Soul Eater

Soul Eater
File:Souleaterlogo.jpg The cover of vol.1
Genre	Action, Comedy, Supernatural
Manga
Written by	Atsushi Okubo
Published by	Gangan Comics
English publisher	Yen Press
Demographic	Shōnen
Anime
Directed by	Takuya Igarashi
Studio	Bones
Video game
Soul Eater: Monotone Princess
Publisher	Square Enix
Genre	Action, Adventure
Platform	Wii

Soul Eater (ソウルイーター, Sōru Ītā) 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 March 22 2008, eleven volumes have been released. The manga has been licensed for distribution in North America by Yen Press. The English translated version of Soul Eater will originally be serialized in the first issue Yen Press' Yen Plus manga anthology magazine on July 29, 2008, and the first volume will be released in early 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 is set to contain fifty-one episodes. Square Enix also announced that a video game for the Wii is being developed. Set in the shinigami technical school for weapon meisters, the series revolves around three groups of each a weapon meister and a human weapon. Trying to make the latter a "Death Scythe" and thus fit for use by a shinigami, they must collect the souls of ninety-nine evil humans and one witch.

Plot and characters

Shinigami Weapon Meister Vocational School.

Main article: List of Soul Eater characters

Soul Eater primarily revolves around students known as meisters (職人, shokunin) or technicians at the Shinigami Weapon Meister Vocational School (死神武器職人専門学校, Shinigami Buki Shokunin Senmon Gakkō), or Shibusen (死武専) for short, located in Death City. The school is run by Shinigami, the God of Death himself, as a training facility for weapons created by shinigami and the human wielders of those weapons, the meisters. Each meister has at least one demon weapon companion which has both a weapon and human form. Shinigami created the school as an organization that enforces peace in order to prevent the rebirth of the "kishin", evil demon gods that nearly destroyed everything by plunging the world into chaos. Human souls that have become evil by straying from the path of humans have a high risk of becoming kishin, so evil humans are constantly being hunted down and killed by the students trained at Shibusen. The ultimate goal of the students with their weapons is to have their weapons defeat and eat the souls of ninety-nine evil human souls and one witch's soul which will dramatically increase the power of the given weapon and thus be capable of being used by shinigami. In order to ensure this is done in a timely manner, all students and weapons attend classes regularly and are given homework or supplementary lessons to further their training. The meisters have a rating system that goes from one to three stars which usually measures soul energy. It is important that the meister and weapon can tune their "soul frequency" to perform high level attacks and bring out the weapon's full power.

Meisters and weapons

File:Main tech.jpg

The three main meisters of Soul Eater (from left to right): Death The Kid, Maka, and Black Star.

Maka Albarn is Soul Eater's meister. She is the more level-headed of the two but when her anger gets the better of her, she will put her foot down. Where Soul Eater seems to be the brawn, Maka is the brain. She always tries to think of a way to beat their opponent by exploiting the opponent's weaknesses. Soul Eater, or simply Soul, Maka's Demon Scythe partner; he has a personality which mainly consists of what he considers "cool". Being a "cool" guy, he almost always uses the direct approach which most of the time fails. He sometimes becomes too driven by the idea of eating souls, which leads him to bicker with Maka, but in the end they remain friends and partners.

Maka is friends with a meister named Black Star who is Tsubaki's meister. He comes from a family of ninjas (The Star Clan), and uses ninja tactics during battles. His biggest weakness is that he is a total show-off and thinks that he is some kind of star, which he happily proclaims, defeating the purpose of the ninja arts. Black Star hates it when someone gets more attention then him and will show them who the real star is. He is also able to use his soul wavelength in hand-to-hand combat. Tsubaki, Black Star's Dark Demon Blade partner, can change into multiple ninja weapons when in battle. She is most of the time disheartened by Black Star's loud self but she still puts up with it because that is what she likes about him. She has a very forgiving personality and always tries to help everyone even when she has no idea how to help.

