The Millennium Earl (千年伯爵, Sennen Hakushaku), also known as "the Creator" and "Adam", is a fictional character in the manga series D.Gray-man by Katsura Hoshino.

[2] When she first drew him as a human without his clown-like costume, Hoshino tried to make the Earl look more sensitive because she did not believe that middle-aged men were popular in the series.

She was surprised by his low placing in the fourth popularity poll (18th), despite her efforts to make him more appealing in the scene where he cries in his sleep after his failed attempt to recruit his former comrade, Nea, into the Noah clan.

[7] The Millennium Earl was voiced by Junpei Takiguchi in the series' first Japanese-language anime adaptation[8] and by Yutaka Aoyama in the sequel, D.Gray-man Hallow.

[9] Aoyama's work received praise by Hoshino due to the fact he has to perform both sides of the Earl: the free-spirited clown-looking like character and the mourning human self who is determined to recover his brother, Nea.

Aoyama also felt that playing the Earl's human form was difficult due to how different he behaves in that appearance to the point of being one of the hardest character to voice.

The Earl tricks people who mourn for their dead friends or relatives into resurrecting them, and turns them into Akuma: weapons which consume human bodies and follow his orders.[ch.

88] The Ark begins to disintegrate and the Earl escapes the area with Noah Tyki Mikk, who was about to be killed by general Cross Marian.[ch.

[12] The Earl can be a grotesque caricature of a Victorian gentleman: a rotund figure in cape and top hat (hiding his horns), with a perpetual enormous grin and pince-nez spectacles.

Reviewing the manga's first volume, A. E. Sparrow of IGN compared him to three of Batman's villains: Penguin, the Joker and Two-Face, finding those similarities appealing.

[14] Sheena McNeil agreed, saying that the Earl works well as the series' villain with his "loving tone as indicated by the hearts in his speech bubbles and his perpetual grin, both of which are there to make him all the more sinister by masking his true nature".

[15] Tom Tonhat of the Escapist also praised the Earl's modus operandi of reviving the dead as Akuma, seeing it as a strong theme that allows viewers to sympathize with his victims.

[18] Erin Finnegan of ANN found the character enigmatic because he "hangs out in an extra-dimensional space with randomly floating jack-o'-lanterns" and compared him to Mad Pierrot from the Cowboy Bebop anime series.

[20] Brian Henson of Mania Beyond Entertainment enjoyed the Earl and the Noahs' darkening of the storyline in later story arcs,[21] and Yussif Osman of Japanator called them evil but likeable.

[24] Chris Kirby of the Fandom Post found the character's confrontation with Allen after the exorcist leaves the Order in the next arc a long, disappointing cliffhanger; readers had to wait for the English-language version to catch up to the Japanese one.

[26] Neo found Junpei Takiguchi's work as the Earl Japanese actor highly superior to the one from the English dub, Jason Liebrecht.

[20] Earl's tapioca milk tea was served at the 2016 D. Gray-man Halloween Cafe in Tokyo,[27] and related patches, mobile phone charms and a cosplay costume were marketed.