Out of all OC’s flashbacks, I think this scene is the most mysterious and confusing one. I’m sure we are going to see a more detailed version of it next month, but before that I need to organise my thoughts, so
I made these notes for myself. Just me rambling as always😀
Whose POV is this?
→ probably from OC’s. The whole flashback in ch19 seems to be from OC’s POV: We see everything through his eyes, how the cult “bought” the twins, how RC was killed etc, so I assume this scene is supposed to be from OC’s POV, too. Also, the boy gets out of breath from running.
This might be a hint that this was the sickly twin, i.e. our Ciel
(though you could argue that even RC, the healthy twin, would get
exhausted if he ran from one room to another in panick).
What I’m pretty sure about though is that there was only one boy in this scene because Tanaka said 「貴方様には酷すぎ」which literally means “For *you(*singular), [this is] too afwul”. If both twins were present in this scene, Tanaka would have used the term 貴方方 (’you(plural)’) or お二人 (’you two’). So he was most probably talking to one child which then raises the question “where was the other twin?”.
Why did the child call Tanaka “Tanaka” and not “Jiiya (Gramp)” as he’d usually do?
→ it doesn’t necessarily have to mean anything, but it’s a little bit weird that the child – regardless of whether it’s OC or RC – called Tanaka “Tanaka” in this scene because both twins would usually call him “Jiiya (Gramps)”.
the meaning of “Lord Ciel…”
→ the translation “Lord Ciel…” makes it seem like Tanaka is referring to the child as “Lord Ciel”, but that’s not necessarily the case! In the Japanese version Tanaka’s line goes “Ciel-sama (Lord Ciel) wa—”. The particle “wa” is a subject marker, so grammatically speaking, as long as “Ciel-sama” is the subject, Tanaka could have meant anything: “Lord Ciel (got kidnapped)”, “(Where is) Lord Ciel?”, etc. So to me it rather seems like Tanaka tried to tell or ask something about “Lord Ciel” but didn’t/couldn’t finish the sentence – which leads me to believe that the child he was talking to was OC, not RC.
What did Tanaka mean by “This is all too awful for you?”
→ it’s such a weird wording, and a weird thing to say in general. If he meant the bloody bodies lying on the floor or something, why would he say “This is all too awful for you”? It surely would be awful for every normal person?? What would be so “awful” particularly
for OC to know/witness? Maybe the culprit Tanaka was facing was someone OC knew?
Where is RC (or OC in case it’s RC’s POV)?
→ we see in the latest chapter that both twins stayed in their room until at least 18:45, but judging from OC’s flashback in ch19 he was alone when he found his parents’ bodies and asked Tanaka for help. Where was RC at that time? Why did the twins act separately?
Related to this, there’s also the question when and how the twins (or one of the twins) managed to get the Phantomhive ring. Was it passed down to RC before Vincent’s death? Or did RC take off the ring from Vincent after he found his body?
Did Tanaka really not see the culprit’s face?
→ it definitely seems like he was facing (one of) the culprit(s) in this scene
however, when he reunited with OC in the hospital (ch63), he stated that he didn’t see the culprits.
Why the lie? He obviously knows something and seems to hide it from OC for some reason. Yana even went through the trouble of painting the background of Tanaka’s panel all black in the comicbook version (left) to make his “……” even more ominious and meaningful.
So why would Tanaka lie to OC? Does it have something to do with his line “This is too awful for you (OC)?” Did he try to protect OC by hiding the the truth? What does he know?? And most of all, why was he, a badass sword fighter (ch100) and baritsu master (ch43), defeated in the first place???
midnight-in-town 