Black Butler is the kind of anime series that constantly takes you off guard. Somehow, the same series that introduced such a traumatic backstory for its main protagonist, Ciel Phantomhive, is the same one that had his loyal butler, Sebastian, dress like a unicorn to advertise perfume with a completely straight face. The most impressive thing about all of this, in my opinion, is how it's such a seamless transition between the dark themes and comical bits. You too will cry over Ciel's backstory… then burst out laughing at how serious a cricket match can get. RELATED: Black Butler Anime's Staff and Cast on What to Look Forward to in the Emerald Witch Arc As we head deeper into the latest Black Butler saga (the Emerald Witch Arc ), let's rewind back to the arc that saw the anime's long-awaited return. As a longtime fan of Yana Toboso's creation, seeing Black Butler again has been a major highlight for me. That's why I'm honored to share this interview with Yana Toboso herself! To celebrate the return of the Black Butler anime, Toboso spoke with Crunchyroll News about her research into the Victorian era, her storytelling process, the ins and outs of that cricket match I alluded to and her favorite moments from Black Butler -Public School Arc- . The last Black Butler anime installment we got was Black Butler: Book of the Atlantic in 2017. What’s it like seeing Black Butler being animated again after all this time? Yana Toboso: [When it was pitched to me,] I was extremely happy, but also surprised. The Book of the Atlantic movie turned out so wonderfully that I kind of felt the anime nailed it and was done. So when I was approached seven years later about starting up another anime series, I was like, “What, really?” It wasn’t until I was greeting the new anime staff that it finally hit me that we were actually going to do this. That’s how miraculous the whole thing is. It’s a blessing. RELATED: How to Watch Black Butler in Order (2025) In Black Butler -Public School Arc- we see Sebastian and Ciel infiltrating Weston College, a prestigious school in England. After the other story locations from the anime series, such as the Campania luxury ship that gets mentioned in this current arc, what inspired you to send them to a school this time? Toboso: Black Butler may be set in England, but I’m Japanese. So the largest factor in how I pick each setting is that I’m deeply fascinated by Victorian England. You can’t help but admire old English public schools like Eton and Harrow, you know? Then when I actually began gathering materials and doing research, I found instances of former students saying the public school experience was very painful, or that public schools are essentially jails, and the students are prisoners. That became another reason I was fascinated. Black Butler takes place in the Victorian era. What sort of research did you do about the Victorian era when creating the series? What led you to pick that time period for your story? Toboso: Black Butler was originally supposed to be a four-chapter short serial, so I started it having read just one book with a lot of photos in it. Fortunately, it got a lot of positive feedback in the reader surveys, and it evolved into a long serial… so then I flipped out and bought all sorts of books on Victorian England, and I studied like my life depended on it. (LOL) The Victorian era was hugely influential in shaping today’s England, and above all else, its fashion was very attractive to me in my 20s. Rico Murakami participated in the first anime as a historical consultant, and I had the chance to absorb more knowledge of the Victorian era from her advice. She’s participated in nearly all the anime series since, and she’s been my consultant on the manga since the Public School Arc . The power of her advice hugely contributes to Black Butler ’s “Victorian-ness.” RELATED: Exclusive Black Butler -Public School Arc- Behind-The-Scenes Photos, Storyboards and More! Did you also have to do research on the education system in England when creating Weston College? How different was/is it from school systems in Japan? Toboso: I read a book, of course! It’s really quite different from Japan, and while I found that interesting, it was also extremely confusing, so it was rough. I think most Japanese readers only know about Japan’s educational system. Which means that if I want to go all-out depicting an English public school, I have to incorporate explanations to resolve all the questions readers would otherwise have. That’s the same struggle I’ve had throughout Black Butler, though. In 19th-century manor houses, it was normal to iron the newspaper each morning, so as to prevent the ink from getting on the master’s hands when he read it. But the average modern-day English household would never iron their morning paper. Which is why it’s so important to include depictions like “As a butler, he dries the ink on the