Black Butler was WORSE than you remember

That show about sexy demon butlers and kids with some Batman level trauma? Yeah, hard not to be interested. Coupled with bad and then good representation? It's a heck of an anime.

✦ Creator of my avatar: @DragunFU

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#blackbutler #anime #cartoon #videoessay

[cicadathegod]

Wait until they discover the manga has been on/off hiatus because the creator is working with Disney Japan which opens a whole new rabbit hole- twisted wonderland.

[ladynoluck]

Well, the abuse of children isn’t fully for shock value. If anything, a large part of the manga is about discussing the abuse, exploitation, and adultification of children, the crimes of the rich and the class & nobility system, and how the two intersect. It doesn’t always do it well, but it does often surprise you with how poignant it can be.

[Poke-ladd]

I know the filler season 2 has a fair amount of hate but looking it at a logical standpoint- realistically there would be other demons tricking humans and making pacts and The queen would have more than one family working in the shadows

[capuchinosofia]

Im both like "oh no" and "oh yes" lmao

[stefaniastep]

the appeal of ciel in a dress has never been the fact that it's funny because he's uncomfortable, it's always been the fact that yaoi/shounen-ai enjoyers back in the day loved the crossdressing trope. There was a whole subgenres of shounen mangas written by women who left homoerotic subtexts because they were actually yaoi enjoyers.
The authors in this genre had written / publicly liked popular yaoi or shonen ai mangas. Yana toboso, for example, drew yaoi doujinshis before blackbutler. Same goes for Clamp, the authors of pandora hearts, nanami d.gray man etc

She was not using crossdressing for laughs.. it was for horny

(edit: sexualisation of minors is not something i enjoy. But i was there at the time and was a manga fan who read a lot of BL and had friends with similar interests 15 years ago. I've never met anyone who didn't see the undertones)

[bquncy]

The only suicide joke I can recall stem from Butler Grell in the anime. Some people have speculated it’s “foreshadowing” to her being a grim reaper — as in the canon it’s divulged that reapers are made from humans who have killed themselves and must collect souls as a form of “punishment” and “cause for redemption” for taking their own lives (some lore has been sprinkled concerning a “higher up” but we doubt Yana will do much with it). However the anime foreshadowing anything like that without Yana’s creative input is very unlikely, and it was mostly just used as a dumb gag.

[ActiveBserver]

"...The butler archetype was an example of positive masculinity. You have someone that provides and is also not holding it over someone's head." This! This! This! Capable, chivalrous and dutiful without harboring secret expectations for it.

[soulluuandy]

This is going to be one HELL of a video

[arminesweetheart]

I was screaming "THIS IS NOT CANON! THIS IS NOT CANON " during half of the video😭 the manga is much better wait for you to review the green witch arc

[ashtrash]

Honestly Black Butler feels like a wild fever dream from middle school. Half of the time I was trying to figure out which episodes I had seen and which ones I hadn't and the side characters I honestly thought I had made up or were from a different anime that I had forgotten about. And I remembered hating Ciel and Elizabeths betrothal but couldn't remember specifically why until you reminded me that they are cousins.

[Alex_in_Wonderland]

It still to this day kills me that Ciel bought the whole “Alois killed my parents” shit when he should know damn well that Alois would’ve been like……12? Or 10? Bruh I know your math ain’t that bad

[nope]

37:50 Ciels outfits, ESPECIALLY this one, are what got me sucked into BB in the first place. Id spend literal hours scrolling the concept art/references for all of their outfits and dissecting how to draw ruffles and folds and flowers and lace and details and shit from it. It made something in my brain click and I was obsessed with lolita/ouji fashion, which lead into historical victorian fashion, which lead into victorian architecture, which lead to my obsession with the Victorian era as a whole [its the car crash I cant look away from]. 100% Yana Toboso contributed to me being a fashion history nerd. The aesthetics of the manga are gorgeous and Yana's art is beautiful.

[saros_system]

14:24 "Coming sir", "Yes in fact I think he is." XD

[novastein]

Black Butler was one of my First Anime back when I was 13 or so. Really liked it back then, though in retrospektive I can really see some...weird shit with it. Never actually read the Manga, so I am really interested to see where it goes!

[mystique]

Welcome to the fandom brother.
Yana Toboso also happens to be the illustrator for a Disney Game made by Aniplex and Square Enix, Twisted Wonderland. You should come try it out.

[greenbunny]

oh the undertaker zombie experiment ... well how do I tell you 💀...

[ten-chan]

Oh yeah. Oh dear. No, yeah, please read the manga. So many things fall into place given the deeper context presented in the manga. It's still Black Butler at the end of the day, but it is very gratifying to see Yana Toboso come into her own as a storyteller.

[bearerofbadnews]

Takes me back to when I watched season 1 of black butler on the funimation channel back when it was on cable tv.

[itsmarthai]

As a massive fan of season 2, you're completely right

[Xweetke]

Yes! please make a video about the manga! after so many years I feel like i outgrew Black butler, which is sad because I used to be a very big fan. I would like to know what your opinion is on the story. I found black butler when I was like 19 years old and I am now 33. I used to love edgy sexy demon butlers and the fantastical fantasy world they live in. But nowadays its so gory and my frial old grandma heart can't handle it anymore XD Also as a man openly loving cats, he rocked my socks of. XD