Characters / Black Butler - Grim Reapers

• Age Lift: An unintentional example. The anime established that Undertaker is hundreds, if not thousands, of years old, and Grell and Will have been reapers for at least a century. This was before the manga revealed that Undertaker became a reaper seventy years before the start of the story and deserted fifty years ago, before Grell and Will were reapers.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: Most Grim Reapers are well-dressed and deadly in battle.
• Blind Without 'Em: Apparently, all the Grim Reapers need glasses because they're ridiculously near-sighted.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: All Grim Reapers are pretty weird.
  • Grell is extremely flamboyant, has a fixation of sorts with the color red, is rather violent and sadistic, and, in the anime, VERY open about her romantic feelings.
  • Othello is a scientist who hardly ever visits the human world, can't fight to save his life, and is mentioned to not being above trying to revive the dead (though he doesn't commit said actions because he isn't encouraged enough to do so).
  • Ronald is perky and outgoing, even when collecting souls and trying to kill Sebastian. Despite being a rookie grim reaper, Ronald is the most desensitized to death, implying that there was something wrong with him even before he died.
  • William is the most normal of them, but is still a massive stickler for the rules and has no qualms with beating the shit out of his underlings.
• Death Is a Loser: As members of a bureaucracy who collects the dead, the Grim Reapers are constantly bogged down in paperwork and assignments (e.g., much grumbling about overtime). While powerful, all reapers are blind without their glasses and their scythes can be blocked by the likes of high-grade cutlery (albeit, supported by Sebastian's demonic strength). To top it all off, their duties are a direct result of their decision to commit suicide in their human lives.
• Driven to Suicide: How you become a Grim Reaper, as all known reapers committed suicided in their human lives and subsequently reincarnated with the explicit purpose of reaping human souls.
• Everybody Hates Hades: Many of the named reapers have engaged in behavior that ranges from being very apathetic to those on the "to die" list to crossing straight into evil death god territory, biggest examples of that being Grell, Undertaker, and Eric.
• Invisible to Normals: All Grim Reapers can conceal themselves to humans, except for those who are close to death. Examples include humans who have signed their life away to a demon. Somehow, the Phantomhive bloodline can see them as well.
• Mark of the Supernatural: All Grim Reapers have phosphorescent green eyes.
• Shinigami: Crossed with Was Once Human and Driven to Suicide. The Grim Reapers are beings managed by Heaven's bureaucratic regimen and charged to collect people's souls in the moment they die as well as review their memories in their last moments, all while trying to be neutral. In chapter 105, it is revealed this job is actually a punishment for humans who committed suicide - in short, reapers are now doomed to witness others' deaths until they are forgiven for taking their own lives.

Grell Sutcliff

Voiced by: Jun Fukuyama (JP), Daniel Fredrick (EN) ^{Foreign VAs}Miguel Ángel Ruiz (Latin American Spanish), Alexandre Coadour (French), Julien Haggege (German), Fellipe Defall (Portuguese)

Live actor: Takuya Uehara (Musical)

The only named female Grim Reaper thus far and the best fighter of the active reapers we've been introduced to, Grell is part of the Dispatch Management Division. Despite her duties, she is initially willing to go against the rules and kill humans who aren't on the to-die list. After posing as Madam Red's butler for a time, Grell developed an interest in Sebastian to his great dismay. She is also enamoured with her superior, William.

