Black Butler has always been my favourite anime for a number of reasons. The characters, the story, the Gothic feel, the weird and dark humour, the music and the animation. Whilst the series has had it's inconsistency in quality for a few years now (with season 1 being fantastic and season 2 being OK), by 2014 when Book of Circus came out, the series started to get much better with Book of Murder following shortly after, both of which were absolutely amazing. Book of the Atlantic, in my opinion, isn't just on par with some of the best Black Butler material, it's the best entry in the anime by far.
Ciel and Sebastian board a luxury cruise liner to investigate illegal experimentation of the dead being brought back to life. The idea of zombies being on the Titanic, leading to the iceberg crash, may sound dumb, but for Black Butler, a series known for exploring things that happened during the late 1800's like Jack the Ripper, this is definitely not the most absurd thing it could've done. It's executed nearly flawlessly, however, and if something dumb is executed with brilliance then that's really all you need to enjoy something. There's also a superb plot twist near the end and the reason behind that characters motivation (not naming them for obvious spoilers) is explored in such great detail. It's great to see a work of fiction give such an in depth reason as to why a certain character does something that may seem out of place.
The characters as usual for the series are just as great as ever. Ciel and Sebastian are still likable and great characters who both get some great character development, and I'm not even gonna tell you how much Elizabeth is improved in this movie. Grell Sutcliff and Ronald Knox aren't developed or anything, Grell is the same as he's always been and Ronald is a new character, but they both get their moments and are clearly a threat. Grell actually gets some screentime where he is actually fighting properly which got me off guard as I thought they were just gonna use him for comic relief like they usually do. Snake from Book of Circus is back as well but doesn't get a whole lot of screentime, still, he's fun to watch.
The animation is still absolutely fantastic, but the 3D animation looks a little out of place at times. It's not horrendously awful like some people here are saying it is, but it's not exactly as amazing as the 2D animation, the movie could've done fine without it.
The music is still great and Sid have come back to do a song for the credits which is among one of my favourites in the whole franchise so far. The rest of the music is still pretty good, but the credits song is the most memorable.
Finally there's the English dub, the version I watched. The Japanese voice acting is decent and all, but Black Butler's English dub is, in my opinion, fantastic. The British accents fit the setting of the show and J Michael Tatum and Brina Palencia do a great job at voicing Sebastian and Ciel as always, with both of them now used to how their character speaks and acts that they can now pretty much voice them the way you would usually hear them in your head without any difficulty. They've been voicing these characters for such a long time and it's great to see that they've finally nailed these two roles. Every other voice actor does a great job as usual too.
The action is better than it's ever been for the franchise and after not kicking as much ass as he used to for the entirety of Book of Circus and Book of Murder, Sebastian is back to being an absolute badass in combat. And, once again, I'm not even gonna talk about what happens to Elizabeth.
Overall, this movie is amazing. So much has been improved from the action, music, characters and the superb balancing of humour and serious storytelling. They really outdid themselves with this movie, and I can't wait to see what happens next if the anime does indeed continue.
