is a Japanese
manga written and illustrated by Atsushi Okubo. The manga is published by Square Enix and was first released as three separate one-shots serialized in two Gangan Powered special editions and one Gangan Wing issue between June 24 and November 26, 2003. The manga started regular serialization in Square Enix's Monthly Shōnen Gangan manga magazine on May 12, 2004. The first bound volume was released by Square Enix under their Gangan Comics imprint on June 22, 2004 in Japan, and as of September 2009, fifteen volumes have been released. The manga has been licensed for distribution in North America by Yen Press. The English translated version of Soul Eater is serialized in Yen Press' Yen Plus manga anthology magazine starting on July 29, 2008, and the first manga volume was released on October 31, 2009.
A single
drama CD was produced on August
31, 2005 which came bundled with an
art
book.
An anime adaptation
produced by Bones first aired on
TV
Tokyo
in Japan on April 7, 2008, and contained 51
episodes; Funimation
licensed the anime series for North American distribution.
An
action-adventure video game by Square Enix for the
Wii was released in September 2008, and an
action video game for the
Nintendo DS was released in October 2008.
Another action game was released in January 2009 on the
PlayStation 2 and
PlayStation Portable.
Set at the "Death Weapon Meister Academy," the series revolves
around three teams consisting of a weapon meister and (at least
one) human weapon. Trying to make the latter a "Death Scythe" and
thus fit for use by the academy's headmaster,
Shinigami,
they must collect the souls of ninety-nine evil humans and one
witch, in that order or they will have to restart all over
again.
Plot
Death Weapon Meister Academy.
In
Soul Eater, Maka Albarn and her
weapon partner Soul Eater are
students at the , or for short, located in the fictional Death
City, in Nevada
, United States
. The school has many other students
including
Black
Star with his weapon partner
Tsubaki, and
Death the Kid
with his twin weapon partners
Liz and
Patti. The school is run by
Shinigami,
Death himself, as a training facility
for weapons and the human wielders of those weapons, the meisters.
Maka's goal, along with the other meisters, is to have their
weapons defeat and absorb the souls of ninety-nine evil humans and
one
witch, which will dramatically
increase the power of the given weapon and thus be capable of being
used by
shinigami; these weapons
are called Death Scythes. In the universe of
Soul Eater,
witches are powerful beings and the natural
enemies of DWMA, as almost all of them have a destructive nature
and almost all desire anarchy and chaos.
At the start of
Soul Eater, Maka and Soul encounter the
meister
Crona
and Crona's weapon
Ragnarok; Crona is
being forced to attack non-evil humans by Crona's mother and witch
Medusa. Medusa
eventually recruits the witches
Eruka and
Mizune, along with the
immortal werewolf
Free. Medusa and her
cohorts attack DWMA on the eve of the festival to commemorate the
establishment of DWMA. Medusa's goal is to revive the first , an
evil demon god that nearly destroyed everything by plunging the
world into madness, named
Asura who was sealed
beneath the DWMA by Shinigami. Medusa's group successfully revives
Asura, though Medusa is seemingly killed in the process.
As Asura escapes the DWMA, the world is plunged into chaos and
insanity, and because of this, Medusa's older sister
Arachne comes out of
hiding after 800 years. Arachne reforms her organization
Arachnophobia, which poses itself as a serious threat to the DWMA;
Arachne is joined closely by her demon butler
Mosquito and demon
weapon
Giricco. The DWMA
calls in the Death Scythes
Justin Law,
Yumi Azusa,
and
Marie
Mjölnir to aide in the fight against Arachnophobia. During this
time, Medusa is proven to be alive and possesses a young girl named
Rachel. Maka and the other students are progressively getting
stronger as they train and participate in various battles. Medusa
makes a truce with the DWMA for a time so together they can
annihilate the threat of Arachnophobia. Once Arachne is killed by
Maka, Medusa betrays the DWMA and takes possession of Arachne's
previously discarded body, regaining her lost strength. Following
Arachne's defeat, Maka finally succeeds in making Soul into a Death
Scythe.
During the infiltration of castle
Baba
Yaga, Death the Kid is captured by an enemy posing as the
former meister
Eibon named Noah.
Shortly after this incident, the meister unit Spartoi is formed at
the DWMA to take down Noah, consisting of the five most talented
meisters in the school.
The
anime series deviates from the manga
considerably after episode thirty-five. After giving the DWMA
information on Arachnophobia, Medusa takes advantage of Stein's
increasing madness to lure him away with her. Crona and Marie
decide to search for Medusa and bring back Stein. Medusa is
defeated by Maka's demon hunter attack after Crona is nearly
killed. Stein goes back to the DWMA having overcome the madness
within himself. Shinigami and Asura resume their fight, which
results in Shinigami's defeat when Asura threatens Kid's life.
Asura eats Arachne's soul, and is confronted by Kid, Black Star and
Maka. In the final battle, the three defeat Asura and the world
returns to normal.
Development
After the end of his first manga series,
B.Ichi, Atsushi
Okubo created an one-shot story called "Soul Eater" published in
Monthly Shōnen
Gangan. Japanese readers were so fascinated by it that
Okubo created two other one-shots called "Black Star" and "Death
The Kid". The results were high and the editor Gangan Comics asked
to Atsushi Okubo to create a series from his one-shots that will
become introduction chapters to the final manga series
Soul
Eater.
Atsushi Okubo reveals that he creates the main characters by
inspiring from his personality; like the dunce for Black Star, the
order for Death The Kid or the fun for Patti. Other characters like
protagonists and antagonists are created from his imagination and
also from his previous favorite manga, like the sun and the moon
smiling over Death City are inspired from his favorite manga
Dr. Slump because it used many
nonliving objects as if they were humans. Unlike many
shōnen manga,
Soul Eater s main
character is a teenage girl, Maka Albarn, because Okubo felt that
readers would be more interested than with a male character. The
background and design of Death City, the main town where the
characters are living, is mainly inspired from
Tim Burton and
David
Lynch films.
