It's difficult to explain how I feel about the first season of Black Butler. I was very entertained by it, but it was almost as if there was more comic relief than any actual story. During the first season almost everything was done to try and make the viewer laugh, which was nice but not nice enough to save the season.
The story isn't bad, but the problem is that there isn't really a story in the first place. Black Butler stars a young boy named Ciel Phantomhive who is the earl of the Phantomhive family and his butler, who is a demon named Sebastian Michaelis. (In case you didn't know, Black Butler is set in the time of the Victorian Era.) Ciel forms a contract with Sebastian in order to get revenge on the people who have soiled the Phantomhive name, and to get revenge on the person who burned down his mansion and caused the death of his parents--although he doesn't know who this person is yet.
But the story, for some odd reason, doesn't seem to be centered on that, at least not during the first season. Sure, Ciel brings it up all the time, but the situations he gets involved in don't usually have to do with exacting his revenge, which is strange. Also, remember how I earlier said that this season doesn't really have a story? I'm going to bring that up again. Every episode of this season there's a different problem. Each problem is resolved at the end of its episode. However, these problems would definitely not realistically be resolved in such a short amount of time. Additionally, most of these problems appear to be either randomized or extremely unlikely.
Another thing I'd like to acknowledge is that the characters are pretty much two-dimensional. And to be fair, that's usually what characters are until the second season or, in some cases, even later. But besides Sebastian being a badass and Ciel having the personality of a bratty (yet badass) rebel and the capability of a nine-year-old, the characters don't really have anything else about them. The rest of the characters are so toned down that I can't really say much about them besides "comic relief."
I would just like to let anyone who is reading this and is agitated know that I actually do like Black Butler, very much. Although I've been mostly bringing up this season's issues (and indeed I believe this season was definitely not the best season Black Butler had), I don't dislike Black Butler at all. It just doesn't seem overly special, at least not by this point, and I will post a review for the second season, since I've also watched that. The story isn't overly unique (if there's a story at all).
But here are some good points about this season of Black Butler. The art and animation is very good. There's nothing to complain about there. The quality of the anime itself (rather than the story, characters, etc.) is incredibly satisfactory. Don't let this review turn you off from starting Black Butler; there are many people who like it more than I do, and I'm just one opinion. I hope this helped!
