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A sound soul resides in a sound mind and in a sound body.
Soul Eater is a shonen manga and anime; the manga is serialized in shonen Gangan and the anime was a 51-episode series animated by Studio Bones in 2008.
In Death City, the god-like Shinigami-sama has set up the Shinigami Weapon Meister Vocational School (aka "Shibusen") to train warriors called Technicians (Or Meisters) along with Weapons who can take human form. Their enemies include corrupt human souls, Wicked Witches, and the Demon Gods known as Kishin. A Technician and Weapon who manage to defeat and consume 99 corrupt souls (plus one witch's soul) get the highest honour; the Weapon becomes one of the Death Scythe, servitors of Shinigami-sama himself.
The anime was acquired by FUNimation, with tantalizing previews on their website. They also have subtitled episodes of Soul Eater on their Video Portal (which is only viewable... In America). Laura Bailey, Brittney Karbowski, Monica Rial, Chuck Huber, Vic Mignogna, John Swasey, Troy Baker, Leah Clark, Jamie Marchi, Cherami Leigh, and Todd Haberkorn are confirmed for the dub, along with newcomer Micah Solusod. A lucrative promotional movement was planned for this dub months in advance of the DVD release (February 9th, 2010), which was highlighted by premiering the first 3 episodes in English at NYAF 2009, and the first four dubbed episodes have recently been put up on their video portal, and their Youtube channel! You can watch them here.
The main characters include:
- Maka Albarn: Technician and her scythe, Soul Eater (just call him Soul). She's a raging workaholic, he's a slacker. They almost made Soul into a Death Scythe at the beginning of the series, but failed on a technicality and now have to start over. Thus they're technically higher-skilled than the position they are in.
- Black☆Star: Would-be Assassin. Has trouble remembering that "Stealth" and "Shouting out how awesome he is" don't go together all that well. Fortunately he has moments where he remembers, and his partner Tsubaki is a very capable Morph Weapon who can transform into any high-quality ninja weapon, including her usual form of a chain-scythe.
- Death the Kid: Son of the Shinigami, and a lesser shinigami himself, he doesn't need to go to the school or develop his own weapons as his breeding would allow him to skip such formalities, but he feels obligated. His natural talent is offset by his raging case of OCD- he is completely and utterly obsessed with symmetry. Has two partners, in the form of his pistols, the very blonde Thompson Sisters, Patty and Liz. (This means that he has to consume twice the quota of souls; he doesn't really mind this at all.)
Now with a Character Page. Contributions are welcomed.
See also Elemental Gelade, a similar concept with a more futuristic sci-fi bent.
Warning: The following tropes are from both the anime and the manga. Be VERY careful with spoiler text. This Troper nearly learned that the hard way...
- Action Girl: Maka. Liz, Patty and Tsubaki might count, though that's debatable.
- Adaptation Decay: While the first three quarters of the anime is more or less taken exactly from the manga, after that the Gecko Ending kicks in and things (obviously) start getting different.
- Adult Child: Spirit, Maka's sweet and immature Lovable Sex Maniac of a dad, and Marie the innocent and romantic-schoolgirl trapped in a Christmas Cake.
- Adults Are Useless: Averted. The grownups are more powerful and tend to pull off Big Damn Heroes moments when the main teenaged cast gets in trouble.
- All Just A Dream: In one interpretation of the ending of the Anime, Maka lost her sanity fighting the Kishin, and her victory (and everyone being alive and well) is insanity taking away her fears and the reality.
- All Men Are Perverts: Somewhat deconstructed with Maka.
- Almighty Janitor: All the main characters are considerably more powerful than their status in Shibusen would imply: Maka was one soul away from being a full technician when she was forced to start over, Black☆Star never bothers to advance in ranks when he could be training instead, and Death the Kid is a shinigami.
- As of recent events, this trope can't really apply to Maka and Soul anymore, since Soul is now a Death Scythe.
- Kind of also no longer applies to Black Star and Tsubaki either: originally, they were a technically skilled pair with Black Star's flaws to blame for them not even being ranked at one star. But now Tsubaki has Mifune's soul (worth the 99 requisite human ones for making her a Death Scythe), and Spartoi are all two-star students, their position is more in line with their abilities.
- This leaves only Kid as the remaining one-star meister of the original group. And of the three the rank was the least applicable to him in the first place. Took on a three-star mission and succeeded (sort of) in his debut episode.
- Alternate Character Interpretation: Medusa as Chaotic Good
- Ambiguous Gender: Crona.
- Thought we don't actually see the "interesting bits", the last page of Chapter 60 is a pretty strong pull towards the "Crona is a girl" faction of the fandom.
- Or a Bishonen. It's just not that easy to tell.
- You can tell the mangaka is messing with you when he gives you a nearly entirely nude picture of a character, and you still can't tell the gender. Goddammit Crona.
- Amusing Injuries
- Animal Motifs
- Anime Anatomy
- Anime Hair: While both Soul and Black☆Star have spiky hair, their hairstyles pale in comparison to Ox Ford's sheer pillars.
- Anthropomorphic Personification: The Clown, who is madness made flesh.
- Anti Villain: Mifune, the noble Samurai who fights only to defend the child witch Angela. Note the irony in his Rival being Black☆Star, an Assassin working for the good guys. (Most Assassins are not good people in this series.)
- Audible Sharpness: Maybe it's just Soul saying, "Ting"?
- Automatically Violent
- Awesome But Impractical: Excalibur, who is something of an Infinity Plus One Sword, has an insane amount of unreasonable demands that he makes to the point that people decide that his power is totally not worth it.
- Ax Crazy: Maka under the effects of the black blood when she fought Crona.
- Badass: Pretty much describes the series. You've got ninjas, scythe-spinning, demons, The Grim Reaper, slicing things in half ... get the picture?
- Back To Back Badasses: Maka and Black☆Star do this when fighting Sid.
- Badass Bookworm: It's easy to forget under the maniacally grinning, scythe waving badassery, but Maka is a nerd that spends most of her free time reading and has really no idea how to play basketball or to dance without crushing her partner's feet.
- Don't forget about Ox, he pretty much describes himself as such.
- Stein probably counts as well.
- Badass Labcoat: Stein.
