Okay, so in this season my method of choosing the series to blog is going to differ a bit from the previous season. In the past spring season, I was pretty much juggling with the series that I wasn’t too sure about, until I was happy with the series that I ended up with. This season I’m still going to cover twelve anime, meaning that I’ll pick up the seven most interesting new series. However, whenever they end up disappointing or too much of a chore to write about I just drop them so that I can get some extra time, watching some of the older series that I’ve been meaning to check out.
Because honestly, this episode was pretty terrible. The two new characters really were fantastic: Claude and Alois were incredibly fun to watch, and I really want to know more about them. That’s the reason I’m blogging this series. And this is also why I’m willing to try out this series as an experiment, without having watched season 1.
Because after this season, I really don’t want to watch more of Ciel and Sebastien than necessary. Together, they’re decent, but bland. The biggest problem however, is that their friends are all annoying stereotypes and especially Ciel’s fiance is just a complete moron without any personality. This episode also just made no sense, and lacked the attention to detail that made that first episode so good. A flood appears from nowhere. Instead of running away, the characters just stand there like it’s nothing. The fiance somehow finds it a good idea to climb on a boat. There is a dam to which water flows from both sides (how the hell does that work?) and after the flood is over, it really completely disappears. It leaves no marks, or scars to the landscape, conveniently for the plot of the episode like nothing even happened.
The first episode worked because it was so incredibly camp, yet well executed, creative and shocking. The servants were all well characterized and stuff. I’m glad to see that in this link, it becomes clear that Alois and Claude will form a big part of the second season, but it also seems a post that’s mostly focused on calming down the fans of Sebastian and Ciel, portraying them as the good guys.
This really has me worried, because good guys generally tend to get more airtime than bad guys. On top of that, I also really don’t hope that the OP is spoiling the entire plot of this series. Also, didn’t Ciel supposedly die at the end of the first season? Good luck in trying to write that into the series correctly…
Oh, and for those who were wondering: there was no iota of Claude and Alois in this episode.
Rating: — (Lacking)
They don’t care about explaining much away as it seems. Sebastian just likes Ciel so much he revives him…I would be glad if there is another reason behind it, but I dare to doubt.
Concerning Elizabeth and the servants…yes.
They got wonderful development at the end of season 1 and actually matured when they learned not to be dependent on Ciel and Sebastian, but see them as an important part of their lives.
Especially Elizabeth was added to by the fact that Ciel died…too bad she never noticed and can easily go back to be the frolicking bag of rabid sugarstars…that I so despised in season 1.
And in case you don’t mind getting the end of SEASON 1 SPOILED.
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…
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Yes, the pact between Ciel and Sebastian was fullfilled when the murderer of his parents was eliminated by Sebastian. Thus Sebastian brought him to the Underworld and took his soul…
I thought that was a wonderful twist even though it was shocking and I loved season 1 for the guts it appeared to have…now it’s all down the drain.
“The servants were all well characterized and stuff.”
Excuse me? Well characterized my butt. We didn’t learn a damn thing except Alois is a psychotic brat (and that’s awesome) and Claude is almost perfect. We don’t know anything about Hana or the triplets, so how can you say they were all well characterized? The triplets didn’t even DO anything.
Too early to judge as to what really transpired there but season1 was a really solid show.Sure it has it’s flaws with a lot of fluff and Smexy Sebastin but at it’s core Kuroshitsuji delivered a solid plot with a lot of unpredictability and dare I say some really eerie and emotionally charged episodes(The queen anyone?)
All that aside,I think you really should give season 1 a shot Psgels.Not only will this change your perception of the characters and the show but judging by your tastes I’d say this would be right up your alley and turn out to be one pleasent surprise:D
Oh god no.. they seriously did this. I can’t believe it.
I guess I’ll be holding off on this for a while.
Goddamn it, and the first episode was so good too. D:
Oh well, maybe that means we’ll get to see the circus arc animated then… that was a bloody chilling arc.
Hm… I guess I’ll be skipping the next few episodes and then watch the first 5 or 6 episodes at once.
I didn’t like the first episodes of Kuroshitsuji 1 but after giving it a second shot after abot 15 episodes had aired I really got hooked when I watched them directly one after another.
Somehow the good points were shining through much more when watching it in a piece instead of having to wait so long in between the episodes. It just felt… better to watch it that way. More complete. Can’t really describe it.
Guess it was just that the not so good scenes didn’t weigh so much, when looking back at a larger sum of watched-anime minutes.
