The Kuroshitsuji Book of Atlantic movie was really amazing and blew my mind. Here’s a super long and detailed summary and review of the movie, which in my opinion, did the manga so much justice! Enjoy~ (for those of you interested in the limited edition Kuroshitsuji Book of Atlantic goods, head on over to Aitai☆Kuji)

SUMMARY:



The movie starts off with the Midfords loading their luggage onto the Campania, followed by Sebastian and Ciel. Ciel then has a flashback to an earlier time at the Phantomhive Manor when Lau and Ran-Mao visited him and talked about some strange occurrences happening at the Karnstein Hospital has been doing weird experiences with their dead. He then learns that some of the top doctors from the hospital will be embarking on a journey by boat from London to New York, which Elizabeth and the Midfords were coincidentally also going on.

Ciel then tells Sebastian that they should investigate this suspicious activity and join the Midfords, surprising Elizabeth. The cruise then sails away, and we see Ciel and Sebastian as well as the Midfords in a fancy welcome banquet in the foyer. Sebastian as well as Snake are dressed all prim and proper with their hair slicked back (says Oscar).

Prior to this, Ciel learned that the doctors of the hospital formed a secret society called the Aurora Society and that they had planned a gathering right on the boat itself. Ciel and Sebastian decide to disguise themselves to get into the Aurora Society meeting. Before they leave, Elizabeth asks Ciel if he wants some cake, and he says maybe later.

During this, Ronald, a new shinigami, is seen chilling in the lower decks with less wealthy passengers. A lady tries to ask him out, but he then says he’s kind of busy as his “work” is about to start. He then bids her farewell, and she notes that it’s weird he says it with such finality.

Sometime during this, we see Charles Grey and Charles Phipps onboard the Campania as well, sent there by order of the Queen to investigate some suspicious activity. They keep an eye on the passengers, trying to see what exactly is going on.

Back to the scene in the Aurora Society. Ciel and Sebastian has successfully entered on the premise that Ciel’s doctor father asked him to go to see if they cure his “illness.” Sebastian also whispers to Ciel that there is a condition that he must fulfill in order to be accepted by the society, and Ciel gets super embarrassed. They are both confronted by an older member asking them to prove they are part of the society. They then do the Phoenix pose, muc hto Ciel’s chagrin, and Ciel feels humiliated afterwards.

They then bump into the Undertaker and the Viscount of Druitt, who somewhat recognize the two, and the Viscount gets really touchy feely with Ciel, saying that he remembers someone who looks just like him. Ciel then says he’s mistaken and hurries away with Sebastian.

The main event of the Aurora Society then begins with the head doctor of the hospital, Rian Stoker, explaining that this machine of his can bring back life to anything. He then asks his staff to take out a dead body of a young woman whose parents stood by to watch as Stoker “makes a scientific innovation.” They hook up the machine to the girl and then turn it on. She then starts moving and her mother goes to hug her, only to be bitten violently to death by the zombie corpse.

The entire Aurora Society room flees as the zombie girl, referred to as a “bizarre doll,” starts attacking the members. Stoker and his team then take away the machine and escape while Ronald comes onto the scene to take the film record of the girl’s mother. He recalls that he took the records of the girl, known as Margaret, a few weeks earlier, saying that it’s weird that her body is still alive.

He then asks why Sebastian, a demon, is on this boat. Sebastian explains that he is Ciel’s butler and is serving the Phantomhives, and Ronald isn’t buying any of it so he attacks Sebastian. They duel for quite some time while the bizarre doll is still on a rampage, and Ronald stops her by bashing her head in. He then tells Sebastian that the key to killing the dolls is to smash their heads. Afterwards Ronald is called to do something and leaves Sebastian.

Meanwhile, Ciel has left Ronald with Sebastian as he had to warn Elizabeth and her family that something was going on with this ship. He enters the storage room and is greeted by Elizabeth, much to his surprise. He asks what she’s doing in the storage room, and she says she was trying to give him his cake from earlier. He tells her she shouldn’t be here, and something startles them. They then see that Snake is here tending to his snakes, which they stored in carts in the storage.

