“I will now use this ladder in order to try and defeat this almighty demon butler”. “I will now use this bowly thing that produces music in order to brainwash everyone around me”. Now that’s what I’m talking about. Screw those god-mode powers: anyone can give that to their characters. But when the creators put those hilariously ridiculously executed ways to achieve their goals: that’s really something of the Kuroshitsuji franchise.
Especially the way in which Sebastian ended up countering that brainwash device: creating his own concert of water-filled wine glasses, even though he… could have just smashed the entire thing.
Anyway, the plot. Finally we get some stuff explained. So… why did Sebastian revive Ciel? Well… it turns out that he wanted to give Ciel a second chance at revenge. Okay. So apparently, this all has to do with the fact that somehow, Ciel is special. Special enough for Sebastian to want to steal his soul twice, and Alois to collect him like a stuffed doll. The problem here is Ciel’s memory loss, which somehow complicates things. I admit, it’s quite a decent explanation. Here’s the thing though: Ciel’s hidden powers, or whatever it is that makes him special, are still a complete McGuffin. They’re just there to give this second season a plot, nothing more.
Either way, I enjoyed this episode a lot. The way in which it it made such stupid stuff so epic. The soundtrack was especially good at this. I also love how the entire episode was pretty low-budget, with the sole exception of some of Claude’s hand movement. I mean, out of all the things to spend the most animation frames on, this is quite an interesting idea. Or do fangirls nowadays have hand fetishes?
Rating: * (Good)
Maybe I wasn’t paying enough attention, but wasn’t Ciel’s soul stolen by Claude and stored in that ring just a second before Sebastian could reap it?
We saw the black spider riding away on that crow from the island and Sebastian going mad over the fact that some part of his precious young masters soul (the memories of season 1…oh man) got lost during this…however that happened.
Whatever makes Ciel so special that angels and demons are practically ripping each other apart over his soul…it must taste pretty damn good…
While I liked this episode better I was somehow annoyed by some of the slower scenes, like the musical counter-attack…it just took way too long…
Oh, I’d say fangirls have always had a fetish for hands. xD
@ chounokow:
That’s how I interpreted aswell. I think Claude may have stole Ciel’s soul before Sebastian could take it. It seems Claude may still hold some of his soul since Ciel lost his memories. There might be something else that we’re missing though, this whole thing about Ciel’s soul still isn’t completely clear. Also, we still don’t know Alois’s true intentions on wanting to have Ciel.
I thought the action scenes were poorly animated and inconsistent. Although I did found the triplet’s weapons pretty hilarious. A ladder, seriously? Couldn’t Claude at least train the triplets to use proper weapons?
One last thing. There was some hand fetish fanservice for the males too ^^.
I understood it the same as chounokoe and lalarhs. Claude stole Ciel’s soul and put it into that ring. Except he didn’t put all of it – the memory (and event) of Ciel taking revenge is gone, so the contract exists again. To be released from that contract, Sebastian would have to fulfill it. Again.
Except there’s nobody left to fulfill it on. So Sebastian made a deal with Claude that Claude and Alois become the – um, revengees? – the guilty party to take revenge on, in exchange for – I didn’t quite catch this part. I think it was in exchange for Ciel himself, though why would Sebastian do that?
I don’t remember the episode saying anything about hidden powers.
I dunno about the hand, but everything else these past two episodes were totally fangirl fuel.
@Anca: No I don’t really remember anything about special powers, they just talked about Ciel being special in general, whatever they actually meant.
I just hope they are not planning to somehow rewrite the whole story like this only to get back on track with the original.
The blond person at the door in the preview somehow looked like a character from the manga…and while I like where it is right now, I wouldn’t like for this season to become nothing more than a giant trigger to get ‘back on track’…especially because I see that ending just like Rozen Maiden did.
@ chounokoe
I think by ‘special’ they just mean that his soul isn’t like many others. As in there aren’t many people like Ciel who are determined to do absolutely anything in order to fulfill a personal revenge. That may be the quality which some demons find ‘delectable’. The premise here is that demons seem to have a particular taste in souls. Sebastian like vengeful souls while Claude seems to like ones with a psychotic and bipolar nature (we don’t know enough about Alois yet, so that’s all I can really say). That’s just my interpretation though.
Ciel’s soul was stolen before Sebastian had a chance to devour him
Yep, Sebastian never managed to devour Ciel. And without his memories, his soul isn’t the tasty one Sebastian has been cooking over the years. Now, actually, there’s a huge piece of secret we just saw that made could have given me goosebumps had it been overshadowed. It turns out, the butlers are far from loyal. All this time, I had this idea that loyalty is part of the contract but when the demonic side of each butlers were revealed, it’s a terrifying truth that they’re really just…toying with food. It turns out they’ll scheme and throw out temptations to get what they want.