For all the talk of 13 episodes being too long for Midori no Majo-hen, the season ends in seamless fashion. More Saville Row than off the shelf, you might say. I guess this is the upside of and justification for those annoyingly long recaps we were tortured with for most of the season. I think in the end I’d have taken 12 eps without them over what we got, but at least there was a point to it. This adaptation just doesn’t put a foot wrong very often, and Emerald Witch was no exception.

All in all this finale was extremely on-point in terms of tidying up the major themes of the arc, something not always true with Kuroshitsuji. As we know, poor Sieglinde is about to get a crash course in English table manners in preparation for her meeting with the Queen. Sebastian is a harsh master and if anything, more stern with her than he is with Ciel. Of course, as he gently chides Ciel later, not everyone can be expected to be as steel-spined as he is. He also spares a thought to forcing Wolfram to learn English, refusing to hear his complaints about Ojou’s treatment in German (though of course he understands it perfectly).

One would probably say Ciel was as cold-hearted as Sieglinde accuses him of based on his refusal to advocate for her cause. But he’s genuinely aggrieved by the charge, and doesn’t do a great job hiding it. The best scene of the episode finds Ciel and Sebastian engaging in a back and forth over Ciel’s cold-heartedness and Sebastian’s ruthlessness. On some level they both enjoy this banter, clearly, but while Sebastian would never deny the charges against him and Ciel probably takes his as a compliment on some level, it also bothers him.

What can be said with certainty is that Ciel is, indeed, Sieglinde’s friend. The most important one she has. I’ve said it before but his own experience makes Ciel especially prickly about children being manipulated and used against their will. Sieglinde was in Germany, and it seems very likely she will in England. But Ciel helps her to grasp her true situation. She can have a say in how she’s used – and in turn use others (including him) to help her achieve her goals. Victoria is as sharp as a knife – Sieglinde needs to go into that meeting prepared and extremely cautious. His advice – tell them what she knows about mustard gas, and use that as a down payment on her own desires. As for Sarin, take that knowledge to the grave if she doesn’t want to see the hell it would unleash on Earth in Victoria’s hands.

As for Lizzie’s visit, I only wish it had been as brief as Grell’s last week. Only he exceeds her in bringing out Toboso-sensei’s worst habits as a writer in my opinion. Her walking in on Ciel and Sieglinde in a compromising position was a given, and frankly kind of beneath Black Butler at this stage. This sequence is short enough not to be a big problem though, and even has one or two chuckles in it. A meeting with the Queen comes in the nick of time, and Victoria immediately starts testing Sieglinde to find out what Ciel has coached her to say and do.

That meeting goes well enough, and an understanding of sorts seems to be reached between Victoria and Sieglinde (thoigh I’d hardly trust Victoria’s intentions). As it’s taking place Ciel has sent Sebastian on an assignment to deliver the Sarin gas samples to the deepest depths of the ocean, an act of defiance in a sense – a gamble on his part. That more or less ties up the main threads of the season. But once more, there’s a very conspicuous mention of Ciel’s growth – or lack of it. And that night he has a nightmare (or not) that Undertaker visits him in his room and pours something down his throat. The letter from the Queen obviously signifies the premise of the next arc, but this may well be the more crucial plot element in the big picture.

As to that next arc, this time around we don’t get an official announcement about another season. I’m calling this a “Season Finale” because more seasons of Kurshitsuji seem like an inevitability, though obviously it would have been preferable to know for certain. We’ve had very long waits between seasons and very short ones (only one cour this time), but the overall trend has been in a positive direction so I’m hopeful. Whenever it comes I’ll go in with the expectation that it will be one of the better anime of the year, because Black Butler has grown into one of the most reliably excellent series out there.