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I was really interested in this series' premise, because it doesn't happen often that an anime decides to deal with gender identity disorders, but I was disappointed with the way the topic was developed.

Sometimes I have the feeling that, both in anime and manga, authors decide to discuss challenging topics but then don't have the courage to do it thoroughly. This is what I felt watching Hourou Musuko as well. Actually, I don't know if it's because they lack the courage, because they fear the fans' reaction or because they just don't know enough, I guess it depends on the case. In this story it ... feels like they just wanted to use the idea because of its originality and not actually to discuss the topic realistically, though up to a certain point I used to think they were trying to be serious about it.

The protagonist, Nitori, is a middle school boy who likes to dress like a girl. Takatsuki is a girl who likes to dress like a boy. Nitori is presented as being in love with Takatsuki, though she doesn't seem to feel the same. The fact that the two might be in love could be seen as excessively coincidental, but I guess it makes sense that two people with the same "issue" are attracted to each other.

With such a topic, you cannot but wonder about one thing: do Nitori and Takatsuki really feel that they were born the wrong gender? In other words, are we talking about an actual gender identity disorder? At the beginning it looks like it is, since Nitori really seems to feel like a girl, and the topic of sex change surgery is also brought up once. However, as the story progresses, his feelings start to become ambiguous, to the point that he actually starts to date a girl, likes her, and is even portrayed as manly. This didn't sit right with me. What is the point of having him crossdress and behave like a girl, with all the social problems this involves (people thinking you are a weirdo, your parents having to come to terms with it, your own feelings about yourself), if then all this is completely reset? Was he just crossdressing randomly, without any deeper reason? I was quite disappointed with this.

I like the characters of Takatsuki and Chiba more. Takatsuki is more coherent. She really seems to have an issue with her being a girl, and is also more determined when it comes to dressing like a boy. Like Nitori, she doesn't really seem to develop an interest in other people of her own gender, but we don't see her as much so we don't really delve deep into her head.
The reason I like Chiba is that I find her very human. Her behavior seems excessively cold at first, but the way she feels about other characters and her reasoning are believable.
The other characters were OK, though most of them we didn't see enough and we only knew them superficially.

The art is simple but fitting for the story. The music is also simple and doesn't stand out, but I guess it's fine in this kind of anime. The seiyuu were good. They chose a real boy to voice Nitori, and I think it makes sense. I don't really like it when crossdressing characters have a voice actor of the same gender they're crossdressing as (as in, crossdressing guys being voiced by women etc). It makes it "too easy", in a way.

All in all it's a lighthearted, enjoyable anime, but I wish they didn't just discard what seemed to be the main point of the story.

Kuroshitsuji II exceeded my expectations by far. To say it quickly, I was expecting crap and I got a carefully planned series, with an interesting story and captivating characters. Where season 1 made me think "an original story could never be as good as the manga", season 2 changed my mind to "well, after all an original story can still be a good idea, if well made".

Kuroshitsuji II is -- guess what -- the sequel of the anime Kuroshitsuji. Unlike the first season, this one is a completely original story, featuring 3 important original characters. It has nothing to do with the manga, since it ... starts where the previous series ended. If you've watched Kuroshitsuji I you probably know that it's no easy feat to create a story from *that* ending. Yet they managed to do it.

I think it's impossible to write a review without spoiling at least the second half of the first episode, but if you're a fan of Kuroshitsuji you will probably already know it, and if you aren't you won't even care. I won't spoil anything else, though.

The creators of this anime majorly trolled the fans 6 months before it aired. About half a year after announcing the production, they showed the first trailer of the new season at a special event (the "Red Valentine" event, it's available on DVD). The trailer only showed the two main original characters, Claude Faustus and Alois Trancy, and so did all the pictures and interviews that came out in the following months. All of this led the majority of the fans to believe that they would be the new main characters, substituting Sebastian and Ciel. Needless to say, the production staff and even the author of the manga received loads of harsh criticism for leaving out the fans' beloved characters from the show.

Eventually, that was not the case.
As everybody realized after watching the first episode, Sebastian and Ciel (together with the rest of the cast) were still there and were still the main characters. Claude and Alois are still essential to the plot (I wouldn't call them "villains" though), but knowing that the characters you know and love are still there makes the new additions appear a lot less offensive. You can actually get to like them.
I used to think that they were just stupid clones created to reuse the "demon butler + young master" setting, but watching the anime you can clearly see that they have very different personalities (definitely better planned that the lame characters of season 1 if you ask me) and totally deserve to have a part in the story.

