This review contains spoilers for seasons one and two of Black Butler. 600https://i.ur.com/o5u56Ql.png Things can get worse. They can always get worse. Ordinarily I dont actively go out of my way to watch bad anime or things that clearly are not going to appeal to me but I do make an exception on occasion. At the start of every year I challenge myself to complete an anime that I just know will be so bad that Ill walk away with a new sense of what bad truly means. Some might call this masochism some might call it a waste of time. But honestly there is a value to doing something like this. It can make me look back at other anime that bothered me and start appreciating things about it. It can make me go through a new seasonal anime and think yeah this isnt good but at least it wasnt like that. Its the same kind of logic as standing next to an ugly person to look hot. So in a way watching a piece of trash has its perks. But dont let that fool you into thinking that what we have here isnt one of the worst things Ive ever had to see. Just when I thought things couldnt get worse they did. Black Butler II is the 2010 follow up to 2008s Black Butler. While the first season adapted content from Yana Tobosos manga and then split away doing its own thing the same cannot be said for the sequel. Its all original content for the anime as written by the screenwriter for season one Mari Okada. So you know who to blame. Fans will often discourage people from watching season two because its filler but while I think thats along the right track for why this is terrible it doesnt quite capture the problem. The issue isnt simply that they didnt adapt Tobosos story. Its that they could have done anything they wanted and went with the most aggravating the most tasteless the most mind numbing thing possible. Get ready were in for a long ride. Black Butler II starts us out with a boy named Alois Trancy who has made a pact with a demon named Claude Faustus. Both characters created for the anime. Alois is the arrogant and violently abusive heir to the wealthy Trancy estate while Claude has the emotional range of a brick. One night a strange figure that is obviously Sebastian Michaelis appears on their doorstep carrying a suitcase. Hes allowed in and after a while makes his way through the mansion and finds a tin of tea that results in a fight between him and Claude. Eventually the suitcase is opened revealing the unconscious body of Ciel Phantomhive. Sebastian manages to escape with Ciel and the tea which is revealed to contain Ciels family ring. Once he places it on Ciels hand the boy wakes up but its discovered he has amnesia and cannot remember the majority of events that took place during season one. How I wish that was me. As the episodes play out Ciel and Aloiss stories intertwine and we experience a tale of lies revenge schemes and very uncomfortable sexual fanservice. One of the biggest issues I had with this anime was its writing. It feels like Mari Okada just made the story up as she went along without having a coherent plan in mind. The first episode spends all of its time with Alois and Claude but then the next several episodes only vaguely make mention of Claude until he appears again in episode four to invite Sebastian and Ciel to the Trancy estate for a costume party. As much as I disliked their characters it still felt strange placing so much importance on them only to just dial it back to showing Ciel and Sebastian solving mysteries like they did in season one. And when your anime is only twelve episodes long you cant really waste time like this. You would think the subplot about Ciels amnesia would be something sufficient enough to make those episodes interesting but it isnt. The way its handled makes for a rather confused viewing experience. Sebastian told the other characters to just roll with things and act like nothing is off with Ciel. But the way the anime handled that ended up making it feel more like the show just forgot the events of season one. For example Lau and RanMao are back and alive and nobody reacts to this. And we arent told how theyre still here until literally the last six minutes of the final episode. Once we do bring Alois and Claude back into the forefront it actually gets worse. Episode five is the point where I just knew the anime was never going to redeem itself. There we see Alois force his maid Hannah whos eye he gouged out in episode one because she looked at him when he intentionally spilled a drink to strip off her clothes in a moment of male gaze fanservice so that he can go about his costume party dressed as a girl despite having other dresses to choose from. He manages to get Ciel alone and waxes poetic about the deep blue of his eyes and then licks his ear so that he can distract him long enough to steal his eyepatch while I feel my brain turn to butter. 600https://i.ur.com/JbAkRsq.png 600https://i.ur.com/x0IrGri.png The shota fanservice in this anime is really horrendous and believe me we will talk about that later. But as things transpire from this point until the finale everything just gets so convoluted and frustrating. Conflicts that you dont care about because you know it isnt canon drawn out backstories that disgust you instead of move you reveals that feel like unnecessary padding more than anything. Things that youd expect them to expand upon feel glossed over like why Claude cared enough about Ciel to steal his soul at the beginning and then we waste a lot of time on things that ultimately impacted nothing like Grell. It quite honestly winds up becoming an incredibly stupid anime that never feels like it has a clear sense of what it is doing and why. It just knows it wants you to see grown men kiss pubescent boys feet. Anything else is inconsequential. Not only is this a mess on a story level the dialogue also needs mentioning. You see this isnt just a dumb anime its the kind of dumb anime that still somehow thinks its saying something. Characters will often speak in dramatic monologues using all kinds of metaphors that give the impression that something worthwhile is supposed to be said but it just ends up feeling like listening to someone drone on and on because they like the sound of their voice. 