Black Butler is one of the most popular shounen manga that is serialized to this day, although most of its fans are female. Although it has been ongoing for more than a decade, there are a lot of things that are still shrouded in mystery. For example, the eccentric man who takes laughs for payment, Undertaker, is one of those characters.
With the reveal of his true identity as a Grim Reaper, he has become a prominent presence within the manga and has taken an antagonistic role toward Ciel and Sebastian. Here are ten facts you didn't know about Undertaker. Beware of spoilers throughout the article.
10 HE IS PART OF THE DEVIL SIX
Although Undertaker never was an underrated character fans did not like, with the reveal of his handsome face and his Grim Reaper background, his popularity grew tenfold. Fans claimed him as the most handsome character in Black Butler, even beating the likes of Sebastian, and put him in the Devil Six.
This is a group of the highest-ranking characters with Undertaker taking the third spot behind Ciel and Sebastian. While Undertaker's looks factor into his popularity, so does the mystery surrounding him. It's no wonder he ranked so high after his reveal.
9 HE USES SOTOBA IN BATTLE
Although Undertaker is a seceded Grim Reaper, he still has a Death Scythe as well as another weapon to battle with: sotoba. While Undertaker was fighting against Grell, Ronald Knox, and Sebastian, he revealed to have seven hidden inside his cloak. This is perhaps why he is always covered up to his hands.
Despite Black Butler taking place in England, Undertaker uses sotoba. Sotoba are inscribed strips of wood at Japanese cemeteries. It happens that he was shown with these in volume two of the manga, four years before this reveal occurred.
8 HE WAS A MAIN CHARACTER IN A SCRAPPED MANGA
With a lot of characters in the series having a lot of interesting backstories, you begin to wonder if they are capable of having their own stories. It turns out Undertaker's design was based on one of Yana Toboso's manga she planned before she began working on Black Butler.
Instead of a Grim Reaper, Undertaker was based on the protagonist of a pirate captain. His hair was the same as well as the scar across his face. He even had a pipe that was a skull, which perhaps gave her the idea of a Grim Reaper.
7 HE DOES NOT SEEM TO NEED GLASSES
Grim Reapers have phosphorescent eyes and are incredibly nearsighted. This is the reason every Grim Reaper in the series wears a pair. In Black Butler: Book of Atlantic, Undertaker fights two Grim Reapers as well as Sebastian all at once.
Grell asks him if he's at a disadvantage because he doesn't have glasses anymore, but Undertaker managed to have the upper hand throughout the fight. Undertaker even knocked off their glasses while they were fighting to make them unable to see, but he didn't seem to need any while fighting.
6 HE DISLIKES QUEEN VICTORIA
As the Queen's Watchdog, Ciel is left to rid London of those who defy her while the clean work goes to others. Undertaker makes his distaste for the queen known throughout the manga by commenting he does not care for Queen Victoria's money.
Instead, he exchanges his services for a first-rate laugh. His dislike for her is shown even further in Black Butler: Book of Atlantic when he is revealed to be a Grim Reaper. He stated he does not like Queen Victoria because she leaves all of the dirty work to Ciel while she sits and does nothing.
5 HE DEFIED THE GRIM REAPERS
Because he does not have glasses and his phosphorescent eyes were hidden for years, no one noticed he was a Grim Reaper. However, Undertaker still has a Death Scythe as he took it with him when he defied the Grim Reapers.
He is known as a deserter to them, as he left them because of his intrigue on humans. When Undertaker was fighting against everyone all at once, Grell made most of the comments about how Undertaker is a traitor and how they need to kill him because of this.
4 HE KNEW CIEL'S GRANDMOTHER
Underater's background is shrouded in mystery, but we did get a few glimpses on his past. He may look like a young man in his mid-twenties, but Undertaker is very old. He tried to desert the Grim Reapers seventy years ago and failed before trying again twenty years later. This makes Undertaker about one hundred years old.
He carries a chain of lockets which he calls his treasure and entrusts it to Ciel. The date and name engraved on it read as follows: 13 July 1866, Cloudia P. It is Ciel's late grandmother, Cloudia Phantomhive. Although we do not know how she died, its a wonder how they knew each other.
3 HE TAMPERS WITH LIFE AND DEATH
Undertaker wishes to discover what would happen if a human's Cinematic Record had a continuation. Because of his interest, he deserted the Grim Reapers and took his Death Scythe with him. This has led him to create the Bizzare Dolls, carnivorous humans who have been brought back from death and are hungry for human souls.
In a sense, they are Black Butler's version of zombies. He uses his Death Scythe to look at a human's Cinematic Record and adds fake ones to theirs, tampering with their lives.
2 HE IS AN ARISTOCRAT OF EVIL
Undertaker is shown to care deeply, albeit in a twisted way, to care about Ciel and his wellbeing. This may be because he knew Vincent before and joined him along with the secret society known as the Aristocrats of Evil.
While Undertaker established his funeral parlor and conducted experiments about human life, he met Vincent and began a business relationship with him. Because of their amicable relationship, he joined the ranks of the Aristocrats of Evil despite not being a nobleman or upper-class associate, but he did gain a friend.
1 HE HAS AN OBSESSION WITH DEATH
Undertaker is a crazed man who rather be paid with a first-rate laugh instead of Queen Victoria's money. It was not odd to think of him as a crazed man obsessed with laugher, but it was even more of a shock to discover he was creating Bizzare Dolls. Undertaker takes this obsession up a few notches as he tampers with human's Cinematic Records, seems stuck on the fact Vincent is dead, and even resurrects Ciel Phantomhive, the real head of the Phantomhive household. The only thing left to do is to discover why he goes to these extremes by reading the manga.