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Soul Eater Chapter 58: Blowin' in the Wind (plus bonus high-res scans)
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Cover of this month's GanGan.
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Spine illustration.
Revealed: "Strength" CD single bonus sticker!
Sorry about the tiny, tiny low-res scan.
Revealed: Original Sountrack 2 cover!
Sorry about the tiny, tiny low-res scan.
(Update: High-res now available here!!!)
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OST 1 cover illustration, just because I love it.
(Update: Better scan now available here!!!)
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EPIC PLAID PANTS ARE EPIC.
Recap tiem.
The chapter opens right where the last chapter ended: with Black Star and Mifune having mutually shishkabob'd each other.
Black Star starts to fall over, but Mifune catches him, and gently lies him down on the ground. Black Star looks up at Mifune, who says, "Magnificent," then turns away from him.
Mifune looks up at the castle and says, "I'm sorry, Angela..." Tsubaki is still in her sword form and stuck clean through him, wow.
Then Mifune falls to the ground. Or starts to fall, at least. Tsubaki finally returns to her human form and catches him on her shoulder. She's crying. "Mifune-san."
"Please," Mifune asks her, "if you could help me get just a little bit closer to the castle..."
Tsubaki supports Mifune as he takes his final few steps toward the castle. They don't make it very far, however, because Mifune turns into flower petals and dissolves in Tsubaki's arms.
Sid watches, silently. Black Star looks on too, and he's got that particular stoic grieving look on his face that only comes when a true warrior is witnessing the death of a worthy opponent.
These pages are beautiful - really, truly beautiful, laid out and drawn so perfectly that there's no way that I can capture their tragic beauty in words here - but to me, the thing that made this entire scene was that expression on Black Star's face. That, and that more than anything else, proves just how far he's come as a character.
Is Mifune's death a surprise? Yes. I think most of us, myself included, were honestly expecting the fight to end with Mifune defeated but choosing to join Shibusen. That would have been the typical shounen fighting manga ending. A duel to the death isn't really a duel to the "death," because the power of love and friendship will always save the day, any villain that shows significant potential for redemption will automatically be redeemed, blah blah blah, happy sparkle sunshine Naruto rainbows, and in the end two characters who were formally bitter rivals end up holding hands and singing Kum Bah Yah.
Is Mifune's death a sucker-punch? No. A surprise, yes, but not a sucker-punch. Until today, I honestly thought that the whole point of Black Star's recent character arc was that he was supposed to learn to accept imperfect victories, to not kill, and to therefore differentiate himself from his father. BUT. Looking back at all of that stuff now, looking back at the scenes where Black Star had to face the crazypants demon deer thingy, looking back at the previous chapter when he mastered all of the Fey Blade modes, now I can see (yay, hindsight!) how Ohkubo was actually setting up a different moral than the one I was interpreting. Black Star's acceptance of the Nakatsukasa Purpose meant acceptance of having to kill when the killing is justified. Killing for a purpose, if you will. (Hence, "Purpose.") In the first part of the manga, Black Star clearly didn't grasp the seriousness or gravity of death. In fact, the only things that any of the technicians "killed" were people who had become demon eggs and therefore didn't even count as human anymore. Black Star thought that he was THE MOST TOTALLY AWESOME ASSASIN WHO EVER ASSASINATED, but he was nowhere near ready to take on the burden of actually having to kill someone.
Hell, Black Star didn't even seem to grasp the gravity of the situation when Tsubaki had to kill her own brother. Maybe because he didn't know until after the fact. But still. In that story arc, Tsubaki demonstrated that she was ready and willing to do what needed to be done. It hurt her, obviously, but she did it. And that's the true nature of the Nakatsukasa, and the true burden of being a real
There are two extremes, of course. On one end of the scale you have White Star and the like, who killed without reason or remorse. On the other end of the scale you have the no-kill pacifists, of whom we don't really have any in this series (unless Ox counts as one?), but you get the idea. Black Star's challenge, therefore, is to walk the middle path: to kill only with reason, and remorse.
And anyway, yes, this is all beautiful and tragic and horrible and MUCH more sophisticated, drama-wise, than I think a lot of us were expecting from this silly shounen kiddie manga.
Well played, Ohkubo. Well played.
But moving on.
Soul, Maka, and Medusa are still in Arachne's inner chamber.
"Maka," Soul says, glowering at Arachne's body. "If Arachne is still alive, then what's with the corpse?"
OH HEY BIG HINT. We just saw Mifune die and turn into flower petals, right? That totally reminds me that in the world of Soul Eater, nobody leaves behind corpses when they die. Bad guys turn into black ribbons when they're killed. Good guys, well... Flower petals, I guess. (Until now, any humans that had previously died, either killed by Ragnarok or Nidhogg, have died "off screen," although they rather noticeably did not leave any bodies or blood behind, just souls.)
So! If Arachne left behind a body, she's probably not really dead. Oh crap, I wish I had remembered that two chapters ago. Anywhoo.
