Black Butler

Set in an Victorian era London, lives the 13 year old Ciel Phantomhive as earl. He got this position after the Phantomhive manor was attacked and set on fire killing his parents and his dog, Sebastian. (The story contains many dark elements but let's not go into detail. Also, the anime shows it differently from manga). After much endurance, he unintentionally managed to summon a demon and formed a contract with him. Hence, the Faustian contract symbol on Ciel's right eye. After the formation of the contract, the demon reveals he will consume Ciel's soul as payment for helping him achieve his goal; revenge on those who brought down the House of Phantomhive. The demon then starts living as Ciel's Butler until Ciel could get his revenge. Ciel then names him Sebastian Michaelis, after his deceased pet dog.

The concept is very dark and interesting but the anime decided to take a different route from manga. While, it is still understandable and the storyline still remains as interesting, it's the characterization, that takes the beating. Few of the antagonists like Lau and Fallen Angel developed faster than we expected. It felt rushed. Interestingly, we hardly got to know anything about Elizabeth and Undertaker in this season despite the fact that Ciel's fate was shown in this season itself. It was not until Book of Atlantic, do we get to see their real motives. The anime contains the references of many European literature and it also briefly talked about Indian/Hindu mythology. Each of those references looked well researched and felt accurate. The kind of an action we see in the anime, doesn't look 100% satisfying. I felt the anime had a potential to have even more intensed climax and more powerful action scenes.

Is the anime recommendable? Only if you are not a manga reader. Is the manga recommendable? Maybe. I am certain that the manga content must be multiple times better than the anime version. Lastly, even though I was always okay with that, I feel the need to say this - Beware, this anime contains some indirect homosexual contents. If you are not comfortable with that, you can avoid watching this show.

OK, this is not cowboy bebop of FLCL (which I am not that big of a fan) but it is a very good show. The story flows, it slowly lets pieces of the mysteries go, and best of all it actually has a decent ending.

I am pretty picky about my anime. For the life of me I cannot understand the love for Trigun, except Nicholas Wolfwood. Most animes ruin it with the ending. This one is really good. I agree it starts out pretty bad but then so does Hellsing OVA and it turns really good really fast. It has a darker feel toward the end reminiscent of Fullmetal alchemists. If you want the standard hero shows up has a minor problem then overcomes the bad guy with some special power. This is not your show. If you want a solid story with some of the cutsie stuff that ends well, has really decent lessons, and great side character stories then I say give it a try. The second half is not quite as good but then ending makes it well worth the time.Plus there is no way to not like Sebastian since he is "One hell of a butler"

The Atmosphere of this Anime is getting interrupted by the Comedy Scenes, for example Tanaka.

The first Season has too much Comedy.

The Second Season is Kinda unnecessary.

The Third Season is the best Season, in my Opinion. Every Episode brings the Plot forward. And there are nearly no comedy scenes, so the Atmosphere isn't interrupted.

When you take all of this together this Anime is a 7/10. (without comedy this would be much better).

Note:

I recommend you to get as less information as possible about a Movie or an Series. It makes it much more interesting.

"Black Butler" started a bit disappointing. It was clear from the beginning, that the anime would walk in the footsteps of "Deathnotes". After some time, the typical anime plots (Faustian Pact, Lost Parents, Revenge, Friendship) are revealed but then the Victorian Age feeling gets much better and bigger attention. There's a ton of really well researched stuff and the tension rises as the main story unfolds.

The show is not as good as "Death Note" and has imho a lot of homosexual content in it, which is more or less openly shown. I assume it is, among other things, to attract more female and viewers. The funny thing is, that females are either shown as dolls, clumsy servants, killing machines or just some extras. While Walt Disney is getting really feminist lately, the Japanese have yet to invent better female - believable - anime characters.

Including all flaws - this is one of the best anime shows at the moment. A mixture of Steampunk, Gothic Horror and Crime. Not too violent and gory but at times very thrilling!

8/10

It has a nice dark Gothic aesthetic and an interesting story . I say it as a jack the riper era London, meets demon bonding.

I believe the manga was still on going, but some of the fan ships that turned me off this show some of the interactions with a hungry demon are romanticized on someone who it should not be romanticized on.