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This review is extremely biased, as I just cannot give this manga an objective review. It is and has been my favourite for a lot of years now, since I first watched the anime, which now seems awful when compared to the manga.

The enjoyement I and the other fans get from reading Kuorshitsuji overshadows all the mediocre elements of it, making us see it through a pink lense. Still I'll try my best to show my view point properly.

The story is what gets the lowest score on this review. At the surface we have a typical revenge story, where the main character wants to avenge ... his parents death. Nothing new, right? But as the story unfolds it reveals a lot more at it's core. The 'main' plot as you will is very complex and interesting and would deserve a 9. The problem are more with the actual things happening. With almost every arc we get a set of new characters, mixed with already known ones, and some kind of mystery our main characters need to solve. And at the end we find out more about Ciel and Sebastian, or some other important character. That in itself isn't a bad concept, the problem lies within some of these plot lines.
Whilst some arcs, like the titanic arc and the circus arc, are very interesting some are just plain boring. Also the tone shift of the manga from funny to dark is sometimes very interesting, but the latest arc, which featured a boy band contest at it's centre, just seemed ridiculous.
Because the arcs are so inconsistent I have to give the story points, the core plot 9 and the subplots 6.

The art is a very interesting aspect of the manga. It changed and improved so much in these more than 10 years, that this is a reason alone to read at least a few of the chapters. Especially in the newest chapters (we're currently at 136) the direction the mangaka's art takes is really pleasing. We're at a very dramatic and important part of the story and this shows in the art very well.

Ciel and Sebastian are our two protagonists and their relationship is one of the core elements of this manga. Ciel is 12 at the beginning of the story, which you really couldn't've guessed from the way he acts. So already there is an obvious hidden backstory to this grim looking boy, living in a gigantic mansion with only a handful of servants around him. And the more we find out about him, the more interesting his personality seems. Ciel is an incredibly complicated character who walks in a moral grey zone. He does things hero don't do. But still the reader roots for him, not because he is a good guy, but because he is just so damn interesting to watch. And also because it's hard not to wish him the best, when considering his oh so happy life.
Sebastian is a thousand year old demon, who is such a veteran that he is bored of normal souls. So he waits for Ciel's soul, whilst trying to drag him deeper into the darkness as to better it's flavour. At times Ciel and Sebastian's relationship seems like a typical servant - master one, then sometimes a hunter - prey one and rarely it even shows facettes of friendship.
The two characters compliment each other perfectly and have an amazing dynamic together. It's hard to grow bored of them.
There are other important characters as well, which range from very unique to extremely clishee.
Some honourable mentions are the undertaker and the queen, both characters who influence the story in the backround very strongly. The female characters in this manga generally aren't very interesting though. Lizzy (Ciel's fiancee) shows some different colours as the story progresses, but the lack of chemistry between her and Ciel doesn't make reading about her very enjoyable. The same goes for the later introduced Sieglinde. Both seem to be excuses for Yana to draw cute dresses and show Ciel's more lovable side, which I don't mind that much, but lets just say that I'm quite happy that neither Lizzy nor Sieglinde appear very often.
Other than these we have a wide and very colourful cast, both in personality and nationality speaking.
If you do not enjoy one of the side characters this manga should still be enjoable, but if you strongly dislike Ciel or Sebastian (why would you though) it might be hard to read this.

As mentioned the enjoyement in this manga is at times very high. The main characters are very captivating and in the better arcs finding out about the mystery at hand is also very interesting. Eventhough the more psychoanalytic parts are what sells this manga for me, the action scenes are also often very entertaining- they range from very swishy and fun to very dark.
This manga handles a lot of dark themes, and eventhough it never really gets graphic, some scenes might be disturbing to some, so be cautious.

I highly recommend this manga, mostly because it is very dear to me and it might become very dear for you as well. It's an amazing character study with sometimes messy, but overall good plot lines, packaged in Yana's great art.