• Abhorrent Admirer: To both Sebastian and Will, who are only ever annoyed or disgusted or both by her advances towards them.
• Action Girl: The only female reaper we know of at the moment and one who is capable of holding her own against a demon, at least for a while. According to Word of God, she's a better fighter than William; the only reason he can beat Grell up is because she's in love with him. Overall, she would appear to be the third strongest character after Undertaker and Sebastian.
• Adaptational Wimp: In the first anime, where Grell undergoes Villain Decay.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: She loves dangerous, deadly people, as seen with her attractions to Madam Red, Sebastian, and William.
• Ambiguously Bi: She obviously likes men, but her feelings for Madam Red (which really don't seem entirely platonic) cast doubt onto whether she's exclusively attracted to men.
• Arc Villain: Grell is the villain of the Jack the Ripper arc where it's revealed she and Madam Red are the real Collective Identity of the Serial Killer. Grell becomes the primary villain of the arc when Grell kills Madam Red for refusing to kill her nephew. In the anime only, Grell is in a more neutral role after returning in later arcs.
• Ax-Crazy: Grell seems happiest when she's fighting or killing people.
• Badass Longcoat: The longcoat in question being the coat Grell stole from Madam Red after she died.
• Bad Is Good and Good Is Bad: A variant. Grell is deathly attracted to violence and those who engage in it like Sebastian, William, and Madame Red. But as seen with the last one choosing the non-violent road, even for the sake of a love one, gets one marked as "boring" in Grell's book and therefore deserving of death.
• Battle Butler: She was this during her introduction, where she was working as Madam Red's butler and put up a good fight against Sebastian. That was until she murdered Madam Red...
• Best Her to Bed Her: Possibly. If her current attractions (specifically to Sebastian) are indicative of a pattern, the men that Grell falls for are often those who have beaten her in a fight.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Grell may seem ditzy, flirtatious, and overly dramatic, but she's also one of the strongest reapers in the manga, can hold her own in a fight against Undertaker—who is the strongest reaper, and possibly even the strongest character in the manga—and the only person aside from Undertaker who has come close to killing Sebastian.
• Birds of a Feather: Part of what attracted Grell to Madam Red was that she was taking out her frustrations at being barren - since Grell is a trans woman, she can't give birth either, so they had a commonality.
• Blood Is the New Black: Grell is revealed as Jack the Ripper when Ciel and Sebastian catch her coming out of Mary Jane Kelly's house absolutely covered in the poor woman's blood.
• Blood Lust: Grell delights in painting the world red with blood.
• The Bus Came Back: In the manga, Grell doesn't actually reappear in full after the Jack the Ripper arc until about the middle of the Campania arc. Though during the Book of Circus anime, it is shown that the suspension for her murders was lifted and she was able to get back to work while the Phantomhive servants were dealing with the Noah's Ark Circus members. The interim manga chapter prior to the Book of Murder Arc hints that she collected the souls of the circus members who died there, as Sebastian picked up a strand of her distinctive red hair near Beast's singed muffler.
• Butt-Monkey: At least in the anime due to flanderization. Not too much in the manga, although it does pop up occasionally.
• Chainsaw Good: Her death scythe is in the form of a chainsaw, and attacks reveal the memories of victims.
• Character Development: Appears to have gone through this behind the scenes before reappearing in the Campania arc. She's still overdramatic and violent, but is much more sane and professional than in the Jack the Ripper arc. Ronald even lampshades how ridiculous it is for someone with her history to lecture him about prioritizing their work.
• Cheshire Cat Grin: This seems to be a popular trope for the characters of this series, but now Grell can especially fit it, seeing as the reaper portrayed the Cheshire Cat in the Alice in Wonderland-inspired OVA.
• Collective Identity: Grell is one half of "Jack The Ripper", being Madam Red's accomplice in murdering the prostitutes.
• Combat Sado Masochist: Especially with William and Sebastian on the masochist part.