- Badass Longcoat: Maka. With a sweet new white one to parade around in school, as of joining Spartoi.
- Special mention to Death the Kid in the manga; during the beginning of the Baba Yaga's Castle arc he temporarily sported a trenchcoat with the same closures and shoulder-decals as his blazer and a collar like the cloak he sometimes wears on outings. It was invisibly ditched before he could fight in it, but he still looked even more badass than usual in it. No sign of it in the anime, though.
- Badass Normal: Mifune in the anime. No magical weapons or overt supernatural powers — all he's got is a backpack full of swords, and he still fights both Shibusen teachers, Almighty Janitor students and a Kishin on equal footing.
- The Manga version is explicitly revealed to have a supernatural connection with his swords, however.
- But, then again compared to people like Stein, he is VERY much normal...
- Badass Teacher
- Bare Handed Blade Block: Stein can do this because he can attune to any spiritual attack; those corrupted with Black Blood can harden their blood beneath their skin, often using this to catch blades.
- Also, Ragnarok, who not only blocked Giriko, a Big Fucking Chainsaw , but also pushed the golem that was using him on its back. And let's note that he did this after his Villain Decay into Sleep Mode Size.
- Black☆Star failed spectacularly at this when he tried to catch Soul while they fought the Kid.
- Chrona was also able to block Soul's scythe blade in her first battle with Maka, and another time during the fight against Medusa, on account of being able to harden the black blood.
- Barrier Maiden: Shinigami-sama himself, as he has anchored himself to the School to prevent a Kishin from reviving. Thus the students go out in his stead.
- He eventually gets around this problem in the anime...
- Battle Couple: Soul and Maka, Black☆Star and Tsubaki and a few others.
- Beware The Nice Ones: Lord help you if you somehow manage to annoy the Shinigami.
- BFG: Kid's Death Cannon.
- Big Badass Wolf: Free
- When he's fighting, at least. Otherwise, he is rather daft, such as when he was actually disappointed he didn't get to dig his way out of prison with a spoon.
- Bishonen Line: Mosquito
- Black Blood: The Black Blood. - Averted: There's lots of red blood throughout the show, so this doesn't apply. This is actually the Phlebotinum.
- Blade On A Stick: Harvar. He can also release electricity.
- Blade Reflection
- Bland Name Product: Deathbucks Coffee and Death Robbins (with 42 flavors!)
- Not to mention Liz and Patty temporarily transforming into .42 Death Eagles.
- Although the fact that the currency is apparently called Death Notes is a rather hilarious use of this trope.
- Blessed With Suck: Crona
- Blood From The Mouth: The Moon.
- Bloody Hilarious: In one episode where the students of Shibusen must take an important exam, neither Soul nor Black☆Star study, intending to cheat instead. However, Soul gets his "crib notes" taken away, and Black☆Star gets beaten senseless for looking at the answer sheet and is left lying in front of the class to serve as an example. However, just when all seems lost, Black☆Star signals Soul, and begins to write on the wall beside him using his own blood. Soul, thinking that Black☆Star is trying to show him the answers before time runs out, eagerly awaits his friend to finish writing... only to realize that Black☆Star is writing an autograph for him. May also count as Cant Get Away With Nuthin.
- Bloody Murder: As Crona often reminds us, his/her blood is black, and is fairly multipurpose in terms of its uses. However, it only makes you more powerful by making you insane.
- Blush Sticker: Blair, when she's catty. Patty, always.
- Body Horror: Medusa is capable of inserting snakes into someone's body and all burst out at once on command. Soul's nightmares of bursting out of Maka's body.
- Crona and Ragnarok also. Episodes 7 and 15 come to mind (8 being their first appearance, 15 Ragnarok's 'Black Dragon' transformation upon the "Nidhogg").
- Boobs Of Steel: Patty-chan and especially Tsubaki-chan.
- Don't forget Marie.
- AVERTED: Maka is the most physically capable of the girls mentioned, and she's practically flat.
- Breather Episode: Episode 25 has the main cast playing basketball after a grueling 7-episode story arc.
- Calling Your Attacks
- Captain Ersatz: Black☆Star should immediately remind you of another loudmouthed, egotistical kid ninja. Also both have similar reasons for their behavior (being called "demon child" all their life).
- Cargo Ship: Poor Marie, so driven to desperation from being an unmarried Christmas Cake was willing to marry a TOILET because it will accept anything she gives it. A mad enterprise thankfully stopped by her level-headed friend Azusa.
- Catch Phrase: Half the cast, at least.
- Maka says "I'll take your soul!" or something similar (she even says it at the end of each episode preview after the closing credits).
- Black☆Star has his "YAH-HOO!" when he's showing off and "I am the man who will/has surpassed god!".
- Sid likes the phrase, "That was the kind of man I used to be."
- Crona has two; "My blood is black", and "I don't know how to deal with [X]."
- Excalibur's legend began in the 12th century, and "BAKAME."
- Death the Kid's "Kichiri Kachiri", which could be translated as "Precise and Perfect".
- Stein's "I want to dissect [X]."
- "SHINIGAMI CHOP!!!!"
- Cat Girl: Blair, in a rather original way.
- She even invokes Cats Have Nine Lives in the first episode, but changes this halfway into "Cats Have Nine Souls."
- Cats Are Mean: Or at least, big enough Jerk Asses to force you to start a quest to defeat one hundred opponents all over again, just for the heck of it!
- To be fair, they were trying to kill her without even finding out what she was.
- Chained By Fashion: Free.
- Chainsaw Good: Giriko
- Character Title
- Chekhovs Gunman : Enrique and Tezcatlipoca where quickly introduced (as mysterious bear and monkey) during chapter 47, when the Shibusen students were going to Arachnofobia's base. They weren't mentioned or saw again until chapter 60, when Arachne died and Medusa was about to kill Maka.
- Christmas Cake: Poor Marie, and she is very anxious about her unmarried status; see Cargo Ship entry to see just 'how desperate she wants to be married. (Nervous Laugh)
- Church Militant: Justin Law is a very devout Christian, but also the Death Scythe in charge of Europe. Interestingly he views Shinigami-sama as God. Nobody corrects him. This would make Death the Kid... Jesus. Lord help us all, pun intended.
