Review of Black Butler: Emerald Witch Arc

I've been a fan of Black Butler for as long as I can remember and this is one of the best narrative arcs so far. If I had to judge based solely on that, my rating would be an 8 or higher. However, I can't get behind how the studio is handling a project that deserves so much respect. The visuals are often stunning, but if you look past embellishments, does the animation actually have much quality? The scenes are often lazy, the movements are not fluid or sometimes not shown at all and replaced by still frames. It often almost seems like they barely animatedmanga panels. Even though some scenes are really well executed, they don't make up for the overall problem.
I'm not usually the type to nitpick on these details, I can enjoy even below-standard animation, but Black Butler deserves (finally) a good adaptation, especially this arc.
And I don't think this studio is handling it well enough.