• Combat Stilettos: They get highlighted well during the Luxury Liner arc.
• Dark Action Girl: Grell's very dangerous with her chainsaw, and Word of God says she's stronger than William and Ronald.
• Diminishing Villain Threat: In the anime only, which continually reduces Grell from a legitimate threat to a Harmless Villain with each appearance.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Grell is the first Reaper introduced, and her sharp teeth are a contrast to the rest of the Reapers, who aside from their trademark eyes look completely human. Her altering them as part of her butler disguise is also the only time a Reaper is shown to be able to alter their appearance supernaturally.
• Evil Counterpart: Is introduced as the Chaotic Evil counterpart to Sebastian's Lawful Evil, as both are sociopathic supernatural entities who insert themselves into Ciel and Angelinas' lives at their lowest points and disguise themselves as butlers to help their human counterparts get revenge on the people they feel have wronged them. However, whereas Sebastian has his "aesthetics" to keep himself devoted to his role as a butler and has stopped himself from eating Ciel before their deal is concluded, Grell appears to have no such compunctions, shedding her butler disguise and murdering Angelina the minute she loses her entertainment value without reconsideration or remorse.
• Evil Is Hammy: Grell is over the top, flamboyant, and very violent.
• Evil Redhead: Fitting with Grell's love of red, she also has red hair. And she's very much an evil person.
• Fangirl: If she isn't already, she might as well be the president of Sebastian's fan club.
  • To further drive the point home, Toboso once stated that Grell's attraction to Sebastian is equal to a fan being enamored by an idol rather than a serious crush, those feelings being reserved for William (and, prior to killing her, possibly Angelina).
• Fangs Are Evil: After the reveal, Grell constantly has sharp shark-like teeth.
• Foreshadowing: While on Ciel's estate for "training", she shapes the trees she was trimming into skulls and passes it off as incompetence.
  • Mixed with Harsher in Hindsight is her multiple "attempts" at suicide which is later revealed to be what happened to all grim reapers, herself included.
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: A maniacal and murderous reaper who needs to wear glasses, as all reapers are near-sighted.
• Friendly Enemy: When it comes to Sebastian, at least in the anime, although Grell thinks it's more than that.
• Gadgeteer Genius: It doesn't come up often, but in the Jack the Ripper arc, Grell proudly boasts of building her own chainsaw death scythe.
• Green-Eyed Monster: While the general blood lust got the gears turning, it was Grell's envy of the ability to give birth that inspired her to team up with Madam Red to murder sex workers who requested abortions. She also displays jealousy towards anyone who she percieves catches Sebastian's eye such as his two "informants" and even Ciel. Bonus points for actually having green eyes, although that just comes with the territory of being a grim reaper.
• Karma Houdini: By all accounts participating in highly gruesome murders behind the reaper organization's back should be means to remove one entirely from the job (and, given the set up of the reaper position, could even include being sent to Hell), but all Grell receives is a temporary suspension in the manga and having to wield tiny scissors in the anime. By the time of the Campania arc she's back to full status, although for now it appears she hasn't broken protocol.
• In Love with Your Carnage: Grell was fascinated by Madam Red's brutal murders of prostitutes who got abortions and helped her in the murders so they could create bloodshed together. The moment Madam Red refuses to kill her beloved nephew, Grell kills Madam Red out of disappointment at seeing her "go soft".
• Interplay of Sex and Violence: With Sebastian, and also William in the Shinigami OVA.
• Lack of Empathy: Grell is severely devoid of feeling empathy for those in misfortune, a good example being showing to be bored when having to reap a child's soul in the Blue Sect arc and fussing over having to miss a nail opponent because of it. Oh, and let's not forget killing Madam Red when she broke down instead of killing Ciel.
  • Grell collecting Beast's death record is another example as Grell viewed her Dark and Troubled Past as dull and not worth watching, lusted over Sebastian while ignoring that he more or less coerced Beast into their "liaison", and topped it by saying Beast should be grateful that she got to have "fun" with Sebastian despite the encounter being miserable for her and even calling her a pig. And this was Played for Laughs.
