English Dub Season Review: Black Butler Season Five

Overview:

Queen Victoria of England has ordered her loyal watchdog, 13-year-old Earl Ciel Phantomhive, to investigate a series of suspicious deaths in southern Germany. Across multiple villages, all the victims have one thing in common: they had entered the so-called Werewolves’ Forest right before they developed strange deformities and subsequently died. The rumors were blamed on a “witch’s curse,” the nearby villagers’ firm belief based on old folklore.

Our Take:

Black Butler is a fascinating show, and this was one of the more interesting seasons. It wasn’t bad by any means, but it was weird. It might have only been weird to me, but it made the series hard to place for me. Black Butler takes place in the Victorian era, but there are tanks, and it feels like World War I is right around the corner, but that wouldn’t happen for decades. I understand being nitpicky about a show that involves a demon butler sounds odd, but other than that, it’s stuck pretty well to history from what I had gathered.

The other confusing thing was how Ciel reacted to things around him. He has a deal with a demon, and that demon is his butler. Yet somehow, he finds witches and werewolves existing too hard to believe. Sure… he was right and it ended up being a ruse in order to get Sullivan (the witch) to make a toxic gas, but still his apprehension to belief was… odd.

This was a fun season of Black Butler, and I hope we get another season. I would be surprised if we don’t, and that’s why I’m giving it a slight pass on the ending. Once again, we got an anime ending that leaves off on a pretty large cliffhanger. Black Butler is such a popular show that I would be surprised if it doesn’t get a continuation, but it does knock it down a bit. If you’ve never watched the series before, then I can’t recommend starting here. Start with the beginning, and then when you get here, you’ll enjoy it a lot more. I started with the last season, and it was a bit hard to follow, but I figured it out, so I suppose you could start there if you like.