Media
Manga
Soul Eater began as a
manga series
written and illustrated by
Atsushi
Okubo. The manga initially began as three separate
one-shots serialized between June 24, 2003
and November 26, 2003 across two
manga magazines published by
Square Enix: first in the summer 2003
special edition of
Gangan
Powered, followed by the autumn 2003 special edition of
the same magazine, and finally in
Gangan
Wing. The manga started regular serialization in Square
Enix's
Monthly Shōnen
Gangan manga magazine on May 12, 2004. The first
bound volume was released by Square Enix under
their
Gangan Comics imprint
on June 22, 2004 in Japan, and as of September 18, 2009, fifteen
volumes have been released. The manga has been licensed by
Yen Press for distribution in
English in
North
America. The manga was initially serialized in Yen Press'
Yen Plus anthology magazine, the
first issue of which went on sale on July 29, 2008. The first
English volume of the manga will be sold on October 31, 2009.
Drama CD
A
drama CD was released on
August 31, 2005 by
Square Enix entitled
. The CD came bundled with an
art book and
a
script of the CD dialogue. Of the cast
used for the drama CD, only Black Star's
voice actress Yumiko
Kobayashi was retained for the anime voice cast.
Anime
A 51
episode anime adaptation was directed by
Takuya Igarashi, and produced by
Bones, Aniplex, Dentsu, Media Factory, and TV Tokyo; Bones and
Aniplex were responsible for the animation and music production
respectively. The anime's scenario writer was Akatsuki
Yamatoya who based the anime's story on
Atsushi Okubo original concept. Character
design was headed by Yoshiyuki Ito, with overall art direction by
Norifumi Nakamura. The anime's conceptual design was done by
Shinji Aramaki. The episodes started
airing on April 7, 2008 on TV Tokyo, and two animated specials
aired on May 29 and June 1, 2008. The episodes also aired at later
dates on
TV Aichi,
TV Hokkaido,
TV Osaka,
TV Setouchi, and
TVQ Kyushu Broadcasting Co. The final
episode aired on March 30, 2009. The first
DVD
compilation volume was released on August 22, 2008 with the first
three episodes. The second
DVD compilation
volume was released on September 25, 2008 with episodes four
through seven. Each DVD volume will be released in monthly
intervals. The anime was licensed by
Funimation and will be releasing the series in
four half-season DVD box sets starting with the first volume in
February 2010. The first four episodes are available on
Funimation's website.
Soul Eater is Bones' third anime
series to run with 50-51 episodes, after
2003's Fullmetal Alchemist and
2005's Eureka
Seven.
The anime was regularly broadcast Mondays at 6:00 pm on TV Tokyo.
The official Japanese website of the
Soul Eater anime
series announced that each episode will air in two different
versions: the regular Monday 6:00 p.m. version and a late-night
"Soul Eater Late Show" version. Special footage was added at the
start and end of the commercial break; the next episode preview was
also different from the regular version. The dual broadcast of this
supernatural action series was being billed as the "world's first
evening and late-night resonance broadcast". The "resonance" term
refers to a story concept in which the characters, such as the
heroine Maka and her living weapon partner Soul Eater, achieve
maximum power by synchronizing their souls.
Video games
, an action-adventure video game exclusively for the Wii and developed by Square Enix with Bones was released on September 25, 2008. in Japan only. and are two original playable characters exclusive for the game designed by the author, Atsushi Okubo. Ponera is the Monotone Princess and Grimoire is known as Noah in the manga. is an action game produced by Namco Bandai Games for the Nintendo DS and was released on October 23, 2008. is a fighting game produced by Namco Bandai Games for the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable and was released on January 29, 2009.
Music
Six pieces of
theme music are used for
the episodes; two opening themes and four closing themes. The first
opening theme is "
Resonance" by
T.M.Revolution for the first thirty episodes,
and the
single was released on June
11, 2008. The second opening theme is "Papermoon" by
Tommy heavenly6 from episode
thirty-one onwards; the single was released on December 10, 2008 by
DefStar Records. The first closing
theme is "I Wanna Be" by
Stance Punks
for the first thirteen episodes, and the fifty-first episode; the
single was released on June 4, 2008. The second closing theme is
"Style" by
Kana Nishino from episode
fourteen to twenty-six; the single was released on August 13, 2008
by
Sony Music
Entertainment Japan. The third closing theme is by
Soul'd Out's Diggy-Mo from episode twenty-seven
to thirty-nine; the single was released on November 26, 2008 by
Sony Music Entertainment Japan. The final closing theme is
"Strength" by
Abingdon Boys
School from episode forty through episode fifty; the single was
released on February 25, 2009.
The first
character song maxi single sung by
Chiaki Omigawa (Maka) and
Kōki Uchiyama (Soul) was released on
August 6, 2008 by
Aniplex. The second single
by
Yumiko Kobayashi (Black Star)
and
Kaori Nazuka (Tsubaki) was released
on September 3, 2008, and the third single by
Mamoru Miyano (Kid),
Akeno Watanabe (Liz), and
Narumi Takahira (Patti) was released on
October 1, 2008. Two original soundtracks for the anime were
released by Aniplex on August 27, 2008 and March 18, 2009.The theme
song for
Soul Eater: Monotone Princess is "Soul's
Crossing" sung by T.M.Revolution, and is included on the
"Resonance" single. Two original soundtracks for the anime were
released on August 27, 2008 and March 18, 2009 by
Aniplex.
References
External links
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