The Tale of the Body Thief
Quotes from the Book
I like black for clothes, small items, and jewelry. It's a color that can't be violated by any other colors. A color that simply keeps being itself. A color that sinks more somberly than any other color, yet asserts itself more than all other colors. It's a passionate gallant color. Anything is wonderful if it transcends things rather than being halfway...
The line between education and brainwashing is paper thin
He is nothing more than one of my pawns. However, he is not a normal pawn. He is a pawn that can get across the whole board in one move.
How interesting... humans will drag others down in order to get what they want even in death.
I'm simply one hell of a butler
Moping around with sadness and sorrow… what will come of it? Even dead people can do that. However, I’ll live and stand on my own two legs. If we are going to die one day, wouldn’t it be better to have no regrets?
Once drowned in the depths of darkness, you lose sight of light. When that light has dispersed there is no return. My light has died out long ago and so there’s nothing back for me to go back, or look forward to I shall continue to indulge myself in this darkness until it completely consumes me, then I will be nothing but an empty course left on this cold & cruel world to rot.
Yes, my lord. I devote my entire being to you. Until the day… that lies become truth.
However far I fall as long as there’s so much as a thread left I will use it to climb. I’ll take hold of it. I refuse to give up while I’m still human I can do that much. But every person must decide on his own whether to grab it.
Death is like being born, but backwards. It only hurts for a little while, then a new life begins. A life with no sorrow, no pain, a glorious new beginning. A beginning that will last an eternity.
Humans are easily tempted. When they are poised on the edge of hellish despair, and a spider-thin thread of salvation presents itself, they will invariably grasp it. No matter the human.
There are some things you can never get back, no matter how much effort you put in. And there are some feelings of despair, that you can never ever shake off.
You aren’t wrong. You fought to protect your world. What’s wrong with that? In the end, “justice” is just an official line taken by those in power to serve their own ends. No one’s looking out for others. If you’re careless, you’ll be robbed. There are only two kinds of people in this world. Those who steal, and those who are stolen from. And today, I steal your futures. That’s all this is.
I’m afraid when something is truly lost, one can never get it back again.
I am simply one Hell of a butler
How sade should it be that laughter should vanish from this place.
Did you know?
- Black Butler has been serialized in Square Enix's Monthly GFantasy magazine since September 2006.
- The first tankobon volume was released in Japan on February 27, 2007.
- Yen Press released the first English-language volume on January 26, 2010.
- By August 2025 the Black Butler manga had over 36 million copies in circulation worldwide.
- The series has been adapted into anime, stage musicals, a live-action film, and animated films.
About Yana Toboso
About the book
Black Butler, Vol. 1 (Kuroshitsuji) launches Yana Toboso's dark-fantasy manga set in Victorian-era London. It introduces Ciel Phantomhive, the young Earl who heads a noble family and serves the Crown's interests, and his impossibly capable butler Sebastian Michaelis, who is secretly a demon bound to Ciel by a Faustian contract. The opening volume establishes the household and its eccentric staff while Sebastian dispatches each day's crises with supernatural ease.
Across its early chapters the book blends dark comedy with gothic mystery, weaving together themes of revenge, the price of a bargain made in desperation, and the master-servant bond between a boy and the demon sworn to serve him. The Victorian backdrop, aristocratic intrigue, and recurring tension between elegant surface and hidden menace give the series its distinctive tone.
Serialized in Square Enix's Monthly GFantasy from 2006, Black Butler became a long-running international bestseller, with the manga reporting over 36 million copies in circulation by 2025. It spawned multiple anime series, stage musicals, a live-action film, and animated films, and the first volume is widely praised by readers for its atmospheric setting and detailed artwork, though some note its introductory, scene-setting nature.
Key characters
- Ciel PhantomhiveYoung Earl and head of the Phantomhive household
- Sebastian MichaelisCiel's butler, secretly a demon bound by contract
- Mey-RinThe household's clumsy maid
- BardroyThe Phantomhive cook
- FinnianThe household's gardener
Book details
- First published
- 2007
- Length
- 194 pages
- Series
- Black Butler #1
- Reading time
- 1 hour
- Author
- Yana Toboso
- Genre
- Fantasy
- Goodreads rating
- 4.35 (146k ratings)
Critical reception
- The first volume holds a rating of about 4.35 stars across nearly 146,000 Goodreads reviews.
- Readers praise the atmospheric Victorian setting and detailed artwork.
- Some reviewers note the first volume is introductory, setting up later story arcs.
Movie & TV adaptations
- IMDb
- IMDb
- IMDb
Keep reading
The Tale of the Body Thief
Prince of Thorns
The Way of Shadows
The Young Elites
Falling Kingdoms
Memnoch the Devil
The Poisonwood Bible
Empire of the Vampire
The Black Obelisk
Odd Hours
Mortal Heart
Dark Age
Born of Silence
The Library of the Dead
The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle
The Dark Divine
An Ember in the Ashes
The Queen of the Damned
Demons
The Fall
The Shadowglass
A Great and Terrible Beauty
Shōgun
The Broken Eye
The Gargoyle
Henderson the Rain King
Seven Deadly Sins: Settling the Argument Between Born Bad and Damaged Good
Preludes & Nocturnes
Iron Gold
The Kite Runner
The Curse of Chalion
My Darling Dreadful Thing
The Setting Sun
His Dark Materials
Death Masks
The Infernals
Tropic of Cancer
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida
The Burning World
Black Leopard, Red Wolf
House of Chains
Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir
The Serpent King
Inferno
Send Me Their Souls
The First Circle
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Lifeblood
Lilith
Marrow
The Graveyard Book
Damned
Fool's Quest
A Reaper at the Gates
Dark Flame
The Blinding Knife
Jane Steele
Embers
The Source
Journey to the End of the Night

