Asura (Soul Eater)

"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

Asura is the main antagonist as well as the most powerful, evil and dangerous villain of Soul Eater, he also is one of Lord Death's sons and the older brother of Death the Kid.

About Asura


Around 800 years before the events of Soul Eater, Asura was created by the Grim Reaper Lord Death from a fragment of the being's soul. Made a member of Death's Eight Powerful Warriors, Asura was its most valued member due to his strength and intimidating power. However, because Death used the part of his soul containing fear, it manifested in Asura's disturbed and paranoid personality. Even with his Magic Weapon partner Vajra attempting to help him, Asura become increasingly unstable overtime to the point of single handily slaughtering a group of witches on his own.

Eventually, Asura developed an obsession to become powerful enough to never fear anything again. This resulted in Asura devouring Vajra so he can consume the souls of 99 innocent humans along with some of his own allies before taking a witch's soul, becoming the first Kishin with his madness in full bloom. Forced to hunt down his own son, Death defeated Asura and ripped the Kishin's skin off to create a sack to contend Asura's power in. With all his vital fluids removed, yet still alive, the mummified Asura is then buried under the grounds that became the Death Weapon Meister Academy with Death himself routing his own soul over Death City so Asura can never be released. Death also established Meister and Weapon teams to prevent more Kishin from appearing.

Asura's release
Despite Death's intent to keep his wayward son trapped forever, a witch named Medusa Gorgon made it her goal to free Asura for her own desire to change the world. The scheme Medusa conducted involved her child Crona, raised in abuse and torture to possess a antisocial personality not much different from Asura's, and child's Black Blood. Taking advantage of DWMA's anniversary celebration, Medusa has her followers Eruka Frog and Free use the Black Blood to give Asura the strength to break his seal. Despite his residual madness almost having them commit suicide, Eruka and Free accomplish their mission.

Once revived, screaming in fear at the sight of Eruka, Asura reattaches his skin while easily defeats his younger brother Death the Kid and his ally Black Star. Regaining his voice while disgusted upon realizing he is nude, Asura uses some leftover skin to form a makeshift wrapping to cover his naked body before heading to the surface. Momentarily halted by his father's seals, Asura is confronted by Death as they engaged in small talk before having an epic battle that nearly wipes out Death City. Managing to break pass Death's barrier, Asura makes it beyond his father's reach as he departs to the moon to bide his time while fully regenerating. As Asura regains his full power over time, his madness begins to enhance various evils over the world. Among the villains is the newly revived Arachne Gorgon who began searching for Asura to use his power to wipe out her enemies.

The Hunt for Asura
From the moon, Asura created Clowns from his being while recruiting the Death Scythe Justin Law to his side. Justin murdered a fellow Death Scythe named Joe Buttaki when he almost located Asura, pinning the blame on Franken Stein. Regardless, the Meisters, Noah, and Medusa were all looking for Asura their respective reasons. Eventually, because of his soul's similarity to Crona's, Asura was accidently detected by Maka Albern. At that time, Asura is confronted by Noah's group with the intent to capture. However, Crona arrived at the last second and absorbed Asura to enact his mother's desire. Despite being assimilated into Crona's body, Asura takes advantage of the child's breakdown to assert full control over his new body and mold it into his image.

Easily overpowering Maka when she tries to get Crona out of him while overwhelming her and the others, Asura reveals his familial ties to Kid while having him doubt himself to be no different from him should he access his full power and that they should rule the world together. However, his younger brother now an equal thanks to Maka's words of encouragement, Asura finds himself facing Kid in his full Grim Reaper state and Maka when she appears in a new fighting form using Soul's Black Blood. Eventually, alongside Soul, Maka manages to enter Asura's body to save Crona. However, as a way of thanking Maka for everything, Crona instead reveals a plan to trap Asura using the Mad Blood which requires Maka to get back outside to make the Kishin bleed. Once the plan succeeds, Asura's Brew-enhanced blood consumes the entire moon with him trapped within the dome of Mad Blood.