- On the bright side, crucifixion would be the perfect end for Death The Kid: it's a perfectly symmetrical execution device.
- Just add the fact that Spirit would be THE Holy Spirit and your brain starts to melt.
- ...It would explain his taste in young women though.
- To make it stranger yet, Justin Law turns out to really worship the Kishin instead in the manga...
- Cliche Storm: Alternately Troperiffic.
- Cloud Cuckoolander: Excalibur. Explains why no one tries to wield him, ever, despite being the most powerful of all the weapons.
- And Patty. So very, very much. Giraffe!
- The Collector: Noah, deciding to add Kid to his Tome Of Eldritch Lore along with anything else he finds interesting.
- Color Failure: Several examples. Most recently in episode 46 when Excalibur turns up in the Death Room. Shinigami, Yumi and Spirit go white for several seconds before promptly resuming their conversation and ignoring the newcomer.
- Combat Stilettos: Marie
- Cooldown Hug: Maka and Crona. Also, Marie and Stein.
- Corner Of Woe: Crona is very familiar with it. (S)he even gave it a nickname!
- The Corruption: The Black Blood.
- Crazy Awesome: Too many examples to list. Suffice it to say that if you go three episodes without seeing something that qualifies, you aren't watching Soul Eater.
- Creepy Cool Crosses: Spirit's tie and attire during the flashbacks. The Death Room is full of (mostly wonky, as it happens) crosses, though with Okubo's use of numerous religious references, this could actually be plot-relevant.
- Crouching Moron Hidden Badass: Black☆Star can be very effective when he puts his egomania aside and starts focusing.
- Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming: Maka wins (or...forfeits?) her second battle with Chrona not by besting her in battle, but offering to become her friend. Awwwwww.
- The closing credits for Episode 21, with Maka and Chrona walking hand in hand. This plays immediately after Maka "defeats" Chrona with friendship.
- Crowning Music Of Awesome: The first OP is incredibly badass and the second OP has beautiful lyrics.
- Not to mention the entire OST for the anime. Really, it's just kickass.
- Dangerous Forbidden Technique: Fey Blade mode.
- Dark Magical Girl: Crona, the Witch Swordsman. Woman? We're...not sure.
- Deal With The Devil: Literally...er...figuratively. We're not sure. But the Black Blood gives a dream image of an actual devil offering power.
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu: Literally.
- Dirty Coward
- The Ditz: Patty
- Doomed Appointment
- Drop The Hammer: Marie.
- Dropped A Bridget On Him: The readers get this in Chapter 67 if they thought both of Kilik's weapons were girls. Turns out Fire is quite the Estrogen Brigade Bait.
- Ducks In A Row: The prologue introducing each main character one by one
- Eldritch Abomination : The Kishin. The strongest of them, even Shinigami-sama isn't sure was ever human to begin with. In addition, Eibon is a direct reference to HP Lovecraft.
- Embarrassing Middle Name: Subverted. Soul Eater Evans doesn't like people using his last name.
- Empathic Weapon: Weapons are a race in Death City, having both human and weapon forms. Their power increases when they match the "Soul Frequency" of their Technician partners.
- Enemy Civil War: Medusa and Arachne have a rivalry that spans centuries; Medusa and her followers will apparently "help" Shibusen if it means Arachne will suffer.
- Ensemble Darkhorse: Excalibur, by both fans and the studio, who saw fit to give him Takehito Koyasu as his seyuu.
- Epiphany Therapy: Marie's 'redeeming wavelength' in the anime. Also, Death the Kid literally beats the crazy out of Black☆Star at one point, bypassing a moment of Time To Unlock More True Potential that ensued in the manga.
- Everyone Calls Him Barkeep: Spirit is sometimes called by just his title, Death Scythe
- Everythings Better With Monkeys: Tezca Tlipoca, one of Shibusen's Death Scythes (presumably the South American one), has a monkey for a technician. His name is Enrique, and is apparently quite the joker.
- Everythings Better With Plushies: Death Scythe has a plushie of Maka that he made. That's not weird at all.
- Everythings Better With Spinning: Maka and her frequent scythe-twirling.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Asura is defeated in the anime because he cannot comprehend the concept of courage. Quite a lot of people felt this to be something of a Wall Banger.
- Evil Eye: Free's witch eye.
- Evolving Weapon: Handwaved since most weapons are part human too, and by eating souls, they become stronger.
- Excited Episode Title
- Expressive Hair: Maka's pigtails in the anime stand up and/or wiggle when she's agitated.
- Extra Eyes: Asura, who is covered in them.
- Eyepatch Of Power: Marie Mjolnir.
- Eyes Always Shut: Buttadaki Joe
- Eyes Of Gold: Medusa, complete with Hellish Pupils.
- Face Doodling: Black☆Star, to Maka.
- Faceless Goons: Arachnophobia has plenty of these.
- Faceless Masses: All the other students at Shibusen.
- Actually some of them do have faces and some even have some clothing detail. They're just not colored in (they're all purple).
- Fan Service: Dude, it's a shonen anime!
- Female weapons generally appear naked when shown within their virtual world while transformed. The male Soul started clothed, but became naked when he had a giant scar to show off, making him Estrogen Brigade Bait. Mercifully, the way-too-young-looking Fire and Thunder appear clothed.
- Blair the Stripperiffic Cat Girl is practically Fan Service incarnate, particularly in the anime. Debut scene? Bathtub.
- In the manga and the anime, Blair also has a cat-fight with the equally Stripperiffic Mouse Girl Mizune.
- The Art-Director of the show began putting a huge emphasis on Maka's legs beginning in Episode 27.
- Not to mention Stein's Shirtless Scene.
- Fashionable Asymmetry: Mostly subverted by Kidd, but played straight by his hair (to his chagrin). Also, Tsubaki has only one visible stocking.
- Fate Worse Than Death: Asura was sealed away in a bag made of his own skin.
- Feed Me: When Black☆Star wants to be visible, he is visible.
- Foe Yay: Franken Stein and Medusa have positively epic amounts of this. Opposite sides, yet clearly attracted to each other; both appreciate the appeal of insanity and taking rules (and people) apart.
