Ok, I just watched it. And I'm basically speechless. Like... it was almost perfect. I loved it, loved it, LOVED IT. Of course, as a manga reader, I knew what was going to happen, but I wasn't sure about the way they were going to animate it. And what happened on my screen was absolutely fucking amazing!
Now, I was saying it was almost perfect. And I'm gonna explain myself here. Like, yes, the scene was animated frame by frame with very little changes from the manga. And this little change is actually very interesting to talk about. So let's talk. So, in the manga there are several panels which I really like about this scene. But this one's one of my favorites.
This is sebaciel through and through. The way Ciel is positioned here. The way Sebastian's tentacles are wrapped pretty much around his ass. The way another tentacle is crawling back from under his shirt. And I mean, at this point Ciel's pose it very relaxed, he's not tense, he's neither panicking, nor struggling. He's just waiting for Sebastian to slowly recede, and Sebastian is taking his time to grope at Ciel just a little longer. Not here's how they transferred the frame into the anime:
Care to see the differences? Like, sure, Ciel's pose is almost the same, it's quite relaxed, but his spine isn't curved like in the manga frame. Also, the picture is dark and low contrast, so that Senastian's tentacles look a lot more obscure and less pronounced. There is NO specific groping of Ciel's ass, which is a fucking shame, cuz you guys just imagine WHAT would the manga frame look like if it was animated? Cuz they didn't animate this frame. They reimagined it. Which poses the question, why? Well, one may think, for artistic reasons, but I see another reason here, which is this:
The people behind the animation must have thought the manga source was too much. So this is how they chose to tone down the obvious sexual undertone of this frame. I mean, those tentacles are waaaaaay too grabby in the manga. right?
Which is a shame, cuz I was looking specifically for this frame, because this is the one that screams SEX. And they toned it down.
So this is my only problem with this episode. But alright... I can understand why they did it. I wish they didn't have to do it, but alas... However, they didn't backtrack from the obvious romance of their interaction. And we had the bedroom eyes, and they were perfect. They looked one another in the eyes, and smiled, and giggled, and FLIRTED! And that scene was so perfect that I'm willing to forgive them the previous one. And then we had jealous Sebastian not letting Finny touch Ciel, and everything was so-so-so good.
So I guess, here's my main point about this episode:
the manga material was too much SEX, so they had to tone it down.