    • Even worse is that Grell should have also seen what happened to the children Beast helped to kidnap, and yet she doesn't react to or mention them at all.
• Laughably Evil: Despite Grell being a bloodthirsty, sadistic murderer and sociopath her fangirl tendencies and overall antics are hard not to laugh at even when she's at her darkest. It's a big reason why she's one of the most adored characters of the series, once reaching fourth place in a popularity poll.
• Mad Love: Towards Sebastian and William. It seems Grell likes them both for the cold shoulders and burning bruises they give.
• Master Actor: She's introduced as the shy, bumbling, unassuming, and thoroughly incompetent servant of Madam Red. When she's caught red-handed in the middle of a murder, she grins, changes her entire manner and (in the anime, at least) voice, and thanks the ones who caught her for complimenting her work. "I'm an actress, after all— and a top-rate one, at that!" And the only physical things she changed were the color of her hair and putting her makeup back on. It's usually forgotten about because from that point on Grell's persona stays fairly consistent, but the transformation is incredible.
• Meaningful Name: Shares a surname with Peter Sutcliffe, the original Jack the Ripoff.
• Nightmare Face: Grell has a penchant for making some terrifying faces, but her greatest one is the unholy Blood Is the New Black Slasher Smile combo when she's caught as Jack the Ripper and right before she reveals her true self.
• No-Sell: In Season 2 Sebastian convinces Grell to rush Mrs. Turner, who was using a camera that ignited a special magnesium powder that was powerful enough to burn through flesh, bone, and even a soul. Grell, being a Grim Reaper, happily used a Chainsaw to scale a tower, unaffected by each blast, and eventually started posing for "pictures" as Mrs. Turner tried fruitlessly to roast Grell.
• Not in the Face!: Grell's very intent on preserving her "feminine beauty" for her darling "Sebas-chan" and William. She absolutely despises Undertaker for the scythe cut to the cheek.
• Psycho for Hire: Grell's line of work as a reaper effectively involves hacking up people with a chainsaw every night with paperwork in between, though she takes it to extremes in comparison to other reapers and on at least one occasion hacked people up outside of orders.
• Sadist: Very much so.
• Scary Teeth: Grell stands out for having shark-like teeth that make the Slasher Smile even creepier.
• Significant Green-Eyed Redhead: Has red hair and the characteristic (yellow-)green eyes that all Grim Reapers share.
• Slasher Smile: Post-reveal, all the time.
• The Smurfette Principle: She is the only known Shinigami who is female. She even Lampshades it while in Germany. ^note In the official English translation, she calls herself the "pretty redhead of the collection section". The translation notes that the actual phrase she uses is "red point", which in Japanese is a way to say "the only girl in a group".
• Too Kinky to Torture: Especially in the anime, Grell clearly enjoys getting beaten by Sebastian and William.
• Trans Tribulations: Grell is a trans woman, mentioning this when she meets Madam Red for the first time. They bond over being unable to have children. The reveal that shinigami are all people who committed suicide raises a few questions in this direction, as well.
• Verbal Tic: Not as heavy as most examples, but Grell loves to sprinkle "DEATH!~" into her sentences and incorporates it in the Japanese dub.
• Would Hurt a Child: Aside from trying to off Ciel, Grell once comically punched a child in the head for calling her "impure". Subverted in the Campania arc; when Elizabeth lunges at her and puts her sword to her throat, she does little more than stand there and look bemused.
  • She also refuses to reap the soul of a baby near the end of the first season (implied to have instead reaped the mother), although she admits she wasn't at liberty to do so even if the baby was in pain.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: More like "You Have Lost Your Entertainment Value To Me." Grell's attraction to Angelina seems to have stemmed primarily from the latter's murderous rage towards her former clients, leading to them becoming Jack The Ripper. However, once Angelina shows a softer side and refuses to kill her nephew Grell calls it quits and invokes this trope.