- Foreign Language Title
- Four Is Death: The phone number used to call Shinigami is a play on words using this trope.
- Friend To All Children: Mifune
- Furo Scene: Blair is introduced in a furo scene. Also, Tsubaki takes a bath after studying for the big exam.
- Fridge Brilliance: The cast wears street clothes that are different than their trademark outfits while hanging out in Maka's and Soul's apartment. This could only mean that those punkish, Crazy Awesome, and borderline Stripperiffic outfits are in fact their school uniforms!!! Awesome.
- Actually, Shibusen seems to have a school dress code (As Kim, Jackie, and various extras wear uniforms) but they don't seem to enforce it all that much, leading to crazy battle outfits. Only gets crazier when we have the cast change into their Spartoi uniforms.
- Gainaxing: The girl-weapons in their "in weapon persona", especially Tsubaki.
- Gangsta Style: The Kid takes this to its ridiculous extreme by inverting his guns and firing with his pinkies.
- Gecko Ending: The anime splits off from the manga around the BREW recovery action, setting up the remaining time for a premature ending.
- Girl With Psycho Weapon: It's just a rather dangerous-looking scythe...
- The Ghost: Maka's mother.
- Girlish Pigtails: Maka.
- Good Is Dumb: Crona becomes less powerful following his/her Heel Face Turn, but this is justified due to having been purged of all the souls Ragnarok consumed.
- Good Smoking Evil Smoking
- Good Thing You Can Heal: Free. This is self-induced two ways: One, he just doesn't defend because he's immortal. Two, he hits himself with the occasional spell mishap.
- Kim, after being mortally wounded by Havar. Turns out she's a tanooki witch.
- Go Out With A Smile: Happens in the anime when Crona does her Heroic Sacrifice to save Maka. Except, we later find out she's not actually dead.
- Gotta Catch Them All
- Grand Theft Me: In the manga, Medusa pulls this on Arachne.
- Gratuitous English: Excalibur's song in his second appearance.
- The Grim Reaper: Shinigami-sama. We see a flashback to his more traditional persona and he comments that his current "goofy" appearance is as not to frighten the children at his school. His name is also "Death", which we see written in English.
- Grim Up North: The Brew Tempest arc.
- Guns Akimbo: Death The Kid not only uses twin pistols, but for some reason fires them upside down and using his pinkies to pull the triggers.
- Also, due to his Super OCD, he can't bring himself to use just one at a time!
- Gun Fu: Death The Kid, naturally.
- Half Dressed Cartoon Animal: Excalibur.
- Half Human Hybrids: Maka's father is a weapon while her mother was not, but slightly averted in that she doesn't seem to be any different to other humans.
- A flashback in the manga has Soul's brother commenting on how their family had just enough of the "Weapon Bloodline" for it to manifest in Soul.
- In the anime, Maka activated her "Weapon Bloodline" to fight Asura.
- Halloweentown: Death City
- Handsome Lech: Spirit.
- Hammerspace: Maka's book, which is somehow always suddenly there whenever she does a Maka Chop.
- The Heartless: Humans who corrupt themselves by consuming innocent souls become "Kishin Eggs."
- Heel Face Revolving Door: Dr Stein
- Heel Face Turn: Crona. Subverted in the manga when Medusa turns her into The Mole, double subverted in the anime.
- Hellish Pupils: Medusa, oh does she ever.
- Heroic Albino: Soul Eater.
- Heroic Sociopath: Stein may count as this.
- Highly Visible Ninja: Black☆Star. Even when he isn't trying to appear dramatically and give a speech, he still tends to fight with as little stealth as any of the rest of the cast.
- Hit Me Dammit: Maka pulls this on Black☆Star as a way of making up. He doesn't hold back.
- Hot Dad: Spirit. He was apparently only 18 when Maka was born.
- Ho Yay: Parodied when Black☆Star and Soul team up to fight Death the Kid.
- Hot Blooded: Ox Ford.
- Why not throw Black☆Star in the mix while you're at it?
- Hover Board: Death the Kid has one.
- Humongous Mecha: The anime earns this one in episode 47.
- Hyperspace Mallet: See Hammerspace, above
- An Ice Person: Free has ice powers, but he's a bit rusty and ends up freezing himself as often as he does his foes. Good thing he has his other ability.
- I Am Your Opponent: Maka versus Crona. Black☆Star doesn't like it much, but he gives in.
- I Sense A Disturbance In The Force
- Idiot Hero: Black☆Star
- I Have The High Ground: Black☆Star loves this one, though it doesn't really help. In one case, he was so high up nobody could hear him shouting.
- I Know Kung Fu: Kid's Shinigami Martial Arts.
- I Lied Pretty much how Medusa cons Maka into defeating Arachne and gaining her new body.
- Immortality: Free has absolute regenerative immortality. Giriko has immortality through legacy / parasitic immortality as he implants his personality and memories into his children one generation after the next. Shinigami and the Gorgon sisters seem to possess some form of immortality as well.
- Giriko could survive by implanting his personality/soul/brain/??? into his line of descendants. A fancy trick for a longer life, but he could definitely be killed. The Gorgons have shown they can be killed (sort-of) and considering current speculation that the lines of sanzu mean there can be only one Shinigami at a time, it might not be true for the Shinigami either. So, so far, only Free has definite immortality.
- The Imp: Ragnarok in his Sleep Mode Size. Also, the imp inside Soul's Mental World.
- Improbable Weapon User:
- Kim's weapon partner Jackie is a lantern.
- And special mention to Justin. He's a friggin' guillotine.
- Then there's the fifth Death Scythe, Tezcatlipoca, who is a mirror.
- Incredibly Lame Pun: Apparently "coffee beans" in Japanese sounds like "mandolin" in English. It's a knee-slapper, that one.
- Instant Awesome Just Add Mecha: the Death City Robo
- Instant Runes: Used by Asura.
- Internet Backdraft: Chrona's a boy! Chrona's a girl! CHRONA'S A BOY! CHRONA'S A GIRL! BOY! GIRL!!! BOY!!! GIRL!!!! BOYGIRLBOYGIRLBOYGIRLBOYGIRLBOYGIRLBOYGIRLAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH! *tears hair out*
- At the end of October 2009, FU Nimation's reveal of the English voice for Black☆Star on You Tube garnered near-500 comments in 8 hours of people arguing about how bad her voice was! Way to go, FU Nimation. 'Bet they'll think twice about posting previews of their voices online from now on.
