Butlers: Chitose Momotose Monogatari

Butler themed anime series aren’t that popular. But even if there was one, the most famous butler in anime would no other be that Sebastian of Kuroshitsuji (Black Butler). Over the years, that series had its sequels and side stories. Butlers: Chitose Momotose Monogatari isn’t one of them. It is another butler themed anime and with some supernatural elements but without that demon contract thingy. Just another group of good looking butlers for females to swoon over. Because which girl wouldn’t want a hot guy to treat and serve her well?

Episode 1
All the girls are swooning over Kouma “J” Jinguuji as the newly elected student council president. Yeah, his members are also hotties. Haruto Hizakura the vice president, Ren Shiratori the treasurer and Hotaru Aoba the secretary. A guy (Megane Jerk I’ll call him) who narrowly lost to J accuses him of using dirty tactics. But he gets scared when J with those ‘vicious’ eyes tells him if he has the resolve to fight for what he wants. J then meets headmaster, Takashi Mikuni who praises J for his efforts and gives him a mansion just for the student council’s base. It seems this place holds some memories for J. As they clean up, they accidentally woke up Yuuki Fujishiro AKA Dracula. He is skipping class and sleeping here. He is not punished since his wealthy parents finance the school. They ignore him and clean up the place. After Haruto sets up the internet, J has a request to do a search on this old friend of his, Hayakawa. The search narrows down to a guy working at Café De Wayne. Indeed, Tsubasa Hayakawa works here and is loved by all his female patrons. The manager, Akira Tachibana is glad he has such employee. Also there are 2 guys from the newspaper club, Daichi “Holmes” Kurosawa and Kyoichi “Watson” Sano. They are trying to investigate if J is plotting to take over the entire school via his post. Next day before the student council inauguration ceremony, Ayame Kitazono comes up to J to confess. J trolls her by coming close to her just to identify her pendant. Then he rejects her and says he is not her type. Boo hoo! J then talks to Hikari Kageyama who warns him about the danger he will be facing. When he returns to the ceremony, he sees Hayakawa passing by and gets upset. Later, he visits the café and picks a fight with him. He believes Hayakawa remembers it all although the latter asserts he doesn’t. J points out that his mark makes him a Butler just like him. They protect the Blood Spirit. He accuses Hayakawa something about entrusting his sister, Tenna Kisaragi to him. Hayakawa continues to not know what he is talking about so J vows to make him remember. Flashback shows Tenna underwent some sort of ritual. It went wrong and she disappeared and turned into a pendant. Hayakawa believes she will never return. J struggles to get the pendant from him but they got teleported somewhere.

Episode 2
Mikuni found J unconscious and brought him home. Because an old mansion is visible across his place and J kept looking at it, he is told nobody has lived there for 100 years. Over the years, Mikuni knows about J’s story and secret and wants to help him in any way he can. There is nobody at Café De Wayne at this supposed busy hour. Dracula who has made this his new sleeping place, points out there are bad rumours about Hayakawa hitting on customers. It is obviously exaggerated and he was just handing out free coupons. Don’t believe all the media tells you! Hayakawa thinks J is the culprit but doesn’t say. True enough, J hired some underlings to do this but he admonishes them for going overboard. His student council members talk about this rumour and because some of the girls in their school is being hit by Hayakawa, they offer to help out and look into more about this guy. Of course such rumours don’t stay long since Hayakawa is such a hot hunk to be ignored. Girls soon start streaming back in and with manpower shortage, Dracula is forced to help. This is followed by Ren and Hotaru who come in to investigate followed by Haruto and the detective duo. Now we’ve got a bevy of hot butler dudes serving you ladies! So dreamy! Eventually the student council trio realize their original mission as they observe Hayakawa not to be a bad guy as the rumour says. They learn he just worked here but refused to say where he worked before that. That is when Akira hints Hayakawa was in some accident of losing someone close a long time ago. That’s why he wants to help out in any way he can. Hayakawa is basically a good guy as you can see. The rest then discuss who would spread such rumours as Holmes deduced it must be someone who is a master of controlling others. Haruto has a feeling it is J but brushes it off. J narrates about his changed life ever since that incident. Ever since he disappeared, his bloodline disappeared from that world too. The key to everything is in Tenna’s pendant. Oh, looks like Hayakawa is having it, kept hidden in his coffee stash.

