I can’t say for sure what’s going to happen with Shinigami Bocchan to Kuro Maid – maybe this will get a second season, who the hell knows.  But if as seems likely it’s two more episodes and done, it’s a real shame that the anime is going to be a mere taste of what the series has to offer, and largely ignored.  Episodes like this one give a good sense as to the depth and pathos of the story.  And the staff are doing their best with the CG hand they’ve been dealt – it’s clear the anime gets the story and what makes it tick.  But in the end the whole adaptation is more frustration than satisfaction.

I’m having to face the fact that perhaps my favorite part of the series (a different C.G.) isn’t going to make the cut (which fits with the anime not rushing the pacing to pack more of the larger story in).  But for this portion of the series – which amounts to maybe the first quarter – the heart of Shinginami Bocchan is the main trio at the mansion.  Bocchan, Alice and Rob all have a lot to offer as characters – and Rob definitely can’t be left out of the calculus, because he’s really important.

Drip by drip we get exposition here, largely through flashback.  Sharon speaks this time, in the voice of ever-17 herself, Inoue Kikuo.  Alice is the spitting image of her mother, though at this age a lot less outgoing.  Apparently little Alice is quite sickly and often confined to bed, but she’s prone to wandering the halls looking for Bocchan.  Even now the writing is on the wall, and Sharon can certainly read it – and despite the difficulties she understands only too well, Sharon doesn’t discourage her daughter from pursuing her feelings.

This is really the elephant in the room with Shinigami Bocchan.  The only reason these two are able to be together freely is because he’s an outcast, a pariah.  The minute that changes – through the breaking of the curse – all the tired social expectations kick in again, and all the concerned parties know exactly what that means.  For Alice it’s a matter of mixed feelings – she wants the curse to be broken, but she knows what that means for her.  Still, she’s insistent that Bocchan should in no way, shape, or form renounce his family and birthright on her account.

As for Rob, he professes that as long as the kids are happy, he’s happy.  And let’s be clear, these are his kids for all intents and purposes.  He basically raised Bocchan after his mother kicked him out (and it was no picnic) and Alice is an orphan who was mistreated by her aunt.  No one could possibly understand better than the supremely experienced Rob just how impossible the notion of the heir and a maid being together is, but he has no heart to discourage either one of them.  For Rob what was until recently a hell for his master is a kind of paradise for him, a fantasy so pleasant one could almost forget the reason why it exists in the first place.  But not quite.

The episode closes with another insert song, this time Alice and Bocchan singing a duet on “The Owl and the Pussycat”.  An unlikely couple facing challenges as they go through life – it’s a fairy tale for these to to bond with, to be sure.  Some fairy tales have happy endings, some don’t – but truthfully, we’re really only on the first verse of this one.  It’s way too soon to be talking about endings.