600https://i.ur.com/f4boTh4.png 600https://i.ur.com/pavqOuz.png 600https://i.ur.com/ytWW15f.png 600https://i.ur.com/3TcKo33.png And yet despite that the anime still takes it upon itself to explain incredibly obvious things to the audience just in case you dont get it. 600https://i.ur.com/Aogd7Tm.png 600https://i.ur.com/zW7T14v.png So we basically have a show with its priorities all over the place with dialogue that suggests it thinks its smarter than it is but that you the audience are too stupid to understand obvious things without them telling you. And yet so many plot significant things feel underdeveloped or get explained in a blink and you miss it style moment. This is probably the worst thing Mari Okada will ever write and frankly its not surprising to me that she didnt bother returning to write any of the other installments after this. So we need to talk about Alois. His character ends up becoming one of my biggest issues with the entire anime but it isnt because hes annoying and made incredibly unlikable from day one. I mean he is but that isnt the only problem. The problem is his character feels like it exists for the purpose of pandering to shotacon and anything else is just pretense. Literally the first scene of the entire anime is us finding him bruised and naked in bed with the elderly Earl of Trancy. Because the mark of his contract with Claude appears on his tongue we regularly get shots of him licking his lips then as we observe him through his interactions with Claude we get a strong sexual vibe with them. The scenes with him and Claude are very uncomfortable to look at. Aloiss attachment to him is so creepy but the anime just treats it as another outlet for fanservice. The worst though comes when we get to his backstory. Alois was born a poor boy named Jim Macken who lived on the streets with his little brother Luka. One day everyone in the village including Luka dies and he is kidnapped and taken to the Trancy estate to be a sexual plaything for the Earl. He overhears other boys whove been brought to the mansion talk about how a fairy will grant your wishes and this leads to his first encounter with Claude. Afterwards he has decided to actively seduce the Earl to become his favorite and he acquires his new name and status and eventually takes over after the Earls death. From there he is shown to be either an abrasive tyrant who hits women a sniveling crybaby who needs Claude to function or a sexual object. 600https://i.ur.com/raZf6jK.png You got all that? Because you need to understand that this was so unbearable for me to sit through that I got a headache. Seeing him seduce this fat pig of a man and have it be framed like check it out hes taking back control of his life through his sexuality was disgusting. It does not matter how hard Okada tries to push the idea that this child is in control of the situation he is still a kid being raped by an adult man. And there feels like no awareness to the fact that in this situation he is still a rape victim he is still a child being taken advantage of by an adult. Just because he is intentionally trying to win the favor of the Earl it doesnt mean he has the power that the anime thinks he does. And its all for the sake of contextualizing the way hes sexualized throughout the anime. This isnt some kind of portrait of a person internalizing their own trauma and falling into similar situations because they dont know another way. That is giving this anime way more credit than it deserves. This is all just an excuse for the anime to show off that they made a sexy twelve year old. The fact that it made me write that sentence already makes me want to die but knowing that it never thinks twice about doing such things makes the anime just reprehensible. The shota fanservice was present in season one but not to this same degree. Ciel was sexualized but he still felt like he existed for reasons beyond that. Alois doesnt and given his importance throughout the anime it makes sitting through it nauseating. 600https://i.ur.com/bBot93x.png The other characters arent much of an improvement. Ciel was never that interesting to me but he manages to be the best character in season two purely because everyone else was so bad. Sebastian is a boring character that the anime tries very hard to hype up as interesting but I just didnt care about him and Claudes competition for Ciels soul. The fact that hes created to always be perfect at everything just makes watching him dull. Claude basically has no personality outside of being a sexual predator. The sexual overtones to his character arent subtle you can hand wave all you want and say no no he just wants to eat souls because hes a demon it doesnt change the fact that theres an obvious sexual layer behind how its presented. And its the closest thing to an identity he has. And while I know I just spent a lot of time talking about Alois Claude ends up being the worst character in the anime because the predatory aspects of his personality are all that define