Episode 3
Ren is shocked to see Hotaru skipping their meeting to go flirt with the music teacher, Satsuki Mikami. With Holmes and Watson interested in this juicy detail for their headline, Ren warns them not to write bad things about his friend. So as the trio tail Hotaru who is following Satsuki back to her home, they see him stalking outside. So they confront him and he doesn’t bat an eyelid to admit he is in love with Satsuki. Oh, did he not tell you? Satsuki is his older sister! They have different surnames because their parents divorced. Meanwhile J confronts Hayakawa in an abandoned video arcade building. He beats him up in this one-sided match in his bid to force him to hand over Tenna’s pendant. But Hayakawa insists he doesn’t know. However when J is going to kill him, that is when Hayakawa unleashes his super abilities to turn the tables and beats up J! OMG. Hayakawa knows about Tenna’s pendant but before more can be revealed, here comes Haruto. Hayakawa escapes as Haruto is shocked to see J in this messed up state. He wants to help him but is told off never to get in his way again. Was it something he did? Because of that, Haruto gets depressed. Nothing to beat depression with a cup of bitter coffee at Café De Wayne… Even Hayakawa serving him advises him about feelings. You may think you know what is right for that person but it may actually be not. If he truly cares about that person, he’ll understand someday. It is no surprised the next day, it gets awkward when J and Haruto meet but the latter tries his best to ignore him. Why does J look like he regretted it?

Episode 4
The school is organizing a festival. As Café De Wayne has also set up a stall, Akira wants the student council guys to help. No way. Hotaru then comes up with this idea that pits their butlers against each other. And so in this butler competition of J vs Hayakawa, they have to serve their customers and the one receiving the most satisfactory points wins. Yeah, all the girls are going to swoon over those hot hunks. Especially the ones being served on stage, girls would die just to be served by them. The duo try to outperform each other with various nifty butler skills and tricks but Hayakawa is leading. This also stems from the fact that Hayakawa was J’s senior and taught him the finest techniques to be a butler. In the next round, J’s customer is Ayame. She is going to make him pay for embarrassing her. She makes abnormal requests like wanting freshly picked grapes. Is J going to do it? Haruto uses his corporate muscle to call in his troops to pick and deliver to him! I hope they didn’t have to wait long. Next, she wants J to act like a dog! Grrr! All the girls are mad at this b*tch! However it is Hotaru who acts on his behalf. Then she spills her coffee and wants J to clean up by licking it! Is he going to sully his pride? He carries her away to the backstage so she could clean. Saved! He tells her not to sully her beauty like that. With all the girls so excited, the pushing causes some of the scaffolding to collapse. It is going to fall on Ayame so J uses his super speed to save her. But when that is not enough, Hayakawa protects them. Now you think they’re cool? Hayakawa might have saved him but J won’t thank him as he failed to save Tenna. J is adamant to get Tenna back so Hayakawa tells him to think about her feelings. With this incident, the competition can’t go on and their score is tied. Can we just accept both as the best butlers? Holmes finds it strange because he saw J ‘disappeared’ from stage when it was collapsing.

Episode 5
The mansion is going to be torn down, built anew and refurbished. While the student council guys rejoice, only J is against this. He sees Mikuni about this who says it is by the orders of the chairman who is acting out of safety concerns. The mansion is over 100 years old and might collapse. He knows J lived there with his family but it is time to move on and deal with reality. J cannot accept this so his student council guys decide to help him out. It’s Hotaru’s idea to spread ghost rumours to stop the demolition and bait the detective duo to investigate. Well, don’t try, don’t know. The ghost outfit must be so scary that Haruto freaks out! Cheap jump scare in the form of Dracula sleeping in the closet. At this point Haruto runs out and the detective duo thought they saw some ghost. Haruto slips down the stairs as J uses his super speed to save him. The lights are on and the ‘ghosts’ are busted. But as Holmes investigate the photos they took, he notices large gaps in the footprints left behind by J (I guess his shoes were wet) when he ran to save Haruto. Like as though he jumped through space. This is compounded by the fact of J’s strange moves during the festival. When Akira and Hayakawa return, they find their café ransacked. The money is not stolen so Hayakawa thinks J must be here to steal the pendant. He checks and it is still there. Suddenly J snatches it from him. He waited for him to show where he hid it. J runs away as he tries to activate the pendant. Nothing happens. Frustrated. Suddenly somebody snatches it from him and J gives chase. Meanwhile Holmes does more investigation on J. He realizes he transferred last year, one day after the incident known as Plasma Sky. He remembers seeing Mikuni’s car (he identified it from the tyre tracks?) and stopped to pick up someone. It could be J. His guts tell him something is going on between J and Mikuni. J fights the hooded figure who isn’t Hayakawa because he picked up the pendant that was dropped during the chase. The fight is so powerful that the pillar of the mansion comes crashing down. But J is forced to let the culprit go when he realizes the pillar has crushed Haruto! Oh no!

