Short answers, pulled from the story.
Black Butler follows Ciel Phantomhive, a twelve-year-old Earl in Victorian-era London who forms a contract with a demon named Sebastian Michaelis. In exchange for helping Ciel achieve revenge against those who murdered his parents, Sebastian will ultimately be allowed to consume Ciel's soul. The series has been serialized in Square Enix's Monthly GFantasy magazine since the 16th of September 2006.
By August 2025, the Black Butler manga had over 36 million copies in circulation worldwide. The series regularly appeared in Oricon's weekly best-seller charts, and during 2009 alone it sold an estimated 1,603,197 copies in Japan.
Black Butler was written and illustrated by Yana Toboso. Toboso also designed the new characters introduced in the second anime season and oversaw the series as it moved toward its climax, entering a research hiatus in June 2024.
Black Butler has five anime television seasons as of 2025. The first aired from October 2008 to March 2009; the fifth, titled Black Butler: Emerald Witch Arc, aired from April to June 2025. Additional adaptations include theatrical OVAs and the animated film Black Butler: Book of the Atlantic, which premiered in Japan on the 21st of January 2017.
The Faustian contract in Black Butler is the deal Ciel Phantomhive strikes with the demon Sebastian Michaelis. Ciel offers his soul in exchange for salvation from the cult that enslaved him and for Sebastian's assistance in taking revenge on those who destroyed his family. The contract symbol is placed on Ciel's right eye.
Black Butler has been serialized in Square Enix's shonen manga magazine Monthly GFantasy since the 16th of September 2006. Square Enix has collected the chapters into individual tankōbon volumes, with the first volume released on the 27th of February 2007 and thirty-five volumes released as of the 27th of November 2025.