Since today is an awesome weekend, let’s talk about a film I watched only recently: Kuroshitsuji. I learned about Kuroshitsuji (the movie) on a magazine, Otaku Asia, and realized that I was actually reading a back issue (laughs). Kuroshitsuji was released in the Philippines last year. Kuroshitsuji was originally about an orphan boy named Ciel who made a deal with the devil and made him his tool (butler, actually) to aid him with his revenge on his parents’ killers and his duty as the Queen’s watchdog. The movie revolves around the same plot, however, some things were made for reasons I’m not really sure about.
I watched the Kuroshitsuji movie as a blank slate—meaning, I did not read the manga nor watch the anime. I only heard from a few friends that Kuroshitsuji was awesome because of the butler Sebastian (laughs). Here are a few thoughts I took note of while watching for the first time:
Nice quality for a Japanese movie. For some reason, my friends and I noticed one thing Japanese movies have in common: crappy quality (some do have great stories but the quality of how the films were made just…suck). My friend Elay even said once that “the quality of Japanese movies has not changed in the decade.” On the other hand, it was made by Warner Bros. and it turned out to be quite good in terms of quality.
The action scenes are cool. Sebastian equipped with a butter knife may not be realistic enough, but the choreography was believable.
Mixing new and old stuff turned out to be alright. The Genpou manor is located in a futuristic world. Even Ciel’s car was quite old. I like the balance.
After watching the film I decided to watch the anime (but I did not read the manga because I’m the type of person that hates reading online) and after watching the anime, I rewatched the film to observe the important characters and compare them to their 2D counterparts.
Goriki Ayame as Shiori Genpou
Shiori Genpou (“Kiyoharu”)
12-year-old Ciel, or as pronounced in Japanese, Shieru, becomes 17-year-old Shiori. (Note that ‘Shiori’ wasn’t actually invented in the first place.) I have been thinking that the real reason for the change is to prevent people from picturing shotacon. I’m totally not sure, but imagine the film’s ending with a young male Ciel in it. I guess it will not only be considered as a ‘homo thing’ but also pedophilia, even though Sebastian’s intention is to save [Ciel]’s life. Well, to fujoshi fans, that would be thrilling, alright. But not all people are comfortable with seeing that. But it’s also quite hard to find a 12-year-old male who is fitting to be Ciel. I’m saying this because it just doesn’t make sense that people hate the movie just because the protagonist is female. I admit, if they made the Kuroshitsuji film exactly as the anime went, I’d say I wasted my time watching it. Another fuss is why does Shiori have to be Kiyoharu? Others say that females cannot inherit companies. Sexist! In my opinion, she disguises as someone else (she disguised as her Father’s illegitimate son) because she wanted to hide the fact that she returned to have revenge. If you want to attack on your prey, why would you tell them? There’s also something with Shiori that she always gets into weird places without being harmed (although she always gets harmed after getting caught inside). Is she a ninja?
Mizushima Hiro as Sebastian
Sebastian Michaelis
I don’t really believe the comments online that Mizushima Hiro, the guy who portrayed Sebastian is not attractive. GAH! Were they expecting a Westerner to actually take on the role? Because he’s “Sebastian Michaelis”? I’ve watched a few dramas with Mizushima Hiro in it (and Beck, too). I think that he’s indeed a great actor and a handsome man as well! Too bad he didn’t have English speaking lines here (Sebastian in the anime always this smexy Engrish line “Yes, my lord” and they changed it here, boohoo) because I’ve heard him speak English in Beck and he’s totally good at it! Anyway, it doesn’t really matter if his hair is curly or not as long as the fight scenes came out beautifully! I kinda like the expression he makes whenever he’s holding cats.
Yamamoto Mizuki as Rin
Mey-Rin, or simply “Rin”
Yamamoto Mizuki’s acting is definitely a new take on Mey-Rin. She transformed Mizuki into a cute character without leaving the clumsy and cool side of Mey-Rin. (No offense to SebaCiel/ShioSeba fans, but I think Rin is good for Sebastian too!) Anyway, I also like the part when she transforms into the fighter Rin because Shiori (Ciel) actually sees her fight! In the anime, Ciel never saw her do something like that. (I don’t know if something like that happens in the manga, though!) However, there’s this part where they hide and talk about the past. It’s too talky and unrealistic, and it actually made me think about her backstory. I thought that she was actually recruited by Sebastian in the first place to protect Ciel! Why is she saying that she’s actually a daughter of a family that has been protecting the Genpous for generations, that’s why she knew for all this time that Kiyoharu was actually Shiori? This made her backstory quite confusing and I can’t find any reason why they changed her backstory.
Yuka as Lady Hanae
Hanae Wakatsuki
Hanae Wakatsuki is Madam Red’s counterpart in the film. I noticed that Lady Hanae is a lot more evil than how Madam Red was in the anime. Hanae here abducts women for herself. In the anime, the women killed are women who want to get an abortion and Madam Red makes them feel what they deserve for murdering their own child (because she herself lost her own child and her uterus). In the movie, Lady Hanae abducts young women and uses their hormones to make an age-defying drug. The young women are kept alive, but they are kept inside a lab. However, this age-defying drug has a by-product that kills, so she uses it as a bioweapon for terrorism. Besides this, she has a much more tragic backstory where she was originally chosen to be the wife of Mr. Genpou (Shiori’s father) but because she became infertile due to miscarriage, Mr. Genpou divorced her and married her sister instead. In the anime, Madam Red only loved Mr. Phantomhive from a distance and married somebody else who loved her. After that, she became infertile after an accident. Even Lady Hanae’s “farewell” scene was evil, because she actually tricked Shiori into saving her. That “bwahahahah” scene.
Minor characters also have differences with the original. If you didn’t know, Undertaker and Grell are actually in this movie. They are just changed like everyone else like Shiori and Hanae. Jay the Undertaker‘s appearance was so short and I am totally not convinced by his acting. But he is indeed funny-looking. Deep inside I was actually wishing for a sexier Undertaker because I believe that Undertaker is really sexy. Moving on, Grell is replaced by Akashi. It goes like this, Madam Red : Grell = Lady Hanae : Akashi. Grell is Sebastian’s equal in terms of strength because he is a grim reaper. Here, Akashi is 100% human but only became stronger with drugs. But I prefer Grell, though. (I actually prefer Fukuyama Jun and not Grell, hahaha.) Tanaka is quite close to the anime Tanaka. Only the mustache is not!
If I mentioned things that I noticed when I first watched the movie in the first part, I also noticed other stuff when I watched it for the second and third time.
Good mixing of episodes into a single plot. Ciel being kidnapped is found in Episode 2 (His Butler, Strongest), the killing of women (or simply Madam Red’s evil doings) is found in Episode 5 (His Butler, Chance Encounter), and the drugs are from Episode 19 (His Butler, Imprisoned).
Compared to the anime, the movie is a lot darker. There are almost no funny parts in this movie while the anime is actually full of funny situations.
There are many foreigners! Nice. But why name a drug “Necrosis” when it obviously kills? Those who can understand Engrish actually have a chance to run away!
There are many lost characters, too! Where are Finnian, Baldroy, and Elizabeth? (Although I think Elizabeth’s absence is actually a great thing. And I think it’s also necessary to turn Elizabeth into a male if she was to be in this film.)
The places in this movie are great. I wonder where they took these shots?
Let us not forget the goodness of ShioSeba!
The Kuroshitsuji movie was actually fun to watch, and I did not find it bad at all. I was able to understand the story without having any prior knowledge about Kuroshitsuji so it’s easy to swallow for starters.
~Kairu
Two-faced life 