Compared to the previous series, season 2 is half the size, being only 12 episodes. The first few episodes apparently look like fillers and you are left wondering why they are losing time even though the series is so short, but then you realize that everything -- or almost everything, at least -- has a purpose and is leading to something. Or it's just there to troll you, but that's a purpose too I guess. After these few episodes, though, you finally learn "the truth", which also solves most of the doubts you were having, and from that point on the series becomes fast-paced, with lots of story packed into each episode, all bringing to the final, quite shocking climax.

I followed this series "live", week after week, and I must say it was extremely enjoyable. Every time you were left craving for the next episode, with the previews (the "next episode" previews) only serving to deceive you, since the scenes where always mounted so as to make you misunderstand what would happen.

The art is outstanding, the animation is nice and smooth, the music is maybe even better than in the previous season (a special mention goes to the insert song "Kagayaku Sora no Shijima ni wa" by Kalafina, beautifully sad and perfect for the scenes they used it for). The seiyuu are of course the same as in season 1, with the addition of a few quite popular names to play the original characters (well-known seiyuu as Takahiro Sakurai, Nana Mizuki and Aya Hirano). The author of the manga, Yana Toboso, once again took part in the production by designing all of the clothes, original characters and even objects that appear in the series (she asked herself to do it, by the way). She also had a say in some of the decisions regarding the plot, though of course it was written by different people. It's quite obvious that they put lots of efforts into this anime, and I personally think that it shows. I realized that, as much as I love the Kuroshitsuji manga and think that it's better than the anime (story-wise), I can still appreciate a Kuroshitsuji original anime if the story and the characters are good enough.

Of course, this series is not 100% perfect (otherwise I would have given it 10). The plot holes are to blame for it. The story that we actually see is carefully planned, so the "present" is mostly OK. The past of some characters, however, ranges from vague to outright unknown. Some characters are there but we don't really know how they managed to be there, some characters' motives are never explained yet you would think that it's important to show why they act like they do, even though it's not necessary to bring forward the plot that we see. The series composer, Mari Okada, said in an interview that sometimes it's nice to leave some "gaps" that the viewers can fill in how they want, but I still would have liked to be showed a bit more of the characters' past. Also, since the anime is only 12 episodes long and many of them are very fast-paced, you have the impression that the series ended right away and it's a pity that for once that we have interesting original characters we get to see them so little.

Nevertheless, despite the flaws, I've really enjoyed watching this anime and I missed it after it ended. The original characters, that I used to dislike because of the creators' trolling, grew on me very quickly, to the point that I'm somewhat sad that we won't see them anymore (well, probably) and that I was disappointed at them barely showing up in the OVAs that were included with the DVDs.

If you liked Kuroshitsuji I, then I recommend Kuroshitsuji II. If you disliked the anime but like the manga, I still recommend Kuroshitsuji II. I personally think that if you adapt the manga into an anime then you have to make it faithful to it. If you don't want to make it faithful, I'd rather see something completely different than a bad adaptation of the manga. Kuroshitsuji II managed to be the latter. Do not let the original characters turn you off. Give a chance to this series, because in my opinion it's very much worth it.

I will start by saying that I have mixed feelings about this anime.
I read the manga beforehand, which means that I already had my ideas about the characters and knew how the story would develop. It also means that I am biased. If you don't care about the manga you might consider reading a review written by someone who has seen the anime first (or only that), it will probably be less biased.

The strong points of Kuroshitsuji are the characters and the story. Add to this good animation, great seiyuu and beautiful music and you get this anime. All in all I recommend it, especially ... if you fancy the genre, but as a fan of the manga I can't avoid making comparisons.

The story, set in Victorian England, is essentially dark and manages to skillfully mix together mystery, drama, angst and humor. It's made up of a few arcs, with some fillers usually inserted as "break points" between two arcs, but it's one long story. The first half of it is mostly faithful to the manga, while the second half develops into a completely original story. The manga is still running, so the anime has an ending of its own.
As for the setting, if you're an expert of the Victorian era you might cringe at some anachronisms, but the fact that demons and other supernatural beings are involved should make you realize that the story is not exactly aiming to be a perfect replica of Victorian England.

The characters all have different visuals and personalities that make them stand out and they're all interesting in their own way. Even minor characters are very likable. One thing that you realize almost right away is that there are mostly no "good" or "bad" people. You might sympathize with some of the characters, making them "more good" inside your mind, but that's usually not the case if you look at them from an objective point of view. However, all of this is undermined by the main original character in the anime, but I'll get back to it later.

