The Ebony Butler's Battle against the Emerald Witch: A Gripping Saga

The "Ebony Butler Emerald Witch Arc" is a storyline that appeared in the popular manga and anime series, "Black Butler" (also known as "Kuroshitsuji"). This particular arc introduces a new character named Ebony Butler, who is a powerful witch with the ability to control emeralds. Throughout the arc, Ebony Butler is portrayed as a mysterious and enigmatic character, often clad in black robes with a prominent emerald necklace. Her motives and true intentions remain unclear until the latter half of the arc. The main focus of the storyline revolves around the emerald witch's desire to obtain a legendary artifact known as the "Emerald Key". It is said that this key can unlock immense power and grant unimaginable wishes to the wielder.

NOROI follows a documentary filmmaker, Masafumi Kobayashi, as he slowly uncovers something mysterious and evil that's leaving a trail of dead bodies in its wake. After interviewing a woman who claims to hear loud baby's cries coming from the house next door (where there is no baby), Kobayashi heads over to talk to the neighbor. He's greeted with hostility by the unhinged, disheveled woman (Maria Takagi) who answers the door (and promptly slams it in his face) and gets a peek at her 6-year-old son through a window. Strangely, both the woman and her son disappear just days after his visit (leaving behind a pile of dead pigeons on their back porch), and the woman who first complained about the noises, as well as her daughter, are both killed in a mysterious accident not long after that. This piques Kobayashi's interest and he sets out on a quest to find out what's going on. He soon uncovers that those with psychic abilities and extra-sensory perception seem to be tuning into something sinister, unexplainable and possibly even apocalyptic. Well-known 10-year-old clairvoyant, and TV celebrity, Kana (Rio Kanno) seems to think we may all be doomed, but she mysteriously disappears before she can be of much help. Another female psychic/actress (Marika Matsumoto) becomes involved, as does Mr. Nori, a mentally unstable kook/psychic who wears a hat and jacket made of aluminum foil and thinks people are being eaten by what he refers to "ectoplasmic worms." Clues eventually lead back to the site of a small village that's now covered by a lake, and the legend of an ancient demon known as Kagutaba.

For the better part of 15 years, Noroi was the subject of only occasional international screenings, and it never got a physical release in the United States. You have to pay attention to those unrelated details given throughout the film and the payoff is great when, in course of the film, these things start to intertwine one another.

It is said that this key can unlock immense power and grant unimaginable wishes to the wielder. The key is believed to be hidden in the Phantomhive Manor, which serves as the central location for much of the series. As the arc progresses, Ebony Butler's true nature and personal history are revealed.

Noroi: The Curse Is a Genuinely Terrifying Hidden Gem

The Japanese horror film from 2005 defies convention and has developed a cult-like following—and for good reason.

Noroi: The Curse opens with a warning: "This video documentary is deemed too disturbing for public viewing.” It spends the subsequent two hours living up to that warning.

I don’t want to say too much about Noroi’s plot, because one key to its success is throwing so many different things at the audience before revealing how they all come together. But broadly: Noroi is a 2005 horror movie presented as a polished but incomplete documentary by an independent journalist named Masafumi Kobayashi (Jin Muraki). Kobayashi specializes in the supernatural, and his latest project tackles a series of seemingly disconnected mysteries: a creepy house where neighbors always hear the sound of crying babies, a string of sudden and bizarre deaths, an adolescent girl with apparent psychic powers, and a ghost-hunting reality TV show that goes very, very wrong. Chasing these threads ultimately leads Kobayashi to an old ritual tied to a demon named Kagutaba. What follows is a strange mishmash of surreal imagery presented in a disarmingly straightforward way—dead pigeons, braided ropes, barking dogs—and a dread-inducing downward spiral.

It is not a spoiler to say that things don’t end well for Kobayashi; Noroi literally opens by explaining that Kobayashi’s house has burned down with his wife inside, and that Kobayashi himself has vanished. So ultimately, the question isn’t what happens to these characters. It’s why and how it happens, and what it means.

Found-footage movies have a bad reputation among horror fans—which is fair, since most of them are terrible. So what makes Noroi stand out from the dozens of bad, cheap imitators that cropped up in the wake of The Blair Witch Project, which came out five years earlier? Director Kōji Shiraishi makes one brilliant choice upfront: Unlike most found-footage movies—which are usually presented as raw footage shot by a doomed amateur—Noroi is introduced as a mostly-completed "documentary" crafted by a seasoned journalist. This immediately fixes several problems that typically plague found-footage movies. Because the character holding the camera is supposed to be a professional cameraman, Noroi largely avoids the headache-inducing shaky-cam popularized by legions of Blair Witch Project imitators. And because Kobayashi is experienced, the "found footage" is edited more like a conventional documentary meant to entertain and inform a mass audience, which means that Noroi—even at nearly two hours—is paced more like a real film than some weirdo’s old home movie.

Noroi’s commitment to documentary conventions is so absolute that it can be jarring if you’re not prepared for it. One early scene shows a ghostly figure briefly appearing in the woods. In a normal horror movie, this would be a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment designed to make you go, Did I really just see that? But just as you’re turning that moment over in your head, Noroi rewinds and freeze-frames the image of the figure in the woods and analyzes it closely—as, of course, any responsible documentarian would.

