Episode 2; Decisive Battle! Beautiful Boy vs. Baseball Boy!
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Episode 02
Decisive Battle! Beautiful Boy VS Baseball Boy
THIS IS HOW IT’S GOIN’ DOWN »
So we begin this episode shortly after where the first left off. It opens with a shot of the castle at dusk and then centers in on Yuuri, who is enjoying the new-found luxury of being king in his own private bath. Or so he thinks…
ENTER WALKING CLEAVAGE. (It is at this point that fans who began watching Kyou Kara Maou for the gay tilt their head to the side and go, “HUH?!”)
Yuuri begins to apologize, and the mysterious woman with excessive boobage makes a move on him. He freaks and leaps out of the bath dramatically and flees. Mysterious woman thinks this is cute. How bizarre.
And oh look, random foreshadowing. Way to be subtle.
Yuuri then proceeds to do what he does best; runs to complain to Conrad. Randomly, Günter turns around and asks Yuuri to put something on. COMMENCE NOSEBLEED. OH GÜNTER.
Yuuri holds up the object in question and it is a bikini style underwear type thing. Commonly mistaken for a G-string? Alright then. Conrad informs Yuuri that this is the national underwear of Shin Makoku (wtf?!) and then Günter clasps his hands over his nose in a most dramatic fashion, informing Yuuri that he had an inappropriate thought, and it is then his turn to flee.
The moment Günter leaves, Conrad takes the opportunity to inform Yuuri that he smells marvelous. Awkward. Yuuri mentions that he used the shampoo in the bath. The shampoo that had the ominous foreshadow moment a bit before. Hmmmmm. And then they hear the sound of Günter scolding himself and banging his head against the wall. Conrad and Yuuri remain immobile. Nice job, guys.
Time skip to dinner! It is very awkward and quiet. Günter is not sitting with them and opts to stand around with the maids observing. The silver-haired gruff-ball from the previous episode makes Yuuri uncomfortable. Conrad takes the opportunity to introduce the two other people.
Firstly we’ve got Gwendal von Voltaire (commonly referred to as von Walde in fansubs for some reason. The official translation says von Voltaire and Voltaire sounds more hardxcore so we’re calling him von Voltaire.)
Next up is the blond pretty boy, who we now know is Wolfram von Bielefeld (hey gaiz, you all said his name in the comments from last episode! WE DIDN’T KNOW UNTIL THIS EPISODE HOMG SPOILER? D8) Anyway, Conrad tries to put his hand on Wolfram’s shoulder only to be~
REJECTED!
Unresolved family issues much? Wolfram announces that it is because Conrad is part human that he has such issues.
Conrad seems unfazed.
Now we get into relatively boring talk about Conrad’s heritage. We learn that all of them are half-brothers (because we really couldn’t figure that out ourselves?) and because of the fact that Conrad’s father was not among the Ten Aristocrats, his last name is simply Weller instead of von Weller. The ‘von’ is a symbol of the Aristocrats. He then goes on to say that there was nothing special about his father other than the fact that he had fantastic swordsmanship and was, dun dun DUNNNNNNNN! Human. Because we couldn’t guess that already.
Then randomly we hear a female voice announcing that Conrad’s father was also hot. Mhmmmmmm.
Conrad, Gwendal, and Wolfram all turn and greet their mother, and OHSHI-
THE BREASTS HAVE RETURNED! Mai Valentine’s got nothin’ on this fine rack.
The woman now identified to be the mother of the three brother’s proceeds to hit on Conrad (who was standing, then sitting, and then stood up again? Hello continuity, where art thou?)
And Gwendal, which Yuuri finds most awkward, and then smothers Wolfram in her bosom.
She comments on how he has become quite beautiful and all the boys must be lusting after him and Wolfram doesn’t take to that too kindly. Inside, he is laughing. Just as planned.
She then goes after Yuuri and smothers him as well. Yuuri does not know how to deal with this.
Günter intervenes.
And informs Yuuri that the woman smothering him is Lady Cecile von Spitzweg and that she is the retired demon queen.
“You’ve just inherited my old job, little boy. Half the nobles want to take over, several human countries loathe us, and you have no clue wtf you are doing. Have fun with that! 8D”
Time lapse to later in dinner.
Cheri comments that she’s thrilled Yuuri is becoming King because she is now free to go on her journey for FREE LOVE~
Wolfram refuses to serve Yuuri! He’s not worthy~
But oh, Wolfram does not want to be king? He thinks Gwendal should take the role. Gwendal remains silence.
Cheri reminds Wolfram to think about what happens to those who do not follow ‘the Great One.’ Oh, ominous! Yuuri is curious, so he asks Conrad about this legendary Great One. Conrad informs him that yes, something bad will happen to you if you do not follow the Great One. Yuuri freaks out and informs them that he never planned to be king!
Gwendal: Just as planned.
Oh snap, Gwendal thinks Yuuri is incompetent. Why is this just now coming to light? LOL YUURI AGREES? So Conrad must come out and defend Yuuri and refers to Gwendal by his last name. Oh my. Dramallama~
NOW WOLFRAM IS GETTING IN ON THE ACTION! He declares that Yuuri is unworthy because he is human! But oh no, Yuuri’s father is a Mazoku? Ohohoho~
And here it comes, bitches.
Wolfram: Well. YER MOM! >8|
Yuuri: Oh no she didn’t.
BITCHSLAP of doom ™
Lol, you don’t talk about Yuuri’s momma. This is serious fuckin’ business.
B-but what happened to sweet pacifist Yuuri? Oh who cares, that was lol-inducing.
Anyway, so everyone proceeds to freak out and ask Yuuri to take it back but Yuuri stands firm! He shall not take it back, not ever!
Cheri then exclaims that this is in fact fantastic and that “love is in bloom~” or some other strange cultural reference.
Yuuri is confused.
