The Butler Did It: A Look at Book of Murder

(Once again, I'm posting my obligatory "I didn't read the manga" disclaimer. The only thing I know about this arc comes from what they presented in the OVA because I haven't gotten that far in the manga yet. Volumes are expensive, yo. And for the sake of not ruining the fun of the mystery, this review won't include spoilers. Yay!)

I can't tell you how many times the English major in me squealed while watching this.

I'll do my best to convey just how well-researched this particular anime/manga is with this review, but for those of you who haven't caught on, Miss Taboso has clearly read a great deal about Victorian England, both in culture and in history. Literature is a big recurring element of Black Butler/Kuroshitsuji—this arc in particular—and it makes me positively giddy with excitement.

Here we go.

Book of Murder is an OVA that was screened in two parts in Japanese cinemas: Part One on October 25, 2014 and Part Two on November 15, 2014. Unlike most other OVA's I've seen, this one is two hours long—more an actual full-length film than an animated short. Since it had such a considerable length, I decided to review it as a sort of faux-season. It's kind of strange how they've treated the Black Butler franchise in general with this whole issue: There's a 26-episode first season that follows the manga only through the first half and then makes everything else up, a 12-episode second season that is entirely independent from the manga, a 10-episode spin off/sequel/third season that returned to the manga and eliminated everything after the curry competition in season one, and now we have the OVA which is an animated version of the arc following The Noah's Ark Circus, The Phantomhive Murders.

Maybe the next production will consist of a thirty-minute speed read of the arc following this one.

Regardless, I will say that I'm glad they're at least keeping this franchise alive, even if that means they're resorting to Not-Actual-Seasons and feature film-length OVA's to do it. I mean, hey, I don't know anything about how advertising in Japan works, but the promotional material/ads for Book of Murder were kind of neat as hell:

I know that it has seen a pretty considerable boom in popularity since the first season was produced, so maybe that's why A-1 Pictures is bending over backwards to make this stuff as impressive as possible. Why they can't just produce normal, full-blown seasons for it, who knows. The aesthetics of this show continue to be outstanding, from Ciel in a Sherlock Holmes costume to the side silhouettes of the characters.

Our story is as follows: After the investigation of the Noah's Arc Circus ended with somewhat questionable results, The Queen instructs Ciel to host a banquet in the honor of a prominent German banker, George Siemens, while he is visiting England. Ciel invites a small cast of characters to his mansion for the occasion—including a struggling writer named Arthur Conan Doyle. During the party, a gruesome murder transpires and Ciel himself is suspected to be the perpetrator. As a powerful storm continues to rage outside the manor and more people drop dead, the trapped members of the household must work together to find the true culprit before it's too late.

Before I get into the review itself, I want to take a minute to discuss the state of detective fiction in Victorian England, as this particular arc takes its lead from many of the tropes associated with them. Detective fiction as it's own unique genre was a product of the Victorian era, though it had been around prior to Queen Victoria's reign. The difference between those stories and the Victorian detective novels were two things: One, pre-Victorian detective tales often focused on the villains in the story and emphasized sympathy towards them and two, it wasn't until the mid-nineteenth century that the detective figure emerged as a prominent type of character. From an historical context, the shift from making the villains sympathetic to irredeemable criminals could be a result of the Victorian's desperate need for order in a world that was becoming rapidly infested with crime. The Industrial Revolution exploded the population of London and increased the amount of people that lived in cities instead of on large tracks of land. Over in America, Edgar Allan Poe wrote a collection of three short stories involving his protagonist Dupin, including "The Purloined Letter" and "The Murders in the Rue Morgue." Conan Doyle would later model his character of Sherlock Holmes off of Poe's Dupin. "The Purloined Letter" is often considered the first modern detective story, and "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" established the "locked room" formula which involved a seemingly impossible crime coupled with a surprising solution--the exact type of narrative that Book of Murder uses as its framework.

Which brings us back to the story.