William T. Spears

Voiced by: Noriaki Sugiyama (JP), Barry Yandell (EN) ^{Foreign VAs}Víctor Ugarte (Latin American Spanish), François Creton (French), Christian Gaul (German), Rodrigo Martim (Portuguese)

Live actors: Nagaoka Takuya [2010]; Teruma [2013-Current] (Musical)

A Grim Reaper in charge of supervising the Dispatch Management Division.

• All-Powerful Bystander: In the anime. He stays on the sidelines of the plot because he can't be bothered but when Angela/Ash comes into conflict with the Grim Reapers he brings the hammer down on them hard; matching them in combat the first time and bringing a team with him to sabotage their plans the second time. Though he remains as powerful in the Manga it's clear that he sees the Undertaker as a bigger threat.
• Cold Sniper: He almost exclusively uses his Death Scythe as a long-distance weapon, and certainly has the personality to fit this trope.
• The Comically Serious: Most of his character revolves around his reactions to his much more colorful coworkers, and the one arc he plays a major role in is the one where he's forced to go undercover in a circus.
• Gardening-Variety Weapon: His death scythe is a pole pruner.
• Jerkass: The manner in which he treats his fellow reapers leaves something to be desired. He also doesn't take too kindly to Ciel or Sebastian.
• Mean Boss: Will is openly disdainful of his underlings and violent towards Grell.
• Mysterious Middle Initial: William "T" Spears.
• Only Sane Man: Among the Shinigami, though he is quite quirky...
• Perpetual Frowner: His facial expression seems locked as a disdainful frown.
• Romanticized Abuse: For the most part, this is only in the anime. The more William beats Grell up, the more the fangirls Squee.
• Salaryman: While not his primary profession, Word of God has stated that his mannerisms take inspiration from the archetype.
• Scary Shiny Glasses: Played for intimidation, mostly when Grell is involved.
• Serious Business: He takes his job as a Shinigami seriously.
• Stoic Spectacles: He appear to be calm all the time.
• Surrounded by Idiots: To be fair, between Grell and Knox he kinda is.
• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: To Grell's delight- and the fangirl's.
• Tall, Dark, and Snarky: But of course. He may be The Comically Serious of the reapers, but he's not stupid.
• Telescoping Staff: His pruning pole can extend at long distances.

Ronald Knox

Voiced by: KENN (JP), Joel McDonald (EN) ^{Foreign VAs}José Ángel Torres (Latin American Spanish), Grégory Laisné (French), Fabian Hollwitz (German), Renan Alonso (Portuguese)

Live actors: : Luke C / Yosuke Crawford [2010]; Takuya Ide [2013]; Ryōsuke Mikata [2017-Current] (Musical)

A Grim Reaper who occasionally works with Grell and William.