Cheri starts telling Wolfram that she was right and now men want him. Yuuri is still confused. So he asks Günter to explain.
And thus comes around one of the epic high-points of the series. Among aristocrats, Günter explains, the act of slapping one’s opponent across the left cheek is the act of proposing marriage. Yuuri just asked for Wolfram’s hand. And, uh, male-male marriages are common in Shin Makoku? HARDxCORE, I DESIRE TO LIVE THERE NOW.
Insert flip-out of Yuuri Shibuya here.
OH WOLFRAM IS NOT PLEASED WITH THIS. HUMILATION GALORE. He even has to be all dramatic and throw the silverware on the floor.
And goddamn it, Yuuri, why did you pick it up? As it were, the act of picking up your opponents knife is the act of accepting a duel. THERE WILL BE BLOOD TONIGHT!
And then we finally get an explanation for the ominous perfume. It’s a special perfume of Cheri’s that makes anyone with any sort of feeling a person has more prominent, thus bringing around Yuuri’s BITCHSLAP of doom ™ and Wolfram’s “hiofdsglhiosghioshgio OH HAIL NO >8|” reaction. This perfume is used as a plot device quite often in fanfiction to varying degrees of success.
TIME SKIP. IT IS NOW NIGHT TIME. CONRAD IS… training Yuuri to fight? And doing a somewhat poor job of it from the looks of things. 8( Conrad has an off-screen explanation about how picking up a knife, even a butter knife, is an acceptance to a duel, yadda.
Now we get into baseball dramaz. Yuuri’s all, “OH MY THIS IS LIKE HOLDING A BAT.” It’s a sword, you dumbass, do it right. >8| Unless you’re planning to go HINAMIZAWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA and kill some people with the baseball bat. ……………………………………………………………that’d be pretty hardxcore, actually. *A*
OKAY SO MOVING ON. Conrad’s all, “if you loved it why’d you quit?”
Yuuri: YOU KNOW ABOUT BASEBALL?! *A*
Conrad: *produces baseball and glove from thin air*
Yuuri: *doesn’t find this bizarre* homfg yeeeeeeeeeeeees
Conrad: |D
No, seriously, people, WHERE DID THE GLOVE AND BALL COME FROM?
Time skip again. Yuuri and Conrad are playing catch (and Conrad fails, apparently) and Yuuri takes a walk down memory lane. And he decides to take us with him and… OHSHI-
CHIBI YUURI
HOMG HIS EYES HAVE NOT SHRUNK AT ALL
Conrad once again asks Yuuri why he quit, and Yuuri explains that he got kicked out for punching out the coach? Wtf gaiz. And then Conrad’s all, “lol you haven’t quit yet. |D”
Conrad is a Boston Red Sox fan. LOL HE’S BEEN TO BOSTON. AMERICA. 17 YEARS AGO. AND THEN HE WENT TO JAPAN. WITH YUURI’S SPIRIT. MET YUURI’S MOTHER. And Yuuri’s all, “wtf r u srs?”
And then it comes out that Conrad named Yuuri and is his godfather.
And then Conrad gives Yuuri the obnoxiously blue necklace. Lol jewelry.
And then begins the duel. Everyone is in attendance. Wolfram’s all, “I’mma gonna pwn you foo’.”
Günter apparently fails at life because how could you not come up with ideas on how to get out of this? Seriously? It takes basic logic, people.
Yuuri just threw off his jacket.
Wolfram’s Inner-mind theatre:
Oh
My
Gooooooooooood~
Not even Hell could be hotter than you right now.
Oh, not even Hell could be hotter than you right now. Oh, not even He~
okay we’re done with that now, moving on.
Lol, now Yuuri wants Wolfram to strip.
now they are going to sumo wrestle. Lolwut Wolfram’s all embarrassed to strip so he shall fight clothed.
They get into position. They lapse into silence. They wait. And wait. And wait. And then-
BITCH YOU JUST GOT FACED
And this scene includes an obligatory crotch shot. Thank you, production team.
Günter hurries over and congratulates Yuuri on his victory. Yuuri’s all, “that was kinda lame actually.”
Wolfram gets up and draws his sword. Conrad throws Yuuri a sword and the two begin to fight. Yuuri decides to enlist his amazing baseball skills in order to face Wolfram, and the result…
Is really bad animation. SOMEONE GIVE THESE GUYS A BETTER BUDGET PLZ
But Wolfram is not finished.
OHSHI- burn baby burn.
Günter tries to intervene and Gwendal stops him in order to see if Yuuri is, in fact, worthy of being king.
Wolfram has a dramatic ‘attack call’ and Yuuri ducks and Wolfram makes a fuckin’ lion of fire and assaults Yuuri and Yuuri ducks and Wolfram’s fire hits a maid and ohshi-
Yuuri’s pissed.
The sky darkens.
The winds pick up.
Goddamn Shin Makoku has some trippy weather issues going on. It’s raining now.
Yuuri just pulled a freakin’ Yu-Gi-Oh! His hair got longer and he got all dramatic and has a darker voice and decides to bitch about justice. And he goes on about how Wolfram is a selfish little manhoe and then threatens to kill him and, uh.
Doesn’t.
Anti-climatic wut.
Gwendal is impressed, though.
I love how the brothers just saw the king threaten to kill their little brother and do nothing. Such care!
Yuuri goes back to normal and passes out.
And Günter runs to Yuuri and then it’s a time-skip to when Yuuri wakes up and Günter is leering over him in a very… unsettling way. Oh Günter.
The lilac advisor then proceeds to explain that Gwendal put up a protective barrier around the maid and that’s how she survived and that she shall be fine.
Yuuri is most pleased.
Until he notices Wolfram standing by the window being all huffy.
And then we see Conrad and Gwendal and a score of troops riding out to who knows where.
And that’s the end of the dramatic second episode of Kyou Kara Maou.
