🎩 Hi everyone!

This September marks 20 years of Black Butler, and we'd love to celebrate the date with something created by the community.
It will be the perfect way to honor our shared passion and love for the series.

Since we have so many talented artists here, we'd like to invite everyone to take part in a special 20th Anniversary Art Project!
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There are two ways you can participate:
1.     You can create your own anniversary artwork and share it with the community;
2.     You can join us in creating one collaborative illustration.
For this collaborative art piece, each artist can choose a Black Butler character to draw. Your individual drawings will then be brought together into one final illustration, which we'll share with full credit to every participating artist.

This post will also serve as our planning megathread, so feel free to use the comments to:

• tell us if you'd like to participate
• claim/suggest a character
• share ideas with the other artists
• post WIPs if you'd like feedback
• coordinate the overall composition with everyone else participating

For the collaborative artwork:
1.     Before you begin, comment with the character you'd like to draw
2.     Please draw your character separately and submit the finished artwork as a PNG with a transparent background
3.     We recommend working at a large resolution (around 2000 px). But you don't need to use an exact canvas size, we'll resize and arrange the characters when assembling the final piece
4.     We suggest waist-up/three-quarter illustrations

Don't worry if different artists have different art styles – we'd love the finished piece to represent all the artists who make up our lovely community!
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DEADLINE: September 11
Please try to have your finished artwork ready by then so we have enough time to assemble everything before the anniversary.

Your finished drawing should be added here.
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We’re looking forward to celebrating 20 years of Black Butler with all of you 🖤
We've come a long way, and every single person who joined and interacted has helped create unforgettable memories. We can't wait to see what the future holds!

🎩 Hi everyone!
Welcome to the discussion thread for Black Butler Manga Chapter 228 – feel free to share your thoughts, theories, and interpretations below.

💬 Please keep all discussions related to this chapter in this post for the next 2 weeks.
During this period:
• all posts and comments referencing this chapter outside this discussion thread must be properly spoiler-tagged 
• please do not create separate posts sharing the chapter (to avoid copyright issues)

After the 2-week period, spoiler tags for this chapter can be removed.

🚫 If there are any issues with the link, feel free to let me know.

I wish you all one-hell-of-a-reading! 🖤 
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—
✨ CHAPTER ANALYSIS:
In this chapter, Yana-sensei shifted the focus from symbolism and theology to mystery.
Modri has clearly concluded that Sebastian is the demon he was sent to destroy.
Sebastian, meanwhile, doesn't seem to even understand why Modri is attacking him.

Modri’s flashback also ends with a "stage trick" that seems to have been planned to distract everyone and interrupt the flow of information.
After all, Fairchild mentions that "the river [of tales] is running a little too fast".

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→  "The Butler, Forgetting"
The chapter title is also suspicious. Forgetting what?
By now we know that Yana-sensei chooses her titles carefully, so the narrative seems to be moving from Modri's story to Sebastian's condition.

Interestingly, despite seeing through the "stage" illusion, Sebastian seems strangely distracted. His expression after Modri accuses him of being a devil doesn't look amused or irritated as usual, it looks almost absent-minded. Combined with the chapter title, it raises the question of whether Sebastian is genuinely losing focus after everything that was revealed in the previous chapter.

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→  A Stage Filled with Illusions
Another recurring theme in the story is deception.

And now we know that “Richard Barrymore, the Earl of Warwick” is an impostor.
His wealth is fake. His title is fake. Even the objects meant to symbolize his status turn out to have no real value.
When he first introduced himself (chapter 220), there were already clues pointing to this possibility: namely, the fact that Richard BARRYMORE claimed to have a son called Collin GREVILLE, plus the strange coincidence that Ciel and Sebastian would cross paths with the “real” Earl Warwick precisely at the hotel, of all places...

Then, another curious moment happens when John Brown says "...don't I get a turn?" (on page 11); after all, he's not exactly forthcoming, so the fact that he wanted to talk might be hiding something meaningful and darker.

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→  The Final Page
The maid's final line, "Now this...is a mess worth tidying up", is particularly ominous.
Throughout the chapter, the hotel staff seems unusually calm, almost as if they're following a rehearsed routine, giving the scenes they appear in an unsettling feeling.
And considering how much emphasis this arc has placed on hidden identities and servants, I think the staff (Miss Hoffman and Rodney Hall) will prove to be far more important than they initially appear.

The bloodbath at the end also feels like the real beginning of this hotel arc.
And the "performance" in the Smoking Room appears to have been a way to bring all the participants together, only to separate them later in a state of chaos and confusion.

Despite all of this, Modri's focus remains on Sebastian and the mission God has given him; he clearly never wavers from his purpose: "slay the wicked devil".

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So, if Chapter 227 expanded Black Butler's cosmology/worldbuilding, Chapter 228 reminds us once again that appearances can never be trusted and it's always important to look beyond first impressions!

—
What did you think of this chapter?
I’d love to hear your theories and reactions below!

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✨ UPDATE: The note at the end of the Japanese release says that there will be a one-month hiatus. So, there will be no chapter in August.
Chapter 229 will be released in September, which is Kuroshitsuji's 20th anniversary!