A Genre Identity Crisis: Shounen or ShounenAi? Black Butler is full of supernatural characters in another context in a luxurious Victorian setting. However it is very strange when the anime demographics its audience more like a shounen. To emphasize it even more the series is better said to be shounenai than shounen itself. However it is not important because that is not the main point of the series. The story of the series begins with a slight horror atmosphere. The first sequence shows a tenyearold boy who trades his soul for a demonic butler to help take revenge against those responsible for his parents. Jumping to two or three years later they are still together. Ciel Phantomhive is now 12 years old and head of the house company accompanied by Sebastian Michaelis a demon butler who can do anything. Together they work for Queen Victoria in solving mysteries. At the same time the audience is also trying to find out about Ciels past. At first glance Black Butler becomes a good story the first impression. However it is not because of the many filler episodes that have been injected. The most logical reason is the lack of material that comes out of the source confusing certain episodes. For fans of the series it leaves many questions and a lot of disappointment. When following the threeepisode rule the series is spectacular. Instantly the mysterious aura became very good throughout the series as well. However when it gets to the sixth episode and above it starts to get a little tiring with all the goals the characters have to do. The Filler Dilemma: A Shift towards Ambiguity and Slice of Life To go through all that tediously honestly how about the next half? The series is completely filler not only ending up being a mysterious anime that is very ambiguous but also being a slice of life that didnt intend to be such a genre. Most of the second halfs story doesnt make much sense when reviewing it through the source. For example the audience never knew how Sebastian had suddenly disappeared considering that in the first place the audience knew he had made an unbreakable contract. It is unrealistic that he leaves Ciel a not allowed personality and commits such an act. The plot twists also come out of nowhere from character motivations to antagonistic justifications. After all the bad writing spoils half of the ending of the series. Sebastian is one of the most admired characters throughout the series when it comes to characters. He is a great butler who acts as an antihero for Ciel. When Sebastian arrives just in time to save Ciel or even uses sexual tactics to get information to the nun its great to know how the audience never expected such a character. On the other hand theres Ciel who of course people prefer to call him the spoiled kid talks a lot of bullshit about why he does everything. The crew of the series practically used his character as a doll to model the centurys fashions of course Victoria. The Flawed Fantasy: Sebastians Unrealistic Perfect Character Trope However such factors do not save them from a highly biased twodimensional character. Sebastian can be similar to Edward Cullens vampire with goodlooking guy trope or other supernatural vampire series. He is a perfect being with no flaws at all. His handsome face that is evil cold yet cunning is impossible. In essence he does not contain such realism in himself as the fantasy of a perfect character trope. On the other hand he also has a sense of humor even though he doesnt seem to have any intention of being funny at all. Unfortunately the fanservice of crossdressing or mass production of childlike male character fans is suppressed so deeply that the audience sometimes cant take it seriously. The animation flows beautifully where the production depicts a thick setting from the Victorian era. The mega houses and the clothes are all intricately designed. In fact in some action scenes the studio still has an animation that continues. It never lets choppy animations ruin the flow. Gothic is very thick here as a whole. Not only through design but through taboo themes that were thick in that era. However as the audience has realized from the start the nuances of fanservice are what causes the series to be so difficult to take seriously. Black Butler is not an anime where the audience is always looking at the clock and thinking whether this is over or not. However the series is very good at responding to a feature with a fairly boring execution. The pandering of fan nonsense does not only sell the audience themselves through the sources main story. However the audience especially those who have never read the manga at all is what happens in the final scene in the last episode.