- In The Blood: Being a weapon.
- Katanas Are Just Better: Tsubaki's (so far) ultimate form is a black katana. Mifune also uses katanas.
- And as of the recent chapterRagnarok apparently.
- Kid Hero: Four of the main characters.
- Kill It With Fire: ...And did we mention Jackie also doubles as a flamethrower?
- Large Ham: Excalibur. Hamminess is also Black☆Star's default state (see Feed Me), although he is rather less hammy during his Lets Get Dangerous moments.
- Laser Blade: Tsubaki's Eleventh Hour Superpower in the anime.
- Lawyer Friendly Cameo: One of the creatures Maka fights in the original end credits animation is a giant version of Wolf Man's daughter from Scooby Doo and the Ghoul School
- Left Hanging: Without spoiling too much, the anime ended with quite a lot of plot threads left dangling.
- Lets Get Dangerous: When the eyes on Shinigami-sama's mask go from round-and-dopey to triangular-and-angry, everyone in the next 3 mile radius should kindly RUN AWAY if they don't have a will written.
- Also, Kid with one of the Sanzu lines completed = bad. Kid with one of the Sanzu lines completed, and NOT having an OCD breakdown = Kiss Your Ass Goodbye.
- Living Shadow: An effect of the Dark Blade.
- Lovable Sex Maniac: For all his flaws, Maka's Dad is a well meaning, caring and lovable fella.
- Love Bubbles: Spoofed with the "break-up" between Soul and Black☆Star.
- Loves The Sound Of Screaming: Justin Law has a moment.
- Lucky Charms Title: Black☆Star
- Mad Doctor: Stein.
- Made Of Iron: Black☆Star mostly.
- When first introduced, Kidd got impaled numerous times and was covered in blood, but just got straight up again and shrugged it off.
- Though to be honest, most of the main cast have taken great amounts of damage and treated it like it was nothing.
- Madness Makeover: Justin Law
- Madness Mantra: Hurry up, hurry up. Rid yourself of your fake skin. Give into your weight and walk on. The glorious light illuminating the way out is almost in your sight.
- Madness Montage: Stein's visions
- Mad Scientist: Dr. Franken Stein; with special emphasis on "Mad".
- Magic Skirt: With the frequency that she is thrown rolling backwards and all the tumbling she is doing, it's quite surprising that Maka hasn't become the queen of Panty Shot with that short little skirt of hers.
- Only in the anime does she have it. The manga meanwhile makes her a major Panty Shot source.
- Magnificent Bastard: Medusa certainly seems to be heading in this direction.
- I'd say so. She's the Knight Of Cerebus in the series, she subverted the usual Dark Magical Girl Heel Face Turn by turning Crona into The Mole, succeeded in awakening the Kishin, only "lost" to Stein and Death Scythe because she won, took over the body of a small child, drove Stein to madness (the not funny kind), killed the Witch Hunter who was investigating Death City, framed Stein for his death, outed a good witch who just wanted to defect, and is leading Shibusen against her rival with Shinigami-sama's blessing.
- And her Magnificent Bastard Quota keeps rising exponentially! Turns out, the whole reason behind leading Shibusen to defeat Arachne was so Medusa could steal her sister's gorgon body when she abandoned it to become madness incarnate, and to try and kill Maka, who's Demon Hunter wavelength apparently poses a threat to her and the entire witch world.
- Man Hands: Hero finally dumping Excalibur because of his sneezing.
- Marked Change: Black line patterns while using the Dark Blade.
- May Contain Evil: Averted. The pills Medusa prescribed for Maka are just normal herbal medicine for improved blood flow. Of course, this does help to catalyze the Black Blood.
- Memetic Mutation: Just try and watch this series—with all its references to "madness"—without Leonidas's face popping into your head at least once.
- This troper wouldn't have that problem if the subbers were a little more serious. Sid finds BREW, and "No....This Is Sparta!!" is added onto his line for the lulz?
- The legend of this mutation began in the 12th century.
- Mental World: The room inside Soul's mind.
- Monster Clown
- Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: Stein
- More Tropes Than God: Black☆Star
- Morph Weapon: Tsubaki
- Most Common Super Power: The Thompson Sisters, Tsubaki, Marie, Arachne... making Maka "rare" for not possessing it.
- Through The Eyes Of Madness: Just being in the proximity of a Kishin results in hallucinations and loss of reason.
- Ms Fanservice: Any female character that's not Maka, Eruka or the twins.
- The twins get their moment, but we lose the "Ms" for one of them.
- Mugging The Monster: How Liz and Patty meet Kid.
- Multiple Reference Pun: The Thompson Sisters
- Must Have Caffeine: Hello, everyone. My name is Joe Buttataki and I'm a java junkie.
- My Name Is Inigo Montoya: It's a shonen anime; of course this one gets a workout. All the protagonists use it repeatedly.
- Naked First Impression: This is how Soul finds Blaire.
- The Napoleon: Black☆Star
- New Old Flame: Marie and Buttataki Joe in the manga. Temporary; Justin Law kills him shortly after.
- Because Buttataki has a different role in the anime, the role is given to Stein there instead.
- New Powers As The Plot Demands: The Gecko Ending gives them to Maka and Kid out of nowhere.
- Nightmare Fuel: Practically everything about the Kishin.
- Especially the madness.
- The effect of Arachne's insanity: "There are spiders... Tearing at... The inside of my..."
- The Moon! Oh dear god the MOON!!!
- No Name Given: Free is known only by his nicknames.
- No One Could Survive That: At least twice in the manga, and definitely even more times in the anime. This troper does wonder if Nidhogg counts, since he survived beheading, repeatedly.
- Nosebleed: Blair's effect on Soul.
- No Sense Of Direction: Marie constantly gets lost in Shibusen, even though she's supposed to be an Alumna. Crona and Ragnarok kind of use this to their advantage once to get out of trouble, saying they were also lost when they go into a restricted area. It took them two hours to find Crona's dorm room while being led by Marie.
