Rating: 2.5/5
Title: Black Butler
Creator: Yana Toboso
Aired: 2006- ongoing
Episodes: 3 Seasons
Genre: Action/ Comedy/ Fantasy
**THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS**
Ciel Phantomhive is the 12 year old head of the powerful Phantomhive family. He is also known as Queen Victoria’s “watchdog”. He goes around doing her biding with the help of his demon butler Sebastian.
Starting with the good parts of this anime… hmmm lets see…
I guess this anime can be fairly funny at times. The main character Ciel is really serious and a bit of a perfectionist but many of the people around him are kind of stupid and mess up… A lot. You can probably see where the funniness comes in. And even people who are normal (as normal as an anime character can get) treat Ciel like a little kid. I mean he is a kid but he has had to grow up a lot faster than most 12 year olds. And we soon find out why…
Ciel’s parents are murdered and he wants to find a way to avenge their deaths. He ends up making a contract with a demon (Sebastian). If Sebastian helps Ciel find and kill all the people who were involved with his parent’s murder, Sebastian can eat his soul.
Ok let’s move on to the bad parts… *cracks knuckles*
Oh lord this anime is quite a doozy. As you watch it you begin to have hope that maybe just maybe, Sebastian will let Ciel live. But no, he does not. The first season ends with Sebastian eating his soul. Hold on, what about the second season? Ciel comes back to life like nothing happened. I still don’t get it. He’s just there. BUT WAIT! Now there is some creepy a$$ blond kid who beats up on his servants saying they deserved to be punished and then turns around and starts pretending he’s a plane. Oh yeah btw he has a demon butler too. And yes this butler looks like Sebastian with different hair and glasses.
At some point during the first episode of the 2nd season Sebastian just pops into this other kid’s mansion with Ciel in a tiny suit case (?). Then the two butlers fight a bit and… I don’t know what happens. At that point I just gave up and walked away.
All in all I think this anime is kind of forgettable. I’m trying to think of individual episodes but I just remember pieces of a few of the exciting ones. This is probably due to the fact that most of the episodes are about Ciel going on missions for the Queen. So many of them feel like filler episodes until finally an episode or two comes along that actually has something to do with the main plot line (Ciel trying to find his parent’s killers) and you’re like “Oh I forgot there was reason why there’s a white butler demon following this angry child around.”
I rated this anime 2.5 out of 5 because when it is not totally confusing and aggravating, it has some fun characters and a good amount of action and comedy.