The SoulTaker: Tamashii-gari

Kyousuke Date comes home one night and finds his mother dying in a pool of her own blood. In her final moments, she stabs him in the chest. After a swift recovery, Kyousuke searches for answers regarding his mother's motives, but finds more than he bargained for when he is attacked by two rival organizations: the Hospital and the Kirihara Group.

Kyousuke is surprised to discover that he has a twin sister named Runa, and both groups try to coerce information out of him about her despite his ignorance to her existence. As their assault continues, Kyousuke soon makes another discovery—he has the ability to transform into a terrifying mutant called SoulTaker. With these newfound powers, Kyousuke resolves to crush both organizations, uncover the truth behind his mother's actions, and protect Runa.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Nakahara, Komugi Main

Momoi, Haruko Japanese

Date, Kyousuke Main

Saiga, Mitsuki Japanese

Misaki, Maya Supporting

Ootani, Ikue Japanese

Mibu, Shirou Supporting

Onosaka, Masaya Japanese

Tokisaka, Runa Supporting

Neya, Michiko Japanese

Akiba, Megumi Supporting

Enomoto, Atsuko Japanese

Kirihara, Yui Supporting

Hiramatsu, Akiko Japanese

Kawase, Kouhei Producer

Yoshida, Shouichi Producer

Ogura, Mitsutoshi Assistant Producer

Shinbou, Akiyuki Director, Episode Director, Storyboard

Reviews

Dec 24, 2025

MoiraCarey

Recommended

Alternative title: 20 Wallpapers / Second
The Bible of Shinbou-ism, an intimate brainstorm from the Master. The references to Christian iconography is no coincidence. The visuals of The SoulTaker don't capture a moment, but a state of being; the goal isn't spatial realism but meaning—hierarchy, spiritual focus—and, of course, beauty. Every shot is an independent visual statement; instead of "scenes," it might be more accurate to speak of ritualistic tableaux.

A certain "humble reductionism" characterizes the director: he explains his auteur choices through the needs of the audience and the animators. The static, "flat plane" composition-centric style was necessary—according to him—to avoid visual and production inconsistencies. If ... perspective is limited, for instance, the flaws of a weaker artist (anatomy, spatial sense) don't pose a problem, just as the work of a superior drawer doesn't stand out too sharply—the look remains uniform. Much like in traditional iconography, where anonymous people of varying skill levels worked on the same church "decoration," however, the "*canon* makes the result feel as though it were created by a single hand. Thematically, it fits perfectly: the anime is built around motifs of death, the duality of body and soul, sacrifice, and redemption.

There is also a Baroque quality to how much it wants to overstimulate the senses. Characters are placed in a different light in every single scene, and I mean that literally—the anime couldn't care less about the principle of color constancy. Or rather, not entirely, because it seems that in most places (or in the story's world en bloc), there are no natural light sources, only monochromatic, artificial, and/or overly saturated lights, sometimes compounded by pitch-black environments. It might not just be cool self-indulgence; they might actually have a deep understanding of sensory perception. And besides, they managed to create one of the most visually stunning animes ever on a shoestring budget.

The SoulTaker’s character design is also noteworthy: the influence of Devilman and Evangelion’s bio-mecha is clear, but who knows what else was thrown into the mix. Another fun fact: the opening, reminiscent of the '70s and '80s, is anachronistic, while the slow, English-language, nihilistic ending is very much rooted in the 2000s.

This "ghost world" atmosphere is also very characteristic: there are no NPCs (or at most, they are replaced by text captions). In later Shinbo (and Shaft) works, the rule is usually that you exist as long as you are part of the story. Here, you only exist as long as you are in the FRAME (not even the scene)—it’s incredibly radical. One could cite several examples where, during a fight scene, the allies act as if they aren't even there; they do nothing simply because they don't fit into the frame, lol.

Episodes 1–3 (roughly) are the ones that truly "succeed" in terms of the concept. Due to the extreme stylization and the sudden, disjointed New Wave editing, you don't know what's happening, where it's happening, or to whom. Unlike many, I rarely hand out the "fever dream" title, but if anything deserves it, this is it.