Obviously, the story includes Arthur as a somewhat neutral, detective figure who assists Ciel in figuring out the mystery behind the killings. The first part of the OVA sets up the murders and doles out information through the narrative that more or less serves to complicate the entire case. By the end of Part One, it's impossible to guess who's innocent and who's guilty or really, just what the hell is even going on. Like "Rue Morgue," the story is complex and has several layers to it, none of which become apparent until the end. A mysterious new figure appears as the cliffhanger for Part Two, though it's incredibly obvious who that person is. The neat thing is that knowing his true identity doesn't make the mystery any less substantial; it complicates it further. In the fashion of many of Holmes' stories, the entire final half-hour of the OVA is dedicated to explaining everything that happened. Trust me--you'll want to slap your forehead and then take an Aspirin because it's one of those "Ohhh, now I get it now!" mixed in with a big fat "WTF."

I won't give anything away, but I will say that there is an incredible amount of well-handled humor in regards to the explanation and a particularly fantastic gag involving Sebastian and a small band of cats.

What's interesting about this arc is that, even though there are multiple deaths, plenty of blood, and a few spouts of passionate crying, the tone of the story never feels excessively dark. It manages to strike a balance between being engaging and a bit frightening while also knowing when to play up the laughs, a lot like Book of Circus did. The last five minutes of the OVA are fantastic, balancing laugh-out-loud funny with endearing and utter seriousness (there's also a great post-credits 30-second exchange between Sebastian and Lizzie that's quite charming). It feels very much like a Sherlock Holmes tale come to life: Holmes took his job seriously and knew how to get things done, but he also joked and did goofy things like stalk, on foot, the carriage of a man he believed to be responsible for the murder of Sir Charles Baskerville throughout the streets of London.

Speaking of Sherlock Holmes, Book of Murder sports a cameo of a caliber that hasn't been seen yet in this series: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle appears as a character in this arc, albeit a young version, pre-knighthood, when he was still a struggling author. They manage to make his appearance work well within the context of the story, which is something I don't feel they accomplished as well with Jack the Ripper way back in season one. Part of that, I think, is because they present him as a character in his own right while also paying plenty of respect to the historical figure. It's not that they didn't do that with Jack the Ripper, but because no one knows who the real killer was, the person they chose as the murderer and how they fit it into the story felt a little awkward and stilted.

Conan Doyle can be considered either a Victorian or Modernist writer, as he did publish some of his work in the late 1880's and 1890's, but also wrote a great deal in the early twentieth century. His most famous Sherlock Holmes story, The Hound of the Baskervilles, was published in 1901 (the year Queen Victoria died and the often marked end date for the Victorian era). Despite that, however, Conan Doyle was in fact writing in 1889—the year the arc takes place—and struggling to make a name for himself. In one of the conversations he has with Ciel, the writers drop three or four Easter eggs regarding his writing and personal life (all of which I have posted at the bottom of this article). That one conversation not only builds on Ciel's character as a lover of good stories and someone interested in the affairs of "commoners," but it also gives legitimacy to the setting of this story. It presents a real person in a fictional context without making him simply a name-drop. They don't just use the Victorian aesthetic; they plant these characters in the world of London in 1889.

Arthur is also entirely likeable. Where his most famous protagonist can be kind of a pompous goof, the Arthur they present here is far from pretentious. He can't seem to wrap his head around the idea that such a wealthy member of the Victorian upper class invited him to his banquet, even if said upperclassman is a thirteen year-old boy who reads and enjoys his work. Arthur comes across as genuine and kind as well as intelligent, but he doesn't put much stock or faith in his crime fiction writing. In fact, the real Arthur Conan Doyle viewed his Sherlock Holmes stories as silly entertainment that didn't have much literary value, and his passion was to write historical novels based on British history. Ironic then, that the works he is most famous for are the stories he cared the least about. But it's clear that Ciel has chosen Arthur to be at his banquet for a reason, and as the OVA plays out, it becomes apparent what that reason is.

This arc isn't focused as much on the growth of the characters or even illuminating more of the past. It's purpose is to tell a good mystery while still keeping in mind the timeline and general status quo of the show so far. We do get a little bit of insight into Ciel's relationship with his parents, but most of it is contained in a single flashback in Part One. It's helpful and interesting, but it's far from the crux of the story. Of course, just as they have everything stamped firmly in Victorian London, the show doesn't forget its own world that has been constructed over three two seasons. This includes it's colorful cast of characters: Both Lau and Ran Mao are guests at the banquet and Soma, Agni, and Lizzie make brief appearances as well.