Not even hell could be hotter than you right now. ♥
MY THOUGHTS, LET ME SHOW YOU THEM »
THIS SECTION CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE REST OF THE SERIES!
We meet Wolfram von Bielefeld, officially, this episode (despite his first appearance technically being at the end of episode one.) Wolfram, upon his first introduction, is clearly a brat. He hates the idea of Conrad so much as touching him simply because Conrad has human blood in his veins. He’s selfish, arrogant, and rash, proving all of this during just the first full episode he appears in. He’s also a sore loser, refusing to accept defeat to someone who he considers to be inferior and unworthy and even puts a girl’s life in danger just to prove himself. All-in-all, Wolfram’s the type of character that doesn’t appeal to many people right off the bat. And yet, he’s probably the most popular character in the series. That’s because he doesn’t stay this way. At least not to this extreme. He doesn’t completely loose all of these traits as they are, essentially, part of who he is. He does grow up, in many ways, though, but I won’t get into that now. We’re just two episodes in- we’ve got 76 to go. 76 episodes to sit back and watch him, and Yuuri, and all of them, grow.
We also meet Gwendal von Voltaire this episode. Gwendal is a very quiet, strict man, set in his ways and set in his morals. He falls into ‘gruff-man-with-a-heart-of-gold’ category to a degree; he’s not a completely good person but he certainly is not truly as indifferent and angry as he first appears. Gwendal’s an interesting character, no doubt about it. We don’t know much about his past, or his family, or anything much about why he is who he is. Even at the end of two seasons and a set of OVAs, we still haven’t had much of that explained. What we do learn, though, is quite fascinating and Gwendal’s certainly a character you want to see more, to know more about. His motives and such. But as I said for Wolfram, we’re not gonna go into that much right now. We’ll just have to watch and find out.
The last major character to get introduced this episode is Lady Cecile von Spitzweg. Now I don’t know about you guys? But I’d tap that. SO HARD I WOULD TAP THAT. *A* Cheri (or Celi, depending on your preference) is one who we never really get to see enough of. She’s the mother of three of the main characters (Gwendal, Conrad, and Wolfram) and she’s very… out there. Cheri wasn’t a good queen, and her quality as a mother is debatable. She obviously loves all of her boys, but at the same time, her natural state of being makes it hard to imagine what it must have been like to be raised by her. She’s a very wild, free woman, and we know from her relationship with Stoffel and the events that took place during the war that she’s easily manipulated by those close to her- or at least, she was. She’s a strong woman who doesn’t need a man by her side to survive, though she does clearly want one. And it’s hard to say what exactly she wants from her voyages for free love. A means to escape? To be free? Does she really expect to find love? Who knows? Not I. Guess we’ll just have to watch and see.
We learn this episode about the aristocratic way of proposing marriage; slapping one’s opponent on the left cheek. This is a very humorous little twist, but one must wonder, why, exactly, would they even think of that being a way to propose marriage? Why would that be such a popular custom? I myself had no idea for the longest time, until I stumbled upon a very interesting fanfiction called, if I remember correctly, ‘Turn the Other Cheek,’ which explored this very idea. The explanation proposed in this fic was that it all comes down to love. In a relationship, there will be things your other will do that you don’t agree with, things that could be, figuratively speaking, a slap in the face, and the way to make a relationship work isn’t to lash out and strike back, but to turn the other cheek and shrug and grin-and-bear it. I very much have become attached to the idea, but I wonder, does anyone else have their own explanation or thoughts on why or even how this particular Mazoku tradition came about?
I have no explanation for the knife, so, uh, thoughts on that too. XD
Now, this episode is interesting; especially because of the early glimpses we get of the various dynamics and relationships within the show.
Let’s talk first about the brothers.
When we first see all three brothers together, it’s hard to tell at first glance what their relationship with each other is. Conrad introduces his brothers to Yuuri and Gwendal makes no reaction to his doing so. Wolfram slaps Conrad’s hand away. Wolfram doesn’t acknowledge Conrad as his brother, he even says as much in this episode. He claims that it’s because of the fact that Conrad is part human, and while that certainly seems to be the case at the time? It becomes a bit questionable later in the series. Wolfram falls in love with Yuuri. Yuuri is half-human. Wolfram loves Greta. Greta is human. Wolfram stands up to Saralegui in defense of Caloria, a human nation. But through all this, Wolfram still can’t accept Conrad as his brother. He clearly shows more respect for him, dropping the ‘Lord Weller’ by the end of the series and calling him ‘Conrart’ but he never acknowledges him as his brother. Why is that? My personal opinion, taking what I know of the novels, and from watching Wolfram’s character in the series, is thus; Wolfram is afraid of Conrad dying. We know, from the novels, that Wolfram’s father was never interested in him, and let him, and died. And we also know that Wolfram looked at Conrad as his fatherly figure. Now, imagine you’re in the situation where, at a young age, you have a father who doesn’t love you, and the person who you looked too to fill that spot? Not only lied to you your whole life, but always was going to live barely even half your life span. That’s not an easy thing to understand and accept at such a young age. So what does logic say to do? How does a person go about dealing with something like this? It’s quite a simple concept, really, though it doesn’t always work. Distant yourself from a person. Convince yourself that you hate them. Reject them. Try and make them hate you. That way, when they leave you, it won’t hurt. At least, not as much.
Wolfram loves Conrad. Conrad loves Wolfram. Wolfram just is afraid to let Conrad in for fear that he’ll lose him again and Conrad doesn’t know how to communicate with Wolfram. For that reason, their relationship is one of the saddest in the series, because of the way it develops, and the way it stands now, it seems hard to imagine it progressing much more without something dramatic happening to one or the other to make them understand how the other truly feels. It’s hard to tell whether Conrad really understands Wolfram. It’s obvious he wants to, but he doesn’t seem to know how.
