Begun on September 16, 2006, in the pages of Square Enix's shōnen manga magazine Monthly GFantasy, Yana Toboso's Black Butler (Kuroshitsuji) manga is showing no signs of slowing down.
The anime adaptation of the manga series is also still going strong, as Studio CloverWorks is set to kick off an adaptation of the manga's Public School arc on April 13.
CloverWorks takes over animation duties from A-1 Pictures, who previously produced two anime series, several OVAs and an anime film. Both CloverWorks and A-1 Pictures are subsidiaries of Aniplex.
Crunchyroll will simulcast the series as it airs in Japan.
To celebrate the start of the Black Butler: Public School Arc anime, Square Enix will make several chapters of the English translation of Black Butler, available for free, for a limited time on the global version of its MANGA UP! manga reading app.
Volumes 1 through 14 of the manga can be read for free on MANGA UP! from April 7 (8:00pm PDT) until April 16 (7:59pm PDT). The first 14 volumes of the manga covers all the source material in the manga that leads up to the Public School Arc.
Another addition to the global version of MANGA UP! is a new subscription plan called VAULT PASS. The existing payment model will also remain, but for a flat monthly rate of $4.99, the VAULT PASS unlocks more than 10,000 chapters that previously required a wait time or individual payment.
With this service, several completed series will offer unlimited reading on all chapters. 18 volumes of “Black Butler” will also be available with VAULT PASS, and the Company plans to make a portion of future installments available via the plan as well.
The MANGA UP! app provides English translations of popular ongoing manga series like Toilet-bound Hanako-kun, My Happy Marriage, and The Apothecary Diaries with the goal of delivering Japanese titles to international readers as quickly as possible.
Square Exnis also plans to make future Black Butler chapters, which are being published in physical copies of Monthly G Fantasy magazine, available on the app at the same time as the Japanese versions.
About Black Butler: Public School Arc: Butler Sebastian Michaelis works with his 13-year-old master, the earl Ciel Phantomhive, to do the dirty work of "the Queen's guard dog" in nineteenth-century England's gritty underworld.
One day, Ciel receives a letter from Queen Victoria telling him that several students at Weston College, one of England's top public schools, have seemingly disappeared... including a relative of hers named Derrick. And so, Sebastian and Ciel infiltrate Weston College to get to the bottom of the matter. What truly happened to these students?