 Anime Continuity Notice |
| “ | "Sitting there in the dark, I had the chance to think about a lot of things, including the nature of the world itself. And after lengthy consideration, I realized something; when all is said and done, this world is an unknowable place. On the surface, all appears rational, orderly. But what lies beyond that thin veneer of reason? Stability and reality? Or chaos and madness? What are we really made of in the end? Is there truly any meaning to the lives we lead? Or are we nothing more than hollow vessels? These are questions we can never answer, because we cannot hope to see beyond the world's fragile layer of skin. So we live our lives filled with uncertainty, never knowing who or what we truly are, or what the future will bring. All we can do is imagine. Life becomes an unsolvable mystery with any number of twists and turns awaiting us. And that's enough to fill any soul with terror. | ” |
—Asura to Death, [[Episode 48] | ||
Asura (阿修羅, Ashura) was an embodiment of fear and kishin who formerly served as the strongest guardian of Death's Eight Guardians, Death's personal guards until his betrayal and ascension to becoming a kishin.[1] After his betrayal, he was defeated by Death and sealed away under Death City for centuries until being freed by Medusa's Faction[2] and later joined forces with Arachnophobia.[3]
Personality[]
Asura has views of a true peace of which only he knows, a peace which resides in the actions of surrendering to Madness and being rid of fear and pain. He views the rationality that has been imposed on the world as an illusion of security and peace, when in actuality, nothingness lies beyond this "order" that almost all humans seem to follow. He also believes that mankind's greatest weakness is their ability to imagine answers to questions that seem to only amount to a frightening answer, when in actuality, the answers are not very frightening at all, and that the only thing that makes them appear so terrifying is the human's imagination running away with them. As a strong believer in this concept of happiness, Asura has sacrificed his own imagination altogether, amounting to fearless recklessness.[4]
In addition, Asura is a great disbeliever in honor, seeing it as something that one could fall slave to, and that the love for other people was nothing more than a one way road to defeat. However, this does not mean Asura has an inability to feel love. In the Anime, Asura finds himself in love with Arachne, and upon realization of this love, he finds no choice but kill the source of this love that may one day lead to his own defeat. He then pursues Arachne, and swallows her soul, showing how desperate Asura is in being at the status of not being able to be defeated.[4]
Asura doesn't actually see himself as evil. Despite his intentions of drowning the world into madness, fear and insanity, he does not see that as an evil thing, but rather a normal desire that will actually make the world a better place. When Maka tries using her Kishin-Hunt, a technique intended to destroy evil, to defeat him, Asura states this is the reason it did not work. However, his mindset is obviously deluded because his intentions are in actuality immoral.[5]
Appearance[]
Asura is depicted as a very tall, thin, pale young man. Prior to becoming a Kishin, he wore numerous long white scarves, encircling his entire neck and a large portion of his head, and upwards of five to six shirts on his body, each of varying style and color. Even this significant amount of clothing is covered by a further layer; consisting of a red and black pinstriped blazer, as well as an extremely long pair of dark trousers, burying the black shoes worn underneath in a mass of fabric. Asura has adopted the symbol of three vertical eyes, as he too possesses a third eye on his forehead. Not only does each strand of dark hair on his head look like an eye, due to the presence of white markings, but even his pupils feature this same eye-like shape. This signature eye symbol is tattooed to the backs of each of his hands and the long scarf that encompasses his head is embellished with multiple black images of these vertical eyes, wrapped in a very particular manner so as to display only three at the front. His irises are red.
Power[]
Special Abilities[]
Magic (魔法, Mahō): Asura possess magical abilities akin to that of a grim reaper. Thus far, his magical abilities is considered to be made up of "ominous energy".[6] With it, he can perform certain unnamed abilities and attacks such as one involving displacing his opponents via creating an eye-like magical symbol and attacking them with magic, with power that enabled him to incapacitate Death the Kid and Black☆Star with ease.[7]
Kishin Power (鬼神の力, Kishin no Chikara): As a kishin, Asura naturally possess this sort of energy although the specific usage of it and it's relations to his abilities are unknonw.[8]
Asura's madness wavelength induced onto people.
