Set in an alternate 19th century, it tells the story of a young Allen Walker, who joins an organization of exorcists named the Black Order.

They use an ancient substance, Innocence, to combat a man known as the Millennium Earl and his demonic army of Akuma who intend to destroy humanity.

Although most reviewers found it similar to other shōnen manga, they compared its moments of originality and well-developed characters favorably to other series of the same demographic.

Hoshino's artwork has received mostly positive reviews; most critics have commented that her characters are visually appealing and that the Gothic elements in her art are pleasant to look at.

The central character is Allen Walker, a new recruit to the Black Order who started training to control his Innocence after it destroyed the Akuma of his late guardian, Mana.

The story begins in a villain of the week fashion, where Allen teams up with various members of the Black Order to search for Innocence while battling Noah's demons on the way.

Now hunted by the Black Order, the Noah Family, and a humanoid Innocence called Apocryphos, Allen goes into hiding as he searches for a way to end Nea's resurrection.

She had originally intended to write a story about zombies, but was discouraged by her editor T-shi and decided to abandon the idea during the third chapter.

[9]: 191–235 Elements of D.Gray-man first appeared in Hoshino's one-shot title Zone, in which the Akuma, the exorcists, and the Millennium Earl plan to end the world.

Hoshino visited cemeteries, and was deeply impressed by her guides' comments at Ground Zero of the World Trade Center (left after the September 11 attacks).

[19] When the manga moved from weekly to monthly serialization in 2009, Hoshino heard concerns from readers about its possible cancellation and reassured them that the series would continue.

Fellow writer Takeshi Obata claimed that Hoshino's art continues to improve the more she writes but she replied to him that she is not aware of her own change.

Since moving to a trimestral magazine, the author has some leeway with time, so her assistants stay at their homes and work from there with what Hoshino send them.

For the third uniforms, the color remained black but Hoshino decided to them red too as a reference to blood because she thought such grotesque looks would fit the themes of D.Gray-man.

[15] Due to Jump Square's (the manga's magazine at the time) readership, which consisted of older men rather than children, Hoshino found Allen the most difficult character to write.

She does not want Allen's problems in recent story arcs to lead to portraying him as a troubled teenager, preferring to show him as a cheerful person with a balance of strength and sorrow.

[27][28] In the book Representing Multiculturalism in Comics and Graphic Novels Jacob Birken states another theme set in the series is identity.

Similarly, Kanda was first illustrated in color pages with multiple threads in a symbolic way to say he is a puppet as the person he has been searching for his entire life but has been unable to reach his objective.

In original revisions of such cover, both were drawn from the back but the editorial demanded Hoshino to make Allen more visible as he is the main character.

"D. Gray-man The Apostles of God") for Nintendo DS, was released in Japan by Konami on March 29, 2007 with Allen and his comrades as playable characters.

In it, Allen trains in the Asian headquarters of the Black Order to regain powers lost after a previous battle so he can rejoin his allies to fight the Akuma and Noah.

[63][64] Allen and other series characters appear in the Nintendo DS fighting game Jump Super Stars and its sequel, Jump Ultimate Stars,[65][66] and he is a supporting character in the fighting game J-Stars Victory VS.[67] A three-volume light novel based on the manga series, D.Gray-man: Reverse by Kaya Kizaki, was published by Shueisha.

[15] Volumes of Viz's English version of the series have appeared on best-selling manga lists in the New York Times[88][89] and Nielsen BookScan.

"[107] Ross Liversidge of the UK Anime Network enjoyed the first three volumes; Hoshino had "an excellent quality of storytelling" in juggling dark plot, light comedy and appealing characters.

[111] The revelation that Allen would be an enemy of the Order and the 14th Noah was well received by Grant Goodman of Pop Culture Shock and Chris Beveridge of the Fandom Post.

[113][114] Douresseaux liked Allen's situation in volume 21 (due to the character's connections with the Noah), and wanted to see more of that and less of Kanda's fight with Alma Karma.

[115] Chris Kirby of the Fandom Post felt the constant mysteries across the series were entertaining, but lamented the continuous hiatus Hoshino had to take, leaving multiple fans disappointed in regards to future story events.

[117] Douresseaux called Hoshino's art "highly stylish" and reminiscent of work by Joe Madureira, Kelley Jones, and Chris Bachalo.

[118][119] Describing her backgrounds as eerie and Lovecraftian, Douresseaux wrote that Hoshino made appealing scenes that combined both gothic and violent elements.

[118][119] Brian Henson criticized changes made to the Viz Media version, such as the replacement of Japanese sound effects with less-appealing ones and awkward translations of character names.