- Not Quite Dead: Repeatedly.
- Not What It Looks Like: Soul. Oh, Soul...
- Noun Verber: Soul Eater
- Obfuscating Stupidity: Shinigami developed his child-like persona for the sake of his students, as he would often scare them in his old form. However, some of his original hardcore personality shows up in his fight with Asura.
- Odd Couple: Nearly all Technicians and Weapons are opposites of each other, as they find a medium their power increases.
- Makes one wonder about Shinigami, looking at his current collection of Death Scythes. Even accounting for Spirit being 'the' Death Scythe, that's an awful lot of contrasting personalities going on amongst the introduced area heads. Azusa's uptight, Marie's a ditz...
- On that note, who imagines a Grim Reaper carrying a sniper rifle/crossbow, a hammer or a mirror? Puts a slightly different spin on the term "odd couple".
- Ominous Latin Chanting: Shows up during the fights between Shinigami and the Kishin, and during most of the Kishin battles.
- One Head Taller: In the main cast, the female weapons are significantly taller than their male meisters. Soul and Maka are at pretty much the same height.
- One Winged Angel: Done by the Demon God in the anime
- Only One Name: Black☆Star
- Open The Iris: Inverted with Maka. Her normally invisible pupils widen when she is emotionally shocked.
- Opaque Lenses: Stein, most of the time, also Asuza.
- Order Versus Chaos: One of the major themes of this story.
- Orifice Invasion: Medusa does this to a little girl in the suburbs to possess her, and later again to get Arachne's body.
- OT3: We all have a soft spot for Liz/Kid/Patty. Maybe justified, as Kid is not human and may have social acceptance of at the very least polygyny.
- Oubliette: The Demon God being imprisoned with his own skin
- Our Souls Are Different
- Out Of Clothes Experience
- Over Enthusiastic Parents: Spirit/Deathscythe/Maka's Papa. What he lacks in ability he makes up for in effort and love.
- Overprotective Dad: Spirit once tried to fend off Soul... and then quickly does the exact opposite once Soul says he's not interested.
- Overtook The Manga
- Palantir Ploy: Arachne uses her spiders as spies to track enemy movement.
- Panty Shot: Happens to Maka in the manga.
- There's plenty in the beginning, but as the manga's gone on there have been less and less. The most recent chapters seem to lack pretty much any sort of panty shots.
- Pettanko: Maka.
- Pet The Dog: Upon hearing that Maka was injured in a battle and is now bedridden, Mifune gives Black☆Star a 'get well' candy to give to her. Medusa too can have some kindhearted moments, prompting Soul to ask, "Why would someone who could say something so kind decide to mess up the world? Are you really that cold-hearted?"
- Phrase Catcher: Excalibur, usually invectives.
- Power Born Of Madness: In Chapter 42, Maka and Soul evidently agree that "insanity is the source of strength." The strongest example of this appears to be the black blood, although other characters seem to receive some form of power boost from insanity as well.
- Power Degeneration: Black☆Star
- The Power Of Friendship
- Power Gives You Wings: Manga only Maka possesess the rare angel-winged Grigori type soul, which she uses to create wings for Death Scythe Soul to fly.
- Power Trio:
- Maka - Ego
- Black☆Star - Id
- Death the Kid - Superego
- or
- Liz - Ego
- Patty - Id
- Death the Kid - Superego
- Product Placement: The book Maka is always reading is Gangan, the magazine the manga is serialized in.
- Pronoun Trouble: With Crona's gender left ambiguous, fan scanlators and subbers were sometimes forced to make a best guess. This has led some fans to claim to know Crona's true gender, even though there's no canonical support.
- Psychic Link: Soul Resonance can do this.
- Psychoactive Powers: The soul wavelength.
- Psycho For Hire: Giriko.
- Psycho Serum: The Black Blood.
- Punny Name: Dr. Franken Stein and Eruka (spelled with the same syllables as "kaeru", Japanese for frog), just to name a few...
- The Puppet Masters: Another lovely trick of Medusa's; After her main body is cut in half, she goes to a modern day suburbia in snake form, and slithers into a random child's mouth; taking over her body and running off. It Only Works Once, so she can't do it again.
- Later, it turns out she can do it again.
- Medusa explains to Arachne that it was splitting up her soul (to avoid it being eaten by Death Scythe), not the possession, that she could only to the once, due to the Kishin's soul wavelength at that point.
- Red Eyes Take Warning: Asura
- Repeat Cut: Maka's Demon Hunter finishing blow on Mosquito in episode 36. Kid's "Death Cannon" technique frequently evokes this as well. Also Maka punching out the Kishin.
- Reverse Funny Aneurysm: In an early episode, it's fantasized that Death City will sprout legs... and then it actually did happen later on in the anime
- Ring Ring CRUNCH
- Rubber Face: Soul does this to Maka to make sure she's not an impostor. She passes when she hits him with a Maka Chop.
- Rule Of Cool: Death the Kid shoots his pistols upside down. With his pinkies.
- It is suffice to say that this pretty much describes the entire series.
- Running Gag: The "I-have-met-Excalibur" face.
- Sadist Teacher: Stein. He just wants to cut you up so bad...
- Samurai: Mifune.
- Sanity Slippage: Dr Franken Stein.
- Sarcastic Devotee: Soul, to Maka.
- Scaled Up: Medusa can do this.
- Scarf Of Asskicking: In the manga, Tsubaki's Shadow Star Form Zero.
- Scars Are Forever: Soul gets a large scar during the first fight with Chrona; it remains visible on his body for the rest of the series.
- Also, in the manga Black☆Star ends up with a clean scar that bissects the star tattoo on his shoulder after his last fight with Mifune. Even the healer can't remove it, and Black☆Star essentially claims that's because it represents his Character Development.
- Scary Shiny Glasses: Dr. Franken Stein is pretty much obligated to do this. Azusa regularly uses this to intimidate people. Ox Ford also fulfils this trope in a less scary fashion.
- Schizo Tech: Outside of Death City is a mishmash of technological eras. Ancient Japanese villages and modern-day Suburbia and everything inbetween.
- School Of Hard Knocks
- Science Related Memetic Disorder: Stein seems to suffer from some form of this.
