The first couple of plus-size shoes dropped this week. Which, when you think about it, is pretty odd timing coming a week before the end of the series. Shinigami Bocchan to Kuro Maid is doing a pretty good job of confusing me about its intentions – maybe, unlikely as it seems, this show is going to get a second season? The anime is making absolutely no allowances towards its apparent runtime – not in terms of pacing, or exposition. More likely it’s going to be a classic “read the manga” ending but the total lack of acknowledgment is certainly unusual.
The formula here was as it’s been through most of the series. The A-part was lighter and more comedic, and featured Viola heavily. The B-part was where the meat of the story was plated. And much the better for it, as usual – I confess Viola was never my favorite part of the manga but her shelf life in the anime is even shorter (the casting is a part of that). Viola is pretty much a straight moe pander character and the whole pajama party with Alice and Caph was quite transparent in its intentions. If that’s what you’re here for, great, but it’s not like those segments really change much from week to week.
Viola does offer one important service to the episode – she delivers an old servant’s logbook that she and Walter discovered while snooping through a storeroom at the mansion. It’s nice that Viola and even Walter want to help Bocchan of course, but they’ve unwittingly opened a can of worms here. Daleth has eyes everywhere, and she’s taken quite an interest in Alice and Bocchan. And she’s none too happy to see that old book in Alice’s hands, for some reason.
The key entry so far is the reference to “two women in nun’s habits” – written by her mother – that Alice sees in the book. We’ve already seen Daleth’s chosen fashion statement so it’s not too hard to draw a connection. Daleth doesn’t dither – she summons Zain to her lair and asks him to deliver a message to the Duke and Alice – “let’s be friends”. Zain explain that in witch speak, that means “let’s keep out of each other’s business” – and the message is only too clear. Unfortunately Bocchan is hardly in a position to honor that request, and Daleth has complicated matters further by ordering Zain to destroy the log, under penalty of unnamed threat against Caph.
The exposition starts dropping hot and heavy after this. We see Zain’s magic in action – he can restore an item from the tiniest scrap, and he puts on a show to try and convince Daleth (she can see but not hear) that he’s done her bidding. As for Daleth, she has a rather good reason for wearing that mask as it turns out. And then there’s the matter of what – or rather who – she’d been hiding in her sanctuary. Sharon doesn’t look a day older, I have to say – though her energy levels could use some work…
As if all that weren’t enough to dump on the audience right before the finale, Mother has sense a letter to Bocchan, telling him they “need to talk” and ordering him to come to the mansion (for the first time since his exile began) in a week’s time. Needless to say I’m very curious to see where the anime is going to go with all this. We’re going to stop at somewhere around a third (or a little less) of the way through the manga – just before an arc I really love, unfortunately. I’ll be holding out hope for an OVA at the very least, but I’m not making any guesses – I’m stumped.