newspaper for his master.” If the reader has to ask, “What is this character doing?”, it halves their enjoyment. What’s interesting about Black Butler is that on the surface, everything looks fine, but there’s a dark mystery going on in the background, both with Weston College this season and Ciel’s tragic backstory. Even if this mystery is going on, you spend just as much time on the regular story elements. How do you balance the regular moments with the darker ones? Toboso: In my personal view, stories are like woven fabrics. They have vertical lines (Sebastian and Ciel’s revenge story) and horizontal lines (cases they work on for the Queen, comedic home life), and with only the vertical or only the horizontal, they don’t hold together. Where there’s light, there’s darkness… and so without elements like the servants’ shenanigans and the comedic aspects of the cricket tournament scenes, the Phantomhive family’s tragic past and the mistakes made by Derrick and the prefects couldn’t stand out in bold relief. Losing your normal daily life is only devastating if that life was something you didn’t want to lose. Thinking about it as the revenge drama of a demon and a boy, I could probably make the whole story gloomy and melancholy and dark… But then I’d probably get sick of it. So maybe that’s the biggest reason I draw all the daily life scenes. RELATED: Black Butler Quiz: Are You One Hell of a Butler? Weston College’s four houses get a lot of fun personalities, especially with the prefects. How did you go about deciding which personality fit each house? Toboso: I learned through my reading that the students with the highest marks on an academic exam were placed in a separate boarding house (they were allowed to live in a house on School grounds). I thought, “Wouldn’t it be interesting if instead of just the book-smart boys getting their own house, the ones gifted at sports and art also got their own houses?” I came up with red for the humanities, blue for the sciences, green for athletics, and purple for the arts. Red House was inspired by the handful of movies I watched about public schools for my research, in which a ton of the characters acted big because of their money and family status. It would be nice if our efforts and talents were enough to earn us recognition, but that’s not how things work in reality. I want to depict the bad parts of people like that in Black Butler , so they appear as Red House, where people of exceptionally high birth gather. My concept was “exceptionally high birth = boys who have been tutored in Latin and other traditional stuff since they were little, boys who’ve had experiences like going on a trip just to appreciate art, etc.” Still, the concept is also “Weston costs a ton of money, so all the students are little rich boys…” Ciel uses all sorts of tricks when it’s time for the big cricket match, like having Sebastian switch out the meat pie, or having him play music to get Sapphire Owl House to hit the ball. How did you go about figuring out Ciel’s strategy? Toboso: My editor (Takeshi Kuma) and I had a “Brainstorming Dirty Tricks and Surefire Moves Meeting” where we hashed it out. It was the most exhausting meeting. We started in the evening and spent all that night and until the first train the next morning thinking up all the dirty tricks we could. The ones I used in the story were ridiculous enough, but we came up with lots of even more atrocious ones that didn’t make the cut. (LOL) I got the basic rules of cricket from reading and from a “try cricket” event. I thought up dirty strategies based on those rules and took them to the Japan Cricket Association in Sano, Tochigi for some field research. Ciel’s “cliff-edge tactics” are based on true, historical dirty play that people at the Association kindly told me about. If they hadn’t suggested that idea to me during my research trip, Ciel might have used even more ungentlemanly and ridiculous methods to wrest his victory. What have been some of your favorite moments to see animated in the Black Butler -Public School Arc- ? Toboso: Every second of the broadcast was a favorite! But here are some top picks: Masashi Ishihama, who storyboarded the OP, is one of the animators I admire most, so I was deeply moved both when I received the storyboards and when I saw the final video. And I had always thought Oka Okazaki, who did the ED, created wonderful works, so I was thrilled that Oka Okazaki participated in Black Butler . Is there anything you’d like to say to Black Butler fans? Toboso: Thank you for being Black Butler fans! Did you enjoy the Public School Arc , the first anime adaptation in seven years? This has already been announced, but just so you know, the Emerald Witch Arc will also get an anime adaptation. I hope you’ll continue to enjoy Sebastian and Ciel’s story in animated form. Let’s meet again at the TV or streaming broadcast in 2025. I look forward to it!
