This series just can do it all.
Summary:
- Black Butler is a dark comedy among other things.
- The series keeps a perfect balance between comedy and darkness.
- The older the series gets, the more serious it becomes.
If you're a Black Butler (Kuroshitsuji) newbie, you're probably interested to know what this series is really like. Most websites such as MyAnimeList will tell you that it is a dark action fantasy with mysteries and even detective aspects.
But if you go to Wikipedia (although we know it's not the most trustworthy source) and look through the genres there, you'll see the "dark comedy" tag, and we have to admit that it suits Black Butler a bit too well.
Dark Themes Go Hand in Hand With Humor
There's nothing humorous about Black Butler at first sight. It's a story about a boy who makes a deal with a devil. There's a lot of murder and trauma in the series, there's rape and torture, there's blood and violence. Basically, it's just a normal shounen.
But what makes it stand out is its humor. It's not the level of this season's Kaiju No. 8, where every scene can be turned into a random but hilarious gag. Black Butler's humor is much more refined, like the manners of Ciel's butler.
There are some weird anime-typical gags in the series, that's true. Ciel's servants are basically just a big joke until the moment Book of Circus arrives (if you know, you know). Sebastian's love for cats created several humorous moments in the series and made us go "awww" a couple of times.
Perfectly Balanced as All Things Should Be
But the series knows when to stop. There won't be weird jokes during intense moments, you won't see Ciel experiencing the deepest trauma of his life followed by an inappropriate toilet gag. Black Butler is all about balance, and the series manages to achieve it masterfully.
The first seasons/volumes of Black Butler leaned into comedy much more than the currently ongoing part of the story. There are still some jokes here and there, but the older the series gets, the more balanced it becomes.
All the gags are introduced into Black Butler to break the tension and make you relax sometimes. But be ready, since a lot of them are dark humor indeed, and it's easy to find a scene with Ciel and Sebastian talking about murdering someone in a hilarious way.
Yana Toboso once described Black Butler as a "chaotic butler manga," and fans think it's the perfect description. There are so many genres that fit the series that we'd be here all day if we tried to list them all. And this is the true beauty of Black Butler.