And then there’s Gwendal and his relationship with his two younger brothers. He loves them, clearly. This is most prominently displayed in the final arc and the Conrart Betrayal arc. But he’s very gruff, and never outwardly affection towards either of them. That had to have affected his relationship with them, especially Wolfram, who is a fairly clingy, needy person. Wolfram clearly respects Gwendal a great deal but it doesn’t seem as though he really… gets Gwendal. Understands his reasoning fully and his way of thinking, nor Gwendal Wolfram. Conrad, at least, seems to understand Gwendal a bit better, possibly because he’s older and because they were in the war together. Either way, Gwendal’s relationship with both his brothers seems to be at least on better terms than Conrad and Wolfram, and as such doesn’t seem to be focused on during the series nearly as much.
It should also be taken into account that their relationships shift drastically throughout the series and are very hard to really ‘pin-down,’ mainly because of their seemingly unclear priorities, which I think has a lot to do with the writer’s and the fact that the show’s main focus is Yuuri’s relationships with all of them, not so much their relationships with each other. Conrad, for example, is shown to alternate between prioritizing Yuuri over Wolfram to Wolfram over Yuuri. The latter is rarer, but it does happen, which is very eyebrow-raising. I think it can also be attributed to the fact that so much of the series is filler? I’m not sure. All I know is that it’s frustrating when trying to decently analyze their relationships. >8|
Moving on from the brothers, now we got Wolfram and Yuuri. Their relationship develops quite a bit over the course of the series, so I’m not going to go into great detail here and focus just on the beginning. And what a beginning it is! Upon first meeting each other, they end up engaged and neither willingly. Wolfram thinks Yuuri is unworthy and unfit to be king, Yuuri thinks Wolfram is a snobby brat. Not a very good grounding for a healthy relationship. And yet, right from the beginning, their dynamics and interactions are interesting. You’re never sure what exactly is going to come next and they both surprise you as they help each other grow and change. Here, you can see their blatantly contrasting personalities. Yuuri is relatively laid-back and peaceful, while Wolfram is aggressive and rash. In ways, they are both extremes of their respective personalities and it’s hard to imagine how they can possibly come together, not just in marriage and romance, but in basic friendship! And they don’t like each other. But how they get over that… and develop past that… we’re not going to talk about it now. 8D We’ll just have to discuss it as we go~
I still can’t get over the fact that their engagement was brought around because Wolfram was insulting Yuuri’s momma. That makes me lol so hard, you have no idea.
My first time watching the series, I found it very hard to enjoy the scenes between Conrad and Yuuri. lenainverse mentioned in her post about the previous episode that the two are very similar in a variety of ways, and honestly? I don’t like that. It makes their interactions very boring for me. It’s very… repetitive and dull. Yuuri says something, Conrad agrees, Conrad says something, Yuuri agrees, they play baseball. It just… their dynamics are interesting. They have an interesting set-up, and an interesting basis for their relationship, I was just never quite down with the delivery. Second time watching the series? Nothing has really changed there. In this episode we see that Yuuri already depends largely on Conrad to be sort of his guide in this world, always going to him first and usually directing all questions at him. They play baseball a bit. And then it’s revealed to Yuuri that Conrad is his godfather, and the man who named him, to which Yuuri acts very surprised but we don’t really get a deeper look into how Yuuri feels about that until later. Their interactions in this episode are very straight forward, with Conrad revealing this to Yuuri and explaining how he was the one who delivered Yuuri’s soul to Earth. And at the end of it, he gives Yuuri the necklace. Julia’s necklace. The necklace, which seems at first to be just a simple gift from godfather to godson, proves to be vital throughout the series, not just in aspects of Yuuri’s relationship with Conrad, but also with Adalbert, and with Julia herself. All of that doesn’t come until much later, though, so I’ll leave it at that.
Now, the next part I’m gonna talk about has little to do with character dynamics… actually it has nothing to do with character dynamics, and may be boring to some people, so, uh, feel free to skip over?
We’re gonna talk about the government of Shin Makoku.
Throughout the series, it’s really difficult to tell what kind of government they have. It’s hard to say that they have an absolute monarchy because of the fact that technically speaking, while they have a king, the position is not inherited by name, by blood. It’s given to the most suited person for the job, in Shinou’s opinion. From the little we know of previous kings, post-Shinou’s reign, this is very peculiar seeing as we know there have been dictators and vicious massacres in the past. Cheri was an incompetent queen and Yuuri, from what we can see, isn’t the greatest choice as king. But there’s not a continuing line of monarchs. The one thing that is constant are the noble families, which brings around the question of how much power to the nobles really have. From what I can gather, the king or queen makes the final decision, but they make their decisions, or they are supposed to make their decisions, based on what the aristocrats opt to do. The aristocrats obviously have enough power that Gwendal and Günter can take care of Yuuri’s paperwork and have their word carry as much weight as his. So what exactly is the role of the king? Is the king in absolute power or is he essentially just a figure-head? How does the process of drawing up new laws go? Do the aristocrats have to approve a law before it’s even sent to Yuuri to be approved? Do they have a purely federal system or do they have a federal/state government similar to that of the U.S?
Or is it all, essentially, just a puppet government with Shinou at the head?
In this episode we hear from Cheri that she is retired, stepping down from the throne and handing it to Yuuri. We know while she was in power, Stoffel had the power. Their government seems to be constantly shifting from ruler to ruler, which in and of itself isn’t a good thing. It’s unstable, and instability in government leads to rebellion, rebellion leads to revolution, and revolution leads to chaos. None of which is a good thing.
SO DISCUSS THE POLITICS OF SHIN MAKOKU? Ahaha, I’m probably the only one interested in this stuff. ^^;;
I was also gonna on more about this, but I honestly forgot all that I was going to write, so, uh, we’ll leave it at this.
And as an end note; art still sucks this episode. I cry.
And that is my splurge on Kyou Kara Maou episode 2.
COMMENCE THE FANGIRLING.
