I first heard of The Black Count Loves the Star through a Reddit thread of people listing what unlicensed shojo manga they wanted to get official English releases. The thread was from 2021, and while a few series from that thread have been licensed, quite a few have still not been, including today's review subject. It's a shame too, because despite my misgivings with certain aspects of this series it is one I would gladly pick up if I had the chance. I've got an entire shelf dedicated to Victorian-era manga and I'm always looking to collect more.

Esther Mayfield is a flower seller living in the slums of Victorian England who has been able to so-called "spirits" her whole life despite them being invisible to most people. Her mother Meg is dead, she has never met her father, and her identical twin brother Algernon was adopted by an unknown noble family. Despite her many hardships, she faces every day with a smile due to her mother telling her that good things would come to her if she smiled. Maybe even a handsome prince will whisk her away.....an idea that seemingly comes to reality when she is approached by a golden-haired nobleman named Leon Winterson, who asks her to become his wife. Turns out the "spirits” she can see are vampires, she herself is a dhamphir, and Leon is from a long line of vampire hunters. He has proposed to her seemingly because her ability to sense vampires will be useful to him in helping him uphold the truce between humans and vampires.

If a manga is set in Victorian England, chances are I'll be at least a little interested in it no matter the genre or demographic. This goes doubly if it has supernatural elements. Part of this probably stems from Black Butler being one of my first ever mangas, and some of my other favs are in that type of setting as well. I was actually unaware of the vampire aspect of this series going into it. Vampire-human relations make up a decent part of the background and the present day conflict of this manga. There’s a truce that they cannot attack each other, and while a lot of vampires follow this truce there are quite a few who attack humans for their blood. This is why vampire hunters exist, to take out the vampires that break the truce. There’s vampires who want to co-exist with humans and vampires who just want to remain isolated and separate from them. Vampire politics get fairly important in the series, and it's sometimes pretty convoluted but it also kept me invested. I do find it a bit odd that Leon's family takes pride in being vampire hunters despite the ongoing truce. The series makes it clear that they aren't afraid of all vampires, however. The dhamphirs fit into here too but it's hard to discuss them without spoilers, and some aspects regarding them feel a bit tacked on in my opinion.

Esther and her growth as a person was the part of this manga that I was the most invested in. While she is a cheerful and kind person most of the time, she is also the type to always prioritize herself last, viewing everyone around her as more important. This also leads her to believe that she cannot want anything less she be seen as selfish. This especially comes into play in her relationship with Leon; she is both a dhamphir and a commoner, so she believes herself to be deeply unworthy of being his wife, even when it becomes abundantly clear that his love for her is genuine and that she is not just a tool to him. She eventually does learn that actively trying to get what she wants does not make her selfish and starts to embrace her position by Leon’s side. She sometimes has to deal with other characters exploiting her lack of confidence to make her do things for them, something that she becomes more resistant to over the course of the series. I was cheering for her the whole way!

Leon himself was a character it took a bit for me to really get attached to. I wasn’t super into him at first, as his behavior towards Esther was a bit too pushy for my liking. However, he grew on me as the manga revealed more about his background and his history with Esther prior to the start of the series. He apologizes for his earlier treatment of her, and starts to be a bit less overprotective. He still tries to keep her out of his more dangerous missions, although she usually ends up on them somehow anyways. Him and Esther drop the "temporary husband and wife" thing and begin to start a genuine and very sweet relationship. I really enjoyed seeing them progress.

Chris Gilbert, leader of the vampire faction that wants to co-exist with humans, was a character that I was unable to ever fully get behind. I enjoyed seeing his relationship with Leon, especially in the flashbacks when the latter was younger. It is clear that his ideals are something he deeply cares about and that he is trying his hardest to make them come true. Early on in the series he is presented as a second male lead for Esther, and this was something I had trouble fully buying. It just felt like something that was only there for the sake of having a sort of love triangle. This becomes a bit less prominent as the series goes on and his relationship with Leon becomes more prominent than the whole love-triangle thing.

There are quite a few secondary characters in this series as well. Rebecca is one of my favorites in the series, as she's very charming and her side story romance with Leon's fellow nobleman Garry (Gary? The scans are a bit inconsistent) is cute. Esther's twin brother Algernon also shows up throughout the series alongside Gilbert, and it's a little hard to fully discuss him without going into spoilers. I did like his character, although he was heavily tied to the last two volumes of the series, which is the part of the story I probably have the most issues with (Aside from my problems with Leon in the beginning).

I think my score for this series would have been a bit higher if it ended at ten volumes instead of twelve. The conflict with Marquis Gilmore and the involved coup d'teat felt like it could be the final arc of the series, as it heavily involves both the conflict between the vampire factions and Leon and Esther's respective backstories. It was a storyline that I was very invested in as I was reading it, and it felt exciting in the way that a final arc should felt. The actual final arc of the series honestly felt like it was just there to cause more drama. I do understand that Esther and Algernon needed some closure for their relationship in the modern day, but I feel like they could have met again during the previous arc instead of having him not be present during it at all. I just don't think the conflict of the final arc was entirely necessary and it kind of feels like it came out of nowhere.

The art in this series honestly starts off a little rough. The character's faces look a bit off in certain close up shots, and the whole thing just feels a bit standard. The art gets better as it goes on, and the characters look a lot more consistent and less off-model than they did in the beginning. I also love the Victorian era fashion, especially all of Esther's dresses. I don't think she wears a single bad outfit throughout the entire manga.

This is a good series that makes me want to read more shojo manga in this type of setting. I really love Esther and I grew to really enjoy her relationship with Leon. I do believe that it went on a bit longer than it should have, even if I did enjoy the end itself. The author's earlier series Hana to Akuma seems to be a bit more well known than this, and while it's premise certainly gives me pause I enjoyed this enough that I'm inclined to pick it up in the future. I hope this gets picked up for official publication in the future since I would get it for sure. It might not be perfect but it's still enjoyable, and I happily recommend it to anyone who enjoys Victorian romances.