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「その執事、策謀」 (Sono Shitsuji, Sakubō)
“His Butler, Plotting”
McMillan falls into the character archetype of the optimistic innocent who befriends Ciel. The truth is, Ciel needs people like McMillan and Soma (of whom this also applies). He’s seen a whole lot of darkness, and people like them are a brief glimmer of what goodness and light can look like in life. Writing-wise, their simplicity and positivity present a stark foil to Ciel’s brooding, complicated persona.
Ciel certainly has an art for sugarcoating words into easy to swallow partial truths. Of course, it’s wise of Ciel to not tell Soma the whole truth. That one couldn’t keep a secret to save his life- exhibit A, shouting and hollering to Ciel in front of the whole school. It’s truly an art to behold the face Ciel puts on for Soma, acting the part of a school boy who’s lost his friend and wants to worm his way back into his good graces. Of course, he does want to worm his way into Maurice’s good graces, but certainly not for friendship, more like revenge and sneaky intel.
What a glorious battle that was between Ciel and Maurice- a glorious battle between seiyuu who spectacularly carried it through. You could feel the menace measured behind each syllable on either side. They really went for the mean girls at school vibe- hell, we even have the prettiest boy at school vs the bullied newcomer. The final garnish being the irony that Ciel is accusing Maurice of the same things he does, namely, overtime labor of others. “Using others is a talent”- oh, if Maurice only knew the half of it- he’d probably shit those coat tails if he knew who Ciel was using. The only thing missing from this scene was a slap from a white glove and a “I challenge you to a duel”.
Toboso was having an exceptional field day today with the Fujoshi bait. We got bedroom scenes, mean girl drama, and Ciel’s ripped shirt to boot. That stuff I can take it or leave it most of the time, unless it starts to crescendo into Grell-level heights, but this episode fell just below that.
Ciel almost gets his gravure pic taken, but the buff boys of Green House arrive just in the nick of time. Our heroes are pissed, not least because Greenhill for whatever reason has taken a vow of non-violence that Maurice forced him to break. I think it’s for the best of the school that Greenhill keeps that vow, judging from the way he was swinging that bat around.
I find the overblown drama entertaining most of the time. And there are some rather clever conceits, like the telephone contraption used to summon the Prefects. Of course, any dramatic ending in Victorian fashion would never be complete without offering a handkerchief for consolation. It is deliciously vicious how what’s really behind that handkerchief is not Ciel’s magnamosity, but rather, his animosity in distributing that embarrassing photo. Everyone knows that a true drama king queen would rather die than let their bare face be shown.
Ciel gets to have his cake and eat it too- not only does he disgrace Maurice, he gets to cozy up with the Prefects. That tongue in cheek humor of that happy ever after scene at the end was perfected with Sebastian spying through the window. After seeing the bravery and honor of the much-wronged earl, Ciel gets the coveted proposal from Bluewer to be his prefect. I now pronounce them Drudge and Prefect. It looks like Sebastian has a hell of a lot more work on his plate from now on. Between this and all the overtime from hunting through the garbage and painstakingly gluing those work requisitions together, Ciel owes Sebastian a really nice vacation.
One problem down, dozens more to go. Soma will more than likely continue to be one of those problems. I don’t think he will take the news about Maurice very well, especially after he believed what Ciel said about wanting to be Maurice’s friend.
End Card
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Maurice is such an amusing character with how they gave this very elegant retro shojo design to one of the most shifty scumbags at the school. Horie Shun was also a great choice after hearing him as Migi. He struck such a good balance between the bubbly cutesy act and the crude master manipulator underneath the facade.
I do miss how expressive some of the artwork is like with Soma badgering Maurice or the harsh juxtaposition between Maurice’s fake apology and his “Screw that!” rant. But overall, it’s nice to return to this arc after so many years. This little mini-arc was a nice breath of fresh air where Ciel potentially found a student who could compete with him as unscrupulous schemers.
Yes! Horie Shun played the role to devious perfection! What an intense battle of words and wit. Good point about missing some of the expressiveness. It’s been a while since I read this arc in the manga.