Episode 6
Thank lady luck because Haruto escaped with minor injuries although is hospitalized. J comes to apologize but he still can’t say anything, souring the mood. Later J talks to Hayakawa about the perpetrator. Based on his movements, he is likely to be another Butler. There might be more Butlers who came from the past. Although the mansion’s demolition is put on hold (Haruto using his father’s influence for it), there are bigger things to worry about. There are nasty posters accusing J of being an irresponsible student council president for hurting Haruto. Hey wait, suddenly everybody hates him! Even the girls?! I thought such rumours would be hard to shake their trust in this hunk. Megane Jerk then wants him to resign and hold new elections and has signed petitions as proof. While J’s buddies stand up for him, shockingly J agrees to resign and views himself unfit to hold that position. He has been forcing his ideals on others and only brought them troubles. His friends sense he isn’t acting like his usual but respects his decision and hope he doesn’t regret it. Even Hayakawa tells him not to shoulder all the blame. J remembers telling Tenna he will protect her himself if he has to. She tells him to rely on others because they are family and the more they work together, the greater their power. Meanwhile Holmes does more investigation. He finds the broken pillar isn’t due to anything natural but via force. Footage around the area shows Hayakawa’s face so he investigates him further and realizes the coincidence that he too has history that only goes back as far as Plasma Sky. J sees Haruto and tells him the whole truth about him being a Butler and from 100 years before. Meanwhile Akira tells Hayakawa his café was named after his grandpa who had weird powers. He shows a mark on his stomach as proof as a descendent. He wonders if Hayakawa is also a descendent because his mark has been tingling ever since he met him. He only says it now after eavesdropping on his conversation with J. But Hayakawa denies he is a descendent. He is from the original family. Haruto needs some time to believe so J lets him touch his bracelet. However it reacts and Haruto suddenly has a mark glowing on his hand. It is proof he is a Butler destined to protect the Blood Spirit and has inherited those powers. Haruto isn’t sure he has such powers but J says it will awakened depending on the person. It might not be his time yet.

Episode 7
J shows Haruto a secret place in the student council room. He reveals his real name is Jay and the other one was created by Mikuni to help him blend in. Pointing the bracelet at the board, a number “2220” pops up. He doesn’t know what it means so he hopes Haruto could help. The same story is being told by Akira to Hayakawa as the former reads out a diary left behind by grandpa. Tenna the priestess had an ability to control space-time. Every 100 years, some space-time distortion will occur and Tenna was supposed to seal it but something went wrong and it threw the Butlers 100 years into the future. As there is someone else trying to get his hands on the pendant, if Tenna knows this, could it be she sent them here to stop the culprit? Suddenly Akira’s owl, P-chan starts to speak. It says about another space-time rift and to gather all Butlers to stop it. Haruto tries to find the connection with the numbers but hits a dead end. As he looks at the map of this place 100 years ago, Ren tells him that the badges of the schools in the area were based on this old map as honour for this town’s development and putting them together creates the old map. Meanwhile there is a strange incident in school. Some students forget why they are even in school! Holmes and Watson investigate this and conclude the culprit is Hotaru. They confront him and accuse him of putting something in his sweets that causes partial memory loss since all those students are from his class. Hotaru denies doing anything so the best way is to investigate his sweets. Holmes pops one in his mouth and he doesn’t know why he is here! Oddly nobody suspects anything so the detective duo leave. J remembers some members of the bloodline could use this ability by using a medium to activate their power. He remembers Hotaru not wanting to study for the test and hoped to forget everything and have fun. He might have unknowingly manifest that power in his candy. When J lets him touch his bracelet, a mark on his chest glows. OMG. Is he one too? You don’t say because Ren also has a mark on the back of his neck glow. Dracula is unamused of all the commotion. He too has a mark on his ear glowing! WTF?! What are the chances?!

