a hostage and an information source to locate the TRUMP. The pacing here is a little weird because the Vamps find the hideout so fast between scenes.

The main takeaway from the story in the first half of Delico’s Nursery Episode 9 is that a new character like Banri is complex. While he thinks that Juras is a creepy stalker of a fellow female villager, Rosa, he tells the Vamps to kill Juras quickly so Juras doesn’t suffer. This is a sign that Banri hates terrible people and they should be punished, but he is still sympathetic to the good sides of evil people. Also, Banri is a human, like the hunter Sekishu, who takes care of him. Banri explains that he is training to be a hunter, too.

The shocking part of this scene is that it’s been nine episodes, and the Vamps haven’t mentioned anything about humans or a supposed treaty between them. The episode casually drops the info when Sekishu says it’s strange for aristocrats to visit a human territory because it would be breaking some territorial treaty. While it’s good that it’s explained now, it’s a significant flaw in the show’s storytelling that wasn’t explained sooner. It’s good to know that humans are still around in this Vamp-filled, gothic world. But now, it adds a new element in the back half of a story that seems like it’s going to be wrapped up soon.

The second half of Delico’s Nursery Episode 9 is just as enlightening to the plot and the character developments. Juras decides it’s time to start killing some Vamp kids to force Lord Johannes into giving up the location of the TRUMP. However, Kiki and Abraham have a change of heart when it comes to stopping Juras from trying to stab and jab Dali’s eldest kid Raphael. Kiki has been saying she is okay with taking them hostage but would not go as far as harming them. It’s unclear what Abraham’s motivations are since he groans and moans like a caveman, but he must be close to Kiki to trust her to be on her side of the argument.

This fight between the Pendulum members is the biggest critique of the series so far: understanding the power-scaling. Kiki and Abraham are shown to be the strongest of the bunch throughout the series, but when Keith, Juras, and Katerina fight them, it’s like they’re swatted away like flies. To make this issue worse, Dali and Gerhard face Kiki, too, and bat her away like it’s nothing. Yeah, it’s the first two-on-one, but she didn’t put up a fight at all.

Many of the best shonen/fighting anime series, like Dragon Ball Z, One Piece, My Hero Academia, Hunter x Hunter, and many more, depict power-scaling well. Those series show the limits of each protagonist’s power levels and how they train to overcome their enemies. This might be a nitpick to the grand scheme of things, but it doesn’t help the audience understand how powerful Vamps and their powers are in this world. Hopefully,  the power-scaling of human hunters against Vamps depicts this aspect better if there’s an upcoming battle between them.

Despite all the nitty-gritty details, Delico’s Nursery Episode 9 is the best episode so far. The music goes a little crazy with the gothic violins during the Vamp daddies’ rescue scene, mixed with some reverb and crushing techno beats. It’s similar to background fight scenes across many anime-styled RPG video games, but not in the jazzy sense like the Persona games. The music in this episode amplified the hype levels of this rescue.

The violins also emotionally enhance the touching scene of the fathers reuniting with their children. Of course, the laissez-faire Henrique energetically reunites with his twin daughters, Lucia and Elena. It was cute to see Gerhard, who’s been pretty tough on his son Angelico throughout the series, be joyous to see Angelico. Gerhard pats his son’s head and tells him, “Well done, my son.”

The most heart-melting scene of Delico’s Nursery Episode 9, if not the whole series, is Dino seeing and embracing his son Theodore. Theodore has been hallucinating a lot because of early cocoon phase symptoms (when Vamps are essentially going through puberty and developing their powers), but Dino understands this now.

It is wholesome to see him hold his arms out and hug his child, saying, “I have given you the kind of noble education required to succeed me as the head of House Classico. And that will not change. However, now, I will afford you a bit more leniency.” This is a tear-jerking moment since Dino is always portrayed as the most dutiful and rigid aristocrat among the Vamp dads. Seeing him be compassionate and outgrow his stubborn honor is a sight to witness and shows he’s also willing to adapt to Theodore’s mind. This is shown when Theodore’s hallucinatory teddy bears that torment him begin to vanish when he hugs his dad.

There are still a lot of mysteries and story threads to unravel, though, as the reasoning behind the TRUMP killing the Nebula Village has yet to be fully uncovered. The Vamp dads still need to rescue Lord Johannes, and the last scene shows Katerina about to kidnap Dali’s baby, Ul. The plot soup keeps getting thicker!

Delico’s Nursery Episode 9 strikes the perfect balance of its initial themes and premise to this vampire-mystery-child-rearing anime series, despite some technical plot imbalances. With such a unique premise to blend childcare and fathers who are essentially aristocratic federal agents in this vampire society, this episode really hit the high strides.

Delico’s Nursery Episode 9 is streaming now on Crunchyroll.