The Deadt Weapon Meister Academy Soul Eater

Soul Eater (ソウルイーター, Sōru Ītā?) is a Japanese manga written and illustrated by Atsushi Okubo. 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 (better known as Death), they must collect the souls of 99 evil humans and one witch, in that order or they will have to restart all over again. 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 2011, nineteen 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 27, 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. Another manga series which will run alongside the main series, titled Soul Eater Not!, began serialization in Monthly Shōnen Gangan on January 12, 2011.

In Soul Eater, meister (職人, shokunin?) Maka Albarn and her weapon partner Soul Eater are students at Death Weapon Meister Academy (死神武器職人専門学校, Shinigami Buki Shokunin Senmon Gakkō?)—"DWMA" (死武専, Shibusen?) for short—located in the fictional Death City[1] in Nevada, United States. The school has many other students including Black Star with his weapon partner Tsubaki, and Death the Kid with his weapon partners Liz and Patty. 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 99 evil humans and one witch, which will dramatically increase the power of the given weapon and turn them into death scythes, weapons capable of being used by shinigami. 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 desire anarchy.

Shortly after the start of Soul Eater, Maka and Soul Eater face off against the forces of the witch Medusa, who forces her child, the meister Crona and wielder of the demon sword Ragnarok, to collect non-evil human souls to transform Crona into a kishin (鬼神?), an evil demon god. Medusa and her cohorts attack DWMA with the intention of reviving Asura, the first kishin who nearly plunged the entire world into madness before being sealed beneath DWMA by Shinigami. Despite the combined efforts of Maka, Black Star, and Death the Kid, Medusa's group successfully revives Asura, who leaves to spread chaos around the world after a brief battle with Shinigami. However, Medusa is seemingly killed by the meister and DWMA teacher Franken Stein in the process, while Crona surrenders to DWMA and goes on to enroll there and befriend Maka.

As a result of Asura's spreading madness, 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 DWMA. Shinigami calls in death scythes from around the world to aid in the fight against Arachnophobia. During this time, Medusa resurfaces with her soul in the body of a young girl, and forms a truce with DWMA so they can annihilate the threat of Arachnophobia together. The DWMA students and Medusa's entourage infiltrate Arachnophobia's headquarters where Maka defeats Arachne, only for Medusa to betray DWMA, possessing Arachne's body and brainwashing Crona into rejoining her. Meanwhile, Death the Kid is captured by Noah, an enemy posing as the former meister Eibon. Following this, Maka finally succeeds in turning Soul Eater into a death scythe. The duo become part of the newly formed meister unit Spartoi, which successfully manages to rescue Death the Kid and take down Noah.


The anime series faithfully adapts the plot of the manga until DWMA's first major battle against Arachnophobia, at which point it deviates from the manga's plot considerably. After giving DWMA information on Arachnophobia, Medusa takes advantage of Stein's increasing madness to lure him away with her. DWMA manages to bring back Stein, and Maka defeats Medusa. Meanwhile, Arachne finds and forms an alliance with Asura, intending to spread his madness across the world. In the ensuing confrontation between DWMA and Arachnophobia, Shinigami and Asura resume their fight, which ends with Asura defeating Shinigami, turning on Arachne and eating her soul. In the final battle, Maka, Black Star, Death the Kid and their respective weapons defeat Asura, and the world returns to normal.


Soul Eater Not! is a side-story to the main series, focusing on a freshman weapon named Tsugumi Harudori, who joins two other meisters, Meme and Anya. The timeline takes place before the main series actually starts. For Sid is not a zombie yet and Medusa is still a nurse at the school.