Kuroshitsuji episodes 9
This episode for the most part was absolutely fantastic, with the exception of one scene it would be the absolute panicle of a Kuroshitsuji animation. It would have been absolutely the most perfect adaptation of the manga anyone has ever seen. It was beautiful. The emotions conveyed were stunning, the revelations horrifying, and the feelings true and pure…. AND THEN THERE WAS THE GRELL SCENE!
The episode opens up where we left off with the servants of the Phantomhive house protecting it from the invasion of the circus troupe. Beast and Dagger are the only two left at this time and all three of the servants set off on them. Bard really gets to show his thing, and we cut back to Ciel saying that these aren’t just servants. These are elite soldiers that Sebastian and him picked themselves.
When Dagger dies, it’s so depressing. The look in Beasts eyes, the momentary flashback of when they were kids. The remembrance that he loved her but she never loved him back. It’s heart wrenching, then watching as Bard sets the place ablaze to kill her and get rid of Daggers body as well.
The second part of the episode with Ciel and Sebastian is just as stunning if not more so. The doctor from the circus shows up and reveals that not only that he was never lame this entire time, but the prosthetics he made were made from the bones of the children that died. Joker has a flashback of the performance he gave a few episodes back that the kids died in and realized those bones went into making his hand. To say that he is sickened by this is an understatement. He absolutely looked devastated by the mere idea of this and tries to break off what is left of his fake arm. He says if he knew he wouldn’t of wanted it but the doctor asks him if that is really true…
He has to think about it….he remembers picking up Beast and how much happiness that fake hand brought him…is that really something you can ask someone? How must that feel to know your happiness came at the cost of someone else’s life…
The doctor is a man of no empathy, he takes one of the kids from the cages. One the viewers might recognize as the little girl who sold flowers to the policeman in an earlier episode. While asking Ciel to sponsor his research. He places her on the slab made to look like the alter that Ciel had been placed on. You can really feel the true horror that Ciel is feeling watching this, as he flashes back to seeing himself on the alter. As the doctor raises a knife to stab the girl he remembers the knife stabbing into himself. He throws up and Sebastian tells him that he is no longer in his cage…to say his name.
He orders Sebastian to kill the Doctor, he kills the doctor and makes sure that the Baron and Joker are finished off. Ciel being held in his arms tells Sebastian to burn the mansion to the ground, even with the kidnapped children still in it. It’s not well explained in this episode perhaps they’ll cover it in the next one but the reason he did this was because he knew that these kids were broken. There was no chance of them returning to a normal life after this. Once their eyes were dead like that, there was no bringing them back.
This episode was chilling and beautiful and perfect and…oh wait…yeah the elephant in the room. That scene, that totally not needed scene. I guess I should talk about that scene too….
WHY THE FUCK WAS THIS SCENE NEEDED? WHAT WAS THE POINT? WHY DO THE ANIMATORS FEEL THE NEED TO SHOVE GRELL’S OBNOXIOUS ASS DOWN OUR THROAT? ANY OTHER SHINIGAMI COULD HAVE BEEN THERE COLLECTING THE SOULS OF THE CIRCUS CREW. THE ONLY REASON THEY HAD GRELL THERE WAS TO SIT AND FREAK OUT ABOUT THE SEX SCENE THAT SEBASTIAN HAD WITH BEAST. IT’S NOTHING BUT WORTHLESS, STUPID, YAOI FANSERVICE.
I pride myself on being a yaoi fangirl so when I find this kind of thing stupid and obnoxious you know you’ve done something wrong. The whole problem with Grell in general is that he is in the manga at least a fairly minor character. He plays his important role in the Jack the ripper arc and then gets punished and doesn’t appear again until the Titan arc. The anime however, the original and apparently this one decided it would be fun to shoehorn him in wherever they could because the fan base liked him. It’s nothing but pandering and for the part of the fan base that isn’t blindly in love with him it ruins things. It destroys the flow of this episode and puts a funny scene in the middle of all these intensely dramatic moments. Overall this episode was fantastic, if they could have just removed that pointless fluff scene and replaced it with something else. Perhaps a cut away to Snake back at the circus or the other two Shinigami at the manor Ciel was at. I don’t know, I guess I’m just sick of all this senseless fan base pandering…
~Midnight