goodness gracious

Given that we know the identity of Black Star's father, but not his mother, and what his birth name was. I think it's safe to say Black Star was there the night his father was collected by the DWMA. We're going to put a pin in this.

We also don't know who takes Black Star in, just that Sid is the one holding him. He and Spirit agree to take him along (interesting that Maka's mom isn't present here)

In Chapter 41 we see a dream sequence from Maka's POV that appears at first to be a memory of when she first met Black Star (with Spirit immediately being possessive). A common HC from this is that he and Maka were childhood friends. I'm going to go ahead and greenlight that based on Soul's reaction to Black Star and Maka bickering during the group resonance fight in chapter 33. Put a pin in this too.

Also important to note, the person Black Star is training with here is not Sid. This makes me more inclined to believe that he was a ward of the school as a whole instead of appointed a guardian, similar to how Chrona was given a room in the dungeons and allowed to train at the school. This means whatever connections Black Star has, he has to make himself.

Chapter 8, Black Star meets Tsubaki. Noteably, this flashback is from Black Star's POV. At the entrance ceremony, he jumps up and introduces himself before anyone has a chance to speak. He remembers everyone clearing out, except Tsubaki, where he tells her she's the first person to recognize him. So he clearly knows people don't like him.

Something notable here, this is after Masamune became a kishin egg. So Tsubaki, the younger sister of a murderer is the only one who recognizes Black Star on sight as not responsible for what his family did, but they don't know that about each other at that point and do not discuss their families with one another.

(For some added angst, Maka isn't present in the crowd either. So I think it's safe to say this might have been around the time she and Soul were meeting).

Back to Chapter 57 from Sid's POV, people have been yelling horrible shit at Black Star out of nowhere, calling him a murder. Sid tells Black Star at this time that he was born at the DWMA (which is a lie) and this is in response to Black Star saying a bunch of people 'noticed' him.

He craves attention, positive attention. I think it's telling that when Sid almost goes into a lecture on how Black Star hasn't collected a single soul, Black Star is quick to try and bring up something 'good' he did. It's classic fawning, a defense mechanism to diffuse conflict.

Tsubaki backs up this reading later in chapter 7. He only starts laughing and being extra cheerful when Tsubaki mentions people hate him.

The other thing is, at some point between meeting Maka (when he had stars for eyes) and the mission with Masamune, Black Star found out the following...

He's from a family of infamous hired assasins

The DWMA killed everyone except him. If there were any other children in the family at the time, they are presumed dead.

His parents were 'bad guys'. Not kishin eggs, just 'bad guys'

This is all in stark contrast to what we see Sid tell Black Star. So either someone at the school told him or (more likely) this is stuff he picked up from the heinous stuff shouted at him. The anime implies they were kishin eggs, an easy assumption to make given the images that appear when Black Star talks about them. This is never confirmed though, so we'll put a pin in this too.

The Death of Sid

One last thing before we get into the start of the manga. The anime implies Sid was alive at the start of the series, but the manga doesn't. Soul spreads the rumor of a teacher dying as if they hadn't met him, so I think it's also safe to say Sid is already dead at the start of the series.

We don't see Black Star's reaction to the news of the rumors going around the school. The most we hear from him on the matter in chapter one is that Sid's grave looks like 'a normal grave', and that he's willing to pee on it as a sign of disrespect, with his actions being comparable to Soul's (someone who just attended the school). Later in the manga we see a few flashbacks with the two, but it's unclear if this was because they were close, or if Sid was their homeroom teacher for the previous year.

One interesting thing to note though, is Black Star doesn't have soul perception. He's trusting what the people around him say, that the zombie in front of them is Sid, and that he has the same soul. Sid also continually references that the way he is acting is different from when he was alive. Anything that Black Star is able to perceive about Sid is different from before. Whatever relationship these two might have had beforehand is fundamentally changed by his death, and there is a distance between them now. He's not the one found giving Black Star advice or comfort during the manga and more importantly, Black Star doesn't go to him seeking this either. 

