Black Butler: Complete Second Season Blu-ray

Black Butler: Complete Second Season

 (TV) (2010)

Black Butler: Complete Second Season Blu-ray delivers stunning video and audio in this excellent Blu-ray release
In late-nineteenth century England, one year and three months after the dramatic conclusion of the first season, season 2 introduces a new butler and young master. The sadistic yet cheerful Alois Trancy has faced some harsh times. He was kidnapped as a baby, and was forced to work in a village as a slave. Gradually, he lost his parents, his best friend, and everyone he knew. Alois eventually returned home and became the head of his mansion, but seemed to exhibit some strange behavior ever since. Even more curiously, he returned with Claude Faustus, an enigmatic, emotionless butler with unfathomable talent...

For more about Black Butler: Complete Second Season and the Black Butler: Complete Second Season Blu-ray release, see the Black Butler: Complete Second Season Blu-ray Review

Starring: Brina Palencia, J. Michael Tatum, Daisuke Ono, Maaya Sakamoto, Hiroki Touchi, Yûki Kaji
Director: Toshiya Shinohara

» See full cast & crew

Black Butler: Complete Second Season Blu-ray Review

Wake up, you've been dreaming!

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, March 30, 2012

Legions of loyal Dallas fans had a collective "WTF" moment when the long running series' ninth season got started and it turned out everything that had happened the previous year had simply been a dream. With an awareness that this might be considered a spoiler for those who are unacquainted with this series, the first season of Black Butler ended with what might be called the consummation (for lack of a better term) of the occult contract between demonic butler Sebastian Michaelis and his supposed charge Ciel Phantomhive, a consummation that resulted in Sebastian consuming the soul of his supposed master. One would think that that would be the end of the show, considering one of the two main characters is, in Monty Python parrot sketch parlance, an ex-character, but of course that ignores the old show business dictum that if something is succeeding, why let mere death stand in the way of proceeding with a project? The second season of Black Butler attempts to maneuver around this seemingly insurmountable obstacle with a fair degree of sleight of hand, and it further echoes that long ago Dallas trick by starting several episodes with various characters awaking from slumber. In fact the whole second season of Black Butler has a much more surreal and dreamlike ambience than the first year did. It's as if the entire occult element of the series has opened a portal to a parallel world of magical beasts and characters, through which Ciel, Sebastian and several other supporting characters traipse in a semi-somnambulistic manner, perhaps not fully aware (at least with their rational minds) of what exactly is going on.



The dreaming motif is certainly not any mere coincidence. One of the second season's two closing themes contains this lyric:

Asleep, you look so sad
You look as though you're having bad dreams

and the animation accompanying the tune features a bright luminescent blue butterfly that is oddly similar to the one that accompanies live action commercials for the sleep aid Lunesta. (That may be just a coincidence.) But really this whole second season is a sort of dreamlike journey that doesn't have the same anchoring in supposed real life that Black Butler's first season did. Not that this is a complaint, mind you: the second season of the show is considerably moodier, spookier and perhaps more redolent of the occult than the first season ever was.

There's a dreamlike use of doppelgangers and doubles, with another young boy and his butler, Alois Trancy and Claude Faustus, playing important parts in this season's plot arcs. It turns out there's a longstanding connection between the Phantomhives, the Trancys, and the Queen, and the interrelationships that have been forged by previous generations spill out into the developing relationship between Ciel and Alois. The two boys are distinctly opposite, though both are deeply troubled in their own way. Both have unusual façades which mask their true natures, though with each of them the façade is completely different as indeed are their characters. While no one would ever accuse the relationship between Ciel and Sebastian of being exactly healthy, it's a paradigm of normalcy compared with that of Alois and Claude.

This second season of Black Butler continues the dark and frankly disturbing elements that made some of the first season so distinctive, but this second season seems to eschew, partially at least, the buffoonish comedy relief of some of the supporting characters in favor of some more dramatic elements. We get back story information on both the fates of Ciel's dead parents as well as some (again mirroring) information with regard to Alois, and more often than not this information is dark, creepy and disturbing. This season has a fair amount of graphic imagery which rather distressingly depicts some of the bizarre "traditions" of the demonic butler class, as well as Ciel and Alois.

Black Butler won't be everyone's elegantly served cup of tea, but it remains one of the more stylish and unusual animes in recent memory. The occult aspect may bother some, not to mention some of the frankly disturbing subject matter that creeps into this second season, perhaps even more than it did in the first season. This is a substantially more dramatic season than the first, and it features a couple of well done plot arcs that help to elucidate the relationship between Sebastian and Ciel. For those who don't mind a series which delves into the Black Arts, this is a well done and consistently distinctive outing that offers some intriguing characters in an unusual setting and timeframe.