Like it’s annoying to have 3 bad minutes each episode but having “only” 9 minutes while watching over an hour of anime is rather enjoyable.
And in the later parts it got really good. I even got to like the servants after the infamous episode where their true nature came through.
And I also liked the ending. I mean, when it was there I was like “WTF? Did they really do this?!” but I kinda liked t because it fit with the whole context.
So now I’m a bit biased as to like the idea of a revived Ciel or not.
But I guess, if they do come up with a plausible reason for this, this 2nd season could become pretty good.
It seems in that announcement that they really have put some effort in how it could be continued and even went as far as announcing the season as if Ciel wouldn’t appear, well aware that they might be loosing a lot of potential viewers with this.
The only thing I’m worrying about that it might become a bit too much of a cliché fight evil-bastard-kid vs. once-evil-but-has-gotten-his-revenge-kid.
I mean, right now they are just a bit too much as exact opposites. In the first season, Sebastian was the evil part of the duo, this time it seems to be Alois.
I just hope it won’t end up in some cheesy good vs evil stuff.
But well…
I won’t judge anything after two episodes.
Last time I thought the anime wasn’t my thing and after trying it again I came to really like it.
So I guess I’ll just wait and see what this second season will come up with.
It is, after all, an anime original, which gives me hope, because I really liked what they did in the first season, when they differed from the manga.
And they took some huge risks with the way they introduced this series, so they must have some good ideas up their sleeves (or at least think so)… so I’m really willing to give this season a chance as well.
Let’s hope the best! 😀
This was the single worst episode in either season, which is baffling, since the first episode was better than anything in season one. Some mixed signals there. If we’re going to focus on Ciel and Sebastian, they need to keep hammering what worked so well in the back half of the first season, not indulge in the worst bits of the first half exclusively, at the cost of any context or continuity.
Meh. I was expecting this much. I sort of head-desked the moment Sebastian/Ciel even reappeared. Like Chounoke said it ruins what little good came out of the ending of last season which was probably the only part that stuck true to story. Sebastian wanted to have Ciel’s soul and despite what occurred along the way, he was still just a demon who just wanted a soul and got it.
I think missing the first season may have had you miss how it ‘also’ started out interesting and then pitfalled into disaster. My expectations of anything else that could’ve continue out of that mess wasn’t very high.
Claude and Alois weren’t new or really new or great ideas to begin with. The fact that it can’t at least be a stand-alone to do something new (and that the old plot has to be dragged back up from the dirt) just made it so much worse.
No Alois and Claude? Oh, just what I feared. Dammit.
But hopefully Alois and Claude will play a bigger role, just as the blog had promised, and not just a ‘make Sebastien and Ciel seem better and then get curb stomped’ enemy of the week kind. Because even though the blog entry promised more A&C and claimed the to be important as well, 90% of the entry is pretty much as you said – dedicated to fans of Sebastien and Ciel, calming them down etc.
And hell yeah I’d like to see them dig themselves out of the ‘Ciel came back to life’ hole, because even though I dropped season 1 I heard that Sebastien took Ciel’s soul, so…
@moonhawk: This was actually what I was fearing too. The “new” evil kid vs antihero kid battle. I think its inevitable since Alois seemed to want Ciel for whatever reason. (or was he just being a fanboy?)
What’s worse is that it just reminds me of how little Alois might give us. It’s bad enough that Claude like Sebastian is just… perfect. Nothing “more” added to the butler character really. But Alois’ only good feature is his psychoticness. Outside of that he falls into that stereotypical brat you would expect out of a character his age, especially given a lot of power. The kind of character I’d hoped Ciel wouldn’t be when the series first started.
He’s still got the potential for a good character, but he was sort of sporadic and its something more screen time might solve.
I wasn’t very impressed by this episode either. I’m happy Ciel and Sebastian are back, but this episode seemed so out of place. But then maybe this was the creator’s intentions? Apparently, the story won’t make sense unless you watch the season as a whole (it’s from the mangaka herself). Which is why I won’t judge it until I finish the whole thing.
Although this episode seemed highly suspicious. For one thing, in first season, pretty much half the side characters were killed along with Ciel. So to see them all revived from this episode and in the preview makes me believe this is either one of the following: a flashback, a dream or the afterlife. If it is a flashback then it may indicate how Alois and Ciel meet each other. If it’s a dream/afterlife then it may lead to why/how Ciel got revived again. It may also emphasize Ciel’s regrets to leave Elizabeth behind since there were so many ElizabethXCiel moments (I really hate Elizabeth by the way). Or it may be a cheap way of ‘reintroducing’ all the old characters (which is what it felt like to me).
