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{{work}}
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[[File:Kuroshitsuji_Sebastian_and_Ciel.png|frame|[[Battle Butler|Sebastian]] and [[The Chessmaster|Ciel]].]]
{{quote|''"You see, I am simply one [[Stealth Pun|hell]] of a butler."''|'''Sebastian Michaelis'''}}
''
The Phantomhive family is a respected and distinguished house in [[Victorian London]]. Despite a mysterious fire killing off the previous Lord and Lady Phantomhive, their [[Improbable Age|12-year old son]], Ciel Phantomhive, has managed to both build a massive toy and candy company within 3 years, and serve the Queen as a major contributor to England's black-ops.
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So Ciel leads a double-life, his service to the Queen combined with his own dark supernatural dealings, and maintaining the peace of the Phantomhive Mansion and its less than serious staff.
Mix and stir ''[[Hellsing]]'' and ''[[Count Cain]]'' with ''[[
=== Adaptations include
Anime:
* ''[[Black Butler (anime)]]'', the original adaptation with
* ''[[Black Butler II]]'', an anime-original continuation.
* ''[[Black Butler: Book of Circus]]'', a faithful adaptation of the corresponding manga arc.
* ''[[Black Butler:
* ''[[Black Butler: Book of the Atlantic]]'' (2017), a full-length theatrical movie.
Japan also had stage musicals:
* ''Musical Dance-off Kuroshitsuji
* ''Musical Kuroshitsuji
* ''Musical Kuroshitsuji: Lycoris that Blazes the Earth''
And there is a Japanese live-action movie:
* ''
And a video game:
* ''Kuroshitsuji: Phantom & Ghost'', a [[Nintendo DS]] game. [[No Export for You|It is not available in English.]]
{{tropelist}}
* [[Air Vent Passageway]]: Used to escape {{spoiler|a sinking ship.}}
* [[
* [[Angst Coma]]: Happens to a lot of children in the background. {{spoiler|Also happens to Ciel.}}
* [[Arranged Marriage]]: Ciel is only 12 years old, yet he is already engaged to [[Kissing Cousins|his cousin Elizabeth]].
* [[Art Evolution]]
* [[Badass Family]]: The entire [[Knight in Shining Armor|Midford]] family. {{spoiler|Including [[Cute Bruiser|Elizabeth]].}}
* [[The Baroness]]: {{spoiler|Hilde.}} She is the milder, fervently militaristic version of the trope.
** Sebastian can be seen to count too, despite being male and one of the main characters. Those stiletto heels... Within the trope he belongs to the less mild sadist/sexpot subtype.
* [[Battle
* [[Beneath the Mask]]: Ciel, Sebastian, and various other people hide significant parts of themselves from the public eye.
* [[Body Motifs]]: Eyes. Eye injury, strange-looking eyes, and covered eyes play a large role.
** Also hands.
* [[Boy Band]]: {{spoiler|Ciel constructs Funtom 5 from the ground up to appeal to the female audience.}} Since this is a manga, the audience reaction is more like in Japan and the appeal is not limited to young girls.
** Starlight Four does not meet the strict definition but shares many qualities with a boy band.
* [[Breather Episode]]: One is there between every manga arc.
* [[Butterfly of Doom]]: Chaos Theory is mentioned when Ciel and Sebastian
* [[Came Back Wrong]]: Maggy, courtesy of Dr.
* [[Carrying a Cake]]: Elizabeth gets in this situation once. Sebastian carries cakes a lot too, but doesn't fall into the trope.
* [[Cat Scare]]: More accurately, fianceé scare.
* [[Catch Phrase]]: There are several:
**
*** Yen Press doesn't bother to retain the Japanese pun and translates the catch phrase as "I am but a butler" or "I am a demon and a butler" depending on the context.
** Sebastian: [[Gratuitous Foreign Language|"Yes, my lord."]]
*** Agni: "Jo agya." (The equivalent of "Yes, my lord" [[Gratuitous Foreign Language|in Hindi]].)
*** Wolfram: "Ja." ("Yes" in German.)
** Sebastian: "It is only natural that a servant of Phantomhive would be able to (do whatever impossible thing he just did)."
** Sebastian: "If I couldn't do this much at ''least'', well then what kind of butler would I be?"
* [[Cerebus Rollercoaster]]: Sometimes they're playing cricket. Other times they're burning children alive.