Anime
In an alternate version of the storyline branching from after his escape from Death City, Asura flew to an abandoned buddhist temple where he was found by Arachne as she tries to recruit him into her organization 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 madness wavelength to spread madness throughout the world and creates destructive weapons with his power.

However, as a countermeasure, Death arranged for all of Eibon's creations to be brought the academy to convert Death City into a mobile mecha to personally fight while capturing Asura. Despite the foolproof plan, explaining that he rid himself of imagination so he would not be afraid, Asura succeeds by using his father's ties to Kid against him. But as he leaves for Arachne, Asura realizes that she has become his weakness and decides to kill her. From there, Asura eats the witch's soul and transforms into a larger, monstrous version of himself by the time the Meisters and their Weapons face him. With Maka forced to leave them to save Soul from the black blood inside him, Kid formulates a plan to blast Asura to oblivion while Black Star keeps him at bay. Despite he mortally wounded Kid, with Black Star continuing to fight not the less, Asura only enabled his younger brother to unconsciously access his full Grim Reaper power with his body reduced to a burned husk.

Unfortunately, with Kid collapsing from the strain, Asura emerges and easily defeats everyone before Maka and Soul come to. Asura proceeds to intimidate Maka, noting how she is normal compared to her allies who managed to defeat, telling her that her Anti-Demon Wavelength is useless against him as madness is not an evil presence but part of every person while taking Soul out with an attack meant for her. With Maka forced to fight him on her own, Asura was briefly caught off guard when she entered a trance to unconsciously remove fear while invoking her weapon heritage. But the Kishin quickly sees through her plan and simply held her down while painfully inducing her back into consciousness by nearly crushing her heart.

Though it seemed he was going to win, gloating to Maka that she has nothing left, Asura is shocked when she tells him that she is relieved. Flabbergasted why she could feel relieved in such a situation, Asura's confusion is intensified when he learns that Maka's greatest power is the simple notion of "bravery". This causes Asura to break down over the girl's bravery to the point of releasing Vajra, forcing him to unleash a barrage of attacks just to keep Maka away from him before she delivers a powerful punch to his face. Finding his face cracking from what he saw to be a normal punch, infused with her bravery and destroying him from the inside, Asura demands how bravery is special before Maka explains that it's something all people had. Asura smiles upon the realization that bravery and madness are not different before his body shatters from the residing explosion.

Powers and Ablities
Asura was the strongest and most feared member of the Death's Eight Powerful Warriors, once viewed as Death's equal in strength as his wide range of attacks allow him to overcome any opponent's defense. Though he devoured his weapon partner, Asura can still use Vajra by partially regurgitating the weapon from his mouth. After becoming a Kishin, Asura gained the Madness Wavelength, a perpetual residual energy. As Asura's madness is represented by fear and terror, it warps the perception of others surrounding him to the point of driving them insane if exposed for too long. That same madness, when concentrated in a specific area, can produce Clowns that spread the madness further. Being infused with Black Blood, Asura can heal from any injury including severed limbs. This also gives Asura a empathic link to Crona as the Black Blood linked them and served as a catalyst for their eventual union with Asura possessing Crona.

In a fight, Asura can rush the enemy while using his soul wavelength to create a twister-like air current around him, turning himself into a human drill. This attack was strong enough to break through Death's shield and blow a hole through his body.

Compressed Soul Wavelength Beams: Not named as of yet, this attack begins with Asura folding his hands in a manner similar to praying, before creating small spheres of soul energy which become two circular eye-like symbols that both release a very powerful beam of energy. Asura defends using his Skin Scarves.
 * Skin Scarves: These scarves are made from Asura's own skin, giving him complete control over them. This allows him to use them as extra limbs or to shield himself from attacks.
 * Shield: In the second fight between Asura and Death in the anime, he was seen using a shield similar to Death's, in the form of a red circle. It is filled with numerous symbols, most likely of Hindu or Buddhist origin.

Trivia

 * Asura's japanese voice actor also voiced Piccolo Jr. and Wiseman.
 * Asura's english voice actor also voiced Turles, Tomoo and the first version of Greed.
 * Asura's ability in induce mass fear and manipulate the minds of others is similar to that of Parallax.