Episode 8
J tells his friends the truth. Because the friends have some sort of old jewel passed down by their dads, J confirms that this means their fathers were descendants of Butlers. However Ren finds it hard to believe this time travelling story and special powers thingy. He thinks it is all a prank. Next day, we see the powers of the rest awakening. Like when Haruto touch things, it breaks. Dracula could see the vision of the future and Ren although he might not notice it and claims he is normal, he didn’t realize he broke his alarm clock. Also, Akira displays his invisibility powers to Hayakawa. With Ren continuing to brush this nonsense off, Dracula sees a horrifying vision. He sees unconscious Ren covered in blood at school. The rest race out to find him. Ren is horrified when he starts bending things out of shape and grows boobs! WTF???!!! OMG! It’s true! Confused and embarrassed, he runs and hides as his friends try to look for him. They finally find him but Ren refuses their help. As Ren ponders what he should do next, his power activates, causing the railing to bend and he falls off. J uses his speed to save him. But he accidentally kicks and spills red paint. Hence Dracula’s vision came true. But what bugged me was why the f*ck did J put Ren on the paint! Sure, it is to line up with Dracula’s vision but really, putting Ren on the paint he spilled?! Anyway, Ren thanks everyone and finally comes to accept about such powers. Dracula sees another vision on J this time but doesn’t say. Haruto and J continue to find out the meaning of the numbers. Nothing. Perhaps they are looking at it the wrong way. Taking a closer look, they realize it isn’t numbers. It could be a symbol. Like this zero is actually a circled shape symbol.

Episode 9
Flashback shows Tenna brought J to a room and showed him something. Hayakawa explains to Akira about this world having many layers. If the power of the pendant is set free, it is possible to enter that space-time rift. But if that rift is left alone, it will swallow up the world. Hence a ritual that can only be done by the Blood Spirit priestess is required. The detective duo enter to interrogate Hayakawa about his connection to J and everything. He is not answering until he mentions a similar Plasma Sky incident happened 5 years ago. Back to Haruto’s deduction of the bracelet’s number. Putting the maps together, 222 refers to the address of this mansion. And nobody actually thought of that remotely? As the map of the city is perfect for some feng shui leylines thingy, the mansion is right smack in the centre. The zero is actually a symbol. They think it is a message left behind by Tenna to find that thing with that symbol in this mansion. What could it be? Looks like J might have hit it. It is a prayer room that Tenna uses. Nobody uses it since no electricity. There is that circle thingy. J activates it and finds a letter from Tenna inside. Hayakawa reveals to the detective about the truth of himself. It is believed that another person from his timeline may have come here 5 years ago. They think it is Mikuni since that was when he became the headmaster. Also, the incident of him picking up J might not be a coincidence and he might knew J would show up. The duo leave to get statements from people who are close to Mikuni. J reads the letter from Tenna addressed to him. Doing so means something has happened to her. She knew somebody was after her pendant but doesn’t know why. She sent Hayakawa to investigate. She assures him whatever happened is her decision. If she ever needs her powers, go see Hayakawa as she has given him the key to her power. Angry J confronts Hayakawa and realizes he knew everything from the start. He wants him to hand over the pendant right now. Since Hayakawa won’t, the only way left is to fight. The detective duo see Hikari. He doesn’t say much until Holmes touches him. His power activates (why am I not surprised) as he sees his memories that he is the culprit who hurt Haruto (why am I not surprised?). At the same time, Watson too has his mark glow. Damn, all the characters sure are related to Butlers, huh? Hikari attacks them.

