Black Butler is just the latest entry in the string of long-awaited scheduled anime release gaps. Of course, this phenomenon is not a new problem in anime world.
After all, we’ve even seen it with top anime, such as Bleach, Berserk, and Hunter x Hunter, and comparable anime types have followed suit. With its last release in 2014, and with what felt like a deafening silence on their part, ardent anime fans of the Black Butler series simply opted for continuous manga releases, believing the anime was over.
When it was revealed a few years later that the eagerly anticipated installment of the Black Butler series was in production, a certain group of fans went into meltdown. A teaser trailer was subsequently released on Dec. 14, 2023, giving us a taste of what’s to come. Finally, we can officially declare, that the 10-year wait is finally over, and Black Butler is coming back! With the upcoming release just a few weeks away, let’s go over some major details about what to expect.
Release date for Black Butler season 4?
On Feb. 15, 2024, a second trailer was released via Black Butler’s official X/Twitter account (@kuroshitsuji_pr). It felt like a sporadic trailer release that mainly skimmed the surface of what was to come, giving us a glimpse of our main protagonist and a few other intriguing characters. Nonetheless, the X post featured a text tag that, when translated, read: “P4 cast release PV published ✠ •• April 13, 2024 (Sat) 23:30~ Broadcast starts on each station…”
Officially confirmed, the magnificent Black Butler series will return to our screens on April 13, 2024, at 11:30 pm JST, with the second season titled Black Butler: Boarding School Edition. The anime will air on a few streaming networks, with Crunchyroll owning the rights to release it in other countries. Therefore, fans have something epic to look forward to in the coming days.
What’s the plot of Black Butler: Boarding School Edition?
The fourth season of Black Butler will eventually cover the serial manga series’ public-school storyline. The arc, which stretches across 18 chapters in the manga series, will focus on the enrollment of our main protagonist, Ciel Phantomhive, in Weston College, a famous school in Great Britain where British royalty are sent.
According to a letter from Queen Victoria, Ciel is set to embark on yet another investigative mission to find out why the son of aristocrat and fifth-year student Derrick, as well as several others, went missing. The mission was of top priority to the Queen because she was related, by blood, to the missing student. However, while infiltrating is not a new thing for our hero, certain mysteries lie in store for him. The much-adored storyline will also showcase the Perfect 4 (P4) characters, their distinct yet disparate personalities, and their crucial role in the case.
Casting choices, anime studio, and other information?
One important thing the trailers didn’t skimp on was providing the essential details about the upcoming installment’s production. The production rights are held by Cloverworks Studio, which is led by Kenjiro Okada as the series’ director. Hiroyuki Yoshino serves as the anime’s scriptwriter, and Yumi Shimuzu and Ryo Kawasaki are the series’ principal animator and composer of music, respectively.
Maaya Sakamoto and Daisuke Ono, who were cast as Ciel and Butler, respectively, will return to their respective roles. The following new casting selections, which center on the Perfect 4 characters, have been confirmed: Toshiki Watanabe as Edgar Redmond, Shunsuke Takeuchi as Herman Greenhill, Tatsumaru Tachibana as Gregory Violent, and lastly, Junya Enoki as Lawrence Bluewer.