This is the unconventional but successful trick at the heart of Noroi: By refusing to follow the beats and tropes of a normal horror movie, it ends up feeling real. In theory, this is what most found-footage horror movies attempt to do—but Noroi’s purity is rarer than you might think. Most found-footage movies at least try to sneak in a few traditional cinematic building blocks, like character arcs. The Blair Witch Project’s Heather begins the story as an overconfident amateur filmmaker, and ends by admitting she’s in way over her head. Cloverfield’s Rob and Beth begin the story by pretending they’re not in love, and confess they love each other just before the bombs start to drop.

Noroi doesn’t bother with anything like that. Masafumi Kobayashi and his ally Marika Matsumoto—an actress, like The Blair Witch Project’s Heather, playing a fictionalized version of herself under her real name—are perfectly credible protagonists. But we don’t really learn anything about them, and they don’t change or grow from their encounters with the demon Kagutaba. They just (WARNING: possible spoiler, but also not really a spoiler) get devoured by it. Even if the movie didn’t tell you about its closing tragedy in its opening text, it’s obvious that Kobayashi and Matsumoto have walked into a trap they can’t recognize until they’re already caught, and that everyone around them will be dragged in as well.

So if it’s so great, why haven’t you already seen Noroi? Because until earlier this year, it was very, very difficult for anyone who wasn’t in Japan to track it down. For the better part of 15 years, Noroi was the subject of only occasional international screenings, and it never got a physical release in the United States. But the absence of an official release had an unintentional but potent side effect: It allowed Noroi to spread across the internet like an urban legend. Many people encountered Noroi for the first time in bootleg subtitled copies that were uploaded in full to torrent sites or YouTube by devoted fans.

I would, uh, never endorse watching a movie this way (and for the record: Now that it’s on Shudder, or for purchase on iTunes, that’s how you should watch it). But you can also see how obscurity only fanned the flames of Noroi’s cult appeal. When viewed through a YouTube window, some of Noroi’s more off-putting qualities—like the incredibly grainy VHS-style picture quality, which stands out even more in the HD era—are sneaky assets, helping the movie camouflage the fact that it’s a movie at all. And it’s hard to imagine a better way to enhance this movie’s already disturbing sense of realism than dropping it on YouTube devoid of any context, where curious, brave viewers could swap the link on message boards and debate just how much of it was real.

If I have one complaint, it’s that—as great as Noroi: The Curse is—putting it on Shudder alongside horror classics like Night of the Living Dead and Halloween also gives the game away. In an ideal world, this movie would still be hiding among all the amateur documentaries you can find on YouTube, ready to make anyone who stumbles onto it spend some sleepless nights wondering just how much of it was real.

Another difference between Noroi and Blair Witch is that Noroi provides not one, but two very long finales, the second of which is placed a minute after the credits start to roll and is the single greatest scare scene in the history of horror cinema. I do not say such things lightly. It totally wrecked me in a wonderous way.

She was once a close ally of the main protagonist, Ciel Phantomhive, but a tragic incident resulted in their falling out. This incident is explored in flashbacks throughout the arc, shedding light on the complex relationship between Ciel and Ebony Butler. The storyline features several thrilling and action-packed moments, with Ebony Butler using her witchcraft skills to manipulate emeralds and unleash devastating attacks on her enemies. The emerald theme is deeply intertwined with her character, symbolizing her power and obsession. In the climax of the arc, Ciel and his loyal demon butler, Sebastian Michaelis, confront Ebony Butler in a dramatic showdown. Here, the true intentions of the emerald witch are revealed, as well as her connection to a sinister group known as "The Emerald Circle". Overall, the "Ebony Butler Emerald Witch Arc" is a captivating and emotional storyline that delves into the depths of friendship, betrayal, and the pursuit of power. It adds a new layer to the overarching narrative of "Black Butler" and leaves readers and viewers eagerly anticipating the next chapter..

Reviews for "Decoding the Symbolism of the Emerald Witch Arc in the Ebony Butler Series"

1. Emma - 2 stars: I was really disappointed with the Ebony Butler Emerald Witch arc. I found the plot to be confusing and convoluted, with too many subplots and unnecessary twists. The characters felt poorly developed, and their actions didn't always make sense. Additionally, the pacing was off, with some episodes dragging on while others felt rushed. Overall, I struggled to stay engaged with the story and found it to be a letdown compared to previous arcs in the series.

2. James - 1 star: The Ebony Butler Emerald Witch arc was a mess. The storytelling was disjointed and hard to follow, jumping between different timelines and dimensions without clear explanations. The dialogue was often cheesy and filled with clichés, making it difficult to take the characters seriously. The action scenes were poorly choreographed, lacking in suspense and impact. I felt that this arc was a major misstep for the series and hope that future storylines can regain the quality and coherence that made me a fan in the first place.

3. Sophia - 2 stars: I had high hopes for the Ebony Butler Emerald Witch arc, but unfortunately, it fell flat for me. The storyline felt contrived and overly predictable, with twists that I saw coming from a mile away. The character development was lacking, and many of the new additions felt like one-dimensional stereotypes. The pacing was all over the place, with slow moments that dragged on and action sequences that were over too quickly. Overall, I was underwhelmed by this arc and hope that future installments can recapture the magic and excitement of the earlier storylines.

The Dark Charms of the Ebony Butler: Unveiling the Emerald Witch's Allure