Black Butler: Complete Second Season Blu-ray, Video Quality

 

My comments about Black Butler: Complete First Season hold true as well for the second season's AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. Once again, this very distinctively animated series offers nicely sharp and clear line detail supporting a variety of nice looking character designs as well as some equally nicely rendered CGI elements. The colors once again pop very well and are nicely saturated. The recurring motifs of a spider (tied to the Trancy household) and a luminescent blue butterfly also lend this second season an appropriately spooky flair. This is a solid and enjoyable high definition presentation that continues the excellence of the first season.

Black Butler: Complete Second Season Blu-ray, Audio Quality

 

Once again as with Black Butler: The Complete First Season, this second season features two lossless audio options, an English dub delivered via a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix and the original Japanese language track delivered via a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mix. For the record, and again as with the first season, this is one of a very few FUNimation Entertainment releases where the audio options can't be toggled through via the Audio button on your remote. Instead each must be accessed separately via the Setup Menu. There are also no optional subtitles on this release—they are part and parcel of the Japanese language track and cannot be turned on otherwise. Both of these mixes have their own charms, though most will probably want to opt for the English language track for a couple of reasons. First of all, the voice actors all do creditable if not outstanding British dialects, helping to properly locate the series in its time and place. Second of all, this particular English dub features a number of people not normally associated with FUNimation English dubs, and so there's a greater variety here than is often the case with FUNimation releases. Fidelity is excellent on both of the tracks, though as seems to be the case more often than not, the English dub features a much more aggressive low end (and not just because of the 5.1 element). Surround activity is well handled in the 5.1 mix, and the series' appealing music sounds great on this track.

Black Butler: Complete Second Season Blu-ray, Special Features and Extras

 

• Episode 1 Commentary features Luci Christian (Alois) and Jason Douglas (Claude Faustus). This is actually rather low key commentary for a FUNimation outing, but these two, who first worked together years ago in a stage version of A Christmas Carol and later did voice work on a number of projects, have obvious chemistry together. They talk about their background as well as the "creepy" elements of Black Butler.


• Episode 12 Commentary features Brina Palencia (Ciel) and J. Michael Tatum (Sebastian). This is just slightly more raucous than the Christian – Douglas commentary, but it's enjoyable, if often self-serving (the commentary gets off to a labored start as the two joke about how awesomely talented they are).


• OVA 3 Commentary features Ian Sinclair, the ADR Director for the series (as well as a voice artist for Baldroy). This is a rather odd OVA, a faux "Making Of" quasi-documentary which features the characters as the actors portraying them (if that makes any sense). Sinclair talks about how funny the episode is and how they approached voicing the characters playing actors playing characters (if that makes any sense).


• Outtakes (HD; 3:20) is a set of audio errors, playing to the animation sequences where they took place.


• U.S. Season 1 Trailer (HD; 1:02)


• U.S. Season 2 Trailer (HD; 1:32)


• Textless Opening Song – Shiver (HD; 1:32)


• Textless Closing Song – Bird (HD; 1:32)


• Textless Closing Song – Kagayaku Sora no Shijima ni wa (HD; 1:32)


• OVAs. Though not officially listed as supplements in this package, the second season set of Blu-rays offers all six of the OVAs that appended the original run of the series. These include:
  OVA 1 – Ciel in Wonderland Part 1
  OVA 2 – Welcome to the Phantomhives
  OVA 3 – The Making of Black Butler II
  OVA 4 – Ciel in Wonderland Part II
  OVA 5 – The Threads of the Spider's Story
  OVA 6 – The Story of Will the Reaper


• Trailers for other FUNimation Entertainment Releases

Black Butler: Complete Second Season Blu-ray, Overall Score and Recommendation

 

This second season of Black Butler takes a turn toward the dark and disturbing, and that may turn off some viewers who were drawn into the first season's more comedic elements. The series is still incredibly stylish and there are at least a couple of really compelling plot arcs that play out in this second season, but they're always within the context of some kind of unseemly occult elements that are at the least disturbing, and perhaps for some viewers even more than that. But for those who don't mind a little Satanic element in their animes, Black Butler is stylish and consistently interesting. This second season continues the first season's outstanding video and audio, and the supplements here are even better than in the first season. Highly recommended.