Episode 10
Mikuni gives Satsuki eat Hotaru’s candy. Now she has lost her memories, he makes an excuse she was supposed to be with him. And just like that she agrees? It’s not like she is under mind control, right? I wonder how the student council guys could identify Watson’s scream from afar. If not for them, the detective duo would have been toast as Haruto and Ren use their power to stop Hikari who in turn escape. It seems Watson’s power is to restore lost memories so Holmes now remember everything. Seeing that all of them are Butlers, they decide to share info on what is going on. Akira spots Mikuni and Satsuki heading to the rooftop. He follows them via invisibility. He spots Hikari returning to him. It seems Hikari is working for him so as they could return back in time and Hikari will get to see his dead parents again. Because Akira is spotted, Mikuni has Hikari take care of him. Hayakawa explains to J about the bloodlines being able to go to other timelines. Because some use it for selfish reasons, it starts changing the past and this threatens the world. Only the Blood Spirit priestess is able to seal it and it was Tenna’s fate and duty that she chose to sacrifice herself to save the world and sent the duo to the future. Tenna knew she would be interrupted in the ritual and hence did what she had to. However J doesn’t believe him. He thinks it is excuses. He is still going to save Tenna and nothing is more important in the world than Tenna’s life. Yeah, the whole world can die but even if you save Tenna, no world to live in, how? The fight continues as J accuses him of not saying things and Tenna means nothing to him. That’s when Hayakawa admits he too loves Tenna. Even now. He loved her smiles but she never did so to him but only for J. He doesn’t exists in Tenna’s heart because J was already there. Tenna loves J. This revelation sure weakens J. Hence it is Hayakawa’s duty to protect J and prevent him from going back to the past to do something futile after Tenna sacrificed her life to save him. Suddenly Mikuni stops time on them and lets Hikari steal their pendants. They try to get it back but looks like the storm for the rift is here.

Episode 11
Dracula tells the gang to hurry because it is this vision he saw J being sucked up into the storm. As J fights Hikari, the latter tells him not to get in their way. In fact, J should be on their side as they have the same goal. He brings J to Mikuni. Conveniently all the other friends are here too so we don’t have to explain everything twice. As expected, Mikuni is the mastermind behind everything. As all of them are Butlers, he put all of them together especially the student council members as when they awakened as Butlers, their pendant would resonate. It took a while as their bloodline was thinning. Mikuni mocks J for being more gullible and easier to control than Tenna. He is the guy who was after Tenna’s pendant. The storm kicks up and suddenly time stops. Those who are of the bloodline can only move. Hayakawa meets up with Akira. They notice Mikuni’s cat can still move as it has a pendant on it. J realizes Mikuni’s plan to travel through time and space. When he tries to get close to him, Hikari whips him. Akira tries to reason with Hikari about wanting to see his dead parents. Can he rationalize that you cannot get what is lost? You cannot go back and change time? I thought you can in this anime?! With Mikuni assuring he will grant his wish, Hikari still sticks to him. Hayakawa throws Mikuni his pendant from the cat. It is proof he is once a Butler but because of a crack on it, it proves he was casted out. Mikuni explains there were 2 factions of the bloodline. Those who tried to seal the distortion every time it occurs and those who go back in time to stop it. Mikuni’s parents is the latter. But when they did so, they were caught between the feud of both sides. They died before his eyes. He lost everything. His goal is to go back a thousand years to stop all this crap that happened. More revelation as Mikuni approached Tenna during the ritual. He offered her to come to the past to fix things but she declined. Before he knew it, he was sent to this world. It’s not his fault he disappeared but it was her choice. She might have risked her life to save the world but she wouldn’t have died if the ritual didn’t exist. As they cannot agree, Mikuni uses Satsuki as his hostage. Using Hayakawa’s key the pendant activates. He coaxes J who has been silent since to join them. Will J go back in time to save Tenna and destroy this world? Looks like it…