A big blunder, however, is the new characters we meet. Aside from Arthur and Charles Grey (who is the Queen's butler/servant/bodyguard that attends the banquet as Siemens' escort of sorts and is a delightful pain in the ass), we are given the bare bones of characterization in many of the banquet guests, who range from a bombastic theatre director to a businessman who sells illegal weapons on the side. Even Siemens, the honored guest at the party, does little more than be a boorish oaf who gets drunk early on and dies within the first twenty minutes of the OVA. Everyone feels like they're there to be suspects rather than actual characters. Not to mention they introduce Charles Phips as one of the Queen's other bodyguards, yet he's in the show for all of five minutes and doesn't come back. He could have been eliminated from the OVA and it wouldn't have made a difference at all.

They do a solid job of introducing everyone through both on-screen title cards as well as Sebastian's formal roll-call. The problem is that none of them ever retain their individuality, at least not enough to make you care much beyond "Gee, wouldn't it be terrible if this soft-spoken lady was killed?" My thought is that you're not supposed to care, but then that also takes away from the suspense. You're not so much concerned about the new people dropping dead as you are the ones you've gotten to know that are stuck in the house as well: the servants, Ciel, and potentially Lau and Ran-Mao.

What I do like, though, is that there is a lot of attention brought to the servants of the Phantomhive manor. After Sebastian's death, Tanaka comes out of his bizarre chibi mode and returns to his position as the head butler, per Ciel's request. We get to see the real person behind all of the tea drinking and sitting that he spends the majority of the show taking part in, and that person happens to be an extremely skilled and capable gentleman. Each of the servants' relationship to Sebastian is brought to light here as well. It's not profound or even that deep, but you can see the love and affection that Finny, Mei-Rin, and Bardroy have for the man who has instructed and led them for the past three years. The servants are often the characters that receive the smallest amount of development (even in season one you don't get their back stories until the last batch of episodes) and it was nice to have them in a more dramatic and serious position instead of just a humorous one.

And I have to say, thank God that Sebastian doesn't screw anybody in this arc. It's probably because he spends the majority of it dead, but I don't care. I'll take it. Although for you fan girls out there, they do have a scene where Sebastian's corpse is being examined and the writers make quite a blatant joke about the fact that he's stark naked in front of a bunch of dudes, including Ciel (who giggles because he's both a teenager and because he enjoys seeing Sebastian humiliated).

Also, and this could just be me being a bastard, but I happen to think Sebastian's expression on his corpse when they find him dead is...kind of hysterical.

I don't know. Maybe I'm just desensitized to this kind of stuff after watching and playing Mortal Kombat for so many years, but there's something about his expression that feels over-the-top.

On the technical side, they make great use of the instrumental music here, as Black Butler always kind of tended to do. It manages to be both elegant and spooky depending on what's happening. Whenever they discover a new dead body, the music that plays is a great dramatic orchestral piece.

For projects that were both considerably shorter than their predecessors, both Book of Circus and Book of Murder have surpassed the previous two seasons in terms of production quality and character design. Everything is looking much more polished and updated, with smoother lines and richer colors. Season one came out in 2008, which makes it far from dated, but even in seven years the difference in quality between the first season and Book of Murder is obvious:

Part of it, I think, is in the way the line work is colored, which looks to have smoother and more detailed shading in BOC/BOM than in season one or two. There's a lot more depth to the hair in particular and a stronger emphasis on lighting. Ciel's eyes aren't nearly as oppressive in their proportions and his face shape seems to have been made a little narrower. I also love how they've added more color and detail to everyone's eyes, Sebastian and Ciel in particular.

That improvement is interesting especially when looking at the progression of the artwork on, say, Sebastian in the manga:

That doesn't mean the animation is perfect. There are moments where faces in the background look a little disjointed and there are a couple of cases (and by that I mean pretty much every occurrence) where the CGI is far from well-incorporated into the traditional drawings. Some of the clothing folds and shading look a little lazy and somewhat nonsensical as well:

As always, though, the backgrounds are beautiful and I love how they have rain falling every time there is a window in sight rather than just leaving it a dark color.

