Manga Review: Black Butler by Yano Toboso

Black Butler by Yano Toboso

Summary by Mangafox.com

In the Victorian ages of London The Earl of the Phantomhive house, Ciel Phantomhive, needs to get his revenge on those who had humiliated him and destroyed what he loved. Not being able to do it alone he sells his soul to a demon he names Sebastian Michaelis. Now working as his butler, Sebastian must help the Earl Phantomhive in this suspenseful, exciting, thriller manga.
Overcoming many obstacles like Jack the Ripper and Noah's Ark Circus in the name of the Queen, Ciel and Sebastian truly make the best characters in this amazing story!

Review

Black Butler also known as Kuroshitsuji is a shonen manga. Its genres include action, comedy, mystery, tragedy, supernatural and horror. Yano Toboso intended her manga to be a yaoi at first but Square Enix suggested she didn’t so instead she put hints of yaoi throughout Black Butler instead. For all you Yaoi fans out there, fanfiction is always an option. (seriously there are endless amounts of yaoi  fanfics between the two main characters so you can check it out at fanfiction.net) 

The art work is amazing and Yano has a way with the Victorian era. She even put in the accents some of the characters had, thumbs up to her for taking the extra mile to make Black Butler more authentic. As for the story plot, she has turned her character’s most inner thoughts and back stories into something more than just a thought or a backstory, but rather she has written beautiful poetry. Her dark story just simply captures the more sinful side of humans. The main character Ciel Phantomhive acts almost like an anti-hero rather than the conventional justice is everything type hero, kind of like Batman if you will but all in the name of the Queen of course. I found it kind of funny how Yano opens the manga with light hearted humour, the first chapter is the perfect example of Ciel's daily routines and Sebastian's perfect butlering (is that a word?) skills. The servants are all fun and games until they have to go into combat mode then they're the most competent body guards. I just love Sebastian's catch phrase “I'm one hell of a butler” ha ha ha I see what you did  there Sebas-chan.

You can read the manga it on Mangafox.com (on-going 15 volumes so far)

It has an anime, 43 episode dubbed and subbed. Second season has nothing to do with the manga but Yano did design the characters in it. There's a ds game called “Black Butler: Phantom &Ghost” developed by Square Enix (Sorry it's not in english) and two musicals: The butler, friendship and The most beautiful death in the world.