#ch142

The anime does a sharp cut of Gray getting hit and flung away before he’s knocked out, but in the manga it’s much more--- well, as you can see, he gets grabbed and choked. This, along with Gray already being out of magic from the previous fight, justifies him being taken out so easily, I guess.

This may just be an artistic choice, but I find it interesting that Sherry’s Wood Doll has a different design from usual.

Compared to the one just before it in the Racer Fight:

She usually goes for big, hulking tree monsters, rather than something that looks like a human-sized, thin and withered treant. (They’re both treants but I hope you get my point) While her dolls always had the whole debatably ‘creepy-cute’ thing going on, now it’s just creepy, all the cuteness sucked out of her with her 'good’, due to the Nirvana. 

You could even say this smaller evil Wood Doll is more tactically advantageous than her usual ones. She usually relies on brute strength, just batting things with oversized projectiles or arms, but now, she goes for capture and strangulation, which is much more tactical because her dolls give her the strength to do what her thin arms can’t. 

Nirvana didn’t just make her switch moral sides, it switched out her battle style to something that’s the complete opposite, too. 

This would have been a really cool point for her that made her change the way she fights, with wits rather than charging through with bludgeon tactics that doesn’t suit her appearance. Heck, she was strong enough to give Gray trouble with this strategy, weakened or not. 

He also says (in ch140) he’d never forgive anyone who calls his younger twin a liar… and then says nothing to Lizzie when she does exactly that (ch142/143). Is real Ciel never going to forgive Lizzie for that?

I think it’s important to remember real Ciel is not alive and is essentially programmed on “episodes” that Undertaker strung together from real Ciel’s own cinematic records. Undertaker tells us those episodes are “future memories” that flash before a person’s eyes just before they die… and that real Ciel was “chock full of them”. It’s possible that he’s got a bunch of conflicting episodes that make him a bit unstable. It’s also possible he’s always been rather fickle, and I suspect that might be the case. Both of these things could even be happening at once, making him repeatedly contradict himself.

So in case anyone needs a refresher, after being humiliated by Cobra at the Reverie, Wapol decides to take petty revenge by slapping Vivi upside the face because he’s, as I’m sure I’ve already established, an asshat. 

Instead of making a scene Vivi, who is at this time but a smol child, apologizes to Wapol, thus avoiding what could have blown up into an international incident. It’s one of those instances of regal grace that, when done poorly, can come off as cliche and trite, like a Disney Princess dialed up to eleven.

What sets this scene apart, I think, is that Oda doesn’t stop here. He shows the cost of Vivi’s sacrifice

Being slapped across the face really freaking hurts, and Vivi feels that pain. But she accepts it anyway, giving up her right to personal justice for the sake of a greater peace.