While technically a shounen anime, Black Butler has always been an anime for the shoujo fans. Stuffed full of bishounen demons, featuring an elegant Victorian England setting, and showing all the frills that come with both – Black Butler appeals to a wide audience. Some come for the handsome gentlemen, others come from the supernatural mysteries and action, and many enjoy the surprisingly dark back stories.
However, Black Butler does have its flaws, and one such flaw is its status as an anime adaptation of its source material. In fact, a lot of the “shoujo appeal” of Black Butler actually comes from what the filler anime-only content injected. Without out it, you would find Black Butler to be a darker, distinctly more action-focused story.
The Black Butler anime is one of those anime series that loosely followed the canon plot for a short while, fluffed the story with a lot of filler, and then decide to actually adapt the source material diligently. It makes reading the rest of the Black Butler story in the manga after the anime frustratingly difficult, and it makes the Black Butler anime watch order more complex than it needed to be.
Black Butler Watch Order
How to Watch All of Black Butler In Order – Filler Included
If you don’t believe you will watch Black Butler and be compelled to go read the manga afterwards, this is the watch order for you. This is how to watch every bit of the Black Butler anime in order.
- Black Butler Season 1 (TV)
- Black Butler Season 2 (TV)
- Black Butler: Book of Circus (TV)
- Black Butler: Book of Murder (OVA)
- Black Butler: Book of Atlantic (Movie)
- Black Butler: Public School Arc (TV) (TBD 2024)
How to Watch The Black Butler Anime Without Filler
If you want to watch Black Butler so that you can go right into the manga afterwards without having to disregard a lot of unrelated information that the Black Butler anime injected, then this is the watch order for you. This watch order only covers the Black Butler manga canon parts of the anime. It is also the filler-free Black Butler watch order.
- Black Butler Season 1 (TV) Episodes 1 – 6
- Skip Episodes 7 – 12
- Black Butler Season 1 (TV) Episodes 13 – 15
- Skip Episodes 16 – 24
- Skip Black Butler Season 2 (TV) Completely
- Black Butler: Book of Circus (TV)
- Black Butler: Book of Murder (OVA)
- Black Butler: Book of Atlantic (Movie)
- Black Butler: Public School Arc (TV) (TBD 2024)
This is the recommended watch order. Typically, I am against skipping filler episodes, mostly because skipping episodes is a massive pain in the butt. However, the filler in Black Butler actually changes the experience of the anime, and not necessarily in the best way.
How The Filler in Black Butler Changes the Anime
The filler in Black Butler is actually pretty good, but it does make the story a lot more confusing than the story told in the manga. It fluffs up the story with extra, unrelated stories, but the most important way the filler changes Black Butler is that it changes the tone of the anime.
Black Butler is a darker shounen story with action, intrigue, and revenge. However, much of the shoujo tone in Black Butler – the BL sexual connotations, in particular – are inserted by the filler. As the filler is also often more comical, it definitely lightens what is a darker story and creates odd tone shifts as the series drifts back to manga canon.
Does The Black Butler Anime Skip Manga Content?
As you can see, a goodly portion of the core Black Butler TV anime is anime-only filler content. So you may be wondering if it skips content from the manga in order to wedge in those original stories.
The good news is that the anime-only content in the Black Butler anime is indeed filler and not replacement. It fluffs up the story, but doesn’t really skip anything. However, you will still note that the canon portions of the original Black Butler anime do change events from the manga. Most notably, the Indian Butler Arc (episodes 13-15) have a much different ending in the manga.
If you have an interest in the manga, it might just be better to skip Season 1 and Season 2 of Black Butler and read Chapters 1 through Chapter 24 of the manga instead. The Book of Circus, Book of Murder, and Book of Atlantic are much better adaptations, and they don’t require you to skip episodes.
