The new Anime season is on the brink of starting, and with it comes the “Emerald Witch” arc of Black Butler. In this story arc, the protagonists find themselves in a German village – but they speak only strange gibberish.
How does that sound? If you have a subscription to Crunchyroll, you can watch the first episode of Black Butler since a few days ago. It is one of the anime from the new spring program and launches a new arc. This time, Sebastian and Ciel are heading to Germany, where the residents even speak authentic German.
But for many German-speaking fans, what Japan understands as German sounds strange. Simply check out the following TikTok clip to hear how it all sounds:
Both the villagers and Sebastian converse in German. However, many words sound as if they are pronounced the way they would be in the Japanese language. In the language, a vowel often follows a consonant, turning “Klappe” into “Kulappe.” Moreover, hard consonants like F are not emphasized strongly, which is why the anime mentions a “Auwstand” instead of an Aufstand.
This pronunciation indicates that Japanese native speakers were used as voice actors instead of German-speaking actors. As a result, some words are so distorted that they are hard to understand. Fans have mixed opinions about this.
You can watch the trailer for the new season here:
Fans discuss German pronunciation in the anime
What do the viewers say about it? In the comments of the TikTok video, there are many German-speaking users discussing the anime. One fan wonders if German would actually sound that way to outsiders. He wishes he could speak Japanese better.
User firwflowerp0wer, on the other hand, has no problem understanding the villagers. For the fan, the pronunciation is understandable if he listens closely. However, the comment with the most likes comes from Mrs.A: The user briefly doubted whether they even understood German at all. But luckily, there are subtitles, as some fans point out, to follow the events.
What must be highlighted, though: The voice actors are making a great effort to pronounce it accurately! It likely wouldn’t be any different if German native speakers had to speak texts in Japanese. This opinion is reflected in many comments as well.
What kind of anime is this? Black Butler is a mystery anime where Ciel and Sebastian solve several cases. Ciel is looking for the murderers of his parents, and the demon Sebastian helps him disguised as a butler. Once Ciel has taken his revenge, his soul belongs to Sebastian.
In the new arc, the two are transported to Germany. They must solve a case involving unexplained deaths. An immortal witch is suspected to be living there. Why you should definitely watch the anime is revealed by MeinMMO: The best anime of all time – This is what our editorial team is watching
