Kuroshitsuji (Black Butler)

Young Ciel Phantomhive is known as "the Queen's Guard Dog," taking care of the many unsettling events that occur in Victorian England for Her Majesty. Aided by Sebastian Michaelis, his loyal butler with seemingly inhuman abilities, Ciel uses whatever means necessary to get the job done. But is there more to this black-clad butler than meets the eye?

In Ciel's past lies a secret tragedy that enveloped him in perennial darkness—during one of his bleakest moments, he formed a contract with Sebastian, a demon, bargaining his soul in exchange for vengeance upon those who wronged him. Today, not only is Sebastian one hell of a butler, but he is also the perfect servant to carry out his master's orders—all the while anticipating the delicious meal he will eventually make of Ciel's soul. As the two work to unravel the mystery behind Ciel's chain of misfortunes, a bond forms between them that neither heaven nor hell can tear apart.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Background

Three musicals based on Kuroshitsuji entitled That Butler, Friendship, Musical Black Butler: The Most Beautiful Death in The World – A Thousand Souls and The Fallen Grim Reaper, and Lycoris that Blazes the Earth were performed in Japan.

A Nintendo DS game called Kuroshitsuji Phantom & Ghost was developed in 2009 and released by Square Enix.

Starring Ayame Goriki as Genpou Shiori (a descendant of Ciel Phantomhive) and Hiro Mizushima as Sebastian Michaelis, a live action film of Kuroshitsuji was released in January of 2014.

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Related Anime

Adaptation:	Kuroshitsuji
Summary:	Kuroshitsuji Recap
Sequel:	Kuroshitsuji II, Kuroshitsuji: Book of Circus
Side story:	Kuroshitsuji: Sono Shitsuji, Kougyou
Other:	Kuroshitsuji Picture Drama

More characters

Characters & Voice Actors

Michaelis, Sebastian

Main

Ono, Daisuke
Japanese

Phantomhive, Ciel

Main

Sakamoto, Maaya
Japanese

Sutcliff, Grell

Supporting

Fukuyama, Jun
Japanese

Undertaker

Supporting

Suwabe, Junichi
Japanese

Finnian

Supporting

Kaji, Yuuki
Japanese

Mey-Rin

Supporting

Katou, Emiri
Japanese

Midford, Elizabeth

Supporting

Tamura, Yukari
Japanese

Spears, William T.

Supporting

Sugiyama, Noriaki
Japanese

Cainz, Drocell

Supporting

Katsu, Anri
Japanese

Durless, Angelina

Supporting

Park, Romi
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Cook, Justin

Producer

Maruyama, Hiroo

Producer

Maeda, Toshihiro

Assistant Producer

Shinohara, Toshiya

Director

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Opening Theme

"Monochrome no Kiss (モノクロのキス)" by SID

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Ending Theme

	1: "I'm ALIVE!" by BECCA (eps 1-13)
	2: "Lacrimosa" by Kalafina (eps 14-24)

Reviews

Jun 14, 2023

Technion

Recommended

I know that the score of the series not that high, but its a personal favorite of mine ever since I’ve started it.

The story seems unique a other should like this.
I liked the plot, it was suitably dark (although not TOO dark for me), and it was one of the first anime of mine. I enjoyed very well!
The Humor and the characters are great, and in my opinion its very good. Have heard about that the manga is better, but haven't read the manga, although I might. Don't know.

So in short, is Black Butler good? I believe so.

Ron. (:

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Aug 5, 2023

PapaSomm

Mixed Feelings

Mood. Moody. Moodiness. This is a “different-from-other-girls,” quirky goth girl’s wet dream. Set in Victorian England, a dark depressed rich boy orphan and his relentlessly sexy demon butler take to detective work while not forgoing lessons in etiquette. This is Tim Burton's vision of a Sherlock Holmes Story; I was surprised Johnny Depp and Helen Bonham Carter didn't make a cameo. The characters have all the charm of the Addams Family, and the atmosphere is as rich as Bela Lugosi's Dracula films. Sophisticated sexy. Your guilty pleasure. One to watch on a rainy day. Did I mention it’s gothic and moody?