The animation is fluid and generally good. The character designs by Minako Shiba are outstanding. Yana Toboso's art in the manga is very beautiful, and Shiba managed to keep that charm while making it into something that could be animated. The only character I didn't really like is Vincent, because he somehow looks different than he appears in the manga, but I have nothing to complain about the rest.
Toboso herself designed all the outfits that appear in the anime (Ciel changes clothes many times). It's nice that they decided to do this instead of giving characters single outfits, even though it means it's more of a hassle to animate.

I was extremely pleased with the seiyuu. Daisuke Ono as Sebastian is a perfect choice, same for Maaya Sakamoto as Ciel. She's usually cast to voice girls or women, so I was really amazed at how wonderfully she can pull this off. As for Sebastian, I was surprised to find out that in the first drama CD he was voiced by Toshiyuki Morikawa, and even though I do like Morikawa's voice I think it wouldn't fit Sebastian because it would make him too "cliche'" in a way. Ono provides a fitting voice that still manages not to make him sound like a stereotyped butler.
Jun Fukuyama is also brilliant as Grell (I must say since I watched the anime every time I read Grell's lines in the manga his voice echoes in my head, this is how much it stuck to my mind), and I admit I didn't even recognize Junichi Suwabe as the Undertaker when I first heard his voice.
The other seiyuu are all very good choices too.

The music by Taku Iwasaki is fitting and beautiful. The soundtrack is very diverse and flawlessly matches every single scene. I'm especially fond of the sad and melodic BGMs, which are very nice to listen to as a standalone as well.
The OP/EDs are good songs, with beautifully animated pictures. Though I must say the first ED, "I'm alive", is a bit random (the song itself is not bad, but I don't really see how that fits Kuroshitsuji).

As I said, all in all it's an anime I'd recommend, but I'll go a bit more into detail as to why I have mixed feelings about it.

I really liked the first half of the show, especially the Jack the Ripper Arc. It's very faithful to the manga, and you might think this makes it a bit boring for the ones who already know the story, but the animation is beautiful and the seiyuu are perfect, thus it's actually enjoyable because it's like watching the characters you love come to life. Too bad it goes downhill in the second half...

The story completely takes off into an original development (different than the manga's) from about halfway through the Curry Arc. I won't go into detail not to spoil what happens, but it already started looking gloom when the ending of said arc was turned into something quite lame. But it still got worse.

The main problem, in my opinion, is that the original characters -- though it's hard to say "characterS", seeing as only one really stands out -- are not interesting enough, their motives are random or trite and they have basically no character development. The appearance of someone that could be called "the big baddie" is not necessarily a bad thing, but if that character is stereotyped and lame then it becomes quite boring to watch.
I also disliked what was made of Queen Victoria in the anime. In the manga she's very funny, but in the anime she just makes no sense and, unlike many other characters in the series, she's also very hard to sympathize with.
Sebastian is also too "emotional", with little to no character development to explain why he suddenly became like that. As much as I don't dislike some fanservice (as long as it's not over-the-top), I would prefer it to have some concrete basis if it must be used in such a serious way.

The anime also makes use of some things (mostly lines/dialogues, but also scenes) that happened in the later arcs of the manga, but adapting them to fit a whole different situation. However, in most cases they didn't succeed in keeping them as brilliant as they were in the manga.

The last few episodes contain many scenes where - in my opinion - Sebastian is very out of character, which is a bit of a turn off even though at least Ciel is coherent. In addition, the action is quite exaggerated, as is the paranormal aspect of the story, that in the manga is not as recurring, contrary to what you might think.

All this said, I did love the very last episode. It's beautiful and it's actually something that I could have seen happen in the manga as well (of course now it probably won't considering that it's already been done). A reason I love it is also that it's a kind of ending that could fit many different plots and not necessarily the one that was used in the anime. (In other words, I can pretend that what happened before it didn't exist.)

If it were for the first half of the anime, I would have given it a 9, but the second half deserves a 5 in my opinion, so overall it gets a 7 from me. I understand that it's hard to create an anime of a series that is still running, because you either leave it open or you have to close it somehow. This time they decided to invent a whole different plot, with a solution of its own and thus also an ending of its own. Too bad the plot itself, and the characters involved in it, are disappointing and boring, not to mention too cliche'. I'm not necessarily against original storylines, as long as they make sense. With season 2 they proved to be able to create nice ones, so I wished they had put a bit more effort into the original characters of season 1 as well.

I still recommend this anime, especially because watching it also allows you to watch season 2 as well (and that's much better, in my very humble opinion), but also because, story aside, it's very enjoyable thanks to the nice animation/music/seiyuu and, last but not least, interesting characters (main villains aside). Anyway, feel free to take this review with a grain of salt. As I said, I read the manga before watching the anime, so you might get a different impression if you haven't read the manga beforehand.