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No spoilers.

Watch this if you're tired of seeing boring repetitive tropes and stereotypes in anime instead of characters. On the contrary, if what you're looking for is fanservice and shallow tropes, move along. Brand new newcomers to the franchise will likely be confused, so if you're new keep that in mind.

Keep in mind that this anime is basically an arc full of reveals, rather than a self-contained arc of its own with clear start and clear finish. What it brings to the table are its characters and character development, interesting flashbacks and some humor. But don't expect a story that begins in this arc and ... ends in this arc. Well, there is a story like that in this anime (the whole plot, you know?), but on its own it's nothing mind-blowing. The reason for this is that the plot of this anime is basically just a reveal, too, but I can say no more without spoiling it.

I can't say whether it's bad or good, but there's an overarching story in the manga that unravels horribly, horribly slowly throughout all the arcs, and the Atlantic arc is basically a heavy dosage of reveals dealing with this overarching story directly. I've found it enjoyable on its own, though, both in the manga and right now in the anime, as it's very well-done, has a lot of humor in it and fleshes out a lot of characters.

This show is somewhat different from Kuroshitsuju I: it has a more continuous plot than the previous installment, and it offers a conflict that is almost internal instead of introducing a "global" supervillain that everybody fights. I can see why some people might dislike the second installment, and likewise why some might like it more. They're different enough.

It must be noted that despite Kuroshitsuji II not following the manga at all, the plot was written by the original mangaka. As well as new characters, which were created by her. So if you get an instant turn-off when you hear about some anime not following the ... manga, don't get discouraged about this one: a spin-off it may be, but it was created by the same mangaka.

PLOT:

The structure of the show consists of a few disjointed episodes at first, followed by the rest of the episodes neatly linked to each other by a continuous plot. The very first episode introduce us to new characters, and the goal of the second and third ones are to confuse the viewer, I believe (in the best meaning of the word, as in presenting a mystery). I'm not sure if it was a great idea, as some members of the audience might lose their patience and decide that "mystery" is no mystery but simply a lazily thought out occurence with many unexplained holes. However, the mystery unravels gradually, and by the 5th or 6th episode the confusion dissipates.

After that the story focuses on what makes a soul tasty to a demon, the question that gets explored during a row of adventures (or should I say misfortunes?) that feature quite a few unexpected plot twists along the way. We get to see a little about how demons think and what they really want, although demons in this story can have different preferences and even switch between them. I liked the part about preferences: after all, otherwise the story would be teaching everybody to be a certain way and calling it "right". Yes, it would be "right" only to demons, however, the admiration shown by them to certain character traits isn't alien to us human beings at all. It's easy to agree with the demons, and I think it would be unfair and wrong in many ways. In the end, you're the one to decide what you like and whether the demons had a weird taste or were right.

Conveniences that help the plot move along that I complained about in Kuroshitsuji I are gone in this series, now everything is quite logical, if logical is a word that can be applied to such an anime :) The only thing I could issue a very minor complaint about is some pointless fanservice introduced. I don't mean beautiful clothes or poses, it's all right, but there's some heavier fanservice involved and it goes nowhere. I would love such things to death if they actually went somewhere and got woven into the plot, but total pointlessness of them was killing me. However, I believe that many viewers will love them for being present. And let's face it, the show features underage characters, it would be unlawful if anything clearly went anywhere :)

Another notable thing is that this time there's some fanservice included for a male part of the audience, too, however it's even more pointless than that included for a female one, and for me personally it horribly stood out because of that. At least you can think of fanservice-for-females as playing a part in the story (in some way it serves as a "red herring"), but the typical "let's show huge boobs at random moments" thing comes off as clearly pointless from the start, ruining the atmosphere at some moments.

And how should I put it... I LOVED the ending! So nice, I can't stop giggling triumphantly over what I saw. A very unexpected and nice ending, although whether it's nice or cruel depends on your perspective and which character you were rooting for.