It's a shame the manga didn't get into this more. He briefly mentions not being able to see souls like Maka or Kid, and for once it's not framed as a brag, but him acknowledging a limitation for him. In a world where people casually compare the strength of souls by what they look like, being blind in this area could be quite isolating, especially when coming to terms with things like death. He wouldn't have the closure or reassurance other have, especially when it comes to the strength of his own soul. Everything is taken on blind faith.

We see this come up a lot during chapter 7 and 8, where Black Star is constantly guessing who the uncanny sword is, mentioning the rain is throwing off what little ability he has to sense who a kishin is. I do find it funny he's trying not to rely on Tsubaki to point out who her brother is. Like he just has to have the first word in the confrontation and divert Masamune's attention away from Tsubaki.

So Black Star, when the series begins, has lost the closest thing he had to a parental figure. He's been orphaned all over again with Tsubaki to rely on.

Now, it's time to pull out all those pins.

Mifune as a symbol for White Star

Alright remember how White Star was likely protecting Black Star at the expense of other people's lives when he died? How we never have confirmation if the Star Clan were kishin eggs? That the Star Clan was willing to do anything for money?

Lord Death tells Black Star if he collects a witch and her body guard, Black Star will get what he wants, to make Tsubaki a death scythe. Mifune's soul is equivalent in power to 99 kishin eggs, he is on LD's shit list as a villain who serves someone evil. Before becoming Angela's bodyguard, he was hired help for the yakuza. It is rather interesting he too is never stated to be a kishin egg, just a 'bad guy'.

Mifune could have killed Black Star, but multiple times tries to let Black Star go. When Black Star comes face to face with the fact that Mifune is breaking LD's rules to protect a child, he chooses to let them go against LD's orders. (note - Angela was up for reaping all the way through the Baba Yaga arc).

I find it also interesting that we don't see Black Star and Tsubaki report to Lord Death afterward like with Maka and Soul's introduction. So we don't know how much Black Star shared about how the mission went. All we know is that Black Star doesn't agree with LD these two should be reaped, or have done anything wrong. Given his past, the fact he might be inclined to assume their 'bad guy' status has been exaggerated is not out of the question.

The anime chooses to include Black Star giving back the soul of Alcapone and co, but in the manga they're no where to be found. We have no idea what Mifune did with the souls of the kishin eggs after he killed them. Given Mifune is on the list, it's possible he ate them. As we see later with Masamune, not all kishin eggs look inhuman.

(We also don't know the rules of a non-weapon eating a kishin egg)

Masamune 

The fact that Tsubaki's brother is a kishin egg, I think, is the main reason Black Star is willing to open up to Tsubaki about who his family is. Even so, he goes into as little detail as possible. We're not sure what he knows or how he found out his family was executed by the DWMA. What he does try to do, is drive home to Tsubaki that she's not responsible for what her brother did. 

I also find it interesting Tsubaki asks Black Star if he's mad at the DWMA for putting his family on the list (perhaps she is too?) and immediately she clocks that Black Star is lying to her about how everything has been affecting him. His default response is to deflect and distract. It's also important to note that this is one of the only times he brings up his family of his own accord. Typically, the shadow of White Star is what spurns any thoughts he has about his family, a response to someone's assumption he's exactly like his father.

Black Star doesn't ask questions about who the Star Clan was, or look into where they had been before taking missions, or dwell on what people say to him as an avatar of the Star Clan.

At his core, Black Star is actively trying not to think about anything to do with his familly. He's suffered a lot of physical and verbal abuse as a child from complete strangers. He works for Lord Death on the clearest path to redemption he could be, and still no one trusts him, be it teacher or strangers on the street.

He's only 13.

After defeating Masamune, Black Star stops looking for other/stronger weapons to partner with. When there's a threat that he can't use the Uncanny Sword mode, picking a different partner never comes up. We'll put a pin in this for now.

Jealousy over Kid

The manga makes good use of the rule of threes when it comes to Black Star challenging Kid to a fight. From the very beginning, Black Star wants to surpass the gods, which in this case are real people. Celebrities in fact, beloved celebrities hearlded as the ultimate symbol of good in the world of SE. He wants to be on their level socially and that is far more achievable than, say, waiting to see when it's been long enough for people to stop hating him. Surpassing a god would be concrete proof he's not White Star, he's better in every way. 

