Summer 2010 – First Impressions (Kuroshitsuji II & Shufuku no Campanella)

Progressing on with the first impressions, Kuroshitsuji II and Shufuku no Campanella are up next.

Kuroshitsuji II

k you got me A-1 Pictures, clearly you knew what you were doing with this series! I was fully prepared to sit on my high horse and say ‘meh, they should have stuck with the manga’, but Alois and Claude are pretty interesting additions to the cast. Yes additions – Sebastian and Ciel will feature in this sequel to some extent, just how much is yet to be seen, but Ciel features in the ED so I’m guessing they’ll be popping up throughout. Still this inital episode was very much about introducing Alois and Claude, and was pretty successful at doing so. Alois is clearly much more unbalanced than Ciel; his moodswings and sadistic personality hidden under a veneer of childish playfulness make for an intriguing lead in a very different way to Ciel’s cool, aloof ruthlessness. Claude is just like Sebastian, except even more of a show-off (gotta love that tap routine before he set the table! :lol:).

So yeah, pretty happy with this first episode. It had everything I enjoyed about the 1st series – cheesiness, gothic vibes, undercurrent of yaoiness, bishies, attractive costume design and a nice streak of darkness. Now they just need to shoehorn Grell in somewhere and I’ll be a very happy fangirl!

The animation is nice – quality hasnt dropped or gotten noticeably better. Bishies are still bishie and set design has nice detailing. I always liked the soundtrack for Kuroshi~tsuji and the new OP & ED are pretty good too (will require a few listens I think) also really liked the OP animation. Voice acting was always good and Nana Mizuki & Takahiro Sakurai both fit into the cast well. Particularly liked Nana Mizuki’s Alois, she captured his moodswings very well.

Overall I’m very pleased with this first episode – most of my skepticism about the need for a sequel has been laid to rest as Inner Fangirl came out and expressed her opinion on the episode in the most eloquent manner possible; inarticulate squealing.

Shufuku no Campanella

Finding it difficult to drum up enough enthusiasm to rant about how generic and bland this episode was! The entire episode was just a parade of harmettes who you can immediately pick out because they have ridiculously overly elaborate costumes and earrings, where the background mooks are all dressed in plain drab neutrals with no accessories. For some reason that always pisses me off. If you’re going to have stupid costumes at least have the entire cast in stupid costumes! You have to wonder where the main characters get their clothing from if everyone else in the series dresses completely differently! …….huh, that a really weird thing to be nitpicking about isn’t it? Ahem.

Basically the show left no impression on me other than ‘meh’. It wasn’t terrible enough to warrant a kneejerk reaction of ‘this show needs to die’ out of me, nor did it have any redeeming features that could possibly tempt me to attempt another episode. Rather it was just dull throughout with nary a shred of originality to call its own – which is in some ways worse than if it had me screaming in terror over its badness. The animation is ok, the character designs attractive (of you like that kind of thing……which I don’t). Music is generic and the voice acting entirely typical of the genre.

Basically this was boring and I’m not watching anymore of it. I find it difficult to imagine anyone would enjoy this show, but I’m sure it will appeal to someone, somewhere……maybe.