Next episode: episode 3 hosted by nekokatechan.
Episode 02
Decisive Battle! Beautiful Boy VS Baseball Boy
THIS IS HOW IT’S GOIN’ DOWN »
So we begin this episode shortly after where the first left off. It opens with a shot of the castle at dusk and then centers in on Yuuri, who is enjoying the new-found luxury of being king in his own private bath. Or so he thinks…
ENTER WALKING CLEAVAGE. (It is at this point that fans who began watching Kyou Kara Maou for the gay tilt their head to the side and go, “HUH?!”)
Yuuri begins to apologize, and the mysterious woman with excessive boobage makes a move on him. He freaks and leaps out of the bath dramatically and flees. Mysterious woman thinks this is cute. How bizarre.
And oh look, random foreshadowing. Way to be subtle.
Yuuri then proceeds to do what he does best; runs to complain to Conrad. Randomly, Günter turns around and asks Yuuri to put something on. COMMENCE NOSEBLEED. OH GÜNTER.
Yuuri holds up the object in question and it is a bikini style underwear type thing. Commonly mistaken for a G-string? Alright then. Conrad informs Yuuri that this is the national underwear of Shin Makoku (wtf?!) and then Günter clasps his hands over his nose in a most dramatic fashion, informing Yuuri that he had an inappropriate thought, and it is then his turn to flee.
The moment Günter leaves, Conrad takes the opportunity to inform Yuuri that he smells marvelous. Awkward. Yuuri mentions that he used the shampoo in the bath. The shampoo that had the ominous foreshadow moment a bit before. Hmmmmm. And then they hear the sound of Günter scolding himself and banging his head against the wall. Conrad and Yuuri remain immobile. Nice job, guys.
Time skip to dinner! It is very awkward and quiet. Günter is not sitting with them and opts to stand around with the maids observing. The silver-haired gruff-ball from the previous episode makes Yuuri uncomfortable. Conrad takes the opportunity to introduce the two other people.
Firstly we’ve got Gwendal von Voltaire (commonly referred to as von Walde in fansubs for some reason. The official translation says von Voltaire and Voltaire sounds more hardxcore so we’re calling him von Voltaire.)
Next up is the blond pretty boy, who we now know is Wolfram von Bielefeld (hey gaiz, you all said his name in the comments from last episode! WE DIDN’T KNOW UNTIL THIS EPISODE HOMG SPOILER? D8) Anyway, Conrad tries to put his hand on Wolfram’s shoulder only to be~
REJECTED!
Unresolved family issues much? Wolfram announces that it is because Conrad is part human that he has such issues.
Conrad seems unfazed.
Now we get into relatively boring talk about Conrad’s heritage. We learn that all of them are half-brothers (because we really couldn’t figure that out ourselves?) and because of the fact that Conrad’s father was not among the Ten Aristocrats, his last name is simply Weller instead of von Weller. The ‘von’ is a symbol of the Aristocrats. He then goes on to say that there was nothing special about his father other than the fact that he had fantastic swordsmanship and was, dun dun DUNNNNNNNN! Human. Because we couldn’t guess that already.
Then randomly we hear a female voice announcing that Conrad’s father was also hot. Mhmmmmmm.
Conrad, Gwendal, and Wolfram all turn and greet their mother, and OHSHI-
THE BREASTS HAVE RETURNED! Mai Valentine’s got nothin’ on this fine rack.
The woman now identified to be the mother of the three brother’s proceeds to hit on Conrad (who was standing, then sitting, and then stood up again? Hello continuity, where art thou?)
And Gwendal, which Yuuri finds most awkward, and then smothers Wolfram in her bosom.
She comments on how he has become quite beautiful and all the boys must be lusting after him and Wolfram doesn’t take to that too kindly. Inside, he is laughing. Just as planned.
She then goes after Yuuri and smothers him as well. Yuuri does not know how to deal with this.
Günter intervenes.
And informs Yuuri that the woman smothering him is Lady Cecile von Spitzweg and that she is the retired demon queen.
“You’ve just inherited my old job, little boy. Half the nobles want to take over, several human countries loathe us, and you have no clue wtf you are doing. Have fun with that! 8D”
Time lapse to later in dinner.
Cheri comments that she’s thrilled Yuuri is becoming King because she is now free to go on her journey for FREE LOVE~
Wolfram refuses to serve Yuuri! He’s not worthy~
But oh, Wolfram does not want to be king? He thinks Gwendal should take the role. Gwendal remains silence.
Cheri reminds Wolfram to think about what happens to those who do not follow ‘the Great One.’ Oh, ominous! Yuuri is curious, so he asks Conrad about this legendary Great One. Conrad informs him that yes, something bad will happen to you if you do not follow the Great One. Yuuri freaks out and informs them that he never planned to be king!
Gwendal: Just as planned.
Oh snap, Gwendal thinks Yuuri is incompetent. Why is this just now coming to light? LOL YUURI AGREES? So Conrad must come out and defend Yuuri and refers to Gwendal by his last name. Oh my. Dramallama~
NOW WOLFRAM IS GETTING IN ON THE ACTION! He declares that Yuuri is unworthy because he is human! But oh no, Yuuri’s father is a Mazoku? Ohohoho~
And here it comes, bitches.
Wolfram: Well. YER MOM! >8|
Yuuri: Oh no she didn’t.
BITCHSLAP of doom ™
Lol, you don’t talk about Yuuri’s momma. This is serious fuckin’ business.
B-but what happened to sweet pacifist Yuuri? Oh who cares, that was lol-inducing.
Anyway, so everyone proceeds to freak out and ask Yuuri to take it back but Yuuri stands firm! He shall not take it back, not ever!
Cheri then exclaims that this is in fact fantastic and that “love is in bloom~” or some other strange cultural reference.
Yuuri is confused.
Cheri starts telling Wolfram that she was right and now men want him. Yuuri is still confused. So he asks Günter to explain.