The first fight with Kid ends in a draw. Black Star can't overpower Kid, but Kid is human enough to also fail. That makes Black Star one step closer to surpassing 'a god' and I think that's where people in the manga start to doubt his motivations again. Kid is not Lord Death, he's just some demi-god that started poking around the school. Canonically he does not have the authority or social status his father has, and strays close to the territory of surpassing someone for the sake of beating them. It's no surprise, with his motivations constantly in question, that Black Star is quick to anger on the subject.

A String of Failures

I think we can all agree that Black Star is over confident in his abilities for most of the manga. What follows the brief victory over Masamune (which Tsubaki did all the work on) a pattern starts to emerge. Black Star, as he is, isn't good enough to keep up with his friends.

Black Star looses control of the uncanny sword during the fight with Free. Not only loosing, but Maka almost died during this fight while he was incapacitated.

During the written exam, Black Star studies the whole time, doing the ADHD kid thing of trying to punish himself if he gets an answer wrong. (he does this before every test according to Tsubaki) The night before the exam he panics and tries to steal the answers, only to get caught by Stein immediately.

As the last line of defense, Black Star failed to prevent Asura's revival, literally at the last second. If he had cut the right thing, Asura and the domino affect of madness would have remained contained.

After Maka gets paralyzed, he's the first that wants to track down Arachne for revenge, only to get stopped by Mifune and his inability to withstand the uncannny sword. (put a pin in this)

By this point, we see Black Star fighting with the spirit of the uncanny sword and referred to as 'demon like' in his pursuit of power. He's desperate for a single sign of improvement, that all his hard work is going towards something (keep in mind he continually rushes the training exercises Stein gives him) and then in ch 33, Maka blames him for being the reason the group can't resonate and tries to kick him off the team.

I am not saying Black Star was right either in this fight. He said some nasty things to her. However, I must remind you, Black Star can't see souls, while Kid and Maka can. It makes sense it would take some trail and error to get it right, and it's not his fault there's added urgency to the fight. The last few times we've seen Maka on a mission where Black Star couldn't help she...

-Watched Soul get eviscerated and almost die (plus a fun blood curse) thanks to a witch

-Was thrown off a bridge and almost died thanks to a witch

-Got paralyzed by a witch

I don't think Black Star calling her out for being thoughtless charging into battle alone is out of line, especially when the call is coming from inside the house. She literally punches him for insinuating she's doing the same reckless stuff he's doing. They both need help they don't want or think they need and they end up punching each other over it, with Tsubaki as a mediator.

Additionally, if he fails to use the uncanny sword mode as one of the only people able to resist it in the first place, the legacy of the Uncanny Sword will end at Masamune's rampage. It will always be a curse that kills anyone it touches (foes and miesters alike) that Tsubaki will be forced to bear alone.

Is it a powerful/cool new mode she has?

Yes, but I don't think that's why he's so single minded on taming it and using it to hunt kishin eggs with. A quest for power is the deflection, the palettable explanation he can give to anyone who asks.

The Baba Yaga Arc

The second fight with Kid is right after he's told he can't use the uncanny sword. Not just that, but that his soul has been severely damaged by it. Keep in mind, Black Star can't see souls, he's been told this and expected to trust it's true. It's the first time something disproves his personal theory that he could be better than someone like Kid. His body and soul are not on the same level as his peers and his quest to do so has actively made both weaker (as will continue to do as he ages). It puts more urgency on this need to prove himself, and he immediately goes to challenge Kid.

(Also he just has the nasty habit of testing if an injury is really as bad as he's been told. He did this when Maka was paralyzed as well, drawing on her face and trying to drag shit into her bed that would scare her and make her want to move away from him)

His soul is too weak to execute a soul menance. He looses to Kid. There's a chance he won't recover from this. His soul might have been permanently damaged, which if he's too weak to fight, could mean loosing his position as a meister altogether. He could get kicked out of the DWMA. Between all of this and Sid comparing him to White Star, he demands Kid execute him. I can't shake the deliberate parallels of Lord Death putting the Star Clan on the list, and Black Star asking for the same judgement from Kid.

