#but i will NOT have people disregarding the music or blatantly misunderstanding it

[clownzeee]

i could rant forever about this but the music in musicals has a purpose!!!!!! its not just people "bursting into song for no reason"!!!! please take musicals seriously im beggin g you

[chibimyumi]

Hi Chibi, I love your blog! Thanks for taking yor time to bless the Kuro fandom with your translations and with Furukawa ❤ I always wondered what Yana thought about the anime and you mentioned in a post that she doesn't seem very pleased with it. Can you go more in depth about it and bring some examples?

Hello Anon,

First of all, thank you for your sweet words! ^w^

There is not a lot more about the anime coming directly from Yana herself other than the things I already said in this post you are referring to.

As Yana’s old blog is gone, I only have her Twitter left, but this gives us a fairly good picture as well. Though, please note that Yana is a person who is incredibly kind with words, and most of all, morally obliged to stay diplomatic. Considering her position as well as the nature of Japanese language, the key here is to read between the lines.

Toboso Yana

“I don’t know who was right or wrong in the past, but as the original creator myself I also can’t determine what was right anymore, oh, Circus Arc. During the time the Circus Arc was being serialised in GF, the first season of the anime was in full swing. Regardless, Squair Enix still allowed this content [of the Circus Arc] to be published, and I am just so grateful, really.”【Toboso】

Note: The anime was very popular during its run, but during the Curry Arc already, the story was making a clear split from the original content. Normally it is considered risky if the canon content would blatantly “contradict” what is considered popular. Blatant contradiction might risk the anime (which often starts with a bigger fanbase than the manga) being accepted as ‘canon’ at the expense of the original content.

“When I look at the art of the first episode of season 1 it really brings back memories and I almost want to cry ～～ 😭 Please look at episode 1 of the anime version, [it] is great.”【Toboso】

Note: Japanese is a null-subject language, and therefore what Yana refers to by [it] is unclear. It could be the story, it could be the art. But as Yana explicitly referred to the art of episode 1 being great, (and not the episode itself, or the rest of the season), it is not unreasonable to assume that [it] refers to the art alone.

Explicit Opinion through Editor K

While Yana is kind with words, Editor K is significantly less gentle in expressing his opinions. The following are Editor K’s words about the Furukawa era of Kuromyu wherein he also represents Yana. Source

“During the year 2009 when the first musical was running, the spectators were still not used the the concept of 2.5D. The anime however was a big hit, and the musical staff were all hyper-conscious as not to give the audience the disappointment of “the characters feel different”. I remember that Mr. Matsushita received the instruction to thoroughly incorporate the factors of the anime, and not of the manga, such the way of talking and voice. That went very well, and the musical of ‘Kuroshitsuji’ was well received in the aspect of betraying neither the original- or the anime-content fans.”

“When talking about ‘the original canon’, then the Sebastian played by Mr. Furukawa Yuta is the absolute closest. It is a bit hard to bring this up, but when ‘Kuroshitsuji’ was to get an anime adaptation, the timing was sooner than even what is normally the standard for the collecting of original content. As such, people who believed the anime Sebastian was canon, and the people who regarded manga Sebastian as canon were pretty much divided in halves. In this sense, Mr. Furukawa is closest to the canon, probably because he disregarded any information from the anime and solely approached Sebastian from the manga.”

Host: “[Mr. Matsushita] followed the anime Sebastian strongly, right?

“That’s right. However, Mr. Furukawa’s approach for Sebastian was different. There was not a trace of the first musical Sebastian in him. If I may quote Ms. Toboso here, “he let me taste the beast-like sides and the non-human aspect in Sebastian that I have been holding so dear”. Without fearing to cause a misunderstanding, we could totally imagine [Mr. Furukawa] going on all-fours and crawl. He reminded us of the image we had of Sebastian during the time the ‘Red Butler Arc’ was made, before the anime adaptation, shall we say? Especially at the beginning when he was summoned by Ciel, before he appeared, he ‘breathed as the soul of a beast that just escaped’. Mr. Furukawa’s Sebastian appeared as he grunted: “Haa――”. I said that I found that so refreshing, but Ms. Toboso said: “No that is not ‘refreshing’, if anything, this is exactly what it was always supposed to be”. The script of ‘The Lycoris that Blazes the Earth’ is the same as the one Mr. Matsushita held last year, but I am shocked to see such immense difference. Not saying who was better, just that I was stunned.”

So yeah, despite their moral obligation to stay as diplomatic as possible, the roundabout-ness in both Yana’s and Editor K’s words tell us a clear story. I hope this helped ^^