And thus comes around one of the epic high-points of the series. Among aristocrats, Günter explains, the act of slapping one’s opponent across the left cheek is the act of proposing marriage. Yuuri just asked for Wolfram’s hand. And, uh, male-male marriages are common in Shin Makoku? HARDxCORE, I DESIRE TO LIVE THERE NOW.
Insert flip-out of Yuuri Shibuya here.
OH WOLFRAM IS NOT PLEASED WITH THIS. HUMILATION GALORE. He even has to be all dramatic and throw the silverware on the floor.
And goddamn it, Yuuri, why did you pick it up? As it were, the act of picking up your opponents knife is the act of accepting a duel. THERE WILL BE BLOOD TONIGHT!
And then we finally get an explanation for the ominous perfume. It’s a special perfume of Cheri’s that makes anyone with any sort of feeling a person has more prominent, thus bringing around Yuuri’s BITCHSLAP of doom ™ and Wolfram’s “hiofdsglhiosghioshgio OH HAIL NO >8|” reaction. This perfume is used as a plot device quite often in fanfiction to varying degrees of success.
TIME SKIP. IT IS NOW NIGHT TIME. CONRAD IS… training Yuuri to fight? And doing a somewhat poor job of it from the looks of things. 8( Conrad has an off-screen explanation about how picking up a knife, even a butter knife, is an acceptance to a duel, yadda.
Now we get into baseball dramaz. Yuuri’s all, “OH MY THIS IS LIKE HOLDING A BAT.” It’s a sword, you dumbass, do it right. >8| Unless you’re planning to go HINAMIZAWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA and kill some people with the baseball bat. ……………………………………………………………that’d be pretty hardxcore, actually. *A*
OKAY SO MOVING ON. Conrad’s all, “if you loved it why’d you quit?”
Yuuri: YOU KNOW ABOUT BASEBALL?! *A*
Conrad: *produces baseball and glove from thin air*
Yuuri: *doesn’t find this bizarre* homfg yeeeeeeeeeeeees
Conrad: |D
No, seriously, people, WHERE DID THE GLOVE AND BALL COME FROM?
Time skip again. Yuuri and Conrad are playing catch (and Conrad fails, apparently) and Yuuri takes a walk down memory lane. And he decides to take us with him and… OHSHI-
CHIBI YUURI
HOMG HIS EYES HAVE NOT SHRUNK AT ALL
Conrad once again asks Yuuri why he quit, and Yuuri explains that he got kicked out for punching out the coach? Wtf gaiz. And then Conrad’s all, “lol you haven’t quit yet. |D”
Conrad is a Boston Red Sox fan. LOL HE’S BEEN TO BOSTON. AMERICA. 17 YEARS AGO. AND THEN HE WENT TO JAPAN. WITH YUURI’S SPIRIT. MET YUURI’S MOTHER. And Yuuri’s all, “wtf r u srs?”
And then it comes out that Conrad named Yuuri and is his godfather.
And then Conrad gives Yuuri the obnoxiously blue necklace. Lol jewelry.
And then begins the duel. Everyone is in attendance. Wolfram’s all, “I’mma gonna pwn you foo’.”
Günter apparently fails at life because how could you not come up with ideas on how to get out of this? Seriously? It takes basic logic, people.
Yuuri just threw off his jacket.
Wolfram’s Inner-mind theatre:
Oh
My
Gooooooooooood~
Not even Hell could be hotter than you right now.
Oh, not even Hell could be hotter than you right now. Oh, not even He~
okay we’re done with that now, moving on.
Lol, now Yuuri wants Wolfram to strip.
now they are going to sumo wrestle. Lolwut Wolfram’s all embarrassed to strip so he shall fight clothed.
They get into position. They lapse into silence. They wait. And wait. And wait. And then-
BITCH YOU JUST GOT FACED
And this scene includes an obligatory crotch shot. Thank you, production team.
Günter hurries over and congratulates Yuuri on his victory. Yuuri’s all, “that was kinda lame actually.”
Wolfram gets up and draws his sword. Conrad throws Yuuri a sword and the two begin to fight. Yuuri decides to enlist his amazing baseball skills in order to face Wolfram, and the result…
Is really bad animation. SOMEONE GIVE THESE GUYS A BETTER BUDGET PLZ
But Wolfram is not finished.
OHSHI- burn baby burn.
Günter tries to intervene and Gwendal stops him in order to see if Yuuri is, in fact, worthy of being king.
Wolfram has a dramatic ‘attack call’ and Yuuri ducks and Wolfram makes a fuckin’ lion of fire and assaults Yuuri and Yuuri ducks and Wolfram’s fire hits a maid and ohshi-
Yuuri’s pissed.
The sky darkens.
The winds pick up.
Goddamn Shin Makoku has some trippy weather issues going on. It’s raining now.
Yuuri just pulled a freakin’ Yu-Gi-Oh! His hair got longer and he got all dramatic and has a darker voice and decides to bitch about justice. And he goes on about how Wolfram is a selfish little manhoe and then threatens to kill him and, uh.
Doesn’t.
Anti-climatic wut.
Gwendal is impressed, though.
I love how the brothers just saw the king threaten to kill their little brother and do nothing. Such care!
Yuuri goes back to normal and passes out.
And Günter runs to Yuuri and then it’s a time-skip to when Yuuri wakes up and Günter is leering over him in a very… unsettling way. Oh Günter.
The lilac advisor then proceeds to explain that Gwendal put up a protective barrier around the maid and that’s how she survived and that she shall be fine.
Yuuri is most pleased.
Until he notices Wolfram standing by the window being all huffy.
And then we see Conrad and Gwendal and a score of troops riding out to who knows where.
And that’s the end of the dramatic second episode of Kyou Kara Maou.
Not even hell could be hotter than you right now. ♥
MY THOUGHTS, LET ME SHOW YOU THEM »
THIS SECTION CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE REST OF THE SERIES!