Episode 12
Surprising but not surprising, J’s intention to get close to Mikuni is so he could save Satsuki. With the hostage out of the way, our Butlers can now fight to their hearts content. Because Hikari failed to stop the duo, it is an excuse from evil Mikuni to dump him away and head into the storm. As the rest treats him, Watson’s power restore his memories, important words mom said to him. I guess this means he switched allegiance. J and Mikuni continue their fight. J explains he will not go back to the past because this is the world Tenna chose and he will protect it. J almost gets sucked into the storm but Hikari redeems himself using his vine to pull him back. You know, I thought Mikuni could have easily entered the storm and go back in time had he not stick around to fight them. More J truths as he tries to open Mikuni’s eyes. He thinks what he is doing will bring about more sacrifices for the future. That’s why they’re not supposed to try to redo it. At that point, the pendant and all the Butler marks start to resonate. They form Tenna?! I figure this is the last chance for her and J to properly say goodbye. Tenna becomes a pendant again in J’s hands. Upset Mikuni becomes desperate to get it back. Hayakawa fights him while telling J how to use the pendant and the key to seal it. In the final fight, J defeats Mikuni. J could have saved Mikuni from entering the vortex but Mikuni lets go of his hand and warns he will regret this. With things returning to normal, J explains the path he chose. They have to live with their mistakes and regrets. He is just sad he cannot see Tenna again. I guess it’s time for J to really cry his heart out as Hayakawa consoles him he is not alone. He has his friends. In the aftermath, it is the start of a new school term. Ren is now a college student and Dracula surprisingly decides not to skip classes. Hikari too returns to school although he has to repeat a year but is happier. Everyone except J and Hayakawa lost their Butler powers. Nobody thinks much of that stormy incident since it is reported that a tornado destroyed the mansion. With no place to hang out, Hayakawa offers his café. But just be ready to put on a butler outfit. For a happy ending, J meets a new freshman. A girl who has this uncanny resemblance to Tenna. Glad you stayed in this world, eh?

Butler Buster: A Wrinkle In Time
You know, somehow I felt ‘cheated’. When I read the synopsis, I read that it is about 2 handsome butlers travelling through time to fight their archenemy. In addition to fighting the supernatural, they also experience a slapstick comedy life at their school. WHERE THE HECK WAS ALL THAT????!!!! My perception is that despite the cool and butler-like display of the main characters, kind and polite to the girls who would always faint from their excessive swooning, behind the scenes they would be fighting monsters, invading aliens and even the Demon King himself to keep the peace of the world and the school they attend! WHERE WAS ALL THAT I EXPECTED?????!!!!! And hence because they had to juggle with their school life as well as their secret identity, the hectic and frenzy life of both sides is what causes for all the slapstick hijinks and misfortunes. It will always be a close shave for them to keep their identity a secret and play out the perfect butlers they are before the normal ordinary people. Yup. BUT WHERE THE HELL WAS ALL THAT????!!!! THERE WAS LITERALLY NONE OF THAT!!!!! Even if those were all my fantasies and ridiculous expectation, the biggest lie in the synopsis that broke the camel’s back was the slapstick comedy part. There is literally none here. This is not a slapstick comedy. See Gintama if you want to know what slapstick comedy is.

Therefore the entire series is one big supernatural drama as we try to guess the secrets behind J and Hayakawa’s past and when everything is pieced together, it wasn’t anything that spectacular. Sure, there were a few funny moments, but nothing that would actually constitute me to even think it is close to being a slapstick comedy. If Haruto being afraid of ghosts is funny (that was just average funny), then I suppose Ren growing boobs was funnier, huh? Anyhow, it doesn’t make it anywhere close to being a slapstick comedy. Damn you synopsis! You lied to me so you made me watch your series! And there weren’t even maids in this series!!!!

So if you just take a look at the plot itself, it is nothing really spectacular. Just a couple of Butlers or rather just J himself trying to get back to his own time to save his beloved sister. It’s really that simple and that boring. So when he learns the truth (AKA plot twist) that Mikuni is the mastermind and the biggest crook behind it all, he has a change of heart. Good guy changes and accepts reality, lives with what he has now, bad guy is defeated and all leads to a happy ending. Besides, I think a plot this simple would be better and much welcomed for me because if they’re talking about going back to the past and change the timeline, woah, that’s going to bring about a whole lot of can of worms. Because you know, if J actually went back and saved Tenna, would the current world still be around? It would most likely be destroyed or become non-existent as Mikuni implied. Different timelines, different characters, different outcomes and a whole lot of new headache. Something my puny mind can’t handle and probably not enough episodes for this series to flesh out.

