Interest
Black Butler Creator Comments on Works With Homosexual Love
posted on by Jennifer Sherman
Fans have long debated the true nature of Sebastian's feelings for Ciel in Black Butler. Some people wonder if he could be in love with his master or if his demon's emotions are something even more complicated. Although she didn't mention her own Black Butler manga specifically, Yana Toboso tweeted on Monday about depictions of homosexual love. She said:
Even if they're stories that have homosexual romance (not just those with sexual love), what's interesting is still just interesting, so what's the problem? It's weird how male couples are immediately labelled as "for fujoshi" and also weird how people will deny them. I think some deniers mean the romance is not the main point of the story, but there are so many wonderful stories about same-sex romance...
Toboso also commented on writing boys-love in her past. She said:
In the past I wrote works with the main theme of boys-love (romance), and I was crushed by the overwhelming difficulty. Regardless of whether it's opposite-sex or same-sex, I think works with a main theme of romance are incredibly energetic things. For me, the degree of difficulty is higher in writing romance than in drawing zombie battles or tanks.
While Toboso doesn't seem to view her recent works as boys-love, Black Butler certainly has romantic elements, or at least elements that could be perceived as such. With the series still ongoing, future events may help to shed more light on the characters' deepest feelings.
The most recent anime adaptation of the manga, Kuroshitsuji: Book of the Atlantic, opened in Japan on January 21. Funimation screened the film in North America in June. The film adapts the "Gōka Kyakusen" (luxury liner) arc, which appears in the 11th through 14th volumes of Toboso's original manga. The same arc of the manga is also inspiring a new musical this winter.
[Via Nijimen]
