What to Know for Black Butler’s Spring 2025 Return

After an excruciatingly long hiatus, Yana Toboso’s Black Butler is finally returning to Square Enix’s monthly G Fantasy magazine after going on an indefinite break in August 2024. The timing couldn’t be better, as the Spring 2025 anime season is right around the corner and the anime adaptation of the series will also be returning with the same production team as Public School Arc to adapt the much anticipated and fan-favorite story arc from the manga, officially titled by CloverWorks for the anime as the Emerald Witch Arc.

While the new season of the anime will be adapting the eighth arc from the manga, G Fantasy is currently serializing the Blue Revenge Arc – the eleventh story arc and one of the most twisted and high-stakes entries the series has seen in quite some time, as it not only perfectly captures how truly evil Undertaker can be, but in how well it taps into Ciel’s trauma. That said, despite how devastating the one-year wait was to once again see Ciel try to find a solution to losing everything, 2025 is shaping up to be a strong year for Black Butler fans.

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When Is Black Butler Coming Back?

The May issue of G Fantasy, which releases on April 18, 2025, will finally see the manga return after leaving readers on a massive cliffhanger in 2024 with the release of Chapter 213, “The Butler, Escorting” as part of the Blue Revenge arc. At this time, there hasn’t been any confirmation on where the chapter plans to go, but, based on where Chapter 213 left off, Ciel is still hard at work alongside Sebastian, his servants, Lao, and Ran-Mao trying to dismantle “blood collection facilities” nestled throughout England to take down the reanimated “Ciel Phantomhive”, who’s retaken his official title as the family’s Earl and exiled Ciel, and the ever-threatening Undertaker, who is once again pulling the strings.

Just before the manga returns to G Fantasy, though, beginning on April 5 Black Butler fans will finally be able to watch the brand-new installment to the series’ anime adaptation, which will finally be tackling the fan-favorite Emerald Witch story arc. Following off the heels of 2024’s stunning adaptation of the manga’s Public School arc, CloverWorks has returned to produce the animation with much of the same staff. Kenjirou Okada has returned to direct, whose unique style from working on a number of Shaft series has elevated the show’s gothic aesthetic to all new heights, as well as Hiroyuki Yoshino returning to the series as the lead scriptwriter. Crunchyroll has licensed the anime for its international release, which will include dubs in English, Latin American Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, French, and German.

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As previously mentioned, the Emerald Witch arc is by far one of the most popular among fans. The official synopsis from Crunchyroll describes the arc: “At the Queen’s behest, the 13-year-old earl Ciel Phantomhive and his loyal demon butler, Sebastian Michaelis, leave the gritty underworld of nineteenth-century England and venture to the south of Germany to investigate a series of mysterious deaths. Legend has it, those who enter the Werewolves’ Forest are destined to be cursed, but Ciel and Sebastian press on to uncover the truth”. While Ciel and Sebastian exploring a series of unexplainable deaths is par for the course, what makes the Emerald Witch arc stand out so much do to its fairy-tale-like terror with the looming threat of the wolfman over their investigation. Where the anime adaptation of Public School Arc was the perfect game of Clue, the Emerald Witch Arc will be more like a high-stakes version of Werewolf.

What’s Next For Black Butler?

While 2025 will be a big year for Black Butler fans, the fandom as a whole always has their breath held in fear of another indefinite hiatus or worse still – the anime not returning. The wait between A-1 Pictures last adaptation of the series, Black Butler: Book of Murder, and CloverWorks’ adaptation, Black Butler -Public School Arc- was just over ten years, which for anime fans, feels like an eternity. While CloverWorks jumped right into adapting Emerald Witch Arc, there hasn’t been any official confirmation on whether the studio intends to produce any of the arcs that come after.

If they do, though, Black Butler has only ever gotten more intriguing with time, and its ninth arc, the Blue Cult arc, dives into Ciel’s true backstory, his trauma, Sebastian’s origins, and so many other pieces of crucial world-building that fans deserve to see come to life. Of course, the 10th and 11th arcs would be equally important to see animated and given that the series still has no sign of entering its finale anytime soon, there’s still so much more of Yana Toboso’s world left to be animated. Plus, with the manga releasing one chapter each month, if CloverWorks were to continue adapting the series, they wouldn’t have to worry about catching up with the manga too quickly.