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R2 DVD Reviews
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Tuesday, 06 December 2011 00:00 |
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 Black Butler's round again for another batch of adventures for Ciel Phantomhive and his hellishly good butler - and this time around, they seem to have disposed of all the things that were good with volume one. That's not a good start...
Ciel begrudgingly lets Prince Soma and his butler, Agni, recently arrived from India in search of a missing person, take up temporary residence at the Phantomhive Estate. Their arrival is in the wake of another series of killings where all the victims have themselves recently returned from India, and with Scotland Yard having problems tracking the culprit, Ciel's been called in to lend them a hand. But with unwanted guests, Ciel soon finds himself having problems getting anything done.
Later, a trip to Paris for the Universal Expo reveals that Queen Victoria's butler Ash, seems to have made a few, uh, alterations to Her Majesty - but when Ciel tries to get to the bottom of just who or what Ash really is and what he's after, he finds himself abandoned by Sebastian and left to fend for himself...
Three main story arcs on this volume, with both comedy and Lizzie being noticeably absent until the bonus episode at the end of the disc. That's a bit of a mixed bag - I'm not much of a fan of the show's slapstick style of humour, so no loss on that front, but I seem to be one of the few people who actually liked Lizzie. Go figure. To start with, we've got the mysterious case of a string of strung-up curry merchants - which is doubly-suspicious when the Queen's about to issue a royal warrant to her favoured curry supplier; there's a small problem at Ciel's new resort hotel, where the presence of two royal ghosts is holding up refurbishment work; and then we get into the real meat of the story when we find out what Angela and her alter-ego Ash are really after (hint: it isn't nice).
The first of those arcs is decent enough - I quite liked Soma and Agni, who in some ways are the Indian equivalent of Ciel and Sebastian - Agni may not quite be so hellishly good, but he has his own strong points, and I wouldn't like to bet on a winner in a fair fight. The idea of curry driving people crazy isn't all that far-fetched, either - it would just have to be hot enough. While the arc isn't played entirely for laughs, it doesn't take itself too seriously, either, and finds just about the perfect balance.
The rest of the disc, less so. Angela had the potential to be a far more interesting villain than she eventually turned out to be - a simple, no-qualifiers-attached hatred of all things "unclean" is all that drives her, and ultimately that leaves her actions and dealing with her rather unsatisfying, no matter how curious certain other aspects of her nature may be. I preferred Grell as the bad guy, to be honest - and while he also worked quite well as a deranged assistant for Ciel last volume, while he's wheeled out again here (and gets his chainsaw back) he's sadly underused. Another mark in the downsides column.
The first volume of Black Butler failed to do anything to really grab me, and with this volume only making changes that made me even less likely to enjoy it, I'm rapidly reaching the conclusion that this is one of those shows where I'm just not the target audience - it does have a strong fanbase, but for whatever reason I just don't get it. Which leaves the series in the "try before you buy" category, unless you know what you're getting. For me, though, Black Butler is a series with some good ideas and promise that it disappointingly makes very little use of.
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