Did they let the reins loose? They started without reins to begin with. The SoulTaker doesn't care about the narrative at all, which is why I don't think it's worth analyzing the story. In the second half, for unknown reasons (I find it hard to believe they were being serious), the plot becomes increasingly prominent, more dramatic, with more world-building and twists. The problem is that the chosen style and format aren't meant for this—the plot moves forward through exposition dumps (why this works in Monogatari, for example, is another topic). It’s not that the dramaturgy, storytelling, or pacing weren't terrible in the first half, but there, it doesn't interrupt that "primal force," that uncontrolled flow which, despite all its weaknesses, makes The SoulTaker a unique, outstanding audiovisual experience.

Drinking game: take a shot every time you see a cross.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Feb 24, 2018

divine1gore

Mixed Feelings

I had the nostalgia lenses on when I decided to re-watch this show recently, but unfortunately it doesn't hold up to my childhood memory, except for the ending which I remembered as disappointing. I experienced a lot of push-back for the treatment that writers gave this story, it could have been much better if there wasn't the drive to push in more fight scenes near the end. As others have pointed out the good fight scenes occur early on in the show. Character say things that they expect the viewer to take on oath, but really it just left me scratching my head: i.e. that ... Kyosuke is the taker of souls but what evidence did they even have to support that claim, why is he called the Soul Taker? Referring to earlier parts of the show we conclude that this was a code name given to him by the Kirihara group, but later on people who wouldn't likely have had any contact with the group refer to his ability to take souls. In other words this show should have been called something else, the name just sounds cool. His attacks and the transformation are never fully explained it is just something the viewer must accept. And the aforementioned soul-taking is highly downplayed as part of the story as a whole. Based on the intro song one may expect that he is a vigilante super-hero and while this is sort of the case, the artistic nature of the show is surely in full effect with all manner of Akiyuki Shinbo's directorial flair. Unfortunately there were some weird artifacts when I watched it where shadows appear blocky, although that may have been intentional, or it may have been something glitchy with the video.
The Soul Taker yanks its viewer around a lot for 12 episodes, dodging around details which could have been explained at any time by other characters, but these all important details are left out to keep the viewer interested, it’s easy to see the main plot could have been highly compressed if Kyosuke was given a straightforward answer from his father about the past, Runa, and all related details. But what is more irritating is the plot hole which is Kyosuke's life for the 17 years leading up-to him being sacrificed to activate his power during the first episode; did he always live in a world with such gotchic themes, how did he not know of the Hospital before, how did his adoptive mother shelter him so well, and what was this life like?!
*Spoilers:
The ending is the part which bothered me the most as I have already mentioned, moreover because the story has just been dragging its feet over the same theme for most of its run, to save Runa or to kill Runa, and then Kyosuke decides to take the low road much to my disappointment but then apparently through the magic of plot "saved her" and then somehow his mom is still alive during the very last scene of episode 13... What! I really wanted him to work out things with Runa properly i.e. through words and love -- not violence *sigh* -- and convince her to coexist with normal humans along with him... but no... I'm even all for their incestuous tryst given the fact that Runa has been all alone and Kyosuke has been who she has been hoping to save her, and they were separated at birth and don't remember each other. Clearly decisions on the writers end weren't being made with any care, since they must have been scrambling to finish the show, which they did but at the same time didn't present anything new that was interesting. They even reuse the same boring "what if we had a family and went to school" cliché that is also seen in Evangelion, seen here when Runa and Kyosuke spend a little time in Runa's idyllic fantasy land, which I felt was taking it safe... given Runa's confession it could have been something more sultry, seductive or interesting like maybe the two of them dating, which is hinted at but they were trying to remind the viewer that they were related which really wasn't necessary since their family was never together.
*end spoilers
The plot makes the (not so) clever excuse that the only way Kyosuke can communicated with others in his life is through fighting... what a load of bull... I almost want to fight it out with whoever decided that this even made sense.

