The Phantomhive household addresses Ciel as “bocchan,” which English media universally translates to “young master.”
坊ちゃん (bocchan) Noun 1. son (of others) Honorific or respectful (sonkeigo) 2. young master 3. green young man from a well-to-do family. See also お坊ちゃん source: jisho.org
I certainly don’t mean to imply that translation is incorrect, but like all translations, “young master” doesn’t convey precisely the same meaning as “bocchan”. So let’s talk about how they differ, and how we as English readers might interpret the same work differently.
(Caveat: I minored in Japanese in college, but I am not yet fluent. Corrections to my analysis from those who know more than I do are very welcome.)
Kuroshitsuji has strong recurring themes of power and dominance. Ciel and Sebastian make a fascinating pair because there is no bright line to show who is in charge. Ciel gives Sebastian orders, but Sebastian is going to consume him in the end, but Ciel keeps surprising Sebastian with his depth of conviction, but Sebastian is a supernatural being controlled only because he wants to be, etc.
The way that Sebastian addresses Ciel is part of their power dynamic. In addition to being the English diminutive of “mister,” “master” means the person in charge. When Sebastian calls Ciel “young master,” it reminds the English readers of Sebastian’s servitude. He’s the slave in this “master”/slave relationship.
Moreover, it doesn’t sound weird for all the servants in the household to use this term to describe Ciel. There is plenty of other English media in which servants refer to young men in their employers’ households as “young masters.”
Whereas I’m not so sure “bocchan” connotes the same respect. When you break it down, the kanji 坊 means “boy,” and “chan” is a diminutive suffix you don’t usually hear used for boys as old as 13. It’s still technically an honorific, but I think it’s a lot more diminutive and familiar than “young master,” and I suspect it’s a little unconventional to have the whole household referring to him as such.
Compare to the Trancy household: no one ever used “bocchan” for Alois. They called him “danna-sama,” which is much closer to “lord” or “master,” as a servant might address their adult employer. No one other than the Phantomhive servants uses
“bocchan”
for Ciel either. Lau and the Undertaker both call Ciel “hakushyaku,” which is his noble title, the closest Japanese equivalent to “earl.”
We see in Sebastian’s flashback in the Campania arc that Sebastian doesn’t start using the term “bocchan” until he hears Tanaka referring to Ciel as such. (Until that point, he uses “goshyujin-sama,” which is translated to a plain “master” in the English manga.) Compared to Sebastian, Tanaka has every right to call Ciel "bocchan,” because he was part of Ciel’s childhood and helped raise him. This level of familiarity is appropriate. Ciel even calls Tanaka “oji-san” in return, which is a respectful term for an older male relative, not a typical way to refer to a servant.
However, if I recall correctly, Ciel never refers to Tanaka that way again after the flashback. Perhaps Ciel feels he has grown out of that relationship by the time he turns 13. If that’s the case, it makes it all the weirder for the household to continue calling him “bocchan.”
I think Sebastian’s expression and reaction in this panel shows that he thinks calling Ciel “bocchan” is funny. It adds to Ciel’s many amusing contradictions. He’s a titled English noble, but he’s just 13. He orders Sebastian never to lie, but he’s quite the liar himself. He wants his servants to treat him like an adult, but they still all call him “bocchan.”
So I suspect that while the English term “young master” reinforces Ciel’s power and dominance, the Japanese term “bocchan” subverts his power and dominance.
I’m not saying the English translation is bad or incorrect, only that it casts a different light on the power dynamic between Ciel and Sebastian. On the contrary, I think it’s artistically valuable to have many lenses through which to view Ciel and Sebastian’s relationship. The more twists and contradictions in this power dynamic, the better.
Seafoam constellation 