Ciel then spots a coffin that has the same mark of the Aurora Society on it, and Snake says that there are several rows of those stored in this storage room (says Oscar). Suddenly, all of the coffins start moving and the zombies (bizarre dolls) come at Ciel, Elizabeth, and Snake. They scurry to the top of the cargo while the dolls surround them, and Ciel holds Elizabeth saying that no matter what, he will try to protect her from harm.

Just as the dolls are about to destroy the crates that the three are standing on, Sebastian comes in and saves the day by killing all the zombies via head smashing. This scene was really gruesome but also elegantly made, and Ciel sees Sebastian in his demon form as he does this, reminding him of when he was kidnapped several years prior.

After Sebastian finishes killing all the zombies, he asks Ciel to jump into his arms, but Ciel sees that he’s completely covered in blood and says he does not want to get his hands dirty. Sebastian then apologizes and changes his gloves and helps Ciel, Elizabeth, and Snake down from the crates.

They then run into Stoker, who Sebastian immediately captures. Sebastian asks him what is going on, and he says that the Aurora Society brought on board not only the corpses that he just killed, but in the other storage room on the other side of the ship contains ten times the amount of zombies than this current storage room. Stoker informs them that there is a way to stop the zombies, but the device to do so is in his room on the ship. Ciel then orders Sebastian to save the Midfords while he, Elizabeth, and Snake head to the boiler room to take a shortcut to Stoker’s room where the device was contained.

When Sebastian gets to the Midfords, he sees that they are having no problem defending themselves from the onslaught of a ton of zombies since they are all expertly trained in the sword art as knights of the Queen. They tell him that they do not need defending, for they are the ones who will defend the people and protect the passengers. Sebastian tells them that the way to defeat the zombies is to slice off or destroy their heads, then leaves them and hopes for their safety.

Ronald is then seen gathering people’s records as his work has started, and he gathers that of the girl who was trying to hit on him, noting that he knew they wouldn’t see each other again while she was alive.

Sometime during this, Grell appears (I do not remember exactly when), and there’s a totally hilarious scene where the music was playing Ave Maria (or something similar) and Ronald is holding Grell at the bow of the ship a la Titanic Rose and Jack. Grell then says that while the atmosphere is quite romantic, Ronald is totally the wrong guy for this, making him lose his mood lol.

While the zombies are still on a rampage throughout the boat, the two watchmen on the top of the tower of the ship note that they were heading straight towards a huge iceberg. They try to notify the captain to steer clear of the iceberg, but the captain was killed by the zombies just as they received signal that there was an iceberg ahead. The ship then scrapes the iceberg roughly, and everyone on board wonders what just happened.

Meanwhile back with Snake, he sees Stoker escape up an emergency elevator back to the top of the ship. There is a scene where Charles Grey and Charles Phipps are killing off the zombies and helping the passengers get to the life boats when out of nowhere, a pair of horses pulling a carriage come rushing towards them. Phipps then slices through the horses easily, effectively killing them and paving a road for the passengers. Both Charles have a super badass scene where they go slicing all zombies.

Back to the boiler room. After the ship had hit the iceberg, water starts pouring in where Ciel, Elizabeth, and Snake are. The workers then do an emergency evacuation where the metal walls close to prevent water from rising. They try to escape as this happens but Elizabeth trips, and Ciel runs back to help her. Snake then yells, “Ciel, don’t go!” (says Emily), but Ciel and Elizabeth are already trapped on the other side of the room with the water rising. Snake then sends Emily the snake through a vent that connects to the boiler room and helps guide Ciel and Elizabeth out. Elizabeth can’t fit because of her dress, so Ciel tells her to take it off but she gets too embarrassed. She says she wants to always look cute in front of Ciel, but he gets frustrated at her and rips off her dress while she cries. She then gets over it and they escape through the vent.

When they fall out of the vent, Sebastian is there waiting and catches Ciels in his arms. He then helps Elizabeth come down the vent, and they are in a hallway surrounded by dolls closing in on them. Ciel and Sebastian watch in horror as Elizabeth gets surrounded by the dolls, but there is conveniently a couple of swords as decoration on the walls, and just as it looks like she’s going to be swallowed by them, she tells Ciel, “I wanted to look pretty for you one last time,” then starts going ape shit on the zombies by slicing their heads off while dancing around like a boss.

