Black Butler -Public School Arc- Ep. 4 “His Butler, Colluding” deepens the mystery around why Ciel is attending Weston College in the first place. With the P4 getting more and more suspicious the whole time. This episode is why this anime is one of the great mystery anime of all time. That, and the utterly ridiculous comedy that goes in in the middle of all this mystery.

Black Butler -Public School Arc- Ep. 4 “His Butler, Colluding”: Details

Black Butler -Public School Arc- NA key visual.
Not shown: the darkness and the insanity. The latter being the funny kind of insanity.

Black Butler -Public School Arc- Ep. 4 “His Butler, Colluding” was the fourth episode (you can read reviews of Ep. 1, Ep. 2, and Ep. 3 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.

Alas, for some reason, whoever is behind Black Butler -Public School Arc- Ep. 4 “His Butler, Colluding” is a mystery at the time of this writing. 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. 4 “His Butler, Colluding” 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 (Reagan Murdock in English dub) as Edgar Redmond, Junya Enoki (Brandon McInnis in English dub) as Lawrence Bluewer, Shunsuke Takeuchi (Jonah Scott in English dub) as Herman Greenhill, and Tatsumuru Tachibana (Kieran Flitton in English dub) as Gregory Violet. Other notable voice roles for this episode include Shōya Ishige (Christian Taylor in English dub) as Clayton, Haruka Shiraishi (Ciarán Strange in English dub) as McMillan, Seiichiro Yamashita (Justin Briner in English dub) as Edward Midford, and Shinnosuke Tokudome (Marianne Bray in English dub) as Joanne Harcourt.

When and Where to Watch

Black Butler -Public School Arc- Ep. 4 “His Butler, Colluding” made its airing and streaming (aka. simulcast) debut on May 4, 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. 4 “His Butler, Colluding”: Synopsis

There’s a reason why Ciel is smirking here.

Alas, Black Butler -Public School Arc- is an ongoing anime series. In fact, Black Butler -Public School Arc- Ep. 4 “His Butler, Colluding” only made its debut 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 wins the P4’s trust, but he still can’t find a chance to get close to the Head Master. And so he brings up the subject of Derrick Arden with the P4 and their drudges. When he does, the expressions on the prefects’ faces change…

Black Butler -Public School Arc- Ep. 4 “His Butler, Colluding”: The Good

Black Butler -Public School Arc- Ep. 4 "His Butler, Colluding" screenshot showing Gregory Violet pouting while Ciel is looking disturbed in the background.
He’s certainly good at something, and it’s not just drawing.

There’s no doubt about it: the story of Black Butler -Public School Arc- Ep. 4 “His Butler, Colluding” is the best part about it. Yana Toboso’s story is just a masterpiece. It’s not only a brilliantly intrigue-filled mystery, but it’s also the most ridiculous comedy ever. Those two genres sound like they should oppose each other at first blush, but they can actually make for a very entertaining story, as evidenced by this one.

With Gregory Violet providing much of the comedy in this episode. The guy is a riot, with gremlin tendencies that make you laugh at what he does every time he does it. Seriously, there’s a reason why he’s one of the most popular characters in the Black Butler fandom.

Lastly, the animation is just as gorgeous as in the previous episodes. Seriously, you can tell that CloverWorks put a lot of their time, effort, and budget into that animation. When you’re watching the most realistic tea being poured into a teacup, and you forget that you’re watching anime for a second and think that you’re watching a live-action series, you know that you’re watching the most beautiful animation of any recent anime. Seriously, there are feature-length anime films that can only dream of being this gorgeous in their visuals. The eye candy is very real in Black Butler -Public School Arc-.

Black Butler -Public School Arc- Ep. 4 “His Butler, Colluding”: The Bad

Black Butler -Public School Arc- Ep. 4 "His Butler, Colluding" screenshot showing Gregory Violet suddenly giving Ciel a creepy look upon mention of Derrick Arden.
You know things are bad when the gremlin turns creepy.

Do you not like mysteries? How about comedy? Maybe even a smidgen of action mixed in at the end? If you don’t like any of them, then perhaps this anime is not for you. Maybe a more action-packed anime like Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Solo Leveling, or Kaiju No. 8 is more your speed?

Keep Reading:

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