* [[Cheaters Never Prosper]]: Inverted. Underdogs can cheat too, and the [[Underdogs Never Lose]] trope is the one that ends up played straight {{spoiler|in the cricket game, where Ciel's final dirty trick goes past just bending the rules when he switches the regulation ball with a slightly lighter one.}}
* [[Chekhov's Armoury]]: Many tiny things turn out to be important later, as befits a [[Jigsaw Puzzle Plot]]. One particularly extreme example is how a character wearing a certain type of shoes in an early chapter is subtle foreshadowing for a major surprise twist that takes place many arcs later.
* [[Chekhov's News]]: "Steiger Roze dies."
* [[Chess Motifs]]
* [[Children Are a Waste]]: A prostitute goes to a doctor to get an abortion with this as her excuse. {{spoiler|That doctor had lost her ability to have children thanks to an accident that killed her husband and nearly her as well. This was the last straw before she snapped and became [[Jack the Ripper]].}}
* [[Circus of Fear]]: Used as what is meant to be light entertainment by the host.
* [[Color
* [[Cooking Duel]]: The curry contest
* [[Costume Test Montage]]: Nina has to select a fashionable outfit for Sebastian, but with light colors as the new black, nothing looks particularly good on him.
* [[Creepy Doll]]: In the manga Baron Kelvin gets really creepy with his doll decorations.
* [[Curb Stomp Battle]]: Whenever Sebastian gets to face an arbitrarily large group of mundane humans. Agni gets to stomp once too.
* [[Dark and Troubled Past]]: A good portion of the entire cast, most notably Ciel.
* [[David Versus Goliath]]: In the final [[Cricket]] match, not only are the players in the opposite team more skilled, but they are also noticeably taller and more muscular.
* [[Deadly Gas]]: The miasma, {{spoiler|otherwise known as mustard gas and sarin.}}
* [[Deal with the Devil]]: While Sebastian has a morbid sense of humor that he only shows to his enemies and Ciel, he has been rather honorable and faithful to even the spirit of his side of the bargain.
* [[Death by Origin Story]]: Ciel's parents.
* [[Deceased Parents Are the Best]]: Ciel's parents, of course.
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* [[Disguised in Drag]]: They've managed to get Ciel into a dress in the manga, the anime, ''and'' the musical.
** In the second musical, this gets taken [[Up to Eleven]] with at least half the male characters running around an opera "disguised" in dresses. Including Abberline, mustache and all.
* [[Dish Dash]]: Sebastian frequently ends up catching falling dishware, food, and other items due to
* [[Distracted by the Sexy]]: Used intentionally with the purpose of {{spoiler|winning at a cricket game.}}
* [[Does This Remind You of Anything?]]: The infamous corset scene. Which has popped up in pretty much every version! The manga, the anime, and the (second) ''musical'', of all places.
** Chapter 34 pulled a bit of this too.
* [[Doing In the Scientist]]: {{spoiler|The corpses animated with electricity and brain implants? Really magic.}}
* [[Doing In the Wizard]]: {{spoiler|The village of witches? Really a black research site for the German Army. An attentive reader can figure out the deception very early though.}}
* [[Double Entendre]]: So many. Especially by Sieglinde.
* [[Down to the Last Play]]: Happens in the cricket tournament. Of course. Also played with in another game in the same sub-arc when {{spoiler|the game is supposed to be nowhere near finished, but it's Joanne Harcourt's last throw. He says, "This is the end," and then, to his complete surprise, collapses when the poison a pie he ate earlier takes effect. His team chooses to forfeit the game.}}
* [[Driving Question]]: Who
* [[Early Installment Weirdness]]: Ciel is quite a bit more immature in the first chapter than he is anywhere else.
** Also, the worst of the [[Anachronism Stew]] in the first few chapters is quietly forgotten with the exception of the telephone and a small reference to the television later on.
* [[Empty Eyes]]
* [[Engineered Public Confession]]: {{spoiler|This is how Ciel ends up dealing with Maurice.}}
* [[Evil Versus Evil]]
* [[Eye Scream]] Ciel getting the seal in his eye was very painful, at least in the manga, based on his scream. Blood is seen dripping from the eye afterwards.
* [[Fable Remake]]: In a side story, Arthur has a series of dreams/visions based on snippets from classic fairytales.