Ciel and Sebastian look at her in awe as she kills the zombies relentlessly, and so cues a lengthy flashback of her and Ciel’s past. Ciel notes once that he’s afraid of strong women, so Elizabeth tried her best to not appear “strong” to Ciel. However, because she is a Midford she underwent rigorous sword training, and in their Knight Academy, Charles Grey and Charles Phipp note that the Midfords have an amazingly talented swordsman in their family. Phipps says he did not know that the Midford’s son was so talented, but Grey says it’s not the son but the daughter.

After Ciel disappears, Elizabeth falls into despair but then is reignited with hope when she sees Ciel, back from the dead, with a very black as night butler. She notes that she has grown taller than Ciel as well and vows to never wear high heels, just so Ciel can look taller than her, even though all the high class ladies wear wearing the cutest heels.

Cut to Elizabeth still trying to kill more and more zombies, when Sebastian finally intervenes and says, “that’s enough my lady.” Elizabeth then apologizes to Ciel, saying that she did not want him to see her in such an ugly and strong state since he mentioned years ago that he did not like strong ladies. He says that it doesn’t matter, and what he said in the past is in the past. Elizabeth then asks if he would still take her as his fiancee, to which he does not answer but blushes instead. Sebastian sees Ciel’s flustered state and full-out laughs (I don’t think I’ve ever seen Sebastian, in anime form, laugh this much, it was really cute), and mentions that even in front of ladies Ciel gets pretty shy.

Grell then appears and starts rambling about Sebastian and wishing that Sebastian can just take him right then and there, and Elizabeth is confused and asks who Grell is with Sebastian saying, “don’t mind him. He’s just a weird pervert.”

They then escort Elizabeth to the rest of the Midfords, and they are just about to go onto the lifesaver boats. Edward is so happy to see Elizabeth, and Elizabeth pleas to Ciel to come with them onto the boat, but Ciel says there’s still work to be done. Elizabeth continues to whine and Sebastian shuts her up by hitting her vital spot, effectively knocking her out.

Sebastian then carries Ciel back into the foyer room where the fun is about to start. It turns out that the Viscount of Druitt took the device that Stoker went back to his room for and they bump into each other in the foyer room. Coincidentally, Grell, Ronald, and the Undertaker are also here when Sebastian and Ciel arrive at the scene.

The Viscount of Druitt then remarks that with this amazing device, they can control life itself and create a new society with such amazing power to give and take life. The Undertaker then starts laughing at this. Suddenly they all do the Phoenix Pose, and the Viscount says that he recognizes them.

The Viscount then says he will use this device when all the cast is revealed, and while he goes on his really long and boring monologue, Sebastian, Ciel, Grell, and Ronald keep on saying that they just want to kill him and get it over with since this is dragging on too long.

After he’s done, Grell charges to try to kill the Viscount but Ronald says that Shinigami cannot kill people. The zombies start coming into the foyer room and the Viscount turns on the device only to see that it has no effect on them. Stoker then also appears and tells them that they have been deceived.

As Grell tries to kill the Viscount, he is stopped by the Undertaker who protects the Viscount with one of his wooden graveyard prayer sticks (sotoba), which shocks everyone. The boat then starts sinking vertically, and Stoker falls to his death as the boat tilts.

The Undertaker then summons a bunch of his wooden sticks and causes the chandelier to crash down, and Sebastian protects Ciel from this. The whole sequence with the Undertaker is AMAZING. The music is so epic when he finally reveals his eyes, and everyone gasps as they realize he’s actually a shinigami. He explains that he’s a retired shinigami, albeit a very ridiculously hot like holy shit ovaries gone wtfwtfwtf and very old one.

They then commence an epic fight of Undertaker vs. Grell & Ronald vs. Sebastian. All three have a go at the Undertaker, but he’s too quick for them. Grell then cuts through some of his wooden sticks and wonders why that one stick he was holding when he protected the Viscount did not get cut since Shinigami swords can cut through everything.

