Review of Black Butler

Kuroshitsuji, or Black Butler (which is what I'm going to call it for the review) is a great example of why you shouldn't place a pussy in the cutting room floor; because when you do so they're too afraid to cut anything out and you end up with a bunch of unnecessary bullshit. I swear, if Black Butler was half the length and more concise it could actually have earned the amount of praise it gets. However, since it's more lose than a contortionist’s bowel movement and longer than it needs to be, it's a crappy series. The story revolves around Ciel Phantomhive and his plotfor revenge against the people who killed his parents with the help of his Demon, Sebastian. This would make for an interesting story, but, thanks to the poor editing job I mentioned earlier, it's as appealing as a pile of rotting meat and just about as easy to swallow. It presents a whole mess of stories that may or may not relate to the overarching plot, and everything in it is all is made-up on the spot with hardly a sense of coherence or continuity. Episode 16 is a self-contained story that does nothing for anything in the series. It just wastes an episode. A coherent narrative is there at times, but not enough to make it good. The reason I say that it would be better if it were shorter is because some of the stories are at least interesting, and in the case of some of the better episodes, is relevant to the plot. I genuinely liked episode 21 because it expands on the servants that Ciel hires beyond their normal quirky selves. Although, it should have been early in the series in order for it to make more sense and not just like something they pulled out of their ass to foreshadow future episodes. That's a good example of how organization can hinder something.

As much as they pulled the story out of their ass, they also pulled many MANY elements of the story out of their ass as well. The mythology in the show is never explained beyond the establishing factor. Reapers hate demons, demons can do anything, and a third example I would provide, but it is spoiler-y, so I cannot. It's not the mythology that's poorly thrown together either, character relationships, major plot points, even the historic elements get poorly assembled in order to create a story. I don't mind if demons exist in a realistic world, but if it is supposed to be a realistic setting than you cannot just forge history because we've already accepted demons. If it's important to the plot than it's alright, but there is no reason to make up history for the real world that has nothing to do with the plot at hand, when there is already history for said world that has nothing to do with the plot at hand. It's like if I made a series that takes place during the real WWII, not a fictional one mind you, that involved ghosts but said that The Prime Minister of Great Britain was Mr. T instead of Winston Churchill, it's factually inaccurate. Unless it's important to the story, and they can explain it well, Mr. T as Prime Minister would be wrong.

However, as much as I hate the story, there are some nice story elements to it. The whole revenge plot, while done before, is still nice to see, and it gets interesting. That is, until they start pulling shit out of their ass again. We also see a lack of editing again, where the revenge plot is nice, but it takes 17 EPISODES to get the story actually going, and everything else before that is just filler, some of which is good, but all of which has no effect on the story. Still, some of it is pretty alright, and could have made for a better anime, but Black Butler just fails in execution very hard because someone in the cutting room floor thought it was necessary to delay the story in favor of doing pointless bullshit. It doesn’t even have the excuse of world-building either, because each episode or arc has a story, it just has nothing to do with the overarching story.

The characters of Black Butler are a bit better than the story, although in that it shoots itself in the foot. It has a slew of interesting, if one-dimensional, characters at its hand and who are the main characters of the show? The two most dull and annoying characters they have. Ciel is just a whiny arrogant bitch, and Sebastian is a God-Mode Stu whose job in the series is to take the suspense out of everything. Literally, he is shown doing impossible things, even for a demon with super-powers. A battle early in the series is between him and a giant wolf creature who can breathe fire, which could have been an interesting life or death situation, but Sebastian does it like it’s no problem. He never struggles with anything; he always just does everything perfectly, which makes that his imperfection ironically. If there’s a need to kill any suspenseful moment or ruin any plot twist that might be interesting, Sebastian is your go-to guy. As for Ciel, mostly he’s a whiny bitch who is arrogant and that’s not really a character that the series can run on. Sure, he has his reasons for it, but he’s just so one-dimensional that it hurt. I know he’s suppressing his emotions, but if he could express any other emotion when he’s alone, or in a situation that can allow it than he might be more likeable. Fortunately, he does get character development, AFTER 22 EPISODES! Again, that’s a problem with the editing. Back on track, his character development is actually interesting. It all starts when he loses Sebastian and has to find his way back home, because without his butler by his side he can’t defend himself and no one considers him to be as rich as he is. On his quest home, he learns thing about himself and becomes more likeable. As for the rest of the characters, aside from the main villain of the show, they’re all quite nicely varied and interesting in their own ways. Sure, they might be one-dimensional, but they’re all tolerable dimensions, if you can understand that logic.

I’ve heard people praise the animation, even people who think it’s worse that I think it is, but I do have a few problems with it. It’s torn between wanting to copy the animation for Ouran and wanting to copy the animation for Hellsing, and they often mix and match the two styles in instances where one style is needed. Both Ouran and Hellsing have great animation, but when you switch them up as often as they do in this, both styles lose their charm after a while, and the impact is lost. The impression that it leaves is a sort of “please pay attention to us” vibe that wants to draw viewers in, rather than create a decent tone with its art. One other major problem I have with the art is that whenever they have a close-up of Sebastian’s face he almost always has a really dumb expression on it. It really takes the “serious badass” aspect he’s supposed to have, if the who “too perfect” thing didn’t do it first. Still, the art is nice to look at, even if it’s not all that original, and the character designs are pretty nice on a good number of characters, but it’s not as great as some people make it out to be.

The music is pretty cool. The opening and both endings are good to listen to, and the background music is very interesting and tries to create a nice tone, which the story immediately ruins. Still, it’s not that great of a redeeming quality, because Black Butler has a lot of quality it needs to redeem; like the dub, for instance. It’s not a bad dub, per say, but when compared to the subbed version, it is just laughable. Most of the subbed voices actually make the characters sound cooler than their dubbed counterparts. Even Sebastian, which I didn’t think was possible. The sound quality of the show though, is generally pretty good.

Finally, there is one more thing I’d like to address. Even though I say these bad things about the series, I would recommend that you watch it anyway. “Why?” you may ask; because all these bad points make it incredibly funny to watch. It’s not the best at pulling of “it’s so bad it’s good” because I admit, there are good bits, and there are some bad parts that are just bad, but it is somewhat fun to watch, and if you approach it with the right attitude, it will go by quickly.

Overall: Black Butler is a very flawed, yet very fun ride. Some of the things are good, and some of the things will make you bang your head against the desk. The non-main characters are mostly fun and enjoyable, and the production value is pretty good, but nowhere near the best out of a series. It’s a very cheesy show and you could probably milk it for all it’s worth by making fun of it, but if you go in expecting a very serious story, than you will be thoroughly disappointed. 5/10