Even when the gang tries to deduce the 2220 code, it somehow makes me feel that everything explained is just out of convenience. J has never been able to guess it before probably because he is so preoccupied thinking about his days with Tenna and trying to get back there. And then all of a sudden with everyone gathered, Haruto finally found the solution. Not very sure of Haruto is a problem solver but that kind of puzzle solving, I thought if the detective duo explained it, it would have at least looked more probable. Heck, when J and Hayakawa first entered the current timeline, you mean nobody got suspicious when the duo just popped out of nowhere?! They continue life like normal like as though they’ve blended in here for years. Sure, Mikuni and Akira might have taken them in but as for other people in the area, don’t they just question where the heck they came from? “Yo, sir. Haven’t seen you around in this parts before? New here?”. You know. That.

Character wise, nothing exciting either. With a lot of the spotlight on J, the rest of the other characters feel side-lined. There is nothing more about them you would know that has been explicitly stated. Like Dracula who is the son of the financier of his academy. That’s it. That’s why he is able to laze around without getting expelled. Haruto looks like he has corporate connections here and there. We see him only exercising that might once. And that’s about it. How well do you know about Ren and Aoba? Hikari just wants to see his dead parents. That’s it. More disappointing as these guys are the detective duo. You just see them snoop around and Holmes on the verge of hitting something but usually falls short. Sometimes I feel that they are redundant and their roles are just for convenience sake. In other words, many of these characters I feel only exist to prop up the numbers of handsome looking men. Otherwise, outside J and Hayakawa, perhaps 2 or 3 characters would probably be more than sufficient. That is, even if they get their due screen time and decent fleshing out.

So we got all the main and supporting male characters as Butlers. Isn’t that surprising? When the student council members started to have their powers awakening, I started to have a hunch that probably everyone else would also have that kind of power. What do you know? They all are! He’s a Butler! You’re a Butler! Everybody is a Butler! How convenient. The only character whom I predicted but did not make the cut of becoming a Butler is that Megane Jerk. Damn, it sure would have been interesting if this arrogant dude was actually a Butler. Because he would have given J a run for his money as a Butler regardless of what purpose he had.

With these characters being Butlers, it still doesn’t make things better for you see, many of them just use them once or twice and then that’s it. So much so it looked more like convenience to advance the plot or to put in some drama. Like that episode where Ren’s powers started to manifest and he can’t accept it. Because the final climatic battle scene is mostly between Mikuni, J and Hayakawa. The rest are just standing there like observers. Probably they want to settle it on their own but making the rest of them as descendants of the bloodline sounds redundant. I suppose conveniently when time stopped, those concerned can only move. Oddly and conveniently, it took 2 generations for the bloodline to thin out, hence the lame excuse for these characters’ power to disappear for good. If so, how the heck did their ancestors maintain their bloodline without thinning for generations? No Tenna = No Blood Spirit = No bloodline continuation?

Talking about J himself, this guy is really annoying. He isn’t as cool as Sebastian of Kuroshitsuji but if they were the same, many would call it a rip-off and rip this series to shreds. Instead, J as mentioned is more concerned about returning to the past all for Tenna’s sake. From the outside and to other students who don’t know him, he is the perfect guy whom every girl would die for (until that accusation episode in which just threw that belief out the window). Otherwise being a cold and distant dude even among his peers make him look like an irritating bastard. Heck, I even believed Haruto to have better personality than him.

Hayakawa makes up the other mysterious half to J. Most of the entire series keeps teasing us about their relationship. Like I said, the so called ‘charm’ of this series is to keep us guessing their secret past and once that is revealed, you think back and realized that it isn’t such a great deal after all. Although it looked like Hayakawa could have just solved everything if he just told J the truth, but in addition to the much needed drama, would J have listened had Hayakawa told the whole truth and nothing but the truth? As seen once, the Tenna-obsessed J wouldn’t. Hence bringing more conflict to the table. Otherwise, Hayakawa is a cooler character than J, more taciturn, mature and looking over J as his little junior. Yeah, it’s sad to think about it that Tenna prefers J more than Hayakawa but I guess that’s love for you.

Tenna is the only other main female character although she is mostly a side character and only exists in flashbacks and the past. Again, a lot of troubles would have been avoided if she would have made her words clear to J but like in Hayakawa’s case, would J have believed her? At that point in time, perhaps no. So maybe her sacrifice wasn’t just to save this world but to open J’s naïve eyes. Thank goodness he did or her death would have been in vain. The other ‘prominent’ female is Satsuki but clearly she doesn’t play much of a role. Aside surprising us she is Aoba’s sister and being a hostage that didn’t amount to anything. Oh, I almost forgot about Ayame. She’s just a b*tch right? After that failed attempt to embarrass J during a stage competition, I was thinking she would turn into a tsundere. Nah. Just negligible.

