After the end of his first manga series, B.Ichi, Atsushi Okubo created a one-shot story called "Soul Eater" published in Monthly Shōnen Gangan. Japanese readers were so fascinated by it that Okubo created two other one-shots called "Black Star" and "Death The Kid". The results were high and the editor Gangan Comics asked Atsushi Okubo to create a series from his one-shots that became the introduction chapters to the final manga series Soul Eater.
Atsushi Okubo reveals that he creates the main characters by inspiring from his personality; like the dunce for Black Star, the order for Death The Kid or the fun for Patty. Other characters like protagonists and antagonists are created from his imagination and also from his previous favorite manga, like the sun and the moon smiling over Death City are inspired from his favorite manga Dr. Slump because it used many nonliving objects as if they were humans. Unlike many shōnen manga, Soul Eater's main character is a teenage girl, Maka Albarn, because Okubo felt that readers would be more interested than with a male character. The background and design of Death City, the main town where the characters are living, is mainly inspired from Tim Burton and David Lynch films.