CHARACTERS:

It's hard to write about characters without spoilers, because even mentioning some of the characters is a spoiler already. So I'll start without them and make a huge announcement before moving on to something spoilerish, so that anybody who haven't watched yet can comfortably stop reading at that moment without getting spoiled. Or not stop, if she is too curious. :) That said, those spoilerish characters are freely mentioned in many reviews, so you've probably already been spoiled about them anyway.

As can be seen from the cover, there are two new characters in this anime, a new boy and a new butler. They can look like bad copies at first, but just you wait. The boy is a strange one, I'd say a high-speed yandere who switches from being annoying or cruel to childishly weak at the drop of a hat. It looks a little shocking, because believe it or not, it's extremely realistic! Unlike the yanderes I've seen before, his nature is well-explored in the anime, and even in the very first episode you can see something interesting if you squint, namely, one of the motives for cruelty. That motive surprised me a lot, to be honest, there's much more to that character than merely the "tragic past" excuse. I would even argue that the past merely helped to shape him into being as he was instead of "forcing" him to be like that. But the best part of it is that he's so easy to relate to.

The new butler has a face of a professional poker player, however, some of his emotions are shown, too. Just enough to make things interesting and... again, confusing! It's intentional, believe me. You'll find yourself wondering what the real nature of the relationship between the two is, and that will turn out to be a very important thing in this anime. Unlike the previous installment, this one focuses on the relationship between the butler and his owner a lot, and it's not static, either, you will see it changing more than once. I personally preferred Kuroshitsuji II over I for this very reason, because I love to see characters and relationships get shown well and how they change or develop.

MINOR SPOILERS FOLLOW NEXT (characters only)

A few characters make a comeback in this series, or should I rather say all of them. Especially Ciel and Sebastian stand out :). They're the ones who create a mystery I was talking about in a spoiler-free beginning of the review, the mystery that you're going to be solving called "How come Ciel isn't dead?". Ciel's character is a little different now from the ending of the Kuroshitsuji I, or at least from my take on his character at its ending. It's sort of static now, which didn't exactly delight me, but tastes differ. On another hand Sebastian becomes more interesting in this anime than before: we get to see some of his traits that couldn't be shown earlier, his wishes and thoughts about Ciel are much more defined. And as I said, this show focuses on the relationship between the butler and his owner, that goes for Ciel and Sebastian just as much as another pair.

ART: Great as ever, although I can't help but think that Hannah could be prettier, any man in the anime is prettier than her, after all. But I won't complain much, because I care for men more anyway. :)

SOUND: I didn't pay attention, as always. But I guess it means that it was neither bad nor outstanding.

OVERALL:
It's impossible to predict whether you'll like it or not, but I'd say if you like characters more thoroughly explored than usual (especially villains), it's definitely your thing. Even if it's not your thing, you could like it for many other reasons.

WARNING: some spoilers, so you probably shouldn't read if you haven't watched yet. Although you can read until Ciel in "Characters", there are no spoilers before that, and it contains all the relevant information that I myself usually search for when trying to decide: what it's like, the plot structure, pay-offs and trade-offs, and a few words about the main characters.

I'll start off by saying what this show reminded me off: it's like somebody took a concept of an inhuman butler from Hellsing and inserted it into the Ouran High School Host Club type of the show. The feel of the show for the most ... part is extremely alike to that of Ouran, despite the different setting. And although both are supposed to be comedy, I didn't actually laugh at anything. The comedy elements simply give both shows a light feel instead of causing you to roll on the floor in fits of laughter. However, Black Butler wavers from comedy in its few last episodes considerably and quite unexpectedly. And that's a good thing.

PLOT - 7:
The structure of the show consists of a few arcs, followed by a few ending episodes where plot finally appears and some elements introduced in those arcs are joined together. The arcs seemed questionable to me, because in general I do not like disjointed arcs at all, but that's my preference and nothing more. Everything paid off in the end, I just really wish that the whole anime was like that, with a solid ongoing plot (I didn't read the manga, so I won't compare).

One minor complaint that I have is that some things were way too convenient in those story arcs. Ciel goes somewhere, meets somebody, and later she or he turns out to be an important character. That happened a few times, although he seemingly met them by accident. That didn't seem like a very good device for introducing important characters to me, one accidental meeting I'd understand, but later ones could be shown as orchestrated by somebody else or in any other way inevitable, instead of accidental. This way the overall story wouldn't feel as disjointed, and the arcs would feel more meaningful.