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Aug 28, 2023

ThatAnimeSnobRE

Not Recommended

This fujoshibait anime was super popular when it first aired, by ticking all the right notes. Cute boy, sexy butler, dark atmosphere, and some mystery in the background. I will admit that Sebastian is the coolest anime butler of all times. I mean, what other candidates were there? That irritating indecisive harem shit archetype one from Hayate no Gotoku, or maybe those trash from Ladies versus Butlers? No sir, the competition was low to begin with and dear Sebastian wins while still making breakfast for his master. As a character, I found him to be the tuxedo wearing offspring of Alucard from Hellsing and Enma ... Ai from Jigoku Shoujo. Battle frenzied and imba in battle like the former, and sends people to hell by making contracts with them like the latter. Plus, he is made of the stuff that makes fujoshis scream like they are being teased in their privates by all the members of a k-pop band. And then there is Ciel, the frail and cute shota with an attitude, who gets to be carried around by Sebastian in his lap like a good doggy every five minutes. Yeah, great service there, people. Along with them, every important character in this series is like a model agency graduate with debatable sex and sexual preferences. All part of looking gaunt enough to keep watching even if you don’t like the plot one bit. And why would you? There is hardly any.

I give full marks to character figures and backgrounds, meaning the overall artwork. Victorian England looks very interesting and besides some minor anachronisms, it is very realistic in how society was running back then. High amount of detail and decoration, smart camera angles and uses of lighting and shading, plus many wonderful sceneries to just stare at how beautiful they are. Studio A-1 does wonders when it wants to. But not when it comes to animation since movements tend to have many still panels, jerky movements, low frame rate and sometimes annoying chibi comedy moments that ruin the immersion.

As for the story, unlike Sebastian, it’s very weak. The premise is about Ciel becoming a boy detective and selling his soul to the devil in order to get revenge on the dudes who killed his family. It’s also about Sebastian looking cool and that’s pretty much all of it. Ok, it’s not THAT bad but it doesn’t exactly care much about plot progression. Mystery exposition is rushed, the chain of events is loose and happens whenever the author fancies it, and the showdowns ain’t exciting at all. Want a breakdown of most episodes? Ciel is looking for a criminal, goes somewhere, meets someone, a crime happens and it is revealed the guilty one was the guy he just met. So his life is in danger and tells his butler to fix this mess because they will be late for tea time. And then it’s over, Sebastian is simply unbeatable and doesn’t even need to use strategy in battle. It’s just brute force. Basically, the detective and mystery aspects of the story are simple and come down to magic nonsense. As for the ending, there isn’t one, there are more seasons after it where the objective matters less and less. In fact, the second season is completely filler. So yeah, you end up watching it just for Sebastian giving Ciel a spongebath.

Let’s not kid ourselves, the selling point of the series is Sebastian. The anime itself is named after him. As long as you are satisfied watching him doing cool stuff with his underage sex partne…err, I mean master, then the rest become trivial. Beyond that it’s just some comic relief characters to poke fun at, which get backdrop stories at some point and gain half an extra dimension to their personality. They are not entirely stunts, basically. But since all that always happens out of the blue, lasts 5 minutes, doesn’t affect the main story, is hardly ever mentioned again, and it’s usually ridiculed by bad jokes, well, that’s as important as painting with watercolors out in the open during a heavy rain.

As a whole it is not an anime that will be remembered for anything other than its main character ass-serving Ciel. Fujoshis can adore it all they want and can decorate the ceiling above their beds with doujin pictures of those two. The rest of us normal folks have better things to watch.

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Michaelis, Sebastian

Phantomhive, Ciel

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Spears, William T.

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