by Can Tran

Created on: November 15, 2009

Maka Albarn is the main and central female protagonist of the manga series known as "Soul Eater." She is perhaps the one character that has a huge weight upon her shoulders. There are numerous reasons that Maka carries all this weight upon her shoulders. Because of these reasons, Maka makes one of the most interesting and convincing characters in Soul Eater. Also, it makes her an interesting foil to the other main protagonist and titular character of the series, Soul.

In the story, Maka is weapon meister at the Shibusen Academy as a reaper in training. She is partnered with Soul Eater Evans, who is her weapon partner. Soul Eater has the ability to transform into a scythe. The first half of the series focuses on Maka and Soul going on missions together in order to collect souls. Eventually, they get dragged into major storylines that involves battle with witches. She is one of the most powerful characters in the story. However, Maka does not start off as being powerful.

The story starts out when Maka and Soul are to collect the 100th soul. Doing so transforms Soul into an actual Death Scythe, which is the goal of all students at Shibusen. They come across Blair who is believed to be a witch. As a result, Soul devours Blair's soul. But, it turns out that Blair is mainly a cat that has strong powers and that Blair simply took one of her nine lives. Because of this mistake, Maka and Soul have to start over again. By starting over, readers get to see the developing relationship between Maka and Soul as partners and friends.

Eventually, it is revealed that Maka carries the weight of a family legacy. It is revealed that her father, Spirit, is an actual Death Scythe who has been used by numerous and prominent weapon meisters. One such weapon meister is Maka's mother. Maka has to deal with that weight. At the same time, Maka has a strained and somewhat volatile relationship with her father due to his playboy ways which caused the family to get separated.

She also gets the top grades in the class. This contrasts to Soul, who usually gets the lowest grades. While Maka and Soul are completely different, they work perfectly in sync with each other. In a sense, Maka is the true underdog character in Soul Eater. As the story progresses, Maka ends up discovering potential abilities such as the Anti-Demon Wavelength which allows her and Soul to defeat many demons and witches. Maka represents the need for constant growth and evolution due to all sorts of powerful antagonists being introduced to the story.

Despite that, Maka does have a bunch of interesting quirks. One quirk is probably subtle affections towards Soul. She is quick to "put Soul in his place." At times, she does cause harm to Soul whenever he shows attraction to Blair.

Like many of the characters in Soul Eater, Maka does keep a consistent. While Maka is interesting, her choice of clothes could be considered dull as she dresses in something similar to a girls' uniform in a private school. Personality-wise, Maka could be a bit boring. But, Maka is loyal to her friends. Plus, she has an extremely curious personality which proves to be important to Soul Eater. Overall, Maka is an interesting character let alone protagonist. She makes a perfect counterbalance to Soul Eater.

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