Soul Eater

For other uses, see Soul Eater (disambiguation).

Soul Eater
First tankōbon volume cover, featuring Maka (right), Soul (bottom-left) and Blair (top-left)
ソウルイーター
(Sōru Ītā)
Genre
Manga
Written byAtsushi Ohkubo
Published bySquare Enix
English publisher
ImprintGangan Comics
MagazineMonthly Shōnen Gangan
English magazine
DemographicShōnen
Original runMay 12, 2004 – August 12, 2013
Volumes25 (List of volumes)
Anime television series
Directed byTakuya Igarashi
Produced by
  • Aya Yoshino
  • Taihei Yamanishi
  • Yoshihiro Oyabu
Written byAkatsuki Yamatoya
Music byTaku Iwasaki
StudioBones
Licensed byCrunchyroll
Original networkTXN (TV Tokyo)
English network
Original run April 7, 2008 – March 30, 2009
Episodes51 (List of episodes)
Spin-off manga
Video games

Soul Eater (Japanese: ソウルイーター, Hepburn: Sōru Ītā) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Atsushi Ohkubo. Set at the "Death Weapon Meister Academy", the series revolves around three teams, each consisting of a weapon meister and at least one human that can transform into a weapon. Trying to make the latter a "death scythe" and thus fit for use by the academy's headmaster Shinigami, the personification of death, they must collect the souls of 99 evil humans and one witch, in that order; otherwise, they will have to start all over again.

The manga was preceded by three separate one-shots published by Square Enix in 2003; the first two published in two Gangan Powered special editions and the last one in Gangan Wing. Soul Eater was regularly serialized in Square Enix's Monthly Shōnen Gangan magazine from May 2004 to August 2013. Its chapters were collected in 25 tankōbon volumes. A 51-episode anime television series adaptation produced by Bones was broadcast on TV Tokyo from April 2008 to March 2009. The series has also spawned a drama CD, an art book, and three video games. A spin-off manga series, titled Soul Eater Not!, was serialized in Monthly Shōnen Gangan from January 2011 to November 2014. Soul Eater was licensed for distribution in North America by Yen Press; it was serialized in Yen Press' Yen Plus manga anthology starting in July 2008, and the first manga volume was released in October 2009. The anime series has been licensed by Funimation.

The Soul Eater manga had 19.6 million copies in circulation as of July 2019. Both the manga and anime series have been overall well received, especially for its art style and Gothic setting, often compared by critics to Tim Burton's works like The Nightmare Before Christmas. The series, however, has been criticized for its use of fanservice and similarity to other shōnen series.

  1. ^ Chapman, Paul Thomas (March 6, 2016). "Soul Eater is Home To Some of the Most Thrilling Action Sequences in Anime". Otaku USA. Archived from the original on September 25, 2017. Retrieved June 23, 2020.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Funimation-adds was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference LATtop10 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference toonami was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Scholes, Sandra (August 24, 2020). "Soul Eater Part 3 (Advance Review)". activeAnime. Archived from the original on March 19, 2016. Retrieved June 23, 2020.