Black Butler Anime: Season 1
Friday, August 02, 2013
Note: I watched the English dubbed version, other versions of the anime have different actors.
Black Butler is an anime based on the manga of the same title. Set in historical England, Ceil Phantomhive inherits not only the family mansion but, also, the father’s profession of watch dog to the Queen, after his parents die in a tragic fire. Plagued with grief, the young boy makes a deal with a demon, who he names Sebastian, and has him pose as his butler until Ceil avenges his parents’ deaths—only then can Sebastian take Ceil’s precious soul.Black Butler was recommended to me by a friend and I wasn’t sure I would like it when she described it to me. It sounded dark and something I would find a little too horrid. However, I was wrong. Black Butler is horror but holds a good amount of intrigue.
Since the show was set in historical England, voice actors
brought their British accents to set the stage.
J. Michael Tatum, who voices Sebastian, seemed to have no trouble at
all. (Picture: In June, I got the chance to meet Tatum!) However, a lot of the show goes to
Brina Palencia, the voice of Ceil, not only can she pull off a young boy’s
voice but can she do that with a British voice which is extremely
talented.
The plot was a little disappointing. What I’ve been noticing with Japanese anime,
it seems to be heavy in character depth but it’s a rare treat to get a
story line with depth. Black Butler
doesn’t move in its plot until the end.
At the end, the audience becomes deep in a story line that wasn’t there
before. However, the plot is structured
well: there’s a butler who’s a demon and a child who’s the lord of the
Phantomhive business. The structure stays constant so I was never confused until some of the story line hit.
The ending of the show was predictably sad, but
bearable. Sebastian seems to be a black
and white character, a demon who wants a soul.
There is no depth to that, which leads to a simple ending. Well, it could have ended there and even
though it wasn’t the ending I would have liked, I would have gotten over it
eventually. Instead, there is a season 2
which I will review sometime soon.
Animation: 4
Voice Acting: 5
Plot: 3
Ending: 4
Characters: 3
0 comments