They keep lashing out until the Undertaker is left with only one stick, which turns out to be an epic death scythe. Ronald then asks how he was able to keep it after he retired from being a shinigami, and the Undertaker just laughs.

He then reveals that he was the one behind these bizarre dolls, and after being a shinigami for so long and collecting so many different film records, he wanted to see what happened if he tampered with them. He wanted to see if he added more film strip to these mortals’ lives, would they still be able to move? It turns out that yes, they can, but they only move and attack people because they are looking for their souls since the shinigami reap their souls.

The Undertaker then appears beside Ciel and coaxes Sebastian to attack him, and this is the epic and beautiful scene where Sebastian tries to come save Ciel but the Undertaker throws Ciel away. The scene was amazing in the manga but is even more beautiful in the anime as Sebastian looks on in shock and horror that he is not able to reach Ciel’s hands in time as the Undertaker strikes him violently with his scythe.

Ciel yells, “Sebastian!!!” and Sebastian then says his famous line, “Oh…he’s calling me…”

We then see the flashback scene of Sebastian when he first appeared to Ciel in his demonic form, mostly a mix of black smoke and the art in this was really pretty. They seem to use some kind of rough charcoal to animate Sebastian’s demon form, and they then use really thick pencil lines to show him walking to Ciel and becoming the Sebastian we all know.

The flashback scene then shows Sebastian adjusting to becoming a butler for Ciel and being crap at it. There is a pretty fanservicey scene when Sebastian is helping Ciel bathe but Ciel orders him to leave, but he hurries back when he hears that Ciel had fell from the bathtub. He then holds Ciel close as Ciel is butt naked lol.

After some more flashback scenes, we get to the famous scene when the Queen of England welcomes Ciel back as her Watchdog, and Ciel is walking down a hallway when Sebastian notes that he now has everything he has wanted, and Sebastian is ready to take Ciel’s soul when Ciel says, “No.” Sebastian stops, and Ciel says that he came back not to get what was taken from him, but to get revenge at the people who did this to him. Sebastian then remarks how delicious his soul will be after all the corruption he will go through to get his revenge, and Ciel orders Sebastian to be by his side until the deed is done. Sebastian then bends down and kisses Ciel’s hand, saying “Yes, My Lord.”

The scene then goes back to Sebastian reaching out to Ciel as he is suspended in midair. He finally reaches him and protects Ciel from the fall. They roll on the floor several times and Sebastian cradles Ciel to him, away from harm. Ciel is stricken when he sees Sebastian in such a weakened state, with blood everywhere. The Undertaker is very amused at this act of compassion for a demon, and they continue to fight.

After some time, the Undertaker decides that it is now time for him to take his leave, and using his scythe he slices the entire ship in half. Before he is able to escape, Sebastian (and I think Grell and Ronald) come at him and someone rips off his rosary, which falls into Ciel’s hands. He’s extremely shocked that he lost his rosary but says to Ciel that one day he will take it back from him and then disappears. The passengers of the boat then look on in horror as the boat sinks while half of the other side of the boat falls into the ocean.

Sebastian escapes with Ciel in his arms. He eventually throws Ciel off-board with a lifeboat while he takes care of some more unfinished business.

As Ciel starts getting fatigued, he falls into the ocean, and there’s a really beautiful scene when Sebastian pulls him out of the water. Sebastian has readied a life boat just for Ciel and collapses when he enters the boat. Ciel is worried about Sebastian’s weakened state, but then the dolls start popping out from the water and are closing in on Ciel and Sebastian. Sebastian says that the reason why the zombies are following them is that Ciel is the only one left with a soul right now, and Ciel says something along the lines of, “Well, that might be true or not…” He then orders Sebastian to kill all the zombies, to which he does even in his weakened state.

When the zombies are defeated, Sebastian collapses again onto the boat, and Ciel wholeheartedly says to Sebastian that he did a really good job defending the people on the boat as well as protecting him, and he tells Sebastian that when they get back to the Phantomhive Manor, he wants Sebastian to truly take a good rest. Sebastian and Ciel then look into the rising sun as a rescue boat heads their way, and Sebastian remarks that their work has just begun (cue segue into another eventual season of Kuroshitsuji amirite? lol).

