Summary Key Points:

[spoiler]

• The episode starts off by showing the contract between the new demon butler Claude and his new master Alois Trancy
• The episode goes on to show the new master, a real jerk and sadist who tortures his maid by poking his finger into her eye and injuring her
• Further in the day, he has a dinner with his uncle and a preist. The uncle is hungry for the wealth of the Trancy family that Alois now posesses
• Alois expertly fools the priest and acts all innocent, gaining the preist’s favor
• Alois then taunts his uncle and throws money from the window to the floor, which his uncle greedily tries to gather
• At night, a hooded figure appears and asks for some shelter from the rain
• Alois is quite taken with the hooded figure
• The hooded figure agrees to show Alois his suitcase, if Alois takes him to the basement
• In the basement, the hooded figure grabs a small box of tea
• As he is leaving, Claude comes in and attacks
• The hooded figure is actually Sebastian Michaels
• Sebastian quickly escapes, and the trunk almost opens in the ruckus, showing that Ciel Phantomhive is inside
• Sebastian takes the Phantomhive ring out of the box and places it on Ciel’s finger
• The episode ends

[/spoiler]

Opinions: (B+)

I honestly don’t know what to make of this first episode. It clearly seemed like Alois and Claude were the new duo for this series, and it almost clearly seemed like I wouldn’t be watching this show at all. Claude is pretty much a quieter, more serious Sebastian and lacks any of his charisma and coolness. At the same time, Alois is a complete sadistic freak, and literally pokes his maid’s eye out. I was rather surprised by how suddenly the guy went from playful to a total serial killer type.

The appearance of Sebastian and Ciel did shock, amuse and keep me interested though. So Ciel’s alive? What about what happened at the end of Season 1? Ciel clearly completed his contract with Sebastian. It seems like he was in some sleepy state, and the Phantomhive Ring is going to revive him?

I think, if anything, this episode has me interested in the second clearly because I have no idea what’s going on. Is this before Ciel died? Is this a remake? Did Sebastian decide to let Ciel live? Or is this a total revamp and remake? The ending theme clearly features Ciel and Sebastian, so I really don’t know what to make of this.

This was an interesting first episode, and it remains to be seen whether this series will be worth following. The new characters are definitely not all that awesome, and I much prefer Ciel and his group over the freakish Alois. We’ll have to see whether the anime producers simply trolled us as far as a new master and butler goes, or if Ciel is going to be more of a side character.

Preview:

Seems like this is going to be a Ciel centered episode? Maybe the whole Alois and Claude thing was just a gimmick to kick off the season?

~Blogged By Setsuken