Black Butler -Public School Arc- Ep. 3 “His Butler, Plotting”: Revenge Is Best Served Cold [Review]

Black Butler -Public School Arc- Ep. 3 “His Butler, Plotting” is quite the masterpiece of plotting from Ciel indeed. This entire episode really shows us just what a devious mastermind he is. As well as how much he loves his revenge, which we all know is best served cold.

Black Butler -Public School Arc- Ep. 3 “His Butler, Plotting”: Details

Black Butler -Public School Arc- Ep. 3 “His Butler, Plotting” is the third episode (you can read reviews of Ep. 1 and Ep. 2 here) of season 4 of the Black Butler anime series, immediately following the 2017 anime film Black Butler: Book of the Atlantic. Said anime is the anime adaptation of the dark fantasy and even darker comedy (sometimes the other way around) manga of the same name by Yana Toboso (Disney Twisted-Wonderland). Normally, it’s A-1 Pictures (Sword Art Online, Lycoris Recoil, Solo Leveling) that’s the studio behind this anime. This time though, the studio behind season 4 is CloverWorks (HoriMiya, My Dress-Up Darling, Spy x Family). Crunchyroll is licensing this anime for its global debut.

Yukiko Imai is the director and storyboarder behind Black Butler -Public School Arc- Ep. 3 “His Butler, Plotting”, with Hiroyuki Yoshino as the writer. As for the new season of the anime as a whole, Kenjirou Okada is still the director behind this newest season of the anime as a whole. Hiroyuki Yoshino is the writer, with Yumi Shimizu responsible for character design. Ryo Kawasaki composes the music.

Speaking of music: the opening theme music for this anime as a whole is “Fanatic Parade – The Parade of Battlers” by otoha. Meanwhile, “Shokuzai” (Atonement) by SID is the ending theme music for the same.

Voice Cast

Black Butler -Public School Arc- Ep. 2 “His Butler, in Disguise” features the voices of Maaya Sakamoto (Brina Palencia in English dub) as Ciel Phantomhive and Daisuke Ono (J. Michael Tatum in English dub) as Sebastian Michaelis. The voice actors for the Prefects of Weston College consist of Toshiki Watanabe as Edgar Redmond, Junya Enoki as Lawrence Bluewer, Shunsuke Takeuchi as Herman Greenhill, and Tatsumuru Tachibana as Gregory Violet. Other notable voice roles for this episode include Shōya Ishige as Clayton, Haruka Shiraishi as McMillan, Seiichiro Yamashita as Edward Midford, and Shun Horie as Maurice Cole.

When and Where to Watch

Black Butler -Public School Arc- Ep. 2 “His Butler, in Disguise” made its airing and streaming (aka. simulcast) debut on April 27, 2024. You can watch this episode only on Crunchyroll. In fact, you can watch this entire latest season of the anime, along with all previous seasons and even the Book of the Atlantic anime film, only on Crunchyroll.

Black Butler -Public School Arc- Ep. 3 “His Butler, Plotting”: Synopsis

Alas, Black Butler -Public School Arc- is an ongoing anime series. In fact, Black Butler -Public School Arc- Ep. 3 “His Butler, Plotting” only made its debut just two days ago as of this writing. Thus, you will all get the official synopsis for this episode from Crunchyroll instead of a spoiler-filled plot summary. You can read that synopsis below:

Ciel decides to pay back Maurice Cole for his underhanded trick. Since Maurice lives in a different boarding house, he arranges a special exemption for an acquaintance to be admitted to Weston so that he can monitor Maurice.

Black Butler -Public School Arc- Ep. 3 “His Butler, Plotting”: The Good

Honestly, there are almost too many things to name that’s great about Black Butler -Public School Arc- Ep. 3 “His Butler, Plotting”. If I had to start somewhere, it would definitely be the story. For all you Yana Toboso fans out there (which I’m sure is many, many, MANY of you), this is something you’d likely agree with me on here. The episode is incredibly faithful to the original manga story. Hilariously so especially in the case of Soma.

Speaking of which, Soma definitely steals the spotlight for much of this episode, like a puppy crashing into the camera and trying to lick it to death. It’s not just Soma though. Ciel and Maurice also get their chance to shine, just with the latter doing so in a way that’s bad for Ciel…momentarily. It’s part of why the characters and their interactions in this episode are also part of what makes it great.

One last thing I want to praise though is the animation quality. CloverWorks are still committed to going all out on that animation. It’s basically feature-length anime film levels of animation quality for this episode, as it was in the past two episodes of this anime as a whole. It’s some delicious eye candy to go with the excellent dark fantasy story.

Black Butler -Public School Arc- Ep. 3 “His Butler, Plotting”: The Bad

Honestly, this might not be the episode for you if you’re a fan of action. This is mostly because Black Butler -Public School Arc- Ep. 3 “His Butler, Plotting” is all about the political intrigue. There is violence in this episode, but it’s not something that would satisfy an action junkie, in my opinion. If you are part of that group, then an anime more like Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Bleach, or Kaiju No. 8 would be a better fit for you.