A third meister, Death The Kid, is Patty's and Liz's meister and Shinigami's son. Otherwise known as simply Kidd by his friends and family, he is completely obsessed about everything being symmetrical and takes the idea of perfection to the extremes, which seems to indicate that he has obsessive-compulsive disorder. To him, anything symmetrical is beautiful and if it is off by any measurement, he will try to correct it right away. Showing Kidd anything that is too asymmetrical or mentioning his hair will send him into a state of massive depression (which normally takes encouragement from Patty and Liz to break). Patricia and Elizabeth Thompson, commonly "Patty" and "Liz", are Death The Kid's Double Team Demon Guns. Patty is the younger of the two and is naïve compared to her more mature older sister Liz. She and her sister used to live on the streets of Brooklyn before being found by Kidd. Both Patty and Liz admire Kidd's dignified soul, due to their being from the streets. Even without Kidd around, they are able to use each other's transformed state as a single gun, switching places to avoid attacks.

Techniques

In Soul Eater, the characters can use certain techniques during battle that revolve around a given person's "soul frequency", which as it implies is the frequency of one's soul. By utilizing their soul frequencies, a meister and his or her weapon can pull of a more powerful attack by performing a "soul echo" which matches their soul frequencies. When the soul echo is used to its maximum level, it becomes known as a "soul resonance" which allows the partners to use high-class attacks. These include the "witch hunt", which causes the given weapon to grow and cut through the air for long range attacks; the "sorcerer hunt", otherwise known as the "witch hunting's witch hunt" which is a more powerful version of the witch hunt attack; and the "protective spirit body", which creates a large shield for defense against attacks by fusing the soul frequencies of the partners. A powerful, and rare technique known as the "soul purge" enables the user to send his or her own soul frequency through one of their hands to directly damage the opponent's body; when using both hands, which deals twice as much damage, the technique is known as the "double soul purge twin lance". A stronger form of the soul purge is known as the "soul menace". Other techniques include the "soul feedback" which is used to find the presence of others, or the "soul protection" which is a magical barrier used by witches to hide their soul frequency from others so they can blend in with everyone else.

Media

Soul Eater manga volume 1.

Manga

See also: List of Soul Eater chapters

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 March 22, 2008, eleven volumes have been released. The manga has been licensed by Yen Press for distribution in English in North America. The manga will initially be serialized in Yen Press' Yen Plus anthology magazine, the first issue of which will go on sale on July 29, 2008. The first English volume of the manga will be sold in early 2009.

Drama CD

A drama CD was released on August 31, 2005 by Square Enix entitled Soul Eater (Vol. 1): Special Social Studies Field Trip (ソウルイーター（Vol.1）特別社会科見学, Sōru Ītā (Vol. 1) Tokubestu Shakaika Kengaku). 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

See also: List of Soul Eater episodes

A fifty-one episode anime adaptation is directed by Takuya Igarashi, and produced by Bones, Aniplex, Dentsu, Media Factory, and TV Tokyo; Bones and Aniplex are responsible for the animation and music production respectively. The anime's scenario writer is Akatsuki Yamatoya who bases the anime's story on Atsushi Okubo original concept. Character design is headed by Yoshiyuki Ito, with overall art direction by Norifumi Nakamura. The anime's conceptual design is done by Shinji Aramaki. The episodes started airing on April 7, 2008 on TV Tokyo. The episodes also aired at later dates on TV Aichi, TV Hokkaido, TV Osaka, TV Setouchi, and TVQ Kyushu Broadcasting Co. Two pieces of theme music are used for the episodes; one opening theme and one closing theme. The opening theme is "Resonance" by T.M.Revolution, and the closing theme is "I Wanna Be" by Stance Punks. A single containing "Resonance" will be released in Japan on June 11, 2008, and the single for "I Wanna Be" will be released on June 4, 2008. The anime's sound direction is headed by Kazuhiro Wakabayashi.

The anime is regularly broadcast Mondays at 6:00 pm on TV Tokyo. The official Japanese website of the Soul Eater anime series has 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 is added at the start and end of the commercial break; the next episode preview is also different from the regular version. The dual broadcast of this supernatural action series is 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 game

On April 9, 2008, Square Enix announced an action/adventure video game entitled Soul Eater: Monotone Princess (ソウルイーター モノトーン プリンセス, Sōru Itā Monotōn Purinsesu) exclusively for the Wii is being developed.

External links

• Anime official website Template:Jp icon
• Manga official website Template:Jp icon
• Soul Eater ({{{type}}}) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia