#OP, ED Animations for Black Butler: Public School Arc Released

The opening and ending animation sequences of the Black Butler: Public School Arc anime, which premiered in Japan on April 13, have been uploaded to the Aniplex YouTube channel.

The opening is storyboarded and unit directed by Masashi Ishihama, the director of Horimiya -The Missing Pieces-, Horimiya, Persona5 The Animation, and From The New World, whose last anime opening was for Horimiya -The Missing Pieces-. Ishihama’s Black Butler: Public School Arc OP sequence is filled with mesmerizing and stylish shots and transitions, like when Sebastian shelters Ciel with his black robe, and its darkness spreads and covers the screen, and immediately takes us to the next shot. 

In other parts of the opening, an umbrella viewed from a top-town perspective twirls and creates flame, a first-person shot frames characters in a shard of glass held by someone’s constantly moving hand, and four arms slide out from the back of a quadrilateral shape framing the sound director credit to embrace it. Ishihama’s penchant for doing interesting things with the placement of staff credits also shows up in other places, like a shot midway through the opening where the water reflects not just the rapidly descending moon but also the credits that hang in the air.

Meanwhile, the ending sequence, storyboarded and unit directed by artist Oka Okazaki (Sword Art Online the Movie -Progressive- Scherzo of Deep Night co-promotion designer), by is less intense but delivers an agreeable, more “modern”-looking aesthetic and character art. A part of it is dedicated to showing Ciel falling from the sky, before Sebastian grabs his hand halfway and descends with Ciel, the two gazing at one another.

Black Butler: Public School Arc‘s opening theme song is “The Parade of Battlers” by otoha, while the ending song is “Shokuzai” by Sid.

Black Butler: Public School Arc is the first new Black Butler anime since 2017’s Black Butler: Book of the Atlantic movie. Crunchyroll and Bibili are streaming it, and the former describes the plot as:

Amidst Britain’s elite, Weston College defies government oversight. So, when students vanish—including the son of Queen Victoria’s cousin—Her Majesty sends her Watchdog Ciel Phantomhive to investigate. With his loyal demon butler, Sebastian, Ciel must navigate treacherous school politics and infiltrate Weston’s model prefects, the P4, if he is to unravel the mysteries that shroud this institution.

Black Butler is based on the Square Enix-published dark fantasy manga by Yana Toboso, which  began serialization in Monthly G Fantasy in 2006 and has 33 tankoubon volumes as of July 2023. The first season premiered in 2008 and was followed by two more seasons and a two-episode OVA. The previous Black Butler anime were produced by A-1 Pictures. 

• Director: Kenjirou Okada (March Comes in Like A Lion series director) 
• Series composer: Hiroyuki Yoshino (Black Butler: Book of Circus)
• Character designer: Yumi Shimizu (Locodol)
• Music composer:  Ryou Kawasaki (To Your Eternity)
• Animation production: CloverWorks

Cast

• Maaya Sakamoto as Ciel Phantomhive 
• Daisuke Ono as Sebastian Michaelis
• Toshiki Watanabe as Edgar Redmond
• Junya Enoki as Lawrence Bluewer
• Shunsuke Takeuchi as Herman Greenhill
• Tatsumaru Tachibana as Gregory Violet