This manga is very heartwarming and leaves you with a fluffy feeling once you've finished it~

It's a slice of life, dealing with a young girl called Haru, her stepdad Seiji and their friends and acquaintances and their relationships. The basic story is in itself nothing new, the ending is very open, but works well (especially when compared to the ending of a similar manga, 'usagi drop' and how that wrecked the entire story).

The characters are all very cute and likeable, even Chii-san (Seiji's friend from college and potential love interest), whom I was sceptical about at first, turned out to be very pleasing to watch. ... Haru has a very bubbly personality, which doesn't make the more serious moments unbelievable, but creates a nice atmosphere for the dialogues in the manga. All the characters seem pretty grounded and realistic, all of them being genuinely nice people.

The artwork is outstanding (I love this mangaka's style) and it creates the proper moods for the scenes. One thing that kinda bothered me here and in the mangaka's other work 'Stand Up!, is the way the panneling is done may be very innovative at times, but sometimes the story is hard to follow or it's not clear what character is saying what.


If you like slow paced Slice of Life manga, then this is definetly a good read. It is sadly very short, but at the end that isn't a big problem, because the story hints at what is going to happen afterwards with the characters.

If you plan on reading it online, the last chapter might be hard to find (or it's just 11 pages). I read it on mangahere, but depending on when you read this it might be already taken down.

Still, I hope you enjoy it~!

(DISCLAIMER) First of all: I have not yet watched the first season. This might seem strange, but it's easily explained by me watching amvs about this anime, copy- and pasting the name and not checking for previous seasons.

(THIS REVIEW IS SPOILER FREE)

So, I enjoyed this anime a lot more than I probably should have. The strory is very similar to other anime, some social issues get touched upon- plus points for having good and evil/ not likeable characters on every side. About the story there isn't much to say, but I must say that for me it seemed to make sense, the way that things ... were happening. It was easy to just ignore most of the plot holes.

The world building was as stupid as we usually get for stories like these, where maybe small enviroments like the cities kinda make sense, but we never really get a good grasp of the whole actualy world. We just jump from location to location.

Art and Sound were decent, in some scenes exceptionally good. Interesting angles, animations- the dance scenes were done amazingly in my opinion. The animation could've been a bit smoother at times in my opinion, didn't bother me too much though. The music amplified emotions and the choral singing was used very well.

And now Characters: A lot of people might disagree, but I think that Nina's and Charioce's relationship was very interesting. It is one of the key themes and story elements in this anime, so if you do not like this couple at all it could be annoying, for me it was one of the main reasons to keep watching, if not THE reason. Most of the characters are very quirky, they either look weird or act silly, but they still seem grounded in reality to a certain extend. Rita, the zombie-doctor, seems not phased by anything at first and because of that like a character that's difficult to relate to, but then she reveals herself to be very compassionate and to sincerely care for her friends.
The main character, Nina, is very light hearted and free spirited, because of which she does not seem to suit the rest of the characters who are dealing with very 'serious' issues right from the beginning and she acts more like comic relief, being the person who accidentaly got caught up in that mess. As the story progresses and she grows close to the other characters, the strengh in her bubbliness and her way of dealing with trauma and personal issues gets shown more clearly, which then makes her a serious character at the end. In these 24 episodes all the characters that from my understanding weren't in the first season, change a lot and some have even drastic character developement.
The fan service: the clothing was sometimes/ quite often very short and skimpy, which I did not enjoy all that much (as a straight gal), but it didn't make the scenes too laughable. It knows when to fanservice, and during sad sequences cleavage is not too noticeable.

Generally I would in a way compare this to Rokka no Yuusha, because there as well no completely new and exciting themes were discussed, but the one's that were touched upon are explained quite in depth. Also similar to RnY are the characters that we all have seen in one way or another before, but still having facests added that make them unique.

Apparently this anime hasn't done very well and the chance of a third season is very low, but I will keep hoping to get something, if only because the romance was interesting and not stereotypical.

You should definetly give this a go, but if you're coming from the first season you should regard this as a new story with some old characters you already like, and try to give the new characters some time to grow on you.