• Awesome Anachronistic Apparel: Inverted- he has multicolored hair that he presumably bleaches, glasses with thick plastic frames, a modern men's wrist watch (and wrist watches were primarily a woman's accessory back then), and a goddamn lawn mower- in the 1880s.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Ronald may be friendly and cheerful, but he's also completely desensitized to death and quick to become violent. A prime example of this trope is when he happily, seemingly-jokingly tells Sophie that he'll see her again "if we're both still alive". Later, when reaping her soul, he just as happily says "I told you we wouldn't meet again." He's also beaming when he reminds Grell that the ship they're on is going to sink.
• Bumbling Sidekick: Downplayed; he's semi-competent but seems to depend on advice from Grell and William. Averted in the manga and its anime adaptation from Book of Circus onward, however, where he is still their junior but is capable of holding his own in a fight against Sebastian.
• The Bus Came Back: Ronald was last seen at the end of Chapter 65, the Luxury Liner Arc. He returns in Chapter 171 (the Blue Revenge Arc) at the Athena Sanatorium under the assumed identity of "Doctor Knox". He was absent for about 106 chapters.
• Chivalrous Pervert: Flirts with women freely, but he never oversteps his boundaries.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: The guy complains often about work and almost misses his ship. The first time we see him he's smashing in zombie heads. Plays it straight in combat too, as he's still upbeat as ever and cracks jokes while fighting, and uses tricks like hidden throwing knives.
• Gardening-Variety Weapon: His death scythe is a lawn mower. Plus, he rides it.
• Handsome Lech: Apparently flirted his way into getting a modified death scythe.
• Idiot Hair: Though he's anything but stupid. It enhances his Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass schtick.
• Improbable Age: As a fake doctor at the end of chapter 171. Ronald looks to be in his late teens or early twenties, and was called "kid", "brat", and "child" during the Campania arc, but cheerfully introduces himself as "Dr. Knox" despite looking too young to have even graduated university.
• Lack of Empathy: Possibly due to watching people die every day, although he hasn't been a grim reaper for long. When he finds the corpse of a woman he'd been flirting with earlier, he remarks in a cheerful tone that he'd known they wouldn't meet again.
• Murder Is the Best Solution: Tries to kill Sebastian almost immediately after meeting him simply because his presence is inconvenient. He also quickly decides they should kill Druitt after stopping Grell from doing so just minutes earlier (not because he had any moral objection, but because grim reapers aren't supposed to kill humans).
• Named After Somebody Famous: Shares his full name with 20th Century mystery author and priest Msgr. Ronald Knox, who famously coined the 'Ten Rules of Detective Fiction' - several of which the series gleefully breaks.
• Reckless Sidekick: In season two of the non-canon anime, he jumps headfirst into a fight between Sebastian and William... and ends up almost hitting both of them.
• Sadist: Subtle, given his upbeat personality, but Ronald has an extremely disturbing attitude towards his job. Unlike Grell, who is openly violent, and William who clearly just wants to get things over with, Ronald is completely unbothered by death, and in the Blue Revenge arc has a very creepy grin when he says there are patients "on the brink of death". He also keeps trying to murder Sebastian on the Campania and doesn't care at all when Ciel, a child, is in mortal danger. In his character song, "It's Not a Pick-Up Line", he tells a random woman she'll die in 7 days and apparently enjoys her horrified reaction. All of this is made worse when you remember that he's very new at being a grim reaper, if his comments about being a rookie are any indication, meaning he only died recently and shouldn't be as desensitized as Undertaker or William.
• Share Phrase: Attempted in the anime, when he tries to use a variant on Grell's catchphrase. It doesn't work too well.
• Stepford Smiler: Ronald is cheerful, energetic, flirtatious... and he killed himself for unknown reasons before the series began. Of course, it's possible that, like Sascha, he really is happier as a reaper.
• Tagalong Kid: The youngest grim reaper introduced so far (aside from possibly Sascha) and the least experienced. Unlike Othello, he probably is as young as he appears; Grell calls him a kid, and he comments that he's a rookie at one point.

Ludger

A Grim Reaper from the German branch of the Grim Reaper Dispatch. His partner is Sascha.

• Smoking Is Cool: He only smokes on occasion.

Sascha

A Grim Reaper from the German branch of the Grim Reaper Dispatch. Their partner is Ludger.

• Ambiguous Gender: It is uncertain what gender they are despite having a youthful appearance.
• Camera Fiend: Sascha uses this to take pictures of human corpses.
• Intrigued by Humanity: They appear to be very interesting on human affairs and fascinated with the growth of humans overall, regarding it as exceptional.

Othello

Othello is a part of the Forensics Division of the Grim Reaper Dispatch.

• Badass Bookworm: Subverted. Othello has apparently never stepped out from the lab prior to his appearance with Grell. But when he meets the Undertaker, he gives a Let's Get Dangerous! speech and goes on the offensive, only for his attack to completely fail. Lampshaded by Grell.
  Grell: Wait a second, Othello! Weren't you supposed to be the type who seems weak but is actually monstrously strong?
  Othello: Goodness, no. Do you not remember me saying that I have never fought before?
• Labcoat of Science and Medicine: As a member of the Forensics Division, Othello's work involves the science aspect of the Grim Reaper mechanics (whatever that is) and is called to investigate illegal experiments, such as Undertaker's Bizarre Dolls. So of course, he walks around in labcoat, even when on the field.
• Non-Action Guy: The only Grim Reaper not seen in combat since he has no confidence in his physical abilities and has never customized his Death Scythe, either.
• Odd Friendship: With Grell. Othello is the only Grim Reaper who consistently treats her with friendliness and respect.
• Older Than He Looks: Although his age was never stated, according to Othello himself, he haven't visited the human about half century.