Kuroshitsuji – 09

Summary:

Back at home in the countryside mansion, Sebastian is cleaning the house alone while being spied on by Ciel’s last resort group of servants. They are trying to take a picture of Sebastian with a special camera, but find themselves in complete awe of how quickly and perfectly he performs his duties instead, without one decent picture to show for the entire escapade.

Ciel sent them on this “gee oh bou” (job) with a special camera that not only takes a picture of the target, but his heart’s dearest desire as well. Using Finnie as an example, Ciel forces him to hold completely still for 10 seconds during the filming, and shows proof of the camera’s special capability – Finnie’s most precious desire is apparently a cute bluebird that he found when he was younger (and subsequently hugged a little too hard). Tanaka appears back and forth in his regular-size form to explain that the camera only shows the dead, and not any living person one might desire. Following this explanation, Ciel sends his inspired team of spies out to take a photo of Sebastian and discover the regretful desires of Sebastian’s heart, preferably without being discovered.

As the servants follow Sebastian around, they find out that he is incapable of holding still for the required 10 seconds while performing his various duties. One plan after another fails, and they end up with a mere handful of blurry gray photos. Clearly aware that something odd is going on, Sebastian interrupts their scheming plans and sends them on a chore to take care of the puppy for the rest of the afternoon while Sebastian hosts a guest in the mansion.

Finnie has some troubles while walking the dog on a leash, and things get a little hot. Dismayed at their failure to keep the dog out of public view, Sebastian finds a moment of solace with a black cat, and plays with it joyfully in his lap. Pluto becomes jealous quickly, and throws the cat rudely out of Sebastian’s arms, crying and begging for his biased affection.

While Ciel reviews his staff’s complete inability to take a decent picture of Sebastian without him noticing, Lao shows up convincing everyone that he has a brilliant strategy to save the day – and subsequently reveals he has no idea what’s going on. Filled in on the plan, Lao makes use of his beautiful yet silent girl-toy to stop Sebastian in his tracks sufficiently enough to take a photo, but they only manage to stun Sebastian’s business related guest instead.

Tanaka and Sebastian host a meeting with their guest, Mr. Jones. As Ciel thinks to himself he might have to resort to undesirable measures, Sebastian seems to notice something, but continues his outlandish presentation of Phantomhive’s business plan while the young Mr. Jones writes everything down. Mr. Jones requests a photo before adjourning the meeting, but Sebastian kindly refuses – he is only a butler, after all (悪魔で). After he leaves, Ciel isn’t exactly ecstatic about the dessert Sebastian prepared for this evening, but seems pleased with the results of this afternoon’s meeting.

That night, Ciel prepares for the final attempt at taking Sebastian’s photo, and asks Finnie to hurl a giant statue of an angel at his back as hard as he can. As expected, in the very last moment Sebastian steps in and saves Ciel from the blast of stone. As he cradles Ciel’s head to make sure he’s alright, fireworks light up from three giant dragons surrounding the area, and the servants are able to take some pictures in the sparkling lights. Sebastian grins as he purposefully allows his photo to be taken, but Ciel pretends not to know what he’s talking about.

In the dark-lit room as the photos begin to develop, Pluto comes in with an angry face and blows everyone, including the photos, away with a high blast of fire from his mouth. He rushes back to his master, and Sebastian pets him and gives him a treat for a job well done before sending him back outside to sleep for the night.

Later that evening, Sebastian finds Ciel asleep at his desk and takes the opportunity to take a photo of the two of them together using the same special camera. In the background, Pluto can be seen pining at the window. The next day, the servants marvel over the photo while drawing strange and illogical conclusions about what it could mean since there are no extra images of desired objects in the photo.

In the dining room, Sebastian tells Ciel he’s honored by the photograph’s results, but gets told to shut-up in response. Outside, Bard and Maylene get chased happily by Pluto while Finnie sits under a tree, thinking about the photo. He tries to make sense out of what Tanaka said about it only showing desired ones that have already died, but giving up, he decides to play happily with his lively friends instead of pondering Sebastian’s mysterious intentions.

 
 
 
Preview:

First Thoughts:

I’m so glad the focus of this week’s episode was something other than the mystery behind the white dog demon, and I have to admit that his occasional cute puppy antics were actually fairly funny this week. However, I regret to inform you that the recent surge of filler has no end in sight, because the dog is still living with the family, and today’s plot was a one-shot episode that wrapped itself up quite nicely, and yet the preview for next week clearly has an evil agenda out to get me. I don’t get it, but at least this week’s episode was more entertaining. There are only 3 or 4 episodes left – That should be plenty of time to wrap things up with the Indian arc from the manga, but it doesn’t look like that will happen now. The only regret I have is that the author’s sense of humor and style has been completely lost inside the mess of character stereotypes that come out of filler drawing rooms. This was one of my favorite series at the beginning of the season, but now I find myself holding my breath for shows like Kannagi and MichiHatchi instead.

I did enjoy certain moments very much, like when Finnie appeared to have been beaten up somewhere between the moment before the statue crashed into Ciel and the moment after Sebastian saved him. Hmm what a coincidence. Like Finnie, I’m not going to dwell too much on the hidden implications of the photo. Since there are no dead loved ones in the photo, the only implications are not that Sebastian and Ciel are each other’s most desired beings, but rather that neither of them have a strong desire for their loved ones that have passed away. Another view could be that Sebastian is Ciel’s most desired person (or someone who just looks like him?) because he was the one taking the photo, right? But he did say it was just an illusion, and I wouldn’t put scheming ideas past Sebastian in the photo-development department. Keep in mind that this is just an extra side story and shouldn’t have any deeper implications or effects on the rest of the plot. It’s just a little candy to make you think about the characters.

The majority of the episode was spent chasing Sebastian around unsuccessfully, and when he finally was cornered for more than 10 seconds, he purposefully allowed the photo to be taken because he planned on destroying it before anyone saw the results anyway. Next week Ciel and Sebastian appear to be ice-skating along with Lao and his pretty partner. I can’t wait to see her in action one day, but that day may never come…