Black Butler II

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
(Redirected from Kuroshitsuji II)
The new main characters, Alois and Claude.

Given the very final way that the first Black Butler anime ended, it didn't seem like there could ever be a sequel. However, financial realities had their way and a sequel, titled Black Butler II, was made anyway.

Alois Trancy is a 13-year-old earl who has made a deal with the demon Claude Faustus who now serves Alois as his black-clad butler. The setup is nearly identical to the first season, but the personalities of the characters involved are very different to the point of being able to be perceived as intentional Jungian shadows of the main characters of the previous season. This changes the entire dynamic.

However, it turns out that despite first appearances this season is not unconnected to the previous and is in fact a true sequel, with numerous characters returning including Sebastian and Ciel as main characters.

Character sheet is here.

Tropes used in Black Butler II include:
  • Backup Twin: Edward Abberline is the twin brother of Fred Abberline from the previous season.
  • Beneath the Mask
  • Big Fancy House: Alois and Ciel both have such.
  • Combat Commentator: Viscount Druitt in Episode 7.
  • Cooking Duel: Sebastian and Claude have an unfriendly cooking duel.
  • Deal with the Devil: Sebastian with Ciel and Claude with Alois. Also, Hannah with Luca and later Alois.
  • Demoted to Extra: Tanaka pretty much vanishes after episode 2. He finally reappears for about 2 seconds during the finale, and gets no spoken lines.
  • Double Entendre: So many. Especially when Claude is having a conversation or talking to himself about Ciel.
  • Evil Versus Evil: Sebastian versus Claude is the big one here.
  • Eye Scream: Alois stabs Hannah in the eye with his finger.
  • Fable Remake: There is a two-part OVA based on Alice in Wonderland, with Ciel as Alice.
  • Face Palm: Ciel when Sebastian has a moment of adoration over stray kitties and ignores the task at hand to do so. Really, every time Sebastian and cats are in the same frame/panel and Ciel is around.
  • Fan Service: In particularly large amounts, both male and female oriented.
  • Flip Personality: Alois' soul ends up in Ciel's body and both souls dispute its control.
  • Frame-Up: Sebastian and Claude cooperate in providing Ciel with fake evidence about the murder of his parents.
  • Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Changed for this season to just "_______ Butler".
  • I Kiss Your Foot: Claude does this to Ciel... and gets kicked in the face for it.
  • Image Song: Several characters get them, including Ronald Knox (who only appears once).
  • Lecherous Licking: In episode 5, a disguised Alois licks Ciel's ear.
  • Masquerade Ball: Alois has one. The entire cast comes.
  • Medium Awareness: Hannah plays this weird instrument that causes intense physical pain in anyone who hears it. So, Agni tries to free Maylene, Finny, and Bard from the effects by way of Pressure Point attacks. It works...but now their voices are out of sync with their lip movements. And it actually is too, if you watch closely.
  • Mental World
  • Never Trust a Trailer: Parodied Up to Eleven in the fourth OVA, featuring the characters as actors. The last portion of the episode features a mock trailer for the season...consisting almost entirely of events that never happened. It gets just a little ridiculous when we see Lau and Ran-Mao show up in a UFO, and it pretty much snowballs from there.
  • No Badass to His Valet: Claude towards Alois.
  • Paper-Thin Disguise: Everyone who watched the first episode probably noticed pretty quickly that the stranger visiting Alois and Claude in the middle of the night is Sebastian Michaelis. In addition, Claude's disguise on the train. One wonders if the butlers are aware of what the word "disguise" actually means.
  • Please Wake Up Alois to Luca.
  • Plot Tailored to the Party: Subverted. It turns out that every passenger on the train had a Chekhov's Skill that when combined can avert the disaster at hand...but Sebastian can do everything by himself.
  • Shotacon The late Earl Trancy.
  • Shout Out: Sebastian's line to Claude as he's hanging on to the trap door in Cielois's maze "We meet again, Claude" is the polite, as one would expect of a butler, form of "We meet again, Cloud" uttered by Sephiroth in Advent Children. Even better as Claude and Cloud share a VA. Square-Enix self-shout.
  • Spot of Tea: Lots.
  • Staying Alive: Sebastian, Ciel and even Lau and Ran Mao.
  • Take a Third Option: Ciel becomes a demon to avoid having his soul devoured. However, Alois unwittingly made the choice for him.
  • Tarot Motifs: The eyecatches have tarot cards in them, different in each episode.
  • Trainstopping: By Sebastian.
  • Twelve-Episode Anime: Season 2 is half the length of season 1.
  • Villain Protagonist: Alois and Claude are much worse than Ciel and Sebastian.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: So whatever did happen to the real Alois Trancy?
  • Zettai Ryouiki: Alois has some Grade A Zettai Ryouiki in the first episode. Mind you, he's wearing knickerbockers, not a skirt.