Mikuni has been suspicious from the start. My guts were ringing that there is something more to than meets the eye to this headmaster. Firstly, his voice already sounds very suspicious. I don’t know. Maybe it is just me. If a character has this kind of sound, call it bias or stereotype but I would definitely be a bit cautious hearing this kind of voice. Secondly, there are short snippets of hinting Mikuni doing shady things. It could be red herring but it came out as I predicted about him being the main antagonist. Because J vs Hayakawa is like Batman vs Superman, no? Even if they show his tragic flashback, it doesn’t feel sympathetic enough that you want to sympathize with his cause. Heck, if the time stops forever in this world or it gets destroyed in the process because the storm went out of control, I’m still fine with that outcome too seeing my sentiments for this series is already going south without any chance of recovery.

Perhaps one of the reasons one would watch this series is because of the host of bishonen men here. That is what mainly the art and animation style here. It is a good thing that everybody here looks good. Even supposedly the ‘delinquents’. But this isn’t entirely a male series as there are also bishoujo looking females. After all, when you have a bevy of hot hunks, having not cute girls fawning and idolizing them would be a waste. This isn’t after all a totally masculine gay show. Looking at you, Binan Koukou Chikyuu Bouei-bu Love. There are some scenes that I noticed there is a dip in quality especially the fast fighting scenes but it’s not too obvious that it becomes irritating. Oh, did I notice some recycled scenes? This series is produced by Silver Link who did Strike The Blood, Kokoro Connect, Masamune-kun No Revenge, Busou Shoujo Machiavellianism, Non Non Biyori and Baka To Test To Shoukanjuu.

Voice acting is nothing spectacular. Except for the moment when J gets really mad and starts screaming, man, he sounds really mad. The casts are Tatsuhisa Suzuki as J (Ban in Nanatsu No Taizai), Takuya Satou as Hayakawa (Sasajima in Nana Maru San Batsu), Toshiyuki Tonaga as Haruto (Tsukumo in Nanbaka), Mitsuki Saiga as Ren (Phantom in MAR), Takuma Nagatsuka as Aoba (Akira in Nana Maru San Batsu), Noriaki Sugiyama as Mikuni (Shirou in Fate series), Kenn as Dracula (Jinbei in Mushibugyou), Seiichirou Yamashita as Holmes (Kakeru in Orange), Kazuaki Kobayashi as Watson, Keisuke Koumoto as Hikari (Tazuki in Miira No Kaikata), Tomoaki Maeno as Akira (Schubert in ClassicaLoid), Sachika Misawa as Tenna (Sakuyo in Mahou Shoujo Ore),Yuu Wakui as Ayame (Yoko in Sansha Sanyou) and Risa Taneda as Satsuki (Erina in Shokugeki No Souma).

The opening theme, Growth Arrow by Oldcodex is hard rock style and would have been very much suitable had this been overwhelming a butler battle action series. Sure, this series has its share of fight scene but it is not as intense and you wouldn’t really feel it is suitable for such a hard rock music to be played. Even as an opening theme. The ending theme on the other hand, Hidamari No Niwa by Sachika Misawa is quite a slow and lovely ballad. Then again, thinking of the pacing of this series, it also doesn’t quite fit as an ending theme. Sure, the song by itself as it is would be okay but after watching an episode and then hearing this song, somehow it just don’t feel right. But I suppose this is the only place where you get the hear Tenna’s voice more often. Uh huh. She has more singing lines than speaking lines. Just saying…

Overall, just your average butler story with a pinch of supernatural and (nearly) time travelling elements. Personally, only to be let down after realizing there was no slapstick comedy element as I was hoping for as stated in the synopsis. Even so, the plot and characters are mediocre. Mostly out of convenience and like as though they gave us a bevy of hot handsome guys in hopes you could forgive and overlooks this mediocrity. Sorry, guys. I’m not really into butlers. If I was given the key and pendant to go back in time, I would have somehow make the producers make a maid version of this. I would definitely watch that no matter how much it sucks. Yeah…