Black Butler (anime)

The first anime adaptation of Kuroshitsuji.

Character sheet is here.


 * Abnormal Limb Rotation Range: The Dolls.
 * Adaptation-Induced Plothole: Because the manga had not progressed very far when the first anime was made, there are a number of noticeable differences between the manga and the first two animes. In the manga, to recount some examples:
 * Ciel is more mature, intelligent, and devious and counts as a real Villain Protagonist.
 * Sebastian is more emotional, and his true form is different.
 * Grell is less goofy and more serious.
 * Undertaker's character is very different Behind the Mask.
 * Queen Victoria looks like very different and does not employ Ash, who doesn't appear in the story.
 * The circumstances of Ciel's parents' deaths were different.
 * Ciel did not inherit a family business but founded Funtom when he was ten.
 * Note that after Season 2 the anime adaptations drop the anime continuity and start adhering to the manga again.
 * Alternate Continuity: Starting at episode 7, the anime no longer follows the manga.
 * Several of the cast's anime renditions are also quite different in character from their manga counterparts.
 * British Accents: What else did you expect the dub to do?
 * Butterfly of Death and Rebirth: All over the place in episode 20. Fitting, considering Lau's story and
 * The Doll Episode: One of the anime-original episodes.
 * Foreign Language Theme: "I'm Alive!", the first English ending theme.
 * Ghost Amnesia: The ghost of King Edward has this.
 * I Didn't Mean to Turn You On: Undertaker in the anime loves the feeling of the moisture leaving his body. Unbeknownst to Grell, who tosses him in salt and keeps him buried neck-down.
 * I'm a Humanitarian: Subverted..
 * Light Is Not Good: You know something's wrong when the demon butler is easier to see as heroic than the angel in the series.
 * Lost Him in a Card Game: In season 1, Ciel loses a game of chess, and Sebastian, to the ghost of King Edward and his little brother Richard.
 * Old-Timey Bathing Suit: In episode 7.
 * Our Angels Are Different
 * Overtook the Manga
 * Playground Song: During an arc, Drocell the puppet-working-for-a-serial-killer keeps playing and singing London Bridge is Falling Down. His prey is young, beautiful girls that he turns into living dolls; the song is used to control said dolls and determine what materials to construct them from. Despite being male, he's kind enough to make an exception for Ciel.
 * Season 1 seems to love the song "London Bridge is Falling Down". The tune shows up all over the place.
 * Shout-Out: Episode 7 has a few nods to the Sherlock Holmes novel The Hound of the Baskervilles.
 * The famous painting The Isle of the Dead, by Arnold Böcklin shows up as a landscape.
 * Stealth Pun: In one episode in the first season the rest of the staff are trying (and failing hard) to get a photograph of Sebastian. They plan ways to set up the shot and distract Sebastian on a scale model of the house marking Sebastian's position with the figure of a black sheep, which is Kuro Hitsuji in Japanese.
 * Super-Deformed: The first ending has the characters portrayed in this style.
 * Tanaka gets to the point of it being a Lampshaded, Running Gag.
 * Too Kinky to Torture: Sebastian, Grell, and Undertaker.
 * Utopia Justifies the Means:  for purification? Okaaay.
 * Villain Decay: went from  to a non-threatening goofball with safety scissors and a crush on Sebastian.
 * The same could also be said about the residents of the town in episode 7 of season 1. At first, they're . Later, Sebastian and Ciel come across them...in swimsuits, doing some kind of organized exercise routine
 * Whip It Good: In Episode 20, pleases all the fangirls by whipping Sebastian.
 * Whip It Good: In Episode 20, pleases all the fangirls by whipping Sebastian.