Madness Wavelength (狂気の波長, Kyōki no hachō): According to Franken Stein, Asura's particular madness wavelength arouses the madness within an individual and magnifies it. It also strengthens dark desires, can awaken dormant witches in slumber, cause natural disasters, and produce unusual weather patterns.[9] Asura can control his wavelength enough to produce illusions at will.[10]
Meister (職人, Shokunin): Asura is a skilled miester, his choice of weapon being a vajra. How he formerly use such a weapon is unknown but after consuming and merging with his his weapon partner's form of, he is capable of regurgitating his weapon form to his mouth.[7]
Godlike Physiology: Being a Kishin and stated to be a embodiment of fear by Death, he possesses a physiology similar to that of a grim reaper.[1]
Asura regenerates.
- Immortality (不死, Fushi): Asura possesses a form of immortality that allows him to be extremely long-lived and able to retain youth for over eight hundred years with the appearance of a young man. He also has great regeneration abilities.[4]
- High Physical Abilities (高い身体能力, Takai karada nōryoku): Asura possesses great physical abilities beyond that of a human; he is capable of withstanding physical assault from Death himself (even withstanding a Kishin Hunter attack),[7] Death the Kid's attacks from the Liz and Patty's magic twin guns forms,[7] and Maka Albarn after she awakened her weapon abilities.[5]
- Acrobatic Skill: Asura has shown considerable acrobatic ability as he managed to dodge Death's attacks from Death Scythe as well as Maka's attacks while she was unconscious, as well as being capable of performing backflips and standing on objects with low widths (such as the crosses in the Death Room).[4][5]
- Absorb (吸収, Kyūshū): According to Death, his capability of eating souls would originate from the outright consumption of Vajra within his weapon form, bestowing him weapon abilities.[1]
- Third Form (第三形態, Dainikeitai): Asura gains a new form after consuming the soul of Arachne. This results in him transforming into a huge figure that wears solid armor in which makes soul resonance attacks ineffective.[6][11] This form is later re-created, albeit in a smaller fashion, after Death the Kid's enhanced death cannon technique from the rubble made in his apparent "demise". However, the-recreated form loses the armor he once possessed. In this form, he also wears less bandages due to having less fear.[11]
List of techniques[]
Asura creates magic circles.
- Magic Circle (魔法陣, Mahōjin): Asura is able to compose a special magic circle that can shoot magical beams of energy at his opponent strong enough to warrant Death himself to block and level a city block.[7]
- Decoy (ダミー, Dami; FUNimation Sub "Dummy"): Asura can create a clone of himself with his powers almost instantaneously. He was fast enough to to create a dummy just before Death was able to slice through him.[4]
- Shield (シールド, Shīrudo):Asura is capable of creating shield similar to his father for his defense. However, unlike it being shaped as a skull, he instead carries his own theme and creates a shield with a buddhist/hindu theme. It is powerful enough to put up a resistance to Death's kishin-hunt but was broken ultimately. He can also use it to surround his entire body.[4]
- Maximum Beam (極大のビーム, Kyokudai no Bīmu): A large, powerful energy beam used by Asura in his third form as a giant, this technique is perform from his mouth.[10]
- Barrier (結界, Kekkai): Asura is able to manifest a extremely strong barrier powerful enough to ward off any kinds of intrusions and create a world. According to Azusa, the barrier he creates makes the inside similar to that of the Death Room, in which disallows those who enter to leave without permission or defeating the creator the barrier.[6]
- Vajra (weapon) techniques
- Vajra (technique) (ヴァジュラ, Vajura): A technique that utilizes Asura's former weapon partner and his weapon transformation; Asura regurgitates his former partner's weapon form and charges directly into an individual and boosts his momentum in an attempt to drill through his opponent.[12]
- Wavelength Control techniques
Asura using Soul Menace.
