Review of Black Butler

Black Butler is an odd mix of comedy, drama, fantasy and yaoi undertones. There are few anime out there that can combine comedy and drama without ruining one of these elements, sadly enough Black Butler is not one of these shows. The comedy totally ruins the drama and is often unfunny and immature, the bishies and yaoi tropes were unnecessary and the fantasy didn't make sense. But for some reason, this anime is in the top 50 most popular anime on MAL, why? Probably because it had bishies, a hot butler, nice music, pretty animation and a gay death god that tries to make senpainotice him, oh so hilarious.

~Story~ 3/10
We meet our main character, a 10 year old boy (who looks like a girl) and gives his soul in exchange for revenge against the people who killed his parents and tortured him. Two years have passed and our main character, Ciel Phantomhive, has a demon butler who helps him with his revenge (and cleans his house). Though they don't really seem to care about taking revenge, because they're way to busy with drinking tea and solving crimes. The queen decided to make Ciel her personal detective for some kind of reason, we never really discover why, but now Ciel wastes his time with solving crimes. And for some kind of reason are there always supernatural creatures involved in those crimes, so Sebastian can show of his fabulous demon fighting skills, while fighting them. The first episode was amazing, there was a dark atmosphere, the main characters looked interesting and the plot twist near the end was great. And then everything went downhill, our main character and his demon butler get a mission, they discover that something supernatural is involved, they solve the mystery and Sebastian says "I'm one hell of a butler", then there is another mission or a filler, in the last case the viewer is tortured with the Phantomhive servants (also known as comedic relief no one asked for) screwing up things and sucking at everything except for killing people. This kind of "comedic relief" totally ruined the drama in the anime, even a cliché sad backstory didn't make these servants more interesting, because their only use in this anime is screwing up everything.

The setting also fails, no one behaves like they're supposed to do in the Victorian age. Still, the first part of the story is decent, some episodes were actually good, but the second half was just a convoluted mess. Nothing that happened made sense, characters behaved out of character (Sebastian leaves Ciel for a stupid reason), plot twists came out of nowhere and unexplained supernatural occurrences happened. Only the ending was great, the last minutes of the show were better than the whole second half together. But then, the creators decided to ruin that by creating a sequel that just erased the great ending of the first anime, like it never happened. Amazing job writers!
{CONCLUSION}
The story was decent in the first half and a total mess in the second half. There were way too many fillers and none of these fillers were funny or interesting, they were just a waste of time. Also the gay undertones (everything about Ciel, Grell's behavior towards Sebastion, crossdressing for no good reason and so on) were unnecessary. It didn't add anything to the plot, but it just attracted those annoying teenage girls who love yaoi pairings and name themselves 'missPhantomhive489' on YouTube.

~Art~ 8/10
The animation was very good, especially the backgrounds and clothes. The anime is set the Victorian age setting and the buildings were very realistic and fitted the time period (the behavior of the characters didn't). The character designs were quite feminine, Ciel really looks like a girl even without wearing a dress, but not bad. Every character had their own distinct features, which made them stand out. The animation was also pretty good during the fights and during the comedic relief moments (I still hate these moments, but the animation looked good)
{CONCLUSION}
The animation was great. Yes, bishies everywhere but the backgrounds were spectacular. Not a single character looked boring and the clothes were very detailed. The animation was probably one of the best things about this show. And I have to admit, Sebastian throwing knives and forks at random baddies looks extremely epic.

~Music~ 9/10
The opening song "Kiss of Monochrome" is great and really fits the more dramatic parts of the show. The first ending song "I'm ALIVE!" is an upbeat J-pop song that fits the stupid comedic relief moments. The chibi art style of the animation of the ending song was actually quite amusing. But the second ending song is on a whole new level, "Lacrimosa" is sad, melancholic and extremely beautiful. The background music was nothing special but certainly not bad and the voice acting was very good. Especially Sebastian's voice actor did an amazing job. The music was simply put great.
{CONCLUSION}
The first ending song was okay and the opening and second ending song were amazing. The background music was good and the (Japanese) voice actors did a great job. The best thing about Black Butler was the music, and that is not meant as an insult, the music was just damn great.

~Characters~ 2/10
Our main character is a snobby, spoiled, edgy, teenage bishie, sorry Ciel but you're not only an annoying person, you're also a bad character. His motivations are unclear, his behavior is inconsistent and drinking tea does not make anyone seem 'cool'. Also, he's just a walking mannequin, the creators were too busy with making him wear fancy dresses to give him a likeable (or at least tolerable) personality. Sebastian is just a hot and perfect butler, he seems more like a perfect boyfriend than a scary demon. Which was probably on purpose, because now the fangirls have someone to ship Ciel with, or themselves. Though he has as much depth as a paddling pool, he's enjoyable to watch (something that can't be said about Ciel). His fighting scenes were pretty cool and he has style. And of course, let's not forget 'I'm one hell of a butler'. He's a badly written character who's a joy to watch. And then we have the Phantomhive servants, they were useless, whiny, annoying and not funny. Their 'sad' background stories were extremely cliché and they ruined every attempt to make this show dramatic (or a bit more mature). Grell is a gay shinigami, who wants to bang Sebastian and just like the servants, his role is to ruin every attempt to make this show serious, oh and his constant nosebleeds are not funny at all. And there is Elizabeth, the most whiny and useless love interest for a protagonist since Misa from Death Note (and even Misa has more brains than this walking candy cane) and her attempts to make everything 'cute' annoyed the heck out of me. I was literally cheering when Ciel tried to slap her. Every other side character is either boring or horrible (aside from Undertaker, he was pretty cool).
{CONCLUSION}
It it so difficult to create cast with at least one character who's tolerable, let alone well written? Ciel is a edgy, whiny and spoiled teenage boy living in Victorian England, but behaving like he lives in the present. Sebastian (that name is so damn cliché for an English butler) is way too perfect and lacks any form of depth, but it's a joy to watch him kill people with knives and forks. Grell is a joke, he's gay for Sebastian and that's everything about him. The servants are annoying 'comedic relief' and Elizabeth has a place in my top ten most annoying anime love interests. She did not a single useful thing in 24 episodes, not a single thing! The rest of the cast is not even worth talking about and Undertaker is okay.

~Enjoyment~ 5/10
This was my third anime and when I watched it for the first time, I actually enjoyed it, but when I rewatched it, I realized how flawed this show actually is. It is possible to enjoy this anime when you're either new to anime in general, when you just want to have some fun with a supernatural show without thinking to much about the story or the characters or when you love yaoi undertones and bishies in dresses. It's not a horrible show, but the plot is a mess, the characters are weak and the yaoi undertones are annoying. Still, if you have a lot of time to waste or you just want to turn of your brain, then you might want to watch this show, in every other case, there are way better anime out there!
{CONCLUSION}
It's an under average show. Certainly not the worst anime, but also not worth the praise it gets and the enormous fan base. If you value you free time and prefer good anime, I would suggest that you skip this show. Oh and fans, can you please stop making creepy Ciel x Sebastian fanart? That's pedofilic demon yaoi, just don't. Peace!