It's Yana Toboso's birthday! (January 24, 1984)
Yana forgot her birthday this year...
... so there's even more reason to congratulate her and celebrate!
She chose her penname "Yana Toboso" to indicate what kind of manga she wanted to create: Because there are so many mangas whose central themes are dreams, hope, friendship, and love, she wanted to make a manga whose focus is the opposite. "Yana" derives from "iya" (unpleasant, detestable, disagreeable; here: unpleasant/nasty child), and "toboso" is meant to signify importance: a "toboso" is a cavity in the frame of a door used as part of a pivot hinge; as doors wouldn't work without hinges, hinges are important objects. "Yana Toboso," therefore, is meant to mean "the hated/bad child is in the middle" (憎まれっ子がど真ん中にく る). (Character Guide, page 146)
Yana once stated that Ciel resembles her the most out of her characters. (Character Guide, page 147)
(Downstairs with Kuroshitsuji VII, from Volume 17)
Exhibit B: The iconic Pancake Saga from 2018!
Yana's grandmother encouraged her to become a mangaka, and her mother pushed her to submit her work to a publisher when she was 20. Both have since passed away. (sources: akumadeenglish, The Japan Times)
She is a fan of the band L'Arc-en-Ciel (source). HYDE, the vocalist of that band, wrote the opening for Season 5. Yana was obviously very happy about that!
Yana contemplated making "fluffy spin-offs" to Kuroshitsuji, e.g., "a gourmet manga featuring the canteen of the Shinigami dispatch association HQ, or a manga where the Indian butler cooks curry or the black butler makes sweets, or where the servants make small discoveries." However, she dropped those ideas because her "fluffy concepts" kept becoming ominous after a few chapters. (source)
Kuroshitsuji was not meant to be set in 19th-century England from the beginning. Mr. K and the chief editor eventually suggested England as the setting. Yana, who did not know much about England (and could not find many materials early on; source: Downstairs with Kuroshitsuji II in Volume 2), especially not about 19th-century England, and did not believe the manga would be a hit anyway, then cooked up the wonderfully anachronistic Volume 1. Since then, Yana has become more knowledgeable about Victorian England, got a historical advisor (Rico Murakami) who also, sometimes, translates sources for her (source: Downstairs with Kuroshitsuji Special in Volume 15), has been (re-)learning English, and visited England twice. The manga has, thus, become significantly more historically accurate over the years. Still, as it's a fantasy manga, Yana likes to incorporate anachronistic elements for story purposes (e.g. Grim Reaper tech and possessions, Wolfsschlucht) anyway (or simply because she wants to; e.g. the idol groups, I suppose). Anachronisms have, thus, shifted from accidental to deliberate.
Sebastian's mobile phone will be forever iconic, but it has been retconned for over a decade now.
And The Wild Earl lost more than his head was cancelled when all TVs were thrown out of the continuity with the end of the Indian Butler Arc (TVs are last mentioned in Chapter 23).
May we learn many Victorian things alongside Yana in the next years too!
(Downstairs with Kuroshitsuji II, Volume 2)
And may she have a happy, restful birthday so that she doesn't forget it again^^' (And the best of health^^)
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