Black Butler -Public School Arc- Ep. 8 “His Butler, Locking Up”: The Game Is Afoot [Review]

Black Butler -Public School Arc- Ep. 8 “His Butler, Locking Up” concludes what is possibly the most ludicrous cricket in anime history, which cannot possibly be all that many. However, this episode also leads us into the climax of this entire arc. The game truly is indeed afoot.

Black Butler -Public School Arc- Ep. 8 “His Butler, Locking Up”: Details

Black Butler -Public School Arc- Ep. 8 “His Butler, Locking Up” is the eighth episode (you can read reviews of Ep. 1, Ep. 2, Ep. 3, Ep. 4, Ep. 5, Ep. 6, and Ep. 7 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, we have no idea just who is behind Black Butler -Public School Arc- Ep. 8 “His Butler, Locking Up” specifically as 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, while Yumi Shimizu is 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. 8 “His Butler, Locking Up” 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 voices in this episode include Seiichiro Yamashita (Justin Briner in English dub) as Edward Midford, Yukari Tamura (Cherami Leigh in English dub) as Elizabeth Midford, Shōya Ishige (Christian Taylor in English dub) as Clayton, and Show Hayami (Andrew Webb in English dub) as vice-principal Johann Agares.

That’s not all. We even have the voices of Hiroki Tōchi (Ian Sinclair in the English dub) as Baldroy, Yūki Kaji (Jason Liebrecht in the English dub) as Finnian, Emiri Katō (Monica Rial in the English dub) as Mey-Rin, and Shunji Fujimura (R. Bruce Elliott in English dub) as Tanaka as cameos for this episode.

When and Where to Watch

Black Butler -Public School Arc- Ep. 8 “His Butler, Locking Up” made its airing and streaming (aka. simulcast) debut on June 1, 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. 8 “His Butler, Locking Up”: Synopsis

Alas, Black Butler -Public School Arc- is an ongoing anime series. In fact, Black Butler -Public School Arc- Ep. 8 “His Butler, Locking Up” only just made its premiere four 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:

At the boat parade that caps off the cricket tournament, Ciel vows once again to learn the truth and present it to Queen Victoria.

Black Butler -Public School Arc- Ep. 8 “His Butler, Locking Up”: The Good

There’s still no question about it. The story of Black Butler -Public School Arc- Ep. 8 “His Butler, Locking Up” is the best part of it, just as it has been for all the previous episodes of this season. All because of Yana Toboso and her manga, really. The storyline is incredibly faithful to her original manga, and it’s all the better for it. Yana Toboso is good at writing these mysteries, and the mystery in this episode creates quite the suspenseful thriller. It may seem like a small thing, but that faithfulness to canon is what makes this season, and by extension the anime, great.

All with the animation quality we have come to expect of Black Butler -Public School Arc- as a whole. CloverWorks has been doing a marvelous job with this season, and this episode is no different. The animation continues to look as though they came right out of a feature-length anime film like Spy x Family Code: White. Especially in the food department. The Eton mess Sebastian made in this episode looked positively scrumptious, just as a single example. This is quite impressive, given that Black Butler isn’t a food anime. That quality animation is also why I love this season of the Black Butler anime.

Black Butler -Public School Arc- Ep. 8 “His Butler, Locking Up”: The Bad

If you’re an action junkie who cares only about action and nothing but, Black Butler -Public School Arc- Ep. 8 “His Butler, Locking Up” is definitely not the episode for you. It’s got thriller and mystery in it, but high-intensity action is not the hallmark of this episode. If you want that, then you might want to check out Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Solo Leveling, or Kaiju No. 8.

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