- Sealed Evil In A Can
- Self Restraint: Medusa
- Series Goal: The meisters and weapons are supposed to be gathering 99 human souls and 1 witch soul, but this goal becomes mostly irrelevant once the Knight Of Cerebus is introduced.
- Shapeshifter Weapon: About half the cast.
- Shinigami: Interestingly, only Shinigami-sama and his son are directly refered to as this. Technicians and Weapons have varying origins; some are born in Death City, and some Weapons were "found" as humans. It's a blurry line, as Maka is the daughter of a Technician and her Weapon Partner.
- Shirtless Scene: Soul in the exam episode, and when Maka walks in on him after a check up on his scar.
- Shonen
- Shoo Out The Clowns: Averted; comic relief Excalibur is included until the very end.
- Shout Out: Masamune's shadow, as well the one as in Tsubaki's and Masamune's dreamscape, the elongated stick figures seem to be references to the horror short manga The Enigma Of Amigara Fault (Drr... Drr...). Also, Soul's mindscape (as well as the imp in it) is a reference to the Red Room from Twin Peaks.
- The Jason analogue that Maka harvests a corrupt soul from is exactly the design of the Jason analogue that Hime fights in Princess Resurrection.
- Ox's over-dramatic ripping out his horn-like hair in order to convince Kim that he would forsake Shibusen to be with her is reminiscent of Hellboy.
- During the same chapter Ox makes a reference to Kim, who he recently learned was a witch, as being an angel. The discovery of the band Angel Witch, and their song of the same name, adds yet another point to the long list of music references Atsushi Okubo makes.
- Capone, the first villain encountered by Black☆Star, ends most his sentences with "...you know?", which is the closest you get for an english translation of "dattebayo". Possibly unintentional, though it makes this troper wonder if Funimation is going to change that to "believe it" or not for the English dub.
- They do not. The American premiere screening shows that it will stay as "Ya know" in the dub.
- Pay close attention to the list of students in episode 14, and you'll spot names such as Selim Pride and Dante Rockbell.
- This troper always thought it was more of a reference to the Velvet Room in the Persona series. The imp looks a lot like Igor.
- The most recent chapter has Maka attempting to ride Soul in his scythe form (with a drastically shortened blade) and they try to manifest wings from the back to fly, though, as Maka complains, the wings are anything but angelic.
- The second attempt is tiny but at least not as spiky as Soul's imagination seemed to be making them initially. The third, powered-up by soul resonance, is much larger and noticably angel-like, as with Maka's soul.
- The manga even seems to have a shout out to the Iconic ending of the anime. Clearly, when Maka punches out her opponent in Chapter 65, her fist is packed with courage!
- Interestingly, just before Maka kills her, Arachne comments that courage *isn't* enough to win every battle. She then got bisected by Demon Hunter, but even so...
- Shouts to numerous works of fiction and myths
- Sibling Team: The Thompsons
- Significant Anagram: Maka is an anagram of "kama", the Japanese word for scythe. Eruka is an anagram of "kaeru", the Japanese word for frog, and Mizune is an anagram of "nezumi", the Japanese word for mouse.
- Single Stroke Battle: In the anime, the third and final showdown between Black☆Star and Mifune
- Sinister Scythe: Interestingly, only Soul Eater himself and the most recent Death Scythe (Maka's father) are true examples of this; despite their name, the Death Scythes consist of various types of weapons.
- Skunk Stripe: Death the Kid has several.
- Three, to be precise. Since they're all on one side they are the bane of his symmetry-obsessed existance.
- In fact, when he gets his super power boost, one dramatically grows to form a full loop, though it goes back to normal when he does. The conversation about this it's states that once he grows/inherits his full Shinigami powers, all of them will do this, all the time.
- Slasher Smile: So, so many examples. Medusa's is particularly demonic; Maka's is surprising when you realize just how much control she has over it.
- The Sun and the Moon BOTH have one!
- Soul also shows his off a lot, too.
- Slipknot Ponytail: When Tsubaki morphs into Fey Blade mode, her hair is let down.
- Smoke Out: One of Tsubaki's forms is a smoke bomb.
- Spell My Name With An S: Many fan translators spelled the Demon Sword meister's name as "Chrona" or "Krona" until the third ED revealed the spelling to be "Crona."
- Spoiler Opening: Subverted. In the second opening, we see Soul holding an unconscious Maka. In the series, it's actually Soul who falls unconscious at a pivotal moment, and Maka is the one who must save him.
- The fourth ending is actually a Spoiler Ending.
- Stealth Mentor: Sid and Stein were first introduced as enemies
- Steven Ulysses Perhero: Soul Eater, especially since nobody else in his family is a weapon or expected him to be one.
- Actually, it's mentioned by his older brother Wes in a flashback that his grandmother was a weapon.
- Strange Bedfellows: Medusa leads Shibusen's operation against Arachne's base in the manga.
- Strong As They Need To Be: See the New Powers As The Plot Demands entry, above
- Supermode: There's the basic Resonance of Souls, the more advanced Chain Resonance, using the power of the Black Blood, Maka's Witch Hunter and Demon Hunter attacks, Black☆Star's Fey Blade mode and his blade modes after unlocking Masanume's true power, Kidd's Lines of Sanzu, Free's werewolf form, Mosquito's younger forms, and many others.
- From Mosquito's commments about the shinigami, Kid's Sanzu Lines seem not to be a supermode so much as an example of a future 'normal' mode.
- Super OCD: With Death The Kid, it's implied to have something to do with the lines going through half of his hair. In the manga, he acheives a Power Up when one of those lines grows to all the way.
- And achieves a Crowning Moment Of Awesome when he says that any other time he would be obsessing over it, implying that right now he's NOT obsessing over it.
- Superpowered Evil Side: Maka and Soul using the Black Blood
- Sword In The Stone: Due to their personality overlap and personal relationships, each weapon can generally only be wielded by whatever meister it is assigned to at the moment. Adult meisters and deathscythes appear to be exceptions to this, as is Excalibur.
- The Sword That Speaks: Ragnarok, which can also use its mouth for Crona's Screech Alpha attack. Excalibur is also a talking sword, though much crazier.