We meet Wolfram von Bielefeld, officially, this episode (despite his first appearance technically being at the end of episode one.) Wolfram, upon his first introduction, is clearly a brat. He hates the idea of Conrad so much as touching him simply because Conrad has human blood in his veins. He’s selfish, arrogant, and rash, proving all of this during just the first full episode he appears in. He’s also a sore loser, refusing to accept defeat to someone who he considers to be inferior and unworthy and even puts a girl’s life in danger just to prove himself. All-in-all, Wolfram’s the type of character that doesn’t appeal to many people right off the bat. And yet, he’s probably the most popular character in the series. That’s because he doesn’t stay this way. At least not to this extreme. He doesn’t completely loose all of these traits as they are, essentially, part of who he is. He does grow up, in many ways, though, but I won’t get into that now. We’re just two episodes in- we’ve got 76 to go. 76 episodes to sit back and watch him, and Yuuri, and all of them, grow.
We also meet Gwendal von Voltaire this episode. Gwendal is a very quiet, strict man, set in his ways and set in his morals. He falls into ‘gruff-man-with-a-heart-of-gold’ category to a degree; he’s not a completely good person but he certainly is not truly as indifferent and angry as he first appears. Gwendal’s an interesting character, no doubt about it. We don’t know much about his past, or his family, or anything much about why he is who he is. Even at the end of two seasons and a set of OVAs, we still haven’t had much of that explained. What we do learn, though, is quite fascinating and Gwendal’s certainly a character you want to see more, to know more about. His motives and such. But as I said for Wolfram, we’re not gonna go into that much right now. We’ll just have to watch and find out.
The last major character to get introduced this episode is Lady Cecile von Spitzweg. Now I don’t know about you guys? But I’d tap that. SO HARD I WOULD TAP THAT. *A* Cheri (or Celi, depending on your preference) is one who we never really get to see enough of. She’s the mother of three of the main characters (Gwendal, Conrad, and Wolfram) and she’s very… out there. Cheri wasn’t a good queen, and her quality as a mother is debatable. She obviously loves all of her boys, but at the same time, her natural state of being makes it hard to imagine what it must have been like to be raised by her. She’s a very wild, free woman, and we know from her relationship with Stoffel and the events that took place during the war that she’s easily manipulated by those close to her- or at least, she was. She’s a strong woman who doesn’t need a man by her side to survive, though she does clearly want one. And it’s hard to say what exactly she wants from her voyages for free love. A means to escape? To be free? Does she really expect to find love? Who knows? Not I. Guess we’ll just have to watch and see.
We learn this episode about the aristocratic way of proposing marriage; slapping one’s opponent on the left cheek. This is a very humorous little twist, but one must wonder, why, exactly, would they even think of that being a way to propose marriage? Why would that be such a popular custom? I myself had no idea for the longest time, until I stumbled upon a very interesting fanfiction called, if I remember correctly, ‘Turn the Other Cheek,’ which explored this very idea. The explanation proposed in this fic was that it all comes down to love. In a relationship, there will be things your other will do that you don’t agree with, things that could be, figuratively speaking, a slap in the face, and the way to make a relationship work isn’t to lash out and strike back, but to turn the other cheek and shrug and grin-and-bear it. I very much have become attached to the idea, but I wonder, does anyone else have their own explanation or thoughts on why or even how this particular Mazoku tradition came about?
I have no explanation for the knife, so, uh, thoughts on that too. XD
Now, this episode is interesting; especially because of the early glimpses we get of the various dynamics and relationships within the show.
Let’s talk first about the brothers.
When we first see all three brothers together, it’s hard to tell at first glance what their relationship with each other is. Conrad introduces his brothers to Yuuri and Gwendal makes no reaction to his doing so. Wolfram slaps Conrad’s hand away. Wolfram doesn’t acknowledge Conrad as his brother, he even says as much in this episode. He claims that it’s because of the fact that Conrad is part human, and while that certainly seems to be the case at the time? It becomes a bit questionable later in the series. Wolfram falls in love with Yuuri. Yuuri is half-human. Wolfram loves Greta. Greta is human. Wolfram stands up to Saralegui in defense of Caloria, a human nation. But through all this, Wolfram still can’t accept Conrad as his brother. He clearly shows more respect for him, dropping the ‘Lord Weller’ by the end of the series and calling him ‘Conrart’ but he never acknowledges him as his brother. Why is that? My personal opinion, taking what I know of the novels, and from watching Wolfram’s character in the series, is thus; Wolfram is afraid of Conrad dying. We know, from the novels, that Wolfram’s father was never interested in him, and let him, and died. And we also know that Wolfram looked at Conrad as his fatherly figure. Now, imagine you’re in the situation where, at a young age, you have a father who doesn’t love you, and the person who you looked too to fill that spot? Not only lied to you your whole life, but always was going to live barely even half your life span. That’s not an easy thing to understand and accept at such a young age. So what does logic say to do? How does a person go about dealing with something like this? It’s quite a simple concept, really, though it doesn’t always work. Distant yourself from a person. Convince yourself that you hate them. Reject them. Try and make them hate you. That way, when they leave you, it won’t hurt. At least, not as much.
Wolfram loves Conrad. Conrad loves Wolfram. Wolfram just is afraid to let Conrad in for fear that he’ll lose him again and Conrad doesn’t know how to communicate with Wolfram. For that reason, their relationship is one of the saddest in the series, because of the way it develops, and the way it stands now, it seems hard to imagine it progressing much more without something dramatic happening to one or the other to make them understand how the other truly feels. It’s hard to tell whether Conrad really understands Wolfram. It’s obvious he wants to, but he doesn’t seem to know how.
