About

"Shinigami wished to be the god of absolute order, and thus he cut loose his fear — and turned it into me. That careless act was the genesis of this world that is saturated with the madness you hate so much."
— Asura (Chapter 108, Yen Press)

Asura
Asura SE Anime Appearance Asura as he appears in Soul Eater
Name
Name Asura
Alias(es) Kishin
Kishin-sama
Demon God
The Strongest Coward
Scaredy Cat (by Death)
Kishin Asura
Romanji Ashura
Katakana 阿修羅
Personal Data
Sex Male
Age 800+
Race/Species Shinigami Sign Shinigami
Classification Kishin
Meister
Status Deceased(anime)
Incarcerated (manga)
Professional Data
Affiliation(s) N/A
Team/Group The Eight Warlords(formerly)
Weapon Partner(s) Vajra
Family Back of Kid's Student ID Card Death's Family
Relation(s) Death(Father)
Death the Kid (Younger Brother)
Real World Data
Manga Debut(s) Chapter 19
Anime Debut(s) Episode 18
(Image Gallery) (List of Appearances)

Asura (阿修羅, Ashura) is the ultimate and main antagonist as well as it's strongest in the Soul Eater series. He is the first generation kishin, a fragment of Death, and one of the Great Old Ones. Formerly on The Eight Warlords, he betrayed all his allies, including his father, to gain power. He was then skinned alive and sealed under Death City until his revival by the witch, Medusa Gorgon.
Contents[show]
Background
Asura was created by a fragment of Death's soul implanted with his fears in attempt for Death to better himself and become more perfect. He was then taken in by his father as his first apprentice and became part of his group,"The Eight Warlords". However, Asura's paranoia led him to having Vajra consume human soul and then consuming him, eventually turning into the first generation Kishin. After his ascension as a kishin, Death skinned him alive and sealed him under what would be known as Death City.
Personality
Asura had been known as an individual who possessed an extremely fragile soul. Joining The Eight Warlords, Asura had shared a friendship with Shinigami, and the two fought alongside each other in order to protect peace and order in the world. Asura was the best and strongest out of all Eight Guardians, however, despite his immense strength, Asura had almost always been experiencing the terror of something. Constantly frightened, Asura sought desperately to relieve his insatiable fear. He found such comfort in dressing with a ridiculous amount of layered clothing, wrapping his face in long scarves, and finding comfort in his Weapon partner, Vajra. His fear, however, did not come to an ease, and found it difficult to trust others in the fear of betrayal. Even in Vajra, with whom he had supposedly specifically partnered with in an effort to escape his fears. Eventually, Asura came to the conclusion that the only way that he could relieve his fears was through the attainment of ultimate power. He then became so obsessed in obtaining such power that he began to consume Souls of innocent humans, even going so far as to consume Vajra himself. Eventually, Asura fell to his own Madness, and had become the first Kishin.
Asura also 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.

As the physical embodiment of Madness and fear, Asura's behavior is extremely inconceivable; one minute he seemingly has a completely calm and cool demeanor, the next he is both maniacal and senseless. He is easily frightened by things he doesn't understand. This unpredictable behavior makes him particularly dangerous. 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.


Asura also appears to possess a strange hidden sense of humor. When first awakened, rather than making a sinister or eerie comment as his first words in around 800 years, Asura anti-climatically comments, "Nakedness is so wrong!", since he, at the time, had no clothes on. Also, before exiting the Seal Shrine, Asura catches a glimpse of Free standing in front of him, to which he appears to compliment Free on his muscular appearance, admiring it by saying; "I like the Macho look.", and then launching himself through the ceiling. Even Free is dumbfounded by Asura's comment, wondering whether it was really addressed at him. Also, before escaping Death City, Asura also appears to be amused by how much Shinigami's demeanor and appearance has changed. When talking with Shinigami, Asura speaks very politely and formally, showing that he may hold some respect for his former master.

In the anime, Asura does'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 slash technique, 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.

The characters who fought Asura largely seem to dislike him, not only for his intentions of spreading madness and insanity. They also become easily annoyed by his constant preaching of irrelevant matters they do not care about or believe in. Death points this out to Asura quite often during his fight against him, and Maka constantly tells him to shut up as well.

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. In the anime, his irises are red.

Due to the circumstances surrounding his imprisonment and subsequent revival, Asura was left without a single item of clothing, either old or new. In order to compensate for this immediate need, he fashioned various wrappings out of his own skin to cover his naked body, even forming it to create the long scarves he originally wore with the same three signature eye-like markings.