The Little Ogre (小さな鬼, Chīsana Oni; FUNimation "Little Demon") is a creature that appears within Soul's mind after having gotten the Black Blood within him from Ragnarok, the oni-appearing creature representing the Black Blood within him.[1]

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Personality

The Little Ogre acts not only as the manifestation of the Black Blood present within Soul, but also the subsequent madness it produces. As such he has an extremely cautious nature, concerned only with the concept of power and the goal of drawing Soul further into his intoxicating madness, which would mean that The Little Demon would be able to take Soul's body as his own. It seems he cannot lie, being a part of Soul; he is unable to keep secrets from him. However, he can distort the truth to Soul by only speaking partial truth and manipulating the manner in which he says things to him.

He also contains his composure most of the time he is seen, having the very same, creepy smile on his face at almost all times. However, he has a powerful voice when he becomes annoyed or displeased and is enraged by speaking of the Black Blood's resistance. The Ogre only seems to be excited by the use of the Black Blood, and often expresses his excitement by biting on his fingernails.

Appearance

The Little Ogre only appears in the Black Room with Soul. He appears as a horned, red imp creature in a black double-breasted suit. The creature has rather long arms and black fingernails. He has a noticably long, large nose, and completely white almond-shaped eyes. There appears to be a black mask around his eyes. He also has a wide, eerie smile and sharp teeth.

Relationships

He is a nameless little demon that resides inside Soul's soul and called "Little Ogre" by Soul, since he doesn't know his name. Created after Soul was infected with the Black Blood by Ragnarok, he is the Black Blood manifested.

The Little Ogre tends to show himself whenever Maka and Soul are on the verge of losing a battle, and constantly tries to tempt Soul into using the Black Blood's power. This would boost Soul's and Maka's abilities exponentially, yet it would also edge them closer to madness. For the most part Soul ignores the ogre's temptation, though if all options are exhausted he will give into the power, albeit briefly. It would seem the Little Ogre is concerned with Soul's survival, but this is likely only because he apparently needs Soul's body.

Soul appears to dislike the Ogre and being in the Black Room. Once, when the creature tries to invite him into the Black Room, Soul, who is seemingly irritated by this, commands him to close the door because he's 'letting in the stink'.[2]

Although the two only share a very loose connection established due to her role as Soul's partner, Maka is still influenced by the Little Ogre's presence whenever its madness is induced within Soul. Little Ogre doesn't seem to think much about Maka positively or negatively. However, for all appearances he respects Soul's dedication to her since he let Maka throw in her opinion on the use of the Black Blood's power against Crona.

History

"The Eve's Fight to the Death"

The first time the Little Ogre appears is during Maka and Soul's second confrontation against Crona, though Maka manages to find Crona's soul and convince Crona to be their friend before the Black Blood's madness could overcome both Soul and herself.

"'BREW' Tempest"

He next appears in the battle against Mosquito, where the Blood's Resonance was channelled into Kid and Black☆Star along with Maka via Soul's piano playing. This provided the group with a massive power boost, easily overwhelming Mosquito's form from 100 years ago. It still retained the same consequences though, inflicting Soul with madness. However, Soul cut off the power when he knew they couldn't win due to the current circumstances.

"Operation: Capture Baba Yaga's Castle"

The Little Ogre's next appears in Baba Yaga's castle when Soul is caught in Arachne's trap, where he mocks Soul for his weakness (though the spell is broken before he can go any further).

Later on, during the final battle with Arachne he appears again, imploring Soul to call upon his power to defeat the madness spread throughout the castle by the powerful Witch. This time, though, Soul counters him, saying it wouldn't be useful as his power wouldn't be able to reach everyone. Arachne's spider webs, which are invading the minds of everyone in the castle and causing madness, have also gotten into the soul room. However, Soul manages to turn this to his advantage by using Soul Resonance via piano playing to counter Arachne's power, defeating her without calling upon Little Ogre's power, much to the diminutive apparition's surprise.

"Mad Blood" arc

As Crona fights against Tsar Pushka and Feodor in Moscow, the release of Crona's new Black Blood ability, Mad Blood, is felt even by Soul Eater in Death City. He clutches his chest, feeling pain in the scar Crona gave him long ago.

Soul and Maka then receive an order from DWMA to accompany Franken Stein, Kim Diehl, and Jacqueline O'Lantern Dupré to assist the DWMA Moscow forces to determine how Crona transformed Tsar and Feodor into globs of Black Blood. Upon their arrival in Moscow, Soul is clutching his chest with one hand—and clutching Maka’s pigtail with the other, as he has fallen again into madness. Soul screams out of his pain, as a blast of energy erupts from his chest’s scar, as if an eye is opening. From within Soul, the Little Ogre cackles at the prospect of ruining the Death Scythe's life.

As the mad Soul fights Stein and his friends, Maka realizes that Soul's scar has reopened to the point that madness itself leaks out. Inside his soul, Soul demands that the Little Ogre explain what has happened to him—only to see the creature is no longer little but towering over him. The Ogre explains that Soul has finally become honest with himself, and he wants to hear the Weapon answer: "What kind of guy are you?"

As he faces down Soul, the large Ogre identifies the Weapon's problem: he is afraid to be more reckless and exploit the Black Blood to its potential because, even if it would make him stronger, then he would be judged for his madness. Soul hides behind excuses of his fear of madness and his desire for discipline.

This is Soul's pattern, the Ogre decides, as the weapon has always held back out of a family history in fear of never being as good as other members of his musical family, including his brother Wes. But the Ogre challenges Soul: has anyone ever actually aloud made any comparison of the Evans brothers? So long as Soul says he is not really trying, then he does not have to be judged for coming up short. If Soul had tried to compete and actually try his hardest, then he would no longer look cool. The Ogre reasons this fear is why Soul changed his last name, so not to ruin his family's reputation.

The Ogre issues a challenge: how much longer will he spin his wheels? Why not, as he has today, firm up, "grow a pair," and unleash that power? "Start playing for keeps!" the Ogre screams. "Who are you?"

Even as the Ogre has its mouth up against Soul, screaming at him, Soul clicks his tongue. To answer who he is, Soul responds, "I already know." But as the Ogre is up close to him, he sees how things really are: the Ogre never grew—he somehow is piloting a larger robotic duplicate of himself!

The Ogre leaps out of the robot, refusing to take credit for this robot: it was Soul's madness that manifested this form before the weapon. Soul counters that Ogre makes poor assumptions: the weapon changed his last name not out of fear of embarrassing his family or to run away from them. "It was to draw a line."

So the Ogre asks again: "Who are you?"

More confidently, Soul answers: "I'm the Demon Scythe Soul Eater."

The madness has ended. The Ogre is disgusted at how anticlimactic Soul's answer is, lacking "flair" or "gusto." Soul responds that "not being able to" speak with such qualities is just "part of who I am." As Soul answers, he fails to notice his meister standing in front of him until she smashes his head in with her hand in retaliation for Soul trying to act cool after tugging on her pigtails.

"The Dark Side of the Moon"

As Maka fights Asura directly, the Kishin manages to stab his hands through Maka's chest. But thanks to her resonance with Soul Eater's Black Blood, she is able to heal the injury completely, even forming a new version of the Black Blood dress armor. With these enhanced abilities, Maka uses Soul's Death Scythe form to cut into Asura and throw herself and Soul into Asura's soul. From within his soul, Maka locates Crona, who announces plans to use the Mad Blood and Brew to create a seal around the Moon, then draw all of Asura's Black Blood from his body to form a seal around the Moon to trap Asura, Crona, and the dangerous contents of the Book of Eibon.

As Maka and Soul escape Asura's body, they not only repel Asura's internal Black Blood but also seem to tear the Little Ogre away from Soul's body. In the Black Room, the floor around the Little Ogre breaks apart, as if the Black Blood that is represented by this room is leaving Soul's body. All Ogre can say is: "It's gonna be lonely", implying he is being expelled from Soul's body. Upon exiting Asura, the blackness in Maka's dress is pulled away, leaving her in a white dress while that Black Blood is combined with the rest to form the seal around the Moon. After this point, the Ogre is not seen again for the remainder of the manga, potentially no longer part of Soul.

Anime

This section contains an instance from an anime not present in the manga and/or a deviation

In the anime, the storyline is almost the same up until the battle against Mosquito for Brew. The Ogre appears once again to help Soul in the fight. As Soul plays the piano the Chain Resonance between Maka, Black Star, and Kid becomes stronger. Instead of the battle being cut short after Kid's attack, Soul continues to play the piano, him and Maka perform Soul Resonance and use the Majin Hunt ending the fight. Mosquito then escapes with the BREW he's found. He returns in the battle against Medusa Gorgon in her lair. When Crona "dies" - after saving Maka's life - via their mother, Maka falls under an uncontrollable rage that causes the Black Room to fill up with Black Blood. The Little Ogre appears and tells Soul she cannot hear him and that all he can do is sit back and take in the madness. Fortunately, Marie Mjolnir saves Franken Stein and Maka from the madness and they team together to defeat Medusa (and save Rachel Boyd). Maka and Soul use Majin Hunt to kill Medusa and rescue Rachel from Medusa's control. The Little Ogre appears again in the final fight against the The Little Ogre appears again in the final fight against the Kishin . Soul begins playing the piano. As before, the teams Chain Resonance is strong. However, this time, not too long after Soul begins to play, the ogre begins to grow in size, and soon after Soul is engulfed inside his body. After Soul collapses Maka then enters his mind in an attempt to save him. Upon entering, she finds herself in a large empty area. A door appears leading down, she enters it to find another door. Upon finding four more doors, the last one is blue. Inside she meets "Soul". This Soul shuts the door behind her stating that he is Soul. Maka then tells him that they should leave, coming up with different scenarios of escaping, with the Soul objecting to every one of them. Then he comes up with a solution. He shows Maka a blue box that looks similar to a treasure chest. He states that after activating the Black Blood, he hid his "courage" in the box, and that the only way to get out is to open the box, and only Maka can do it. A key appears in Maka's hand, and as she reflects on what she should do, she reveals that the one standing in front of her is not Soul, and that if it were Soul, he would have asked her if she had everything before shutting the door. After being noticed, the Little Ogre took his true form. He explained to Maka, that in there is the true Soul, and if the box is opened, Soul will be sucked into himself, and madness, if she doesn't, both himself and Soul will die. Even so, Maka decides to open the box, stating that she won't let Soul be pulled in. Maka saves Soul and they return to the same room that Soul is usually in. After, Soul accepts the Little Ogre as a part of himself, and then eats him whole. This is the ogre's last appearance most likely he "died" and the Black Blood was now in Soul's complete control.





Trivia

The Little Ogre's Black Room resembles the Red Room from director David Lynch's television series Twin Peaks : both rooms contain old gramophones playing music where the Little Ogre in Soul Eater and the Red Room's occupant, The Man from Another Place in Twin Peaks , perform odd dances. These details are a few of the allusions that Soul Eater creator Atsushi Ōkubo has made to Lynch's works, such as an allusion to his film Mulholland Drive in Episode 17, and the allusion to his Twin Peaks film Fire Walk with Me , its title named in the product description for Ōkubo's series Fire Force . [3]

: both rooms contain old gramophones playing music where the Little Ogre in and the Red Room's occupant, in , perform odd dances. These details are a few of the allusions that creator Atsushi Ōkubo has made to Lynch's works, such as an allusion to his film in Episode 17, and the allusion to his film , its title named in the product description for Ōkubo's series . The Little Ogre has a tendency to bite down on his fingers in moments of intense excitement (Like when Soul gives consent for power boosts via the Black Blood).

The Little Ogre is referred to as the "Little Demon" or simply just "Demon" in the Anime.

The Little Ogre seems to enjoy Swing music.

The Little Ogre also seems to reside inside Maka, or at least for a short time.

The manga features a scene where the Little Ogre grows to great size, exactly as in the anime. However, the manga version is simply the normal sized ogre sitting inside of a large mechanical imitation, this, and his comment about courage being unable to suppress madness, are clear references to the anime ending.

References