- Take Our Word For It: We don't actually get to read Crona's poem, but it must've been pretty depressing, since it sends anyone who reads it into a Corner Of Woe.
- It even sent Black☆Star into a Corner Of Woe! That must have been some poem.
- Taking The Bullet: Soul takes the bulle- er, sword for Maka.
- Also, in ep48, when Asura attacks Kid (or the bystanders in general?) Shinigami takes the shot instead and gets blown to bits. Ouch.
- Talking Animal: Blair, who is technically just a cat with magic strong enough to be able to assume a human form.
- Ted Baxter: Black☆Star.
- The Dumbledore: Shinigami-sama acts like a complete goof and does nothing of any use at the beginning of the story. Though maybe it's a good hint at what he can do when Maka can't see his soul because its edges are larger than those of Death City.
- Theme Naming: And how!
- The witches seem to be named after animals; especially women in Greek Mythology associated with animals.
- Kishin Eggs are a mishmash of historical/fictional/mythological antagonists.
- The weapon people, who are usually named after mythological and/or video game weapons: Mary Mjollnir, Masamune, Ragnarok, Excalibur, Soul Eater, etc.
- Two of the students (Ox Ford and Harvar D. Eclair, Oxford and Harvard respectively) are named after Western Universities.
- Maka's Witch Hunter (a possible reference to Rush's song "Witch Hunt")
- Mosquito's Police Stinger (both the band The Police and their singer Sting)
- Blair's Smashing Pumpkin
- Sid Barrett's The Living End.
- Patty and Liz's surname might be a dual pun on the Thompson Sub-Machine Gun and the Thompson Twins.
- Blair's name can be seen as a reference to The Blair Witch Project.
- On top of that, Maka Albarn might be named for Blur frontman Damon Albarn, who voices 2D (a Soul Eater look-alike) for Gorillaz.
- Sid Barett (Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd) and Kim Diehl (Kim Deal of the Pixies).
- Kilik's Soul Resonance: Aphex Twin.
- Justin Law (Cantonese pop singer Justin Lo) (This Troper thinks the reference is more obvious when you see the names in Katakana)
- Dr. Franken Stein. Need we say more?
- The Thing That Goes Doink: As seen in Ox's and Hero's episodes with Excalibur.
- Those Two Guys: Ox Ford and Kilik Lunge. Subverted in the manga when they get expanded roles, not so much in the anime.
- Throw The Book At Them: Maka Chop!
- To Be A Master: Collecting enough souls to attain the rank of Death Scythe
- Token Motivational Nemesis: Nakatsukasa Masamune, is spite of being such an important figure in the life of his sister Tsubaki, is killed within one episode of his introduction.
- Took A Level In Badass: The main characters, of course.
- Transformation Sequence: Kid activating his Resonance of Souls. It was even interrupted at one point.
- The Trope Kid: Death the Kid.
- Tykebomb: Crona
- Vibroweapon: Ragnarok when it screams.
- Troperiffic
- Villains Never Lie: In chapter 60 of the manga, Maka gets furious at Medusa when she realizes she lied about Crona.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Soul and Maka
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: All of the weapons, many of the witches, Free, etc.
- We Will Meet Again: Sid, to Mifune.
- Weird Moon: In addition to a weird sun. Both have faces, the sun laughs ominously and the moon occasionally drools blood.
- What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic: Among other things, Crona's name is a play on "Kuro na", translating as "dark one". And just for a moment, Shinigami-sama and Asura's competing auras form a yin-yang symbol.
- What Measure Is A Humanoid: So apparently, weapons can reproduce with humans...
- White Gloves: Maka
- Why We Cannot Have Nice Things: In his debut episode, Kid ends up destroying a pyramid.
- Witch Species: Cute Witch, Wicked Witch, Vain Sorceress, and Old Mistress varieties. At first, most except Angela seem evil, but this is being elaborated on in later chapters of the manga. Which (ha!), in the manga, leads to a...
- Witch Hunt: Medusa, the evil Witch, sells out the good witch who had joined Shibusen to get away from the others.
- With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: An ever-present threat for everyone, especially those infected with the black blood.
- The Woobie: Crona might just be the woobiest woobie that ever woobed.
- The Worf Effect: Black☆Star suffers from this (he beats Mifune in his first appearance and takes down Sid, but is utterly overpowered by Stein, bested by Death the Kid, needs help to take down Free, fails to stop Medusa and is one-shotted by Asura during his awakening, following being utterly humiliated by Mifune during their rematch and failing to complete his objective during the battle with Mosquito.) and indeed suffers a minor Heroic BSOD from it. Later in the anime after recovering from his Heroic BSOD, he fights Asura and the Worf Effect started when Asura recovered from Death the Kid's Death Cannon with all three Sanzu Lines.
- Worthy Opponent: Despite his love of children, Mifune fights Black☆Star as an equal because of this trope.
- Wouldnt Hit A Girl: Averted when Maka asks Black☆Star to Hit Me Dammit. He does. In the face.
- Wouldnt Hurt A Child: Mifune; he only fights Black☆Star when his Morality Pet is threatened, and even then holds back both times.
- Xanatos Gambit: Medusa manages to dupe the Sibusen into raiding Arachne's castle and going up against her forces with the whole intention of taking Arachne's body for herself. Which leads to Maka being used as the Xanatos Sucker.
- Yamato Nadeshiko: Tsubaki won't be able to stand Black☆Star's exasperating arrogance without that lovely personality of hers.
- You Gotta Have Blue Hair
- You Killed My Father: In the anime, Mifune killed White☆Star, Black☆Star's father, and Black☆Star eventually defeats him. Though in something of a departure from trope, Black☆Star isn't interested in revenge — rather, Mifune tries to kill Black☆Star because Black☆Star is following in his father's footsteps — his father became a Kishin.
- It's averted in the manga, however, in which Sid was the one who killed Black☆Star's entire family after they turned to evil, and is now the closest thing Black☆Star's got to a surrogate father.
- Your Other Left: Black☆Star apparently has this problem in the anime.
- Zettai Ryouiki: Blair the Witch excels here. Tsubaki as well, though she has differing amounts of "Absolute Territory" on each side.
- Maka too, as of joining Spartoi.
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