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Soul Eater (manga)
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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 Shonen 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 October 2008, thirteen volumes have been released.
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Encyclopedia
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 Shonen 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 October 2008, thirteen 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 will be released in October 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. 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 will be released in January 2009 on the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable. Set in the "shinigami technical school for weapon meisters", the series revolves around three groups which consist of a weapon meister and (at least one) 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, in that order.
Plot and characters
Soul Eater primarily revolves around students classified as at the , or for short, located in the fictional Death City, in Nevada, United States. The school is run by Shinigami, the God of Death himself, as a training facility for weapons 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 , the evil demon god 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 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. 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 wavelength" to perform high level attacks and bring out the weapon's full power.
Meisters and weapons
Maka Albarn is Soul Eater Evans' 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, 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 Nakatsukasa's meister. He comes from a family of ninjas known as 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 than him and is determined to 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 Demon Ninja Tool partner, can change into multiple ninja weapons when in battle. She is considered a "tool" like weapon since she is able to transform into different types of weapons, unlike the others. She is most of the time disheartened by Black Star's loud (and often obnoxious) antics. Despite this, she quietly puts up with his mistakes because she likes his brave and bold attitude. 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 Patti Thompson's and Liz Thompson's meister and Shinigami's son. Otherwise known as simply Kid by his friends and family, he is completely obsessed about everything being symmetrical and takes the idea of perfection to the extreme, which indicates 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 Kid anything that is too asymmetrical or mentioning his hair (which has three white streaks on the left and is otherwise symmetrical) will send him into a state of massive depression (which normally takes encouragement from Patti and Liz to break). Patricia and Elizabeth Thompson, commonly "Patti" and "Liz", are Death The Kid's Twin Demon Pistols partners. Since Patti and Liz are "Twin" Demon Pistols, Kid decided to be their partner due to their symmetry. However, Kid cannot use one of the sisters alone due to the lack of symmetry. Patti is the younger of the two and is naive compared to her more mature older sister Liz. She and her sister used to live on the streets of Brooklyn before being found by Kid. Both Patti and Liz admire Kid's dignified soul, due to their being from the streets. Even without Kid around, they are able to use each other's transformed state as a single gun, switching places to avoid attacks.
Witches
In Soul Eater, witches are powerful beings and the natural enemies of Shibusen, as almost all of them have a destructive nature and almost all desire anarchy and chaos. Most witches featured in the series are based on a distinct animal and have some of their traits in both their personalities and fighting styles. As the witches' soul wavelength can be easily distinguished by trained meisters, they developed an incantation named "soul protect" which conceals their presence, but renders them unable to use their powers unless the incantation is lifted. Medusa is one such witch who also acts as the main antagonist. Another witch who gains importance in the story is Arachne, Medusa's older sister and leader of the organization Arachnophobia, which poses itself as a serious threat to Shibusen. Not all witches are antagonists, however, such as Kim Diehl, a weapon meister from Shibusen specializing in regeneration magic, and Angela, a child witch under care of Mifune, a skilled swordsman who is determined to protect her at any cost.
Techniques
In Soul Eater, the characters can use certain techniques during battle that revolve around a given person's "soul wavelength", which, as the name implies, is the wavelength of one's soul. By using their soul wavelengths, a meister and his or her weapon can pull off a more powerful attack by performing a "soul echo" which matches their soul wavelengths. 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; a stronger version of the witch hunt known as the "demon hunt"; and the "protective spirit body", which creates a large shield for defense against attacks by fusing the soul wavelengths of the partners. A powerful, and rare technique known as the "soul purge" enables the user to send his or her own soul wavelength 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 wavelength from others allowing them to blend in with normal humans.
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 Shonen 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 October 22, 2008, thirteen 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 in October 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 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, 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 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 on November 17, 2009.
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 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 Eibon 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 second opening theme is "Papermoon" by Tommy heavenly6 from episode thirty-one onwards. The first closing theme is "I Wanna Be" by Stance Punks for the first thirteen episodes, the second closing theme is "Style" by Kana Nishino from episode fourteen to twenty-six, the third closing theme is by Soul'd Out's Diggy-Mo from episode twenty-seven and the fourth closing theme, "Strength" by Abingdon Boys School from episode forty onwards, is scheduled to be released as a single on February 25, 2009. A single containing "Resonance" was released in Japan on June 11, 2008, and the single for "I Wanna Be" was released on June 4, 2008. The anime's sound direction is headed by Kazuhiro Wakabayashi. Soul Eater: Monotone Princess theme song is "Soul's Crossing" sung by T.M.Revolution, and is included on the "Resonance" single.
The first character song maxi single sung by Chiaki Omigawa (Maka) and Koki 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.
External links
at TV Tokyo
at Funimation
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