First Date: Kuroshitsuji
- Title: Kuroshitsuji
- Studio: A-1 Pictures
- Genre: Horror/Comedy
Ratings (out of 5):
- Story: ♥♥♥
- Animation: ♥♥♥
- Characters: ♥♥♥♥
- OP/ED Themes: ♥♥♥½
- Overall: ♥♥♥½
Thoughts:
Kuroshitsuji is the tale of a boy named Ciel Phantomhive living in Victorian England. His parents are dead, leaving him alone…except for his house staff. That staff includes the klutzy maid Meirin, accident-prone gardener Finian, pyromaniac chef Bard, tea-drinking steward Tanaka, and of course, the attractive and talented butler, Sebastian Michaelis– the “demon butler” (literally).
I expected the show to be little more than fluff with elegant gothic visuals, and was pleasantly surprised to find that it’s a nice dark comedy with a touch of supernatural/horror incorporated in. (One particular moment is much more gruesome than I would have expected, actually.)
That said, defeating low expectations doesn’t an amazing show make: it’s attractive and some of the moments are amusing, but thus far there’s been nothing to set it apart from other comedies this season, except perhaps the unusual juxtaposition of (occasional) slapstick comedy and elegant gothic sensibilities.
Maaya Sakamoto as the young Ciel Phantomhive is a lot of fun– Sakamoto has played boyish women before (Ouran High School Host Club’s Haruhi Fujioka; Hellsing’s Rip Van Winkle), but she hasn’t played many boys. (The only obvious one I can find she’s performed is Kyle in Rune Factory 2.) She comes across excellently.
That said…these are characters you’ve seen before. The clumsy, bespectacled, none-too-bright maid with a crush on Sebastian (voiced by Kagamin, a.k.a. Emiri Katou)? You’ve seen it. The chef kinda reminds me of a sillier Final Fantasy VII’s Cid. And Finian is, well, every maladroit secondary character you’ve ever seen.
They’re reasonably amusing, but I find myself more interested in seeing Ciel and particularly Sebastian get comedically shaken up– but given that they’ve both been established as the intelligent characters, I don’t know if we’ll actually see that. I can hope.
Let’s see…solid visuals, good acting, decent story and characters…oh yes! Also, while I found the OP rather meh, the ED was pretty cool.
All in all? Better than expected, even good…but I don’t know if I’ll follow it for long.
Tags: fall-2008, first-dates, kuroshitsuji
October 7th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
[...] Random Feed wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptTitle: Kuroshitsuji Studio: A-1 Pictures Genre: Horror/Comedy Ratings (out of 5): Story: ♥♥♥ Animation: ♥♥♥ Characters: ♥♥♥♥ OP/ED Themes: ♥♥♥½ Overall: ♥♥♥½ Thoughts: Kuroshitsuji is the tale of a boy named Ciel Phantomhive living in Victorian England. His parents are dead, leaving him alone…except for his house staff. That staff includes the klutzy maid Meirin, accident-prone gardener Finian, pyromaniac chef Bard, tea-drinking steward Tanaka, and of course, the attractive and talented [...]
October 7th, 2008 at 6:46 pm
Maaya sakamoto sounds pretty convincing as a male :). again, I agree with you completely on this one…including the songs