And then there’s Gwendal and his relationship with his two younger brothers. He loves them, clearly. This is most prominently displayed in the final arc and the Conrart Betrayal arc. But he’s very gruff, and never outwardly affection towards either of them. That had to have affected his relationship with them, especially Wolfram, who is a fairly clingy, needy person. Wolfram clearly respects Gwendal a great deal but it doesn’t seem as though he really… gets Gwendal. Understands his reasoning fully and his way of thinking, nor Gwendal Wolfram. Conrad, at least, seems to understand Gwendal a bit better, possibly because he’s older and because they were in the war together. Either way, Gwendal’s relationship with both his brothers seems to be at least on better terms than Conrad and Wolfram, and as such doesn’t seem to be focused on during the series nearly as much.
It should also be taken into account that their relationships shift drastically throughout the series and are very hard to really ‘pin-down,’ mainly because of their seemingly unclear priorities, which I think has a lot to do with the writer’s and the fact that the show’s main focus is Yuuri’s relationships with all of them, not so much their relationships with each other. Conrad, for example, is shown to alternate between prioritizing Yuuri over Wolfram to Wolfram over Yuuri. The latter is rarer, but it does happen, which is very eyebrow-raising. I think it can also be attributed to the fact that so much of the series is filler? I’m not sure. All I know is that it’s frustrating when trying to decently analyze their relationships. >8|
Moving on from the brothers, now we got Wolfram and Yuuri. Their relationship develops quite a bit over the course of the series, so I’m not going to go into great detail here and focus just on the beginning. And what a beginning it is! Upon first meeting each other, they end up engaged and neither willingly. Wolfram thinks Yuuri is unworthy and unfit to be king, Yuuri thinks Wolfram is a snobby brat. Not a very good grounding for a healthy relationship. And yet, right from the beginning, their dynamics and interactions are interesting. You’re never sure what exactly is going to come next and they both surprise you as they help each other grow and change. Here, you can see their blatantly contrasting personalities. Yuuri is relatively laid-back and peaceful, while Wolfram is aggressive and rash. In ways, they are both extremes of their respective personalities and it’s hard to imagine how they can possibly come together, not just in marriage and romance, but in basic friendship! And they don’t like each other. But how they get over that… and develop past that… we’re not going to talk about it now. 8D We’ll just have to discuss it as we go~
I still can’t get over the fact that their engagement was brought around because Wolfram was insulting Yuuri’s momma. That makes me lol so hard, you have no idea.
My first time watching the series, I found it very hard to enjoy the scenes between Conrad and Yuuri. lenainverse mentioned in her post about the previous episode that the two are very similar in a variety of ways, and honestly? I don’t like that. It makes their interactions very boring for me. It’s very… repetitive and dull. Yuuri says something, Conrad agrees, Conrad says something, Yuuri agrees, they play baseball. It just… their dynamics are interesting. They have an interesting set-up, and an interesting basis for their relationship, I was just never quite down with the delivery. Second time watching the series? Nothing has really changed there. In this episode we see that Yuuri already depends largely on Conrad to be sort of his guide in this world, always going to him first and usually directing all questions at him. They play baseball a bit. And then it’s revealed to Yuuri that Conrad is his godfather, and the man who named him, to which Yuuri acts very surprised but we don’t really get a deeper look into how Yuuri feels about that until later. Their interactions in this episode are very straight forward, with Conrad revealing this to Yuuri and explaining how he was the one who delivered Yuuri’s soul to Earth. And at the end of it, he gives Yuuri the necklace. Julia’s necklace. The necklace, which seems at first to be just a simple gift from godfather to godson, proves to be vital throughout the series, not just in aspects of Yuuri’s relationship with Conrad, but also with Adalbert, and with Julia herself. All of that doesn’t come until much later, though, so I’ll leave it at that.
Now, the next part I’m gonna talk about has little to do with character dynamics… actually it has nothing to do with character dynamics, and may be boring to some people, so, uh, feel free to skip over?
We’re gonna talk about the government of Shin Makoku.
Throughout the series, it’s really difficult to tell what kind of government they have. It’s hard to say that they have an absolute monarchy because of the fact that technically speaking, while they have a king, the position is not inherited by name, by blood. It’s given to the most suited person for the job, in Shinou’s opinion. From the little we know of previous kings, post-Shinou’s reign, this is very peculiar seeing as we know there have been dictators and vicious massacres in the past. Cheri was an incompetent queen and Yuuri, from what we can see, isn’t the greatest choice as king. But there’s not a continuing line of monarchs. The one thing that is constant are the noble families, which brings around the question of how much power to the nobles really have. From what I can gather, the king or queen makes the final decision, but they make their decisions, or they are supposed to make their decisions, based on what the aristocrats opt to do. The aristocrats obviously have enough power that Gwendal and Günter can take care of Yuuri’s paperwork and have their word carry as much weight as his. So what exactly is the role of the king? Is the king in absolute power or is he essentially just a figure-head? How does the process of drawing up new laws go? Do the aristocrats have to approve a law before it’s even sent to Yuuri to be approved? Do they have a purely federal system or do they have a federal/state government similar to that of the U.S?
Or is it all, essentially, just a puppet government with Shinou at the head?
In this episode we hear from Cheri that she is retired, stepping down from the throne and handing it to Yuuri. We know while she was in power, Stoffel had the power. Their government seems to be constantly shifting from ruler to ruler, which in and of itself isn’t a good thing. It’s unstable, and instability in government leads to rebellion, rebellion leads to revolution, and revolution leads to chaos. None of which is a good thing.
SO DISCUSS THE POLITICS OF SHIN MAKOKU? Ahaha, I’m probably the only one interested in this stuff. ^^;;
I was also gonna on more about this, but I honestly forgot all that I was going to write, so, uh, we’ll leave it at this.
And as an end note; art still sucks this episode. I cry.
And that is my splurge on Kyou Kara Maou episode 2.
COMMENCE THE FANGIRLING.
Next episode: episode 3 hosted by nekokatechan.