Having nothing better to watch these days, I went for bijin series just for a change of pace in my anime life. You know; waiting 5 years for another FMAB to pop up. So here I am viewing this “Butler from Hell anime”, which comments make it look like it’s orgasm in animated form. I sat down with zero expectations knowing how bijin looks and lots of fujoshi fandom don’t mean good news. Well, no surprise, I was right.

First of all I will admit that Sebastian is the coolest anime butler of all times. I mean, what other candidates are there? That irritating indecisive harem shit archetype one from Hayate no Gotoku, or maybe those trash from Ladies versus Butlers? No sir, the competition was low to begin with and dear Sebastian wins while still making breakfast for his master. As a character, I found him to be the tuxedo wearing offspring of Alucard from Hellsing and Enma Ai from Jigoku Shoujo. Not bad of a combo I must say. Ok, he was not battle frenzied like dear old All but was equally imba during battle. And yes, he does send people to hell by making contracts with them. Plus, he is made of the stuff that makes fujoshis scream like they are being teased in their privates by a j-pop band. All of its members at the same time. And then there is Ciel, the frail and cute shota with an attitude that gets carried around by Sebastian in his lap like a good doggy every five minutes. Yeah, great service there people.
Well, they are not the only ones of course; pretty much every important character in this series is like a model agency graduate with debatable sex and sexual preferences. All part of looking gaunt enough to keep watching even if you don’t like the plot one bit .

From the above monologue, you can figure out that I give full mark to character figures. And I also do for all the backgrounds, sceneries, and overall artwork too. Victorian England looks very interesting and besides some minor anachronisms, it is very realistic in how society was running back then. High amount of detail and decoration, smart camera angles and uses of lighting and shading, plus many wonderful sceneries to just stare at how beautiful they are.

Well, it’s still not a perfect mark though. The actual animation is rather sloppy, with many still panels, jerky movements, low frame rate and sometimes annoying chibi moments. Yes, lots of rather crude chibi looks that ruin true immersion to the story. But I still give an overall of 9 for looks alone.

The sound department is mighty fine too. Great voice acting, nice atmospheric music, ok sound effects, the package does it’s magic with flying colours. The bijins are seducing you with their tone of voice or making you laugh with their sillyness. Gets a 9 here too just for not having memorable songs.

Now about the story… It’s weak. Really weak. The premise is about Ciel selling his soul to the devil in order to get revenge on the dudes who killed his family and becoming a boy detective in order to find clues. And it’s also about Sebastian… looking cool. That’s pretty much all of it. Ok, it’s not THAT bad but the presentation doesn’t have any sort of brilliance in its handling. Mystery exposition is rushed, the chain of events is loose and happens as the author likes it, the showdowns ain’t exciting at all. Want a breakdown? Ciel is looking for a criminal, goes somewhere, meets someone, a crime happens and it is revealed the guilty one was the guy he just met. So his life is in danger and so tells his butler to fix this mess because they will be late for tea time. And that’s it… No matter the situation, Sebastian is simply unbeatable and doesn’t even need to use strategy in battle. It’s just brute force. Yeah, totally unexciting…

Not only that, but as the story goes on, this becomes more and more of a problem and in the end it feels like everything happens like Bleach in totally random and convenient ways. So the detective and mystery aspects of the story are plain horseshit and ruin the already simple premise of the story. I mean, check out Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro. It was detective and supernatural but had actual interest and showdowns (of sorts). This? This was Scooby Doo serious before it.

The ending is also left rather open and there is already a sequel airing, so there isn’t even a closure to the already simplified and kindergarten-handled main story. I was told that the anime added a lot of filler and that the manga is far better, thus the story is yet another victim of adaptation decay. So I give the story an overall of 3 for barely being there. But hey, who cares about the story if you can stare at Sebastian giving Ciel a spongebath ?

Let’s not kid ourselves, the selling point of the series is Sebastian. The anime itself is named after him. As long as you are satisfied watching him doing cool stuff with his underage sex partner master, then all the rest are trivial. And if that is not enough, there are many comic relief characters to have fun as substitute for the piss poor storytelling. To be honest, most characters get exposition and you really do get to know a lot about them as the story goes on. They are not entirely stunts. But since all that always happens out of the blue, lasts 5 minutes, doesn’t affect the main story, is hardly ever mentioned again, and it’s usually ridiculed by bad jokes, well, that makes all character progress and coloring to be equal with the Stone Age while using watercolors on an open space during a heavy rain. But who cares about depth if I get to wet my thingy by staring at them? I give the characters the base score for being a colorful and lively bunch but lacking at true development or even catharsis.

The value and enjoyment of this anime are a weird thing. Fujoshis adore it and most will probably have decorated the ceiling above their beds with doujin pictures of Sebastian ass-serving Ciel. The only replay value I see here is just so you can keep staring at the bijins and NOT the story or the plot. That counts as something but I definitely know it is not an anime that will be remembered for anything other than its main character. By the way, I hear the sequel sucks Ciel’s ass, so chances are the mythos will die out faster than Haruhi’s E8. 4 on both.

Now if you excuse me, I will return back to watching pitiful anime fandom deifies for silly reasons while waiting for another FMAB.

SUGGESTION LIST
Hellsing
Jigoku Shoujo
Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro