n Soul Eater, meister (職人 shokunin?) Maka Albarn and her weapon partner Soul Eater are students at the Death Weapon Meister Academy (死神武器職人専門学校 Shinigami Buki Shokunin Senmon Gakkō?)—DWMA (死武専 Shibusen?) or simply the Academy for short—located in the fictional Death City,[1] in Nevada, United States. The school has many other students including Black Star with his weapon partner Tsubaki, and Death the Kid with his weapon partners (who are sisters) Liz and Patty. The school is run by Shinigami, Death himself, as a training facility for weapons and the human wielders of those weapons, the meisters.[1] Maka's goal, along with the other meisters, is to have their weapons defeat and absorb the souls of 99 evil humans and one witch, which will dramatically increase the power of the given weapon and turn them into death scythes, weapons capable of being used by shinigami.[1] In the universe of Soul Eater, witches are powerful beings and the natural enemies of DWMA, as almost all of them have a destructive nature and desire chaos.
Shortly after the start of Soul Eater, Maka and Soul Eater face off against the forces of the witch Medusa, who forces her child, the meister Crona and Crona's weapon Ragnarok, to collect non-evil human souls to transform Crona into a kishin (鬼神?), an evil demon god. Medusa and her cohorts attack the DWMA on the eve of the festival commemorating its founding with the intention of reviving Asura, the first kishin who nearly plunged the entire world into madness before being sealed beneath the DWMA by Shinigami. Despite the combined efforts of Maka, Black Star, and Death the Kid, Medusa's group successfully revives Asura, who leaves to spread chaos around the world after a brief battle with Shinigami. However, Medusa is seemingly killed by the meister and DWMA teacher Franken Stein in the process, while Crona surrenders to the DWMA and goes on to enroll there and befriend Maka.
As a result of Asura's spreading madness, Medusa's older sister Arachne comes out of hiding after 800 years. Arachne reforms her organization Arachnophobia, which poses itself as a serious threat to the DWMA. The DWMA calls in the death scythes around the world to aid in the fight against Arachnophobia. During this time, Medusa resurfaces with her soul in the body of a young girl, and forms a truce with the DWMA so they can annihilate the threat of Arachnophobia together. The DWMA students and Medusa's entourage infiltrate Arachnophobia's headquarters where Maka defeats Arachne, only for Medusa to betray the DWMA, possessing Arachne's body and brainwashing Crona into rejoining her. Meanwhile, Death the Kid is captured by Noah, an enemy posing as the former meister Eibon. Following this, the meister unit Spartoi is formed at the DWMA to take down Noah, and Maka finally succeeds in turning Soul Eater into a death scythe.