After wading through the filler-esque beginning, Kuro II’s central plotline emerges spectacularly from its cocoon to reveal a glorious butterfly – albeit slightly deformed with mismatched wings and a limp. Luckily, not all is lost as the middle finally leaps into action and explains what’s actually going on while providing plenty of wet bishounen action to dampen any fangirl’s panties. While entertaining enough and perfect for swooning over bishies, the disjointed nature of the show’s first third leads to frustration for those that care about plot. This makes it unclear whether these stories follow on chronologically from the opener or if they actually take place during the previous season. Episode two skips around with its fingers in its ears yelling “LA LA LA” pretending that the end of series one never happened and happily ignoring the two new antagonists. Vague hints as to the connection between Ciel and Alois occasionally worm their way into these tales, but with no explanation as to the events of the series’ opening, it’s almost impossible to follow how these anecdotes fit into the timeline of events. The next few episodes fare little better and consist of short storylines where Ciel and Sebastian deal with another mysterious incident in that flamboyant way that only a butler of the Phantomhive family can. Instead of continuing with the initial intriguing plotline, Kuro II ignores Alois and Claude, choosing instead to go on a picnic with the cast of series one – after all, why bother with narrative or explanation when we can have Sebastian whipping up a tower of food in the middle of a field? Unfortunately with the beginning of the second episode, that hope and expectation gets unceremoniously lined up in front of a firing squad and ruthlessly shot through the eyeballs. Then halfway through, a familiar face returns and it feels like a gripping tale of rivalry, hatred and nefarious scheming is about to commence. The first episode starts out well enough with the introduction of two new antagonists: the utterly hateful little shit, Alois Trancy, and the tedious Sebastian-clone, Claude. More erratic than a Jackson Pollack painting, the beginning of Kuroshitsuji II doesn’t attempt to make any sense.
At the announcement of a sequel featuring a brand new master and butler, I was concerned that the franchise was merely milking the bishie fangirl cow. StoryWith its deliciously dark overtones and black humour, the first series of Kuroshitsuji was possibly my favourite anime of the Fall 2008 season.
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