Hopefully, things will start to get more interesting and make more sense. Unfortunately, next episode tells me that we may not see Alois and Claude for a while. I also hope whatever ‘side-story’ they’re doing next will make up for the this episode.
One thing good about this ep is the OP change though. I’m not sure which one I love better but the second OP had a bit more meaning. I didn’t think it really spoiled anything much since I already had the feeling it’d be a ‘Sebastian&Ciel vs. Claude&Alois’ plot in the first place. The only thing I’m really interested about in this season is how the two pairs are connected. I really don’t like the whole ‘good’ vs. ‘bad’ indication though. In the manga, Ciel can actually pass to be an evil kid(the one who does anything to get his revenge, even if it’s morally wrong) and so, I never really liked the way the way they depicted him in the anime as they ‘sugar-coated’ him too much resulting in making him a weaker character.
It generally ISN’T a good idea to watch the second season of anything without watching the first. Alois and Claude annoyed me right from the start. Claude is such a brat.
How can you call all the character “annoying stereotypes” when you don’t even know anything about them? You don’t know the past of Ciel or why he has a demon butler, you don’t know the true purpose of having the servants around when they’re not good at housework, you don’t know anything really about the setting at all. That gives you no right to criticise it.
And most importantly, in missing out on the first season, you are missing out on the excellent mix of a dark atmosphere and comedy and everything in between. Please watch the first season, or read the manga which is better than the anime.
Ciel and Sebastian, even while working for the queen, are not good guys. They’re not exactly villains either. There’s a reason the series is named Black Butler.
I DO agree that Elizabeth is annoying, but that’s just a personal opinion on my part.
Sorry if I come across as rude, but this really annoys me.
I will give this one more episode to redeem itself, then it’s dropped. What disappointing crap.
Don’t worry about Alois and Claude not getting much role in this season because they’re OFFICIALLY main characters. As important as Seb and Ciel. And that got me happy. For more info, go here. So yeah, those complaining on the lack of Seb and Ciel, I hope they stop =_= And the author bashers were cruel…. idiots =_=
I’ll only hurry in watching a Kuro2 episode if the new pair’s there. Since I get confirmation of them not in ep 2, I will prioritize other fandom. title of ep 3 is quite…. intriguing though if spoilers are right
Me and my epic fail speed reading… didn’t notice that you have already read it.
Anywayz, I think you can still relax since it’s true that there’s so much of Alois and Claude even in Black Tabloid. Hopefully translations from it will be out soon. And the author had mentioned to watch at least until episode 4 or 8 before judging so… maybe they’ll appear again by then *_*
@akani
I actually agree with you. It’s best to watch the WHOLE season then say whether you hate them or not. Because as far as we know you may miss the things which may have annoyed you in the very beginning. But then again, it may just depend on one’s personal preference and opinion.
Oh Lizzy, you just HAD to come back, didn’t you?
I completely agree.
Ep 2 was a total waste of time, and believe me, I don’t think of my time as something valuable.
It doesn’t matter if you didn’t watch season one, because they’re actually acting as if the entire thing was something that never happened in the first place. So yeah, bullshit, this episode was crap. And HELL yeah, Alois is the best thing that EVER happened to Kuroshitsuji so far. (AND NO, I’M NOT SEXUALLY OBSSESED WITH SEBASTIAN, THANKYOU VERY MUCH) I’ll give it a try, but if the new characters don’t get the developement they deserve, I’m going to be grossed out for all the false publicity and the drama that took Toboso to just fuck our brains with a second season that appers to be exactly as random and borderline senseless as the first one. (Don’t get me wrong, I loved it when it got serious.)
And how dare they mess their own plot?
I’ve moved on from Ciel and Sebastian after the end of season 1 and I’m greatly enjoying Alois and Claude, (who by the way are ten times more interesting than former two).
I’ve heard that you must watch this whole season to understand why what has happened (and will happen). Hopefully it will be worth it in the end.
But I just really want more screentime for Alois and Claude. (Sorry Sebby/Claude fans)
can u tell me where u watched the movie i just wanted to know what happened to ciel and sabastian..
We’ve reached Ep. 8 and…I gotta say…worth it. I went from being ambivalent to hooked.