* [[Fan Service]]: So, so much.
* [[Flower Motifs]]: There are plenty.
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** There is some very interesting symbolism at a funeral involving wind-carried red rose petals overshadowing the more ordinary white lilies. Is that a wedding or a funeral?
* [[Food Porn]]: There are many lovingly drawn, labeled shots of Sebastian's cookery.
* [[Foot Chase with a Side Order of Chef]]: Beast and Dagger escape to the kitchen of the Phantomhive manor. {{spoiler|Unfortunately for them, Baldroy has [[More Dakka|heavy weaponry]] and knows the pair is coming.}}
* [[Foreign Looking Font]]: The Japanese logo uses something that looks like the old-fashioned blackletter font.
* [[Foreshadowing]]: Found all over. One of the defining features of the series is the number of surprise revelations, and those tend to be foreshadowed, however subtly. [[Behind the Mask]] is a major theme, and any named character is susceptible to having [[Hidden Depths]].
* [[Four-Leaf Clover]]: An ironic one is seen in {{spoiler|Joker's Cinematic Record}} flashback. It is probably significant that the characters don't notice the clover.
* [[Frame-Up]]: In the Murder Arc, Ciel and Sebastian frame a {{spoiler|blood diamond/arms smuggler}} for the death of {{spoiler|a German ship builder who would've made his country's navy more powerful then it should've been at the time. Sebastian's death was just a "joke" by Victoria, who didn't like Ciel's "prank" of [[Kill It with Fire|completely burning]] the last [[Big Bad]] and his unsuspecting henchmen and victims}}.
* [[Genius Bonus]]: If you translate the Theban letters and interpret the magic circle as representing {{spoiler|a molecule, you get the chemical formula for sarin.}}
* [[The Glomp]]: Four person flying-tackle variety at the end of the Murder Arc, when Sebastian reveals to the rest of mansion {{spoiler|that he is [[Unexplained Recovery|not dead]]}}.
* [[Gratuitous English]]: Sebastian's "Yes, my lord."
** The lyrics of the in-manga original song "Shining Star" in the original Japanese release contains lyrics such as "Kimi wa shining star chippoke na hikari datte". This is an unusual case, since the entire song is supposed to be in English.
* [[Halloween Episode]]: Chapter 120. The celebration is explicitly multicultural, which allows for American Halloween elements to be included.
* [[Horror Hunger]]: The zombies.
** The horror gets worse when it turns out that they're {{spoiler|hungering for people's ''souls''.}}
* [[Human Sacrifice]]: Ciel was used for this, but ended up making a deal with Sebastian instead.
* [[Idiosyncratic Episode Naming]]: "The/That Butler, ______."
* [[Ignorance Is Bliss]]: Ciel tells Snake that his missing friends' whereabouts were unknown, that he is looking for them and that staying with Ciel will be the fastest way to see them again. {{spoiler|The reader knows that they were all killed by Ciel's staff when they tried to ambush Ciel's mansion}}.
* [[Incest Subtext]]: Edward is much too attached to Elizabeth. This becomes obvious when he starts talking about her perfection and how he can't really see anyone else when she is present, apparently not realizing how abnormal that is.
* [[Innocent Innuendo]]: The infamous corset scene.
* [[Insert Grenade Here]]: Happens to a German tank.
* [[
* [[It's Quiet... Too Quiet]]: Sebastian makes a comment to this effect when exploring a forest with Ciel.
* [[Jack the Ripper]]: The villain of one of the early arcs.
* [[Jigsaw Puzzle Plot]]
* [[Kill the Cutie]]: All of the {{spoiler|main circus crew (except for Snake) and the kidnapped children from the circus arc}}, and {{spoiler|Phelps}} from the murder mystery arc
* [[Kissing Cousins]]: Ciel is [[Arranged Marriage|engaged]] to Elizabeth, who is his cousin. This was rather common in the Victorian Era.
* [[Lady and Knight]]: Ciel and Sebastian's subtype is an all-male version of the dark lady and black knight.
** Sieglinde and Wolfram are a bright lady and white knight.
* [[Locked Room Mystery]]: The Murder Mystery arc.
* [[Meaningful Name]]: Dr. Stoker and the Karnstein Hospital.