"Listen," Maka says. "I have no idea if this is witches' magic or whatever. What I can say, however, is that within the insanity flowing in this room, I can definitely feel Arachne's presence."
"A body is just a vessel for the soul," Medusa says. She looks up at the ceiling. "Right, Nee-san?"
Maka is suddenly gripping Soul in his scythe form. "Here she comes!"
Whatever's up there on the ceiling is starting to writhe. Huge glowing eyes - FOUR OF THEM - glare down at Maka.
Then a mother-effin spider web attacks her.
Maka easily cuts through the spider web, but suddenly sees a vision of Arachne's gloating face as the web dissolves. Soul, apparently, saw this too. "That was her!" It's so strong that even *I* can feel it, Soul think-bubbles, this repulsive madness...
(Why is Soul in his scythe form NOT NAKED?! Come oooooooon, Ohkubo!)
Now we have creepy shadow-things attacking Maka. They look somewhat like Kid's cloak on crystal meth.
"VECTOR STORM!" Medusa protects Maka with a wall of arrows.
Medusa has more tricks up her sleeve. "Vector Compact!" Her arrows swallow up the shadow-claws and compact them into a tiny little ball.
Maka is impressed. "Wow!" But nervous. "Did we catch her?"
Medusa's tiny little black ball drops to the ground, then explodes. Shadow-claws everywhere.
So I guess the answer is no.
Maka and Medusa are thrown back by the blast, but neither loses her footing. Medusa's sweating now. "I was afraid of this..."
And then they hear Arachne's voice. "Your powers are useless, Medusa. I have abandoned my body and become insanity itself. You can no longer harm me in any way."
Maka's making a great WTF face. "She became insanity?! Why would she do something like that?!"
Medusa looks grim. "She's attempting to become a kishin." Medusa goes on, "To become 'insanity itself' is the same state of being as the kishin. And she's trying to suck everyone into her madness."
Arachne gloats, "Terror will envelop the world. Insanity will swallow all. Then all will finally be laid to rest, Medusa. I will become the loving mother of all the Earth."
Medusa smirks and laughs. "A mother? My nee-san? Don't make me laugh. It's bad enough that they call you the 'Mother of Demon Weapons.' Like you're all high and mighty. You let people say that you created the original demon weapons. But all you did was follow the instructions in the Book of Eibon, didn't you."
Arachne is getting pissed off. (Bad move, Medusa.) "Who came up with the idea, or who followed through with the idea... What a pointless distinction. All that matters is the final result. And poor little you, Medusa. You could not even capture the heart of one man. So, Medusa... What can you do? All you did was aim for that Professor Stein, and, well... That didn't go so well for you, now did it?"
Medusa tries to brush this off. "Yeah, well... At least he had some creativity in him. Not like you, Nee-san. Remember how you laughed when you first saw me in this child's body? Right now, I'd say that you're the one who's ended up in the silliest-looking form after all."
Then the world around Medusa goes black.
Oh crap, Medusa. Way to push her buttons, you idiot! Well, they're sisters. I guess it's inevitable that the little one is always pushing the buttons of the big one.
Anywhoo. Medusa's boned.
"To dare mock she who has abandoned her body... Medusa, you are the most laugh-worthy fool of all."
And then Medusa finds herself stuck in the center of a spider-web. With shadows crawling out of her body and HOLY SHIT SUPER SPIDER-FORM ARACHNE crawling all over her and making bitey-bites at her neck. HELLLLOOOOO, THIS MONTH'S NIGHTMARE FUEL PAGES. About time.
"I will devour your mind, body, spirit..."
HOLY SHIT ARACHNE IS FUCKING SCARY HOOOOOOOOLY SHIT!
Chow down.
ACTUAL SOUND EFFECTS ON THE PAGE: OM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM.
Suddenly Medusa falls over. She's no longer in the spider web or being attacked by NIGHTMARE ARACHNE. Now she's lying on the floor beside Maka.
"Medusa?!" Maka exclaims.
Medusa's lying face-down on the floor, groaning. "Oooooogh... oooooogh...." She can apparently no longer move or speak. I was completely defeated in less than a single measly second! she think-bubbles, furiously.
"She got caught in the same soul-trap that I fell into?" Soul asks. Still with his clothes on. What the hell, Ohkubo. SCYTHE SOUL IS NAKED SOUL, or at least should be, KTHNX.
Arachne is back in human-ish form, at least from the boobs up. "How terribly insulting, that you would even make that comparison."
HOOOOOOLY SHIT HERE COMES NIGHTMARE ARACHNE AGAIN AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
Human from the boobs-up ONLY.
So Arachne is going to dispatch Maka the old-fashioned way, I guess. Maka just stares down Arachne, totally unintimidated, and shouts at her:
"Where. Is. CRONA?!"
Arachne says (or think-bubbles?), "What fearsome eyes. And her anti-demon wavelength... No wonder Medusa brought this girl with her."
So! Maka basically starts kicking Arachne's ass.
