Black Butler (manga)/YMMV

• Main
• Characters
• Laconic
• Trivia
• Setting
• YMMV
• Fridge
• Fanfic Recs
• Headscratchers
• Ho Yay
• Quotes
• WMG
• Crowners
  • Awesome
  • Funny
  • Heartwarming
  • Nightmare Fuel
  • Tear Jerker
• Wikipedia
• All Subpages
• Create New

• Alas, Poor Villain: Madam Red.
  • Joker as well as the other members of Noah's Arc circus.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: The manga intentionally leaves some things open to interpretation to maintain the suspense. This isn't to say that some interpretations aren't just wrong.
  • Sebastian:
    • Someone who is kind of evil but not that bad really.
    • A cruel and evil demon, but Even Evil Has Standards.
    • A Complete Monster with a pretty face.
    • A wholly emotionless demon who only exists to feed, like a shark.
    • An entity without a fixed self whose current personality was formed to suit Ciel's needs.
    • A lonely demon with the emotional understanding of a toddler.
    • A decent guy who happens to need to predate on humans to live, but that's just life and all morals are relative anyway.
    • Every girl's ideal boyfriend.
  • Sebastian as a butler:
    • Losing himself to his butler persona and becoming more human and less cruel.
    • Remaining the same cruel demon under his disguise.
    • Experiencing genuine character growth from things such as having friends for the first time.
  • Opinions about Ciel form a smooth continuum from a sweet, kind, shy boy forced to a dark role to a sociopathic Complete Monster who murders children for fun and was probably bad from the start.
  • Some people consider Ciel to be asexual, but other fans think he is gay or bisexual.
    • There is more evidence for him being straight. For example, we see him blushing in presence of girls.
• Anti-Shipping Goggles: Some people are convinced that Sebastian has no emotions at all, feels nothing for Ciel, and only sees him as food. This is despite how Sebastian having a wide range of emotions is firmly established by numerous scenes. Some of those scenes show indications of warm feelings for Ciel - if not love, then at least fondness and admiration.
• Broken Base: Does shipping Sebastian/Ciel make someone a horrible pedophile and total scum?
  • Does shipping Ciel/Elizabeth (who are cousins and engaged in the canon) make someone an incest supporter and also a horrible pedophile?
  • Does shipping Grell/William glorify abuse?
  • Does shipping Sebastian/Grell glorify abuse?
  • Is Grell trans? Which pronous should be used for Grell?
  • Is Elizabeth a paragon of goodness and light or a shallow and annoying little girl, even after her character development? Could she and Ciel be happy together or would she make him miserable? Or is she maybe too good for him?
  • Can you be a real fan and not buy the digital downloads that are, among other things, only available in America?
• Complete Monster: Baron Kelvin and the Doctor would be agreed to be this by most people/basically everyone.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Madame Red often goes through this treatment. While she has a rather sad backstory, most fans tend to ignore her rather brutal murders as Jack the Ripper and view her in an oddly positive light.
  • Grell. Many people seem to forget and even forgive that she was one half of Jack the Ripper, and that she murdered Madam Red.
  • Arguably, nearly all of the characters are subject to this. Sebasitian and Ciel are sometimes downright glorified in fanon for their dastardly deeds, and people seem to have forget the crap that Druitt pulled upon first appearance (though it's probably because he's become nothing much more than comic relief by this point). We can also add Undertaker to the list.
• Ensemble Darkhorse: Grell. His popularity is hugely disproportionate to his screentime, at least in the manga.
  • Ronald Knox can now be this.
  • Undertaker as well.
  • Madam Red too.
  • Vincent has become highly popular despite having only appeared in a few flashbacks.
• Epileptic Trees: Like goddamn.
• Evil Is Cool: Sebastian. And Ciel, on some level.
• Evil Is Sexy: Again, Sebastian.
• Fan Dumb: Elizabeth gets put down by everyone for being a Mary Sue to the point that many have explicitly said they wished she had drowned in episode two of the second season. Those same ones conveniently ignore the fact that Sebastian is much more guilty of this. However, Sebastian being a Marty Stu may be justified, seeing as he is a demon and is supposed to appear as the "perfect person". Still not an excuse for the fangirls ignoring his GS-ness whule bashing the shit outta Lizzie.
  • Ciel is also much more guilty of Suedom than Elizabeth, and yet the fans worship him and think he can do no wrong. Not even setting a bunch of kids on fire can fault him. Sure, he has a Freudian Excuse, but he's done some pretty awful things that don't deserve that justification.
• Fan Nickname: The series itself is referred to as "Kuroshit" by detractors. (And by sarcastic fans.)
• I Knew It!: In the murder mystery arc in the manga, a lot of people speculated that Sebastian was not really dead; they were right. Some others also speculated that a snake would be used to commit one or more of the murders; they were also right.