* [[Mental World]]
* [[Mexican Standoff]]: Between {{spoiler|
* [[Mood Whiplash]]: All the time. In what is possibly the most extreme example, the story goes from some of its funniest comedy ever, involving a cavalcade of sex jokes, to some of its most frightening horror ever, involving {{spoiler|exposure to what turns out to be mustard gas}}, with only a few pages in the interim.
* [[Mugging the Monster]]: Subverted and then almost immediately double-subverted. {{spoiler|Surely those ragged Indian thugs trying to rob Ciel have no chance against Sebastian. Right? Right. Then the new characters Soma and Agni enter the scene and side with their countrymen. Agni actually knows how to fight. And then rather quickly Soma figures out that he was siding with robbers and orders Agni to switch sides.}} [[Curb Stomp Battle]] ensues.
* [[Multiple Demographic Appeal]]:
* [[Music at Sporting Events]]: Ciel arranges some for a cricket game.
* [[Mystery Arc]]: Specifically the Mansion Murder Mystery arc, though the entire series could be considered one of these.
* [[Mythology Gag]]: Chapter 39 is pretty much a running one, mix and stir [[Shout-Out]]:
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** [[Real Life]] people such as Patrick Phelps and [[Idol Singer]] Irene Diaz are among the guests, counting as a [[Genius Bonus]], but the Myth Gag happens to be Irene and her producer dancing together.
* [[Never Bring a Knife to a Gun Fight]]: Demonstrated by {{spoiler|the circus crew with their failed attack on the Phantomhive Manor.}} Sebastian, of course, can bring some knives to a gun fight and win effortlessly, but most people aren't [[Nigh Invulnerable]].
* [[Obnoxious In-Laws]]: In the manga, Lizzie's brother Edward ''really'' doesn't like Ciel taking his sister's attention away from him.
* [[Of Corset Hurts]]: Ciel doesn't enjoy having to put on a corset.
* [[Of Corsets Sexy]]: We see coffins with corsets, a sure sign that the person responsible isn't quite right in the head.
* [[Only the Knowledgable May Pass]]: The Aurora Society uses a combination of this and "Only the Rich May Pass".
* [[Orphan's Ordeal]]: Ciel has shades of it
* [[Passing Notes in Class]]: An unusual case in that it's a teacher secretly passing a note to a student.
* [[Personality Blood Types]]: Appear in an indirect way. {{spoiler|Bravat's fortunetelling to determine a person's protecting star really finds out someone's blood type. The associated personality traits match the Japanese system.}}
* [[Pillow Pistol]]: Ciel almost shoots Sebastian with one of these.
* [[Playground Song]] ''Tom, the Piper's Son'' in the Circus Arc.
* [[Please Wake Up]]: Ciel when {{spoiler|Sebastian died, and Ciel kept repeating things like, "Sleeping on the floor doesn't look that comfortable to me," and "Get up". Subverted}} because it ended up being {{spoiler|a fake death, which Ciel was aware of the entire time}}.
** Then Ciel later on in a much darker version when {{spoiler|Sebastian died. Ciel first behaved like in the previous case but when Sebastian stayed dead, Ciel showed himself overwhelmed by grief. Subverted again, as it was a fake death again and Ciel was aware of it the entire time again. The emotional outburst shows his skills as an actor.}}
* [[Rock Me, Asmodeus]]: Sebastian's performance training for Phantom Five produces anachronistic and demonically-tinted results. Manga pages are mute, but the band really seems to be playing rock.
** Sebastian himself is only seen playing the violin, which comes from older stories about the Devil. Sebastian's violin lessons for Ciel involve the likes of Bach.
* [[Running Gag]]: Sebastian and his obsession with cats. And then, Ciel's (both hateful and allergic) reactions to said cats.
* [[Scooby-Doo Hoax]]: A [[Complexity Addiction|very elaborate one]] in one arc.
* [[Sex for Solace]]: The rationalization Sebastian used to seduce {{spoiler|Beast. He did it to gain information.}}
* [[Shinigami]]: Of the psychopomp variety. There's even a [[Celestial Bureaucracy]] of them.
* [[Shout-Out]]: Father Jeremy Rathbone who shows up in chapter 45. Share the first name of Jeremy Brett who played the detective in the Granada TV series (as well being an almost dead - no pun intended - ringer for said actor), and surname of Basil Rathbone, another Holmes actor from the 1940s. And then he proceeds to pull the deduction technique on Arthur, who mentions the father resembling Professor Bell, whom the real Sir Arthur based Holmes off of.
