Black Butler: Book of the Atlantic Anime Movie Review

When I first heard that they were going to animate another arc of my beloved Black Butler, I was thrilled. So far as a fan, I haven’t been let down much by the anime and the OVA adaptations of the manga, except of course the second season Black Butler II which I am not even going to comment on, and maybe the ending of the first season now that I think about it, but oh well… This film was so good and fun to watch that I felt proud of being a fan. I felt a little bit rewarded for my patience.

Synopsis

Ciel, Sebastian, and Snake board the luxury ship of Campania in order to investigate some weird rumours about Aurora Society bringing people back from the dead. Going around the ship, they find familiar faces like Lizzie and her family as well as some old Shinigami friends. And for Shinigamis to be there, it’s never good news.

They soon witness a woman raising from the dead but to their surprise she is more of a zombie that an actual person. Suddenly, many corpses come back to life and they start attacking everything alive on the ship. Trying to find out who is behind all this necromancy, they get themselves into some real trouble, killing countless of corpses, and discovering things they did not expect.

Plot & Story

As someone who has been following the manga for a while now, I thought that this arc was really well done. We learn various new things about a lot of characters and the plot of the whole series thickens from this point onward. When you start watching the movie, you think that ‘Oh, Sebas-chan is going to be kicking ass and they are going to find out that some piece of shit is behind it, etc.’ What I am trying to say is that you start watching the movie with no expectations and by the end you are like ‘WHAT THE HELL. I want to know more.’ I think the highlights of the story are: Lizzie’s backstory about how she is a prodigy and a genius with the sword and not some annoying rich girl, Sebastian’s cinematic record where we see for the first time his point of view as to how he met Ciel, and of course Undertaker’s true form and identity.

Black Butler: Book of the Atlantic Still

Art & Music

Aesthetically, this movie was brilliant! CGI looked a little bit unpolished, but other than that, everything else was really good. The voice acting was exceptional. Jun Fukuyama makes an AMAZING Grell that is so much fun to listen to and Daisuke Ono will always be the perfect voice for the demonic butler. Animation and music is up to usual standards with the fighting scenes being well paced and with some vivid action. The costumes are lovely and the setting of the film follows strictly Yana Toboso’s artwork.

‘Black Butler: Book of the Atlantic’: Interview with Daisuke Ono

Themes & Trivia

Campania aka Titanic: I don’t think that there are a lot of people in this world that haven’t watched or heard about the Titanic. The way the Campania ship sunk and how the whole plot escalated is exactly similar to the Titanic. Except, of course, from the fact that in the Black Butler film were zombies attacking and eating the passengers alive and Undertaker was the cause of the boat splitting in half.

Manga Volumes: For those who would like to read the actual manga to understand or see any details that the film might have missed, the movie is based on Volumes 11 through 14.

I read the manga when it came out back in 2011, so I don’t seem to remember any major things that might have been different in this arc. The Queen’s guards Charles Phipps and Charles Grey (the guys with the white hair) originally didn’t go to the luxury liner. The more you know!

Comments

I liked it; in fact, I loved it. You might say that I am a bit biased because I am a great fan of the series, but in general, I think the movie was executed pretty damn well! I mean, I still haven’t watched the live-action film because I am certain that it’s not going to be good, and I consider myself a die-hard fan, so hear me out: Since I read this arc in the manga, the moments that I have highlighted above always stuck with me, especially those with Undertaker because I always believed that the guy was dodgy and that that WAS NOT HIS REAL VOICE.

At first, I thought he was completely crazy from having to deal with corpses and dead people all the time, but I guess he was a Shinigami after all. And if my memory doesn’t fool me, he is not just any Shinigami, he is one of the best and most badass who ever existed so far, which makes him a very interesting character for future plots. Unfortunately, I haven’t been following the manga the last year or so to know if there has been more info on that, but I am still damn curious about what his belt and weapon is all about. Is he Papa Grim Reaper or what?

I think the film was entertaining and fun to watch. Even if you haven’t seen the anime series but know what the Black Butler is about, it’s not hard to follow. Everything is explained: the reason why they went there, what they found, why this happened, and who is behind all this. The only thing that remained a mystery was Undertaker’s deal.

Sebas-chan, my heart will go on

Plus:

Good story with interesting plot twists
Characters backstory and development
Clever and funny dialogues
Faithful to the original story of the manga
Fanservice
A lot of reoccurring characters from older arcs

Minus:

CGI was a bit meh
Sebastian is still using kitchen knives as his main weapon. WTF.

I really enjoyed it, but in all its greatness, it had some flaws that made the movie miss the excellent rating. I am glad that anything they have done lately has been really well done: Book of Circus, Book of Murder, and now Book of the Atlantic live up to the original content of Yana Toboso, which as an anime fan makes me want to cry. The fact that they stopped producing bullshit (as they did in Seasons 1 and 2) and actually wait to animate the manga arcs shows that this series respects the fandom more than commercializing the Black Butler franchise even more.

What did you think about the movie? I would be very interested to see the opinions of all the Black Butler fans, those who follow the manga and those who don’t. Cheers!