Since both Book of Circus and Book of Murder are brand new and haven't been dubbed yet (if they dub BOM at all), I've gotten used to the Japanese voice actors and even started to like them a heck of a lot. I'm not saying that their performances are good, since I don't speak Japanese and have no idea what a "good" Japanese performance would sound like, but the voices themselves are very well-cast. My biggest fear now is that when they're dubbed, I won't enjoy the English actors as much as I have in the past. But I guess there are worse things that could happen.

Fun fact: The actress for Ciel, Maata Sakamoto, also played Haruhi Fujioka in the original Japanese version of Ouran Highschool Host Club. I think this is hilarious.
 
If you're a fan of Black Butler, this is a must-see. It continues on from Book of Circus and also adds a little more to the mythos of this world. If you're not a Black Butler watcher, it's still a solid mystery that will keep you entertained for its two-hour run.

*************

References are as follows (there's a lot):

• Ciel tells Arthur that the reason he invited him to his banquet was because he had read one of Arthur’s works in the Beeton Christmas Annual, a holiday collection that often sold out, but wasn't considered hugely important. You know what story he’s referring to? A Study in Scarlet, the first Sherlock Holmes novella. The “witty and charming protagonist” Ciel speaks of would be Holmes himself.
• In the same conversation, Ciel says that he “even reads Punch,” which was a magazine dedicated to political satire and one of Conan Doyle’s uncles contributed to it as a cartoonist. 
• The snakes around Snake’s neck are all based on Victorian poets/writers. Goethe and Wilde in particular wrote stories that dealt with the state of the human soul: Goethe in his two-part play Faust and Wilde in his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. Hilariously enough, Arthur says to himself that Sebastian was enchanting enough to be a character in an Oscar Wilde novel, which makes sense considering the titular character of Dorian Gray was supposed to be inhumanly beautiful. I’m assuming the name Emily is referring to Emily Bronte, but I don’t know for sure. "Webster" is most likely Julia Augusta Webster who was a Victorian poet, essayist, translator, and dramatist (and even though it's most likely not what Taboso was referring to, there's a play/short story/film called The Devil and Daniel Webster about a fictionalized version of the famous lawyer and orator who defends a farmer who sold his soul to the Devil in court) 
• Arthur tells Jeremy that he reminds him of his old teacher, Dr. Bell. Joseph Bell is who he's referring to, one of Conan Doyle's professors and the primary inspiration for Sherlock Holmes. Bell encouraged his students to use observation skills and all of the senses when diagnosing illnesses and could even guess many of his students' professions using inductive and deductive reasoning.
• Though he's not in BOM, Ronald Knox was a real person as well. He was a detective-story writer and Catholic priest who wrote an article called “Studies in the Literature of Sherlock Holmes” in 1912. The essay included satire on the jargon of literary criticism and assumed Sherlock Holmes was a real person (this is actually a lot more common than you’d think). 
• When examining the body of one of the deceased, it's revealed that they have bite marks on their neck. Irene makes a comment about Carmilla, which was a vampire novel written by J. Sheridan Le Fanu and published in 1872. It was actually the precursor to Bram Stoker's Dracula. Many of the names and motifs were taken from that story and put into Stoker's famous novel.
• The show makes use of a safety coffin at one point. Victorians, for whatever reason, had a hardcore fear of being buried alive (Edgar Allan Poe in particular was known to be terrified of it). There were often newspaper and doctor reports that mentioned certain cases where individuals had met such a fate, and a lot of it had to do with the fact that they didn't really know how to declare someone "dead" at that point in history--not consistently, at least. As a result, safety coffins became a prominent product that featured all kinds of designs. The one in BOM makes use of a type that had a bell: "Alarm bells were replaced with firecrackers, sirens and even rockets which could be set off from inside the coffin." [source] The idea was that someone would hear or see the alarm and come dig you up before you died of suffocation or starvation.