The credits then start rolling, but at the end of the credits, we are greeted with one more scene. Grell and Ronald are floating in the middle of the ocean when they are rescued by William T. Spears. Grell then flings himself onto William, saying that he knew his savior will come to save him. William is dissatisfied with the work that Grell and Ronald did at the Campania since they made him do overtime.Sebastian and Ciel are then escorted onto the rescue ship and are reunited with Elizabeth and the Midfords. Elizabeth then hugs Ciel and says she’s so relieved that they are both alive. Sebastian watches them and smiles a true smile.

END~



REVIEW (9/10 RECOMMEND):

The movie adaptation of the Campania arc was very true to its original source, albeit a few scenes cut here and there. I remember following the manga really closely so many years back when I was in college and waiting each month for an update, and this movie brought back all the feels I had for the manga arc but TENFOLD because not only was the animation beautiful, but the music really sets the anime version apart from the manga. For me, the entire movie played out exactly as it did in my head when I was reading the manga years ago, and this was really nostalgic as every major scene was so well done and epic and ugh, this movie was just so good.

I personally do not like Elizabeth’s character as she is way too whiny in the anime, but the movie actually made her pretty likeable and her sword fighting scene was so much cooler in motion because she fights like she’s dancing ballet. It was really well animated.

Also, the foyer scene with the Undertaker was one of the most epic fights in the Kuroshitsuji anime to date. There was so much going on, and the animation for this long scene was so well done, accompanied by the music, made this the best part of the movie. When the Undertaker revealed his true identity with his eyes, I swear to god all of the fans in the audience audibly gasped, even though we all knew it was coming. It was done in a slow-mo music swelling up to the perfect moment, and with the glass falling behind him reflecting prisms and ugh, I thought it was so so good.

Then the scene when the Undertaker throws Ciel and Sebastian reaches out to him was also beautiful because while the rest of the scene had epic music and crazy animation sequences, the part when Sebastian realizes that Ciel is slipping away from him and their hands brush together was actually all done without any sound, and in doing so, causes the audience to hold their breath as they wait for the music to come back since this scene was so lyrical in its silence. I thought this was so tastefully done and made me almost cry.

OH AND DOUBLE CHARLES. I am so happy that we got some scenes of Charles Grey and Charles Phipps, even though I do not remember them being in the manga, but their scenes were super awesome, and Phipps actually spoke!!! A LOT!!!!!! Their scenes did not feel weirdly inserted as they were on the ship for a good reason, and they did help get the people to safety and I ship them so hard why is there not that much fanart and fanfic of them that is a TRAVESTY THEY ARE SO AWESOME UGH MY FEELS.

The only thing I thought was kind of poorly done is the scenes of the Campania ship it self, when they for some reason opted for cheesy CG instead of animating the ship, probably thinking that the CG would mean higher quality, but it looked sort of like a toy boat in some scenes with weird CG passengers as well. Also, the zombie killing was extremely violent and somewhat unnecessary with the ridiculous amount of blood they animated in like, almost every single scene. However, the rest of the movie was animated with A++++++ quality.

All in all, I think the Book of Atlantic was an AMAZING movie, and I think that the movie definitely paves the road for the rest of Kuroshitsuji to be adapted into anime form (WITH JUSTICE) eventually. I was pretty impressed with the Book of Circus anime season, and Book of Murder was a really good OVA, and Book of Atlantic just brought home the streak and outdid itself. I hope that we get a new anime soon for the next arc, which I believe is going to be the boarding school one.

MERCHANDISE AND GOODIES:

There was a TONNNNN of exclusive movie-only merchandise available at the theaters for purchase, including a special large post-card with a print of Sebastian and Ciel at the movies, signed by Maaya Sakamoto and Daisuke Ono. Also of course, Aitai☆Kuji has ALL items as well as the Book of Atlantic Kuji items for all you Kuroshitsuji fans who want these exclusive goods only available at the theaters here in Japan!