Please note that this review may contain spoilers. Please bear this in mind if you haven’t seen the show.
Sometimes chasing for the cute boys in anime really isn’t worth it.
It may be a surprise to some (not really, I hope) but not every anime that is prominently cute boys is good. Butlers x Battlers (or the more complicated title of Butlers: Chitose Momotose Monogatari) has managed to meet the likes of D-Frag and Love Kome in the part of my anime history which isn’t all too favourable.
Back in May, in my Spring 2018: Am I Still Watching? post, I was saying that this was such an average show, that it had plenty of flaws, no plot progression and that it would be a hard show to finish if I did continue to watch it. I, uh, wasn’t wrong about any of that.
For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, Butlers is a show that centres on two protagonists – Jay and Hayakawa – that are both a part of the bloodline of Butlers. Jay is the smart and handsome student council president whilst Hayakawa is a multi-talented young man who works at the local café. The two of them travel through time to fight their archenemy and, well… That’s that.
Butlers is a show with a lot of problems. Firstly, it’s listed as a comedy. Now, I know my sense of humour is completely different from many others’, but I never once saw a part of the show that could potentially be funny. I guess, if any part, it would be the second episode where they dress up as butlers because “haha, it’s a funny joke” but I personally just found that to be just a waste of an episode. Perhaps this is me just being just being my usual cynical self, but shows like this are the sort to make me question why comedy is just slapped onto any old show.
The second problem I have with this show is the number of characters that were introduced simply to act as plot devices. Is there really such a need for every character we meet to suddenly become a Butler? Most of these aren’t even connected with the issue at hand. The whole point of Jay time travelling, for instance, is to try and save his younger sister, Tenna. So, why do everyone and his pal have to have similar abilities? Surely there was a better way to flesh out these characters?
A combination of a poor story with poor characters and bad attempts at comedy really didn’t make this an enjoyable watch. The animation, at least, was pretty decent (not that I would expect anything different from Silver Link.) but even then, it wasn’t the best at all nor was it a redeeming factor for the show. The voice actors, despite having an incredible amount of well-known roles between them, all seemed to be pretty lacklustre. Not one voice stood out, although, I imagine that would be hard to do when there’s such a big cast in the first place.
As for the OST, well, that was probably the best thing about the show. The OP, performed by OLDCODEX, is one of my favourites from what I’ve heard from the Spring 2018 season and that just seems a little wasted all things considered. The background music consistently manages to set the scene with a good implementation of various different scores, but again, this isn’t really anything to shout about.
So, really, this is just a bad, mediocre-at-best show. I wouldn’t really recommend it if I’m honest unless you’re willing to watch the majority of it at 4x speed like I did. Yes, that was the only way I could bring myself to finish this show. (And, really, it made it a lot better than it would have been…)
Rating: 4/10
Really glad I didn’t push on past the first episode reading this. Seems like I saved myself from a frustrating or boring viewing experience.