She slices! She dices! Arachne thinks, And her soul-perception ability, too. This girl may actually pose a threat. Then she goes on, I shall simply have to terrorize her until she plunges completely into insanity.
Maka: still completely unintimidated, and COMPLETELY BADASS. "What did you do with Crona?!"
Arachne doesn't answer, she just attacks. Maka counters. There is slicing! There is dicing! There are four pages of pure unleaded BADASSERY holy shit Ohkubo I love you have my babies now, plz?
But anyway, Soul notices that Maka's slicing and dicing is cutting through Arachne far too easily. She even cuts off what looks like Arachne's head, but it turns out, oops, false alarm. But still, Maka keeps slicing, and Arachne's body keeps (seemingly) falling apart. "What is UP with this?" Soul asks. "I don't feel any resistance whatsoever!"
"Behold my abandoned body and you shall understand," Arachne says. "I have abandoned my flesh and blood. No attack can harm me now. You, on the other hand... I shall kill you slowly, surely, bit by bit by bit."
Maka's still fighting like a badass, but sweating now.
"Maka," Souls says.
"Yeah."
Medusa, still paralyzed on the ground, stares at them.
Suddenly a big chunk of Arachne swings out and smashes Maka in the head. She recovers, quickly, and flashes back to her fight with the clown. "Hey, Soul. We killed that clown with the Demon Hunter, didn't we...?"
And now she's got a Plan.
Memo to Arachne: So like, this one time, Maka already fought the living embodiment of insanity, and won. I'd say you're pretty screwed right now.
Moving on!
Back outside the castle, the battle between Shibusen and Arachnaphobia has started up again. In the midst of all of this, Tsubaki is trying to lift Black Star off the ground. "Nygus!" Sid orders. "Tend to Black Star's wounds!"
Nygus kneels down beside Black Star, who is looking pretty bad. (Even his hair is drooping. I probably shouldn't be laughing at that, but LOL.) "Don't you dare die on us, Black Star!"
Tsubaki is crying, but Sid remains confident. "He'll be all right! He--"
Suddenly the Shibusen soldiers freeze. Then the Arachnaphobia cannon fodder start clutching at their heads.
"What...?" Sid says. Then he and Tsubaki are suddenly struck with massive migraines, too. "Now what?!" Sid asks. Tsubaki touches her forehead and groans.
Back inside the castle, Kim has fallen down, and is also clutching at her head. "Aaaaaaah!"
Ox is clearly suffering, too. "Kim... Are you all right?"
Harvar is looking around at everyone like, WTF is wrong with you guys? "What's wrong with you two?" he asks.
Jackie is grimacing and clutching at her head, too. "Can't you feel it, Harvar?"
Harvar gets his grim face on. "Is it the insanity wavelength...?"
Killik - yep, Killik - he's feeling it too. Grimacing and sweating and everything. "Harvar, you have such an intense, stick-up-your-ass soul that you may not be able to feel this, but... uuuugh."
Artwork: Dozens of creepy-crawly little black spiders.
"Inside..."
Artwork: Hundreds of creepy-crawly little black spiders.
Sound effects: skitter skitter skitter skitter skitter
"Inside our heads..."
Artwork: Thousands of creepy-crawly little black spiders.
Sound effects: skitter skitter skitter skitter skitter
"Spiders in our brains..."
Artwork: Millions of creepy-crawly little black spiders.
Sound effects: skitter skitter skitter skitter skitter
"...tearing our brains apart!"
Okay, now, discussion question: In light of the revelations in this chapter, I can't help but wonder, why did Noah help Arachne? The only reason I can think of is, basically, what he said back in chapter 56: He wants to add a kishin to his collection. The way he stated this, in Japanese, there would have been no distinction between a kishin and the kishin. (If memory serves he used the particle mo when he mentioned the kishin, so no help there.) So I still think that Noah is planning to double-cross Arachne somehow. He must be aiming to "help" her become a kishin solely so that he can collect her in the end; otherwise it wouldn't exactly be in his best interest for him to help her actually swallow up the entire world, right?
But that's just my opinion.
I still think that Noah's playing her.
Edited to add: So now, what will happen to Angela? My guess is that things are going to come full circle, i.e., Black Star and Tsubaki will have to take her in, the same way that Sid took in Black Star after killing his parents. That would fit well with the whole "accepting the consequences of killing, and taking responsibility for your actions" theme. On the other hand, however, I wonder if Angela is ever going to forgive Black Star. Eh, maybe we'll end up with a Eureka Seven-type scenario? Maybe.
Edit the second: CNET just posted their translation. They've interpreted Arachne as saying that she wants to draw the kishin into her, not neccessarily become the kishin. Ehhhh, vague Japanese grammar is vague. But either way she's still planning to swallow the entire world in her madness, so whatever. It's all the same in the end. (And I still think that Noah is playing her.)
Edit the third: Aaaaaaand now I'm making comparisons to the Mahabharata in the comments. Just shoot me now.