• Jerkass Woobie: Ciel can be seen as this, since he doesn't mind killing or hurting anyone who gets in the way of his plans, but at the same time, he is portrayed very sympathetically, usually because of his horrible past.
• Like You Would Really Do It: As if a poker to the chest and a shovel to the head would actually kill Sebastian. Guess what, it didn't.
• Marty Stu: Sebatian could be considered this, but it's justified since he is a demon. Ciel sometimes wishes Sebastian would fail at something, purely for the humor of it.
  • Though the justification is for naught in the second anime, where all of the other demons are quite flawed. Except for Sebastian, of course.
  • Ciel may also qualify. Dark and Troubled Past, so cute everyone wants him, is more trusted by the Queen than anyone else at 12, has his own toy company and so on.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Deer-head Sebastian.
  • Sebastian's hooker boots.
  • As of chapter 57, Elizabeth Middleford, zombie slayer is fast becoming this, along with a healthy dash of Memetic Badass.
• Memetic Outfit: Many cosplays of Ciel are of that pink dress.
• Memetic Sex God: Sure, everyone loves to get touchy-feely on Ciel, who has had his own Stalker with a Crush since he was seven years old, but if you are in-universe and don't have a thing for Sebastian, you don't have a pulse.
• Misaimed Fandom: There are a lot of people in the fandom who ship Sebastian and Ciel and want them to live Happily Ever After. This is despite how Word of God has emphasized that Sebastian is a demon who only wants to eat Ciel and that Ciel does not trust him. Still, with all the Ho Yay going on between those two, it's hard to blame the fans.
  • Some people took the infamous scene in which Ciel vomits and Sebastian lovingly cradles his head while smirking as a sign of love and affection on Sebastian's part and still rejoice in it to this day despite how utterly devastated Ciel was at that time. Because of all of the Fan Service piled onto this series, a lot of fans tend to not realize how pivotal some scenes really are simply because of the sexy factor.
• Moe: A lot of characters, in both male and female varieties.
• Moral Guardians: A section of the fandom cares very much about policing other fans' fanfiction and fanart and even interpretations of the manga.
• Moral Event Horizon: A minority of fans believe that Ciel crossed it when he ordered Sebastian to burn down a building full of children, and then ordered him to kill Doll.
• No Yay: Some people in the English-speaking fandom really hate the idea of pairing Sebastian and Ciel together and prefer to pretend that the fanservice about them doesn't exist.
• Portmanteau Couple Name: Sebaciel, Cielizzy, Grelliam...
• Rescued From the Scrappy Heap: A lot of fans didn't like Elizabeth for being a Shallow Love Interest. Then it turns out that she was Little Miss Badass all along....
• Shipping Goggles The fans of Sebastian/Ciel see proof of romance in vanishingly tiny things. A popular example is the way Ciel has his hand on a doorframe when at one time he goes to talk with Sebastian.
  • Shipping Goggles also make fans of the pairing not see things, such as Elizabeth being unstable, violent, and controlling behind her Kawaiiko exterior, which aren't ingredients for a good relationship.
• Shipping Wars: Sebastian/Ciel is attacked from both sides by fans of Ciel/Elizabeth and Sebastian/Grell. It gets vicious.
• Stoic Woobie: Ciel. Overlaps with Jerkass Woobie. Despite the things he has been put through, he usually doesn't complain about them and always tries to keep moving forward. Though, there was one time in chapter 34 where he appeared to snap.
  • Snake.
• Squick: Lord Kelvin, Grell, and Ciel's tailor aside, it should be mentioned that the writers sometimes seem to go out of their way to add as much Ho Yay as possible between Sebastian and Ciel, especially in the anime. Unfortunate Implications, much?
  • Baron Kelvin too.
  • There are also way too many loving pans of Ciel's prepubescent body for some readers' comfort. Particularly in chapter 62, dear LORD...
• They Just Didn't Care: The recent shift in Toboso's art; it's much less detailed than before and the lack of backgrounds is extremely noticeable.
• Toy Ship: Ciel/Elizabeth is a bordeline Canon one, considering the fact that they're engaged. It also seems to be gaining more credibility among fans lately thanks to some much needed Character Development.
• What Do You Mean It's for Kids?: The series has Seinen written all over it, but is published in a Shonen magazine. To elaborate, it includes violence and gore, murder, child abuse, sex, pedophilia, and questionable dialogue.
  • Some fans have said that they don't think the manga is suitable for anyone under 18.
• The Woobie: Madam Red fits this trope to a T.
  • Honestly though, her deeds as Jack the Ripper kind of nullify her Woobie status. At the very least, they push her into Jerkass Woobie territory.
  • Soma, to some.
  • Almost all of the circus performers.
  • Even Lizzie to some.
• WTH Costuming Department: Sebastian. In his demon form, he wears tight leather pants and high heels.