Conclusion:
They fucked up what could have been a truly great show.
Watch it for the artwork, but don't hold your breath about the story, you will get disappointed very early on in fact, as the girl who saves Kyosuke in the first episode has the worst voice actor in Japanese of all the Seiyuu's, and her English voice ain't that great either. They voiced Kyosuke with the same actor that played Mousse from Ranma 1/2 in the English version which is interesting, this time around I watched it in Japanese, with subs from start to finish where before I only saw it dubbed--it holds up either way. I got bored so I even decided to play back both the subbed and dubbed on half my screen and compare them side by side to see the differences and they are minor at best in what the dialogue conveys.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Mar 9, 2009

Undertow

Not Recommended

The people that made this anime really tried their best to make this anime as bad as it can be, in my opinion. It's rare to run into something that ticks so many wrong boxes as this anime did with me.

I'll give you a breakdown of the scores and the reasons behind why it earned those.

Story: 1
At first glance the story seems quite interesting, however when I watched it, it quickly reminded me of several other anime and all originality of the story went completely down the drain.
It's basically an almost direct combination between Tekkaman Blade, The Guyver and the Devilman AVO. Especially when you ... get near the ending the similarities with Tekkaman are beyond obvious.
It does have a couple of interesting things but they are completely lost in the almost direct copying of the stories from the other 3 anime.
The complete lack of originality earns this anime a clear 1 for story.

Art: 2
A quick warning if you want to watch this anime, it can seriously damage your eye sight.
The art at first can be described as generic and bland, just mediocre.
However it's quickly made clear what sort of artist they approached for the making of this anime. Someone that loves static scenery that includes huge blocks dyed with primary colours. Someone that takes the lazy way out when deciding which colours would work for this anime.
The static images, the huge amount of giant blocks in primary colours and the cheap visual effects amount to a rather unpleasant viewing of this anime and earn it the rightful rating of a 2.

Sound: 5
Completely unremarkable, but then again, it could have been drowned out by the visual assault of bad artwork and the complete lack of an original story.

Characters: 2
Same with the story, the characters are also a merger between the characters from Devilman, Tekkaman and Guyver. Even the transformed form clearly reminds you of that.
Beyond the main character, the supporting characters are 2 dimensional at best. Shallow stock characters that are easily forgotten and unremarkable in every way.
There are a few characters that do seem interesting, however they get too little screentime and their background isn't really explored.
All of this amounts to a dreadful score on the characters rating.

Enjoyment: 1
It is clear to see where this score comes from. When having read through the previous explanations it's very easy to deduce that watching this anime wasn't enjoyable in any way for me.
The horrible visuals, the unoriginal story and the shallow characters made me want to bury this anime in the deepest crater on Pluto.

Overall: 3
So, overall, this anime is just plain bad.
The only redeeming factors that it has is that it only lasts 13 episodes, so it didn't stretch out the pain for very long. And that it spawned a spin-off that completely obliterates this one, which is Nurse Witch Komugi-chan. Than anime is just pure awesome, and since it was very loosely based on this anime (uses the same characters) it saves Soultaker from receiving an overall score of 1 and gets a 3 instead.

So, ending notes:
A complete rip-off of more decent anime, filled with bad visuals and shallow easily forgotten characters. The only remarkable thing about it is it's spin-off and the thought of why on earth they made this anime and launched it.

If you didn't think my review was helpful, please leave a message on my profile and explain why you thought my review wasn't helpful. That way I can improve my reviews to make them better in the future.
Thank you in advance.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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	Poll: SoulTaker Episode 13 Discussion HawthorneKitty - Aug 4, 2011	12 replies	by Darkdaxter »» Sep 3, 2025 3:05 PM
	Have ya'll watched this beyond 480p anywhere? Ronninn - May 31, 2024	4 replies	by Darkdaxter »» Sep 1, 2025 10:51 AM
	Poll: SoulTaker Episode 3 Discussion Stark700 - Sep 29, 2012	4 replies	by eblf2013 »» Aug 8, 2025 7:11 PM
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