is a shōnen

Shonen

The term refers to manga marketed to a male audience aged roughly 10 and up. The Kanji characters literally mean "few" and "year", respectively, where the characters generally mean "comic"...

 manga

Manga

Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...

 by Hiro Mashima

Hiro Mashima

is a Japanese manga artist. He is most known for his fantasy manga Groove Adventure Rave, published by Kodansha's Weekly Shonen Magazine, from 1999 to 2005. The series was later adapted into an anime. However, the anime adaption was cancelled before it could complete the series.In 2003, he...

. It was serialized in Comic Bom Bom

Comic Bom Bom

was a monthly Japanese manga magazine published by Kodansha and targeted at elementary school boys. Each issue had 700+ pages, with 80 of them being full-color advertisements. Similar to its rival CoroCoro Comic, it featured tie-ins with game makers and toy makers but toward the end of its run had...

 from January 2006 to March 2006 . In the June 2007 issue the "second stage" started, this second part ended in the September issue. As of July 2007, there are 6 chapters (3 of first stage and 3 of second stage) and 1 takubon volume (consisting of the first stage).

Plot

The tale of Monster Soul takes place in the land of Elfenland where humans and monsters inhabit. The main characters are a group of monsters called the Black Airs. The Black Airs is recorded as the strongest group of the monster forces in the great war between the humans and monsters.

The first three chapters consist of three stories that do not have a main plot, but the last chapter of the "first stage" reveals a bit of the past.

In the "second stage" the Black Airs travel to Hell

Hell

In many religious traditions, a hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations...

 to help a human boy save his townspeople who are captured by the evil Tri Command.

Black Airs (闇の翼)

• Aki
  Type: S class Monster
  Race: DiaWolf

Protagonist of the story. On first look he looks like a normal human but under his hoodie jacket hides the two small horns on his head. He changes to his giant S class werewolf form when his emotions overwhelm him.

In the flashback he was a weak when he was young and his S class soul is sought after by others. His parents were "killed" by Bellze but on the defeat of Bellze their souls returned and they revived.

His weakness is that he must sleep after he uses up his soul form.

• Touran
  Type: Monster
  Race: Golem
  Golem
  In Jewish folklore, a golem is an animated anthropomorphic being, created entirely from inanimate matter. The word was used to mean an amorphous, unformed material in Psalms and medieval writing....
  
  

She has golem father and human mother. The golems have an unspoken law that says "when rain falls on the desert the golem lives, the golem will melt and die at that desert". Her father and tribe died in a rain (her mother's whereabouts unknown).

She can transform her body to sand, she is seen making part of her body to a sand harp and using sand in auxiliary roles like forming smoke screens.

She claims to be the idol of the Monster World.

• James
  Type: Monster
  Race: Frankenstein
  Frankenstein
  Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is a novel about a failed experiment that produced a monster, written by Mary Shelley, with inserts of poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Shelley started writing the story when she was eighteen, and the novel was published when she was twenty-one. The first...
  
  

An android type monster that has a Frankenstein appearance. He has weapons hidden all over his body, a monster sensor built in his eyes. Capable of flight, shooting his fists, changing to an armoured knight form which Mamii calls "James Striker System".

It is revealed that he is actually a robot developed to hunt monsters, his meeting with young Mamii in the past developed a strong relationship between the two.

His face falls off very often and he is usually seen looking for his face.

• Mamii
  Type: Monster
  Race: Mummy
  Mummy
  A mummy is a body, human or animal, whose skin and organs have been preserved by either intentional or incidental exposure to chemicals, extreme coldness , very low humidity, or lack of air when bodies are submerged in bogs, so that the recovered body will not decay further if kept in cool and dry...
  
  

The big sister of the group. Wears bandages in a fashionable way. She controls the bandages freely, using them to attack and dress wounds. She carries a giant injection needle that contains healing liquid to help recover from wounds. The group is very close to her and calls her "Mami-nee". She has a tendency to start stripping for no apparent reason.

In her younger days while she was escaping from her pursuers she came across James in lab. She helped the depressed then nameless James find a purpose in life and the two developed a strong relationship.

The four have been together since young and there was an event where Mamii saved Aki by giving her right eye in place of Aki's soul. However, she is seen to have recovered that eye by the end of "first stage"; it most likely that Aki retrieved from the monster that took it. She often worried for Aki.She is a hell-type but she prefer it be kept a secret.

• Joba
  Type: Monster
  Race: Onion

A rare species of demon highly sought after by hunters. A small demon with an onion-shaped head. Usually its only words is "kyupi".

