Kuroshitsuji (anime)
Posted on April 2nd, 2009
Kuroshitsuji (The Black Butler)
[Rating: 7.5/10]
Genre: Historical, Paranormal
Kuroshitsuji is a somewhat dark anime that takes place in Victorian England. It centers around the main chracter Sebastian Michaelis, one demon of a butler (pun intended!), who has a binding pact with Ciel Phantomhive, the young and remaining heir of the powerful Phantomhive family. Due to the Phantomhives’ strong ties with the throne, Ciel is often sent to investigate mysteries for the Queen and Sebastian aids him, often ending up being the one to save his life. Of course, there’s always more to it than meets the eye…
Ok, given that I have not read the manga, I found that the anime was rather mediocre in terms of plot, three main things kept me watching:
1) Sebastian Michaelis is one of the more compelling lead anime characters I’ve seen. Ciel was nothing in comparison to him and indeed he’d have been nothing (aka dead) if Sebastian hadn’t saved his ass those years ago.
2) Most of my bachelor’s degree centered around the historical and literary studies of Victorian Gothic literature, so the setting itself was an attraction to me, and to my delight, they did attempt to throw some actual historical events/places/people into the fray of the happenings, even though most of it was wrongly dated. Then again I closed an eye because I believe Kuroshitsuji is meant to be set in a parellel world of Victorian England rather than actual Victorian England (sort of like the city in the Golden Compass trilogy mirroring real Oxford but with daemons and steampunk technology).
3) On a lesser level, I was also curious to find out what happens in the end. Would Ciel honour the pact with Sebastian and would Sebastian actually take the soul of his young master who he had grown somewhat fond of? Since I was rather impartial towards Ciel, I wasn’t really bothered at the end, but still glad that it was done gently. Dare I say it was somewhat poetic?
Also, a couple of the secondary characters were not bad. I actually quite liked Ash before it turned out that he was Angela. Can I please deny his boobage~ Ash is actually quite cool whereas his counterpart is a psychotic bitch. I admit that was certainly a twist I did not expect. I thought they might be related or something, but that was about it… And Plu is a pretty awesome dog, his fire breathing destructiveness aside, he was like this huge puppy who just wanted some TLC. I wish that there had been a bit more about the Undertaker because he was wonderfully eccentric and insane. I think he had the best voice actor of the lot. If there is a second season, I do want to see Undertaker’s face! I won’t be surprised if he’s actually quite good looking despite the scar running across one side. The three servants in the Phantomhive mansion were really annoying at first, but the episode that showed there background made me soften up to them a bit… I know people can be clumsy (myself included) but it’s just that from the beginning those three were so incompetant! They’re awesome at kicking butt though… and Ciel will never know how much he owes them his precious life every other night. Ciel wasn’t the most likeable character to me because he was generally bratty, naive and selfish. Sebastian practically did all the hard bits of the investigation for him and the way he treated Elizabeth was pretty harsh. I dunno, but I’ve never really understood the whole ‘living for the sake of vengance’ thing before. And concerning the music, it was one of the few times I’ve actually enjoyed an opening or ending song. Usually I just skip past the credits at the start and end. The sequence of chibi Sebastian getting prepared for the day was cute~
Filed under: ** anime, historical, paranormal