him. I was going to call him Diet Sebastian except that would be unfair to Sebastian. Walking talking cringe compilation Grell Sutcliff is back and this time her role consists of two things: wanting to be Sebastians toothbrush and reaping Aloiss soul. Except she doesnt end up doing that. Claude steals Aloiss soul and then she does her best Ryuuk impression by telling him that shell just observe from now on because this is interesting apparently. Anything after that is just Grell following Sebastian around with a camera and getting hot over the sight of his ankles because this anime has a foot fetish. As I mentioned before Lau and RanMao appear despite that they were killed off in season one. How are they alive? They faked their deaths and Sebastian let them get away. That is your only explanation. That is all you get. Finny MayRin and Bardroy provide some mild comic relief but barely show up. Lizzy appears a few times but she doesnt really amount to much of anything. The most prominent female character in this anime is Aloiss maid Hannah who spends majority of her scenes being abused and degraded for fanservice while wearing a passive expression. Even when its revealed shes this powerful demon and serving more of a purpose to the story I still am left feeling like she was a wasted character whos purpose was to be abused since hurting women is the laziest way to show someone is evil. And the animation. We have got to talk about the animation. You might be thinking the screen caps Ive been showing dont look so bad but they arent good representations of how it looks in motion. The quality is all over the place. I know this was before A1 started raking in all that sweet Sword Art Online money but this feels particularly abysmal like they didnt care. The animation is stilted a lot of the time and then when it tries to do something more action packed that requires a more skilled hand it just gets laughable. But even during scenes that arent focused on the action it gets bad. Trust me. 600https://i.ur.com/qQ1Z0fc.png 600https://i.ur.com/bXi4EXB.png 600https://i.ur.com/ulMHER0.png The anime itself just has a very cheap feel to it. Im not sure if the money went towards getting the GazettE to do the opening song or towards the seiyuu cast but clearly the priority was not good animation. Speaking of the seiyuu my goodness was this cast wasted. Maaya Sakamoto Daisuke Ono Nana Mizuki Takahiro Sakurai Jun Fukuyama Junichi Suwabe Yuuki Kaji Emiri Katou and of all people Aya Hirano. How do you acquire a cast this strong and not use them to their fullest potential? Well you designate certain seiyuu to side characters that dont do or say much or in the case of our leads you give them terrible dialogue and roles with little personality to work with. I love Takahiro Sakurai but as Claude he just sounds like hes speaking words. This is a man who has been able to convey charisma without playing characters with huge extroverted personalities its not as if he needs to be playing a Reigen or an Osomatsu to emote so Im thinking with Claude he just decided to phone it in or the direction was bad. Nana Mizuki tries to make Alois work but unfortunately she can only do so much with a character this badly written. Its a pity. 600https://i.ur.com/Xu0Ikfy.png If I had to describe a good word for Black Butler II it would be exasperating. I felt so drained by the time I was done with the anime. When it wasnt pandering to a lowest common denominator audience Id sooner bite than shake hands with it was just meandering around with no real sense of what to do with itself. One of the big questions I asked myself after finishing the show was is this worse than the other anime I hate and my answer is a definite yes. I hated anime like Desert Punk but that anime knew what it wanted to be and stuck to it. I hated No Game No Life but at least that had a very alluring visual style. This anime is even worse than things like Twinkle Nora Rock Me and Ill explain why. Twinkle Nora Rock Me has the excuse of clearly having no budget its incredibly inept but it obviously wasnt working with much. This however was made by A1 they have money. Mari Okada is a prominent screen writer who has written for anime like Toradora Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron Blooded Orphans Wandering Son and the Aria series. You had money and talent behind this yet this is what we get. It truly is baffling on every level. And honestly the Black Butler fans deserve better. Assuming they havent already skipped to the bottom to read my score and give me a down vote I just really want to say that I feel sorry that this is the anime you were given. I didnt like season one but I can see why it drew in its audience. And having watched season two I can see why a lot of that audience wants nothing to do with it. Its offensive its trashy its stupid its lazy it really is bad on every level and I felt actively insulted by it. Usually when I watch an anime I dont like I dont bother reviewing it I try to move on but with this I just felt like I had to. Theres only one reason why youre being reviewed Black Butler II. One simple answer. You pissed me off. But for what its worth having completed something as disastrous as this I know theres no way I will see anything worse throughout the year. Black Butler II is a complete failure of an anime but it did help create a new standard for what I consider a failure. Some people are out here still acting like Sword Art Online is the worst anime ever and while I never agreed with that its seeing anime like this that make me realize what truly makes a bad anime bad.