Mar 12, 2013
If this was a one-line review, it would be "A great premise but sadly a bad execution." This anime struggles to find a balance between it's serious overarching story and the less serious comedy of it, a comedy that's often immature and just plain unfunny. Around every turn the anime is clearly struggling between being serious and being immature, resulting in a weird mix of the two that's just not appealing at all.
The overarching story has amazing potential, when I read the premise I thought that this might be the not-so-famous cousin of Code Geass, but I was sorely disappointed. While the overall premise
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of Kuroshitsuji looks great on paper, the execution is clearly lacking.
The overarching story of Kuroshitsuji is quite serious and you'll notice that early on, in the first few episodes even. But, as the anime moves on you begin to notice that the other things added together to make the complete story aren't so serious at all.
The comic 'relief' that this anime likes so much quickly becomes so abundant that the serious bits instead become the relief. Unlike in Baccano, where the comic relief was memorable and well executed, the comic 'relief' in Kuroshitsuji is too much, too often, and most of the time it's not comedy but instead just plain immature and silly.
While these characters are out of place in this anime, the two main characters of the anime are very enjoyable. Ciel Phantomhive doesn't really have a particularly interesting or great backstory to him but that doesn't matter because he's well executed. His butler, who also is a main character, is great as well. It was enjoyable seeing their stories unravel between the immaturity of the anime.
Other than that, there's not much to be said of the story and characters aside of the yaoi undertones. This is another silly and immature part of the anime. I don't mind so much the yaoi undertones between the the butler and his master, because they are just that, undertones, but when we get a naked dog-man jumping around and licking people then it gets a bit too much. And, of course the female cast is there every step to bleed their brains out of their noses as soon as something even remotely homoerotic takes place.
The animations aren't deserving of any praise either. While they aren't bad they certainly aren't good either. I'm not an animation buff but I clearly noticed how the animators had problems with consistency when it came to the size of people and objects. Another thing was the fact that perspective seemed to be skewed every now and then. The animations aren't so bad as to make you jump up and yell, but if you're remotely interested in good animation this anime will leave you with a somewhat bad taste lingering in your mouth. Again, it's not that bad and if the other aspects of the anime seems to appeal to you the animations certainly shouldn't drive you away, they're not that bad.
The sound is again not something that I can say I noticed too much of either way. There wasn't anything either good or bad enough to make me notice it. Maybe this is just a failure on my part as a viewer and listener, but I didn't notice anything too good or too bad about the sound.
In conclusion, the sole redeeming quality of this anime is the interaction between Ciel Phantomhive and his butler. The serious overarching story is directly countered by the amount of silly and immature comedy you're served each and every episode. It takes a massively long time for the anime to actually get to the main story, and I had more than one moment where I sat and wondered when on earth they were going to get on with it. The anime is also clearly struggling with finding its place between being a serious drama and being a silly comedy. There are very serious things going on in here, there's even an implied sex-scene that's handled with some degree of maturity until one of the comic relief cast decide to bleed all over the walls with her nose. I guess that's what plaguing this anime, the somewhat serious story that's constantly being countered by a massive amount of silly comedy.
All in all, I don't think this will be a very enjoyable anime for anyone. If you're looking for a somewhat serious anime you're not looking for it in the right place. On the other hand, if you're just looking for something to laugh at this clearly isn't it either. I laughed while watching this anime, but it wasn't because it was fun, it was because it was immature and cringeworthy.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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