** {{spoiler|Phelps}}'s killer
**
** {{spoiler|Grelle Sutcliffe}} seems to be named after another English serial killer, {{spoiler|[[wikipedia:Peter Sutcliffe|the Yorkshire Ripper]]}}.
** The dress that Ciel uses at the [http://www.mangareader.net/102-2017-1/kuroshitsuji/chapter-8.html opening image of chapter 8] is exactly the same that Katrina uses in the last scenes of ''[[Sleepy Hollow (Film)|Sleepy Hollow]]''.
*** Grell acts out a reference to the famous "I'm the king of the world" scene from ''[[Titanic]]''
** The story after the totally-not-''Titanic'' arc takes place [[Harry Potter|in an exclusive academy that has four houses with a color/animal/personality theme]]: Red Fox/highborn; Sapphire Owl/academic; Purple Wolf/artistic; Green Lion/athletic.
* [[Something Completely Different]]: In a non-canonical side story honoring a character poll.
** [[All Your Powers Combined]]
** [[Breaking the Fourth Wall]]
** [[A Day at the Bizarro]]
** [[Popularity Power]]
* [[Story Arc]]: The overall narrative is divided into many semi-independent story arcs. These arcs can be quite different from each other in tone and even genre.
* [[Talking Is a Free Action]]: {{spoiler|Sebastian and Undertaker}}, ostensibly in a fight against each other, have a little chat over multiple panels during the time it takes for a tea cup to fall to the ground. This is likely inspired by the trope but also [[Justified Trope|justified]] because both characters are known to be able to move extremely fast.
* [[Talk to the Fist]]: {{spoiler|Bard's}} little speech is interrupted by {{spoiler|Dagger and Beast.}}
* [[Tampering with Food and Drink]]: A meat pie gets switched with another, poisonous meat pie.
* [[Tarot Motifs]]: Subtle tarot motifs, not limited to the major arcana and apparently even involving reversed cards, can be found in the manga
* [[That's an Order]]: When Ciel really means it, he likes to add - depending on the translation - "this is an order" or "I command you" to his orders to Sebastian. This may or may not add an element of magical compulsion.
* [[There Are Two Kinds of People in the World]]: According to Ciel, the types are those who steal and those who are stolen from.
* [[True Companions]]: Ciel's house staff trio, and also the circus crew.
* [[Underdogs Never Lose]]: In the sub-arc centered around cricket. In a subversion, {{spoiler|Ciel accomplishes his team's victory by a combination of underhanded tactics, unsportsmanlike play, and outright cheating, in addition to the usual hard work and raising the team spirit. Oh, and there was also that little poisoning incident.}}
* [[Visible Silence]]: It goes "shiiiin".
* [[Vitriolic Best Buds]]: Type 2 is one way to interpret Ciel and Sebastian's relationship.
* [[What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?]]: Curry, candy, getting fitted for outfits, Easter egg hunts...
* [[Whole Costume Reference]]:
* [[You Didn't Ask]]: Ciel's reply to Sebastian
* [[Your Soul Is Mine]]
== Book of Circus ==
* [[Breaking the Fourth Wall]]: Sebastian addresses the viewer a few times to explain things about the backstory, such as the identities of Soma and Agni.
* [[Censor Shadow]]: A very out-of-place black shadow keeps covering certain character's severed arm even though it is not particularly more gory than other things that were left uncensored.
* [[Innocent Flower Girl]]: The only major anime-orginal addition to the main story.
* [[Intoxication Ensues]]: From a bouquet of paper flowers.
* [[Mushroom Samba]]: The world undergoes a radical change to a bright and happy dreamland in a scene that is played for horror.
== Book of Murder ==
* [[Gratuitous French]]: The brief conversation Ciel and Sebastian have in translated French in the manga is spoken in actual French in the anime. For a loose definition of "actual".
* [[Not Even Bothering with the Accent]]: Native French speakers say that the part that is supposed to be in French is incomprehensible because the accent is so bad. Even someone unfamiliar with French can recognize the language as not-French based on how it sounds. Arthur's amusement from overhearing the discussion gets a new, unintended interpretation in the anime.
* [[OVA]]: Made of two episodes of nearly an hour each.
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