First Stage characters

• Vargan Brothers
  Type: Human
  Job: Bounty hunter

Two bounty hunters who failed in capturing Joba and later Touran.

• Kiyo
  Type: Monster
  Race: Fairy
  Fairy
  A fairy is a type of mythical being or legendary creature, a form of spirit, often described as metaphysical, supernatural or preternatural.Fairies resemble various beings of other mythologies, though even folklore that uses the term...
  
  

An obasan

Obasan

Obasan is a novel by the Japanese-Canadian author Joy Kogawa. First published by Lester and Orpen Dennys in 1981, it chronicles Canada's internment and persecution of its citizens of Japanese descent during World War II from the perspective of a young child...

 fairy that the Black Airs encountered in the forest. Part of Bacon's rebellion group.

• Bacon
  Type: Monster
  Race: spirit
  Spirit
  The English word spirit has many differing meanings and connotations, most of them relating to a non-corporeal substance contrasted with the material body.The spirit of a living thing usually refers to or explains its consciousness.The notions of a person's "spirit" and "soul" often also overlap,...
  
  

The leader of a rebellion against humans. Brainwashed the monsters in the forest to join him. His parents were killed in the war by humans.

• Jenny
  Type: Monster
  Race: Fairy

A young fairy girl who is against Bacon's rebellion. Daughter of Kiyo.

• Garelf
  Type: Monster
  Race: Chimera
  Chimera (mythology)
  The Chimera or Chimaera was, according to Greek mythology, a monstrous fire-breathing female creature of Lycia in Asia Minor, composed of the parts of multiple animals: upon the body of a lioness with a tail that ended in a snake's head, the head of a goat arose on her back at the center of her...
  
  

A three-headed monster who wants the S class soul of Aki. In the past Mamii manage to ward them off by giving them the soul of her right eye. They came for Aki again but was defeated by Aki.

Second Stage characters

• Selshu
  Type: Human

A boy from the town Doliogram. Doliogram is attacked by the Tri Command and its people are captured by them. Selshu escaped hoping to find a hero to save his townspeople.

He was found unconscious by a river bank by the Black Airs. He was frighten at first but the Black Airs became the hero he was searching for.

It was revealed in the last chapter of Second Stage that Selshu is the prince of Doliogram.

• Pochi
  Type: Monster
  Race: Cerberus
  Cerberus
  Cerberus , or Kerberos, in Greek and Roman mythology, is a multi-headed hound which guards the gates of the Underworld, to prevent those who have crossed the river Styx from ever escaping...
  
  

The three-headed monster guarding the Hell's Gate.

• Jobo
  Type: Monster
  Race: Oni soldier

A soldier under the Tri Command.

Tri Command (三鬼游)

• Kiriko
  Type: Monster
  Race: Vampire
  Vampire
  Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person...
  
  

A female vampire. Main attack is Evil Cross from her palm. The lips tattoo at her throat is able to extend, becoming a fanged mouth to attack and suck blood.

• Frank
  Type: Monster
  Race: Skeleton
  Skeleton
  The skeleton is the body part that forms the supporting structure of an organism. There are two different skeletal types: the exoskeleton, which is the stable outer shell of an organism, and the endoskeleton, which forms the support structure inside the body.In a figurative sense, skeleton can...
  
  

Leader of the three. He captures humans by sucking them into jars, he collects souls this way and feeds them to an egg back at their hideout. An agile fighter, able to shoot dynamite sticks from the two holes on his head.

Uses the word "dynamite" frequently in his speech.

• Gaina
  Type: Monster
  Race: Rock ogre

A bulky being made of rocks. Able to disintegrate into rocks to attack and bind his opponents. His face falls off like James'.

• Bellze
  Type: Monster
  Race: Souleater

The product of the egg the Tri Command was hatching. It also ate all of the Tri Command. A huge black wolf monster which looks similar to Aki's soul form. His first word is Aki's name.

It was revealed in the last chapter of Second Stage that Bellze is a figure from Aki's past. Bellze was once a human Soulhunter and he took the souls of Aki's parents. He used the monster souls he collected and performed the secret technique of race change that turned to an egg form. With the souls the Tri Command collected Souleater Bellze emerged from the egg.

First Stage

• Chapter 1: The Black Airs!!
• Chapter 2: Monster rebellion!!
• Last Chapter: Changing thought to power

Second Stage

• Chapter 1: Helta Race
• Chapter 2: Hell District One
• Chapter 3: Gentle Weapon
• Last Chapter: Soul

Trivia

The characters from Monster Soul make cameo appearances in Fairy Tail chapter 115 as Bixlow's dolls.