CHARACTERS - 10:
The butler seemed a bit of Marty Stew for me, but it looked ok surrounded by the comedy-like atmosphere. I mean, c'mon, riding the canon ball in the sea to chase for a ship, how could anybody even take that seriously and start complaining? In retrospect it even sounds incredibly funny, although at the moment of seeing it my jaw must've dropped a little. Just like it happens with many funny moments in real life: at the time when something funny actually happens it's a shock rather than fun.

The butler was wearing the same expression on his face most of the time, making it hard to read. I kept thinking: is he really slightly nice like that or is he a cold demon in disguise? The same can be said about his behavior, I couldn't decide: was Sebastian actually slightly caring or was he pretending at all times? The ending gave answers to these questions, so I'd say his character was portrayed well, if the original intention was to confuse the viewer (which I believe is true at least to some extent).

Ciel. He starts off as a mean child who behaves like he knows the worth of his status and how to use it to his advantage. Soon you see that he's really helpless on his own and he knows it very well, but he can afford to put on a show of courage because he knows that his pawn is invincible (another parallel to Hellsing and this time to Integra). I kept thinking: what would you be, if not for your butler and your status? Some part of me wanted him to be stripped of all that, just to see his reaction, and that wish was granted by the show.

MAJOR SPOILERS START HERE

And that's when Ciel's character really started to shine for me! He was left alone, a spoilt rich child, without knowing anything about how to live in the world. The moment when he finally cracked and asked himself "Why do I even have to return?" was golden, finally he showed some depth of character and an inner struggle. It's notable that his behavior from the moment he was left alone was very realistic, it didn't feel forced for the sake of creating some drama! Although when he still departed to London I was a little perplexed, because his motives weren't shown too clearly (or maybe I missed that), so I almost started to think that he plunged forward because it was needed for the story to progress. But the ending put everything into perspective, explaining why Ciel persisted in his goal despite having all he lived for crushed: he wanted his death not to be meaningless. If you think of it, this is quite scary: a person is cornered, he knows that he's going to die soon, the only thing he's left is to die meaningfully or meaninglessly. So he chooses to go on with his previous wish of vengeance, even though it already stopped being important for him, as he explicitly says. He doesn't want it anymore, but stopping to care would make his decision to trade his own soul to a demon meaningless and stupid, right? And so he chooses not to stop.

Another remarkable thing in this anime is relationship between Sebastian and Ciel. At first I didn't think of it as anything outstanding, and I was incredibly surprised at how mistaken my initial assumptions of it were. With Sebastian and Ciel being equally confusing to read, there were still some hints that they cared for each other at least a little bit. But the ending revealed the truth: they absolutely did not. Recreate in your memory the moment they were sailing down the river and Sebastian gave Ciel the diary. Now ask yourself, why did he do such a cruel thing? That diary was supposed to shatter Ciel's very last "meaning of life" into its final pieces. Ciel managed to follow his plan for revenge, despite the desire for it no longer existing, but giving him that diary could serve no other purpose than crushing even that. It couldn't be kindness that drove Sebastian to give him the diary, it was an exceptionally cruel act.

After that you start remembering their interactions, and they're remembered in a new light. So Sebastian was merely playing a butler with no room for personal attachment, awaiting Ciel's soul patiently. And Ciel was aware of it and referred to him as his pawn not out of bitterness, but because he saw the truth of it: Sebastian was never anything else but a pawn whose goal was to eat the king.

SOUND - 10: I honestly don't care for sound in anime, so I won't try to elaborate... I gave music a perfect score, because I didn't want to accidentally give it a lower score than it deserves. :)

ART - 10: It was obviously supposed to be very appealing and succeeded at that. The anime is a feast to the eyes.

ENJOYMENT - 9: One of the cases when the overall enjoyment score doesn't reflect the truth, because I enjoyed the last part of the show at 10 and other parts at lower scores. But a great ending imprints your mind with the final impression that overwrites the earlier ones.