- Soul Force (魂威, Kon'i): {Asura can use some sort of variant or version of soul menace that manifests in a form that resembles red electricity. It's proficiency enabled him to easily touch Maka Albarn's kishin-hunt and destroy it despite holding her Anti-Demon Wavelength.[5]
History[]
Eight centuries ago, Asura was a guardian who served as a personal guard under Death as one of Death's Eight Guardians and was a friend of Death.[4]
However, his paranoia would get the better of him and developed an obsession with gaining power, feeding his weapon partner, Vajra, human souls and breaking Death's rule.[1] Eventually becoming a kishin, he is confronted by Death and stripped of his skin after being defeated. After draining his blood, Death sealed Asura in a bag made of his own skin on order to contain his soul and madness.[13]
During his imprisonment, Asura pondered on the nature of the world and order itself and later came to the conclusion that that imagination was the root of all fear and thus stop imagining altogether.[4]
Synopsis[]
A Fight to the Death at the Big Bash arc[]
Operation Capture Baba Yaga Castle arc[]
Asura flew to an abandoned Buddhist temple in Tibet to hide from Shinigami. He is visited by Arachne, who tries to recruit him into Arachnophobia to help her destroy the DWMA. He is at first aggravated by her presence and nearly strangles her to death with his scarves, yet accepts and comes to Baba Yaga's Castle. Arachne subdues Asura and harvests his insane wavelength to spread madness throughout the world and creates destructive weapons with his power.
After Shinigami transports Death City to the castle's location, he manages to capture Asura and seals him within the Death Room so they may do battle once again. This time however, Shinigami has his weapon, Death Scythe Spirit. Shinigami seemingly had the advantage, but in the middle of battle Asura sent a powerful attack at Death the Kid and Azusa Yumi, forcing Shinigami to take the blast in his stead to save him. With Shinigami defeated, Asura returned to Arachne. Though they embrace, Asura remembers how he used Death's attachment and love for Kid to beat him and then realizes he is feeling love and attachment for Arachne and becomes afraid of her; to escape this fear he kills the source and devours her soul.
After eating her soul, Asura undergoes a transformation into a much larger, monstrous version of himself. Maka, Kid, Black☆Star and their weapons confront him, but all their attacks prove useless. Soul Evans is knocked out and Maka tries to bring him back. While defending her from the Kishin, Kid activates the Lines of Sanzu. Asura pierces Kid's chest with an over-sized finger, but the lines still activate. Black☆Star distracts Asura while Kid prepares and fires his attack. Asura is almost completely destroyed, except for a burned husk, which explodes into Asura's original form. Kid falls unconscious, and Black☆Star tries to fight Asura alone, but he too falls. Maka and Soul return and find their friends defeated.
Asura begins to torture Maka with fear and taunts her futile efforts to attack him, believing someone so weak and normal as a human could never defeat him. Maka strikes him with Kishin Hunter, but it proves useless. Asura reveals Maka's Anti-Demon Wavelength fails to kill him because madness itself is not impure, but exists within everybody. Asura fires an attack at Maka, but Soul protects her and collapses. Enraged, Maka tries to take the Kishin on herself, but she is quickly defeated. She even tries to fight Asura while unconscious to avoid all fear, activating her powers as a weapon, but the Kishin quickly sees through her plan.
When all hope seems lost and death seems imminent, Maka tells Asura she is relieved. This scares him, and he wonders how she could feel relieved in such a situation. She tells him her greatest power is not something special; it is "courage," which opposes fear. The Kishin becomes more and more frightened at her determination, and begins to go insane with frustration over why she would rely on something so pathetic and useless as "courage". Maka punches him in the face with a "fist full of courage," which surprisingly causes Asura's face to crack. As his body begins to shatter, Asura wonders how a punch full of something as simplistic as courage could defeat him. Maka tells him courage is indeed nothing special, that everybody has it. Before he explodes, Asura smiles to himself upon realizing that courage is therefore the same as madness: everybody has it.
Trivia[]
- In both the anime and manga, Death "speculated" to Ox and Kilik that Asura himself was not human and likely a embodiment of fear. However, in the anime, nothing much was revealed about Asura's true being whereas in the manga, the "speculation" was actually referring him being a fragment that embodied Death's actual fears (and therefore, being a wordly embodiment of fear).
References[]
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 Soul Eater Anime: Episode 19
- ↑ Soul Eater Anime: Episode 23
- ↑ Soul Eater Anime: Episode 41
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 Soul Eater Anime: Episode 48
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Soul Eater Anime: Episode 51
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Soul Eater Anime: Episode 49
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 Soul Eater Anime: Episode 24
- ↑ Soul Eater: Monotone Princess
- ↑ Soul Eater Anime: Episode 25
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Soul Eater Anime: Episode 50
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 Soul Eater Offical Fanbook Extended Edition
- ↑ Soul Eater Manga: Chapter 22
- ↑ Soul Eater Anime: Episode 22