He is benched after this. Tsubaki takes him to Japan and I really, really wish this part wasn't glossed over with a montage/flashback. What we do see reminds me of Kiki's Delivery Service. Showing Black Star actually acting like a regular kid for once and the slow healing of his soul. It's also Tsubaki's first time being home after her brother's death. We get so little downtime with theses characters.

Chapter 49 is gives us a brief glimpse of a conversation Black Star has with Tsubaki's dad about how he's starting down the same path Masamune went down. Black Star asks him "Are you saying I should just sprout roots out of my ass and plant myself in the ground somewhere?" Literally considering retiring from being a miester the only other option for him. I do think being compared to someone other than his father and seeing Tsubaki choked up finally opens the floodgates for him to look at what he's really been doing, running from the path his family assigned to him by name.

(note - It's really easy to change your name at the DWMA. That means he's choosing to keep this name, even knowing what it means)

He asks for the sword to judge him. Another plea for external validation other that he, as he is, was worth saving in the first place. There had to be some grander reason he's the only surviving member of the Star Clan other than LD waiting for him to be old enough to kill.

To which the spirit tells him "I see a boy so overcome with despair that he can not even stand."

The symbol of taking something with only pain and tragedy in the past and turning it into something that protects people is his underlying goal, and what eventually wins the spirit of the sword over in the end. Black Star resolves to use the power to wield the uncanny sword to 'clear the regrets of the souls' trapped in the uncanny sword. It's the only time he's acknowledged the feelings of the victims of Masamune, perhaps the same goes for the victims of the Star Clan. "-the path of a warrior who brings the dead back to life".

Mifune's Death

With all of Black Star's talk of not being a demon, only to have him fight Mifune and kill him is something fans have often considered contrary to the trajectory of his arc.

Mifune has a sympathetic motivation in protecting Angela, he deliberately avoids harming the students of the DWMA, he seems to generally avoid combat when he can. Only, he agreed to work for Arachne, someone that has directly harmed multiple children before and during his service with her. He first hand killed several adult members of the DWMA on more than one occasion, including an attempt at killing Sid and Nygus.

Before Angela, he worked for pre-kishin eggs that hurt innocent people, and he never stopped working for people doing the same things. Angela has normalized violence, and is missing a childhood. Black Star spared his life twice hoping Mifune would do what was best for her. Tsubaki begged him to be a teacher instead. Despite all of them, Mifune did not veer off the path of killing people for money. Which is why I think he's a stand in for White Star and the Star Clan ideology.

If Black Star let Mifune go a third time, the same would happen again. More people would be hurt and Angela would be the excuse for why he had to do what he was doing. It makes sense for this kind of foe to be the one Black Star faces after a whole arc about how easily it is for someone to get tunnel vision with a sword and hurt innocent people. They are two sides of the same coin. One's personal goal should not come at the expense and suffering of others.

Black Star also makes good on his promise to live in service of the people who fall victim tobthe uncanny sword. He makes sure Angela is protected. He even projects his feelings about growing up at the DWMA onto her. His first inclination when she asks questions is to be honest instead of lying about why she has to stay with them.

I really, truly feel what Black Star's arc suffers from the most is a lack of downtime. As the series progresses, he and Tsubaki are seen outside of combat scenes less and less, often being used as comic relief instead of instead of having a full arc in the second half. But I'll save that half for another time.

This arc also his more biblically focused than prior arcs (taking place in the book of the seven deadly sins) a theme that shows up more heavily in Fire Force. Which around volume 20/21, the art style shifting again, this time more toward FF with more defined cheeks and a variety of shapes in the eyes.

I think this is a major reason why the back half of the manga feels rushed. SE was the money maker and Ohkubo was itching to do something new. Novelty and the 'rule of cool' are major factors in his creative process, and SE definitely suffers from that lack of focus. The biggest symptom being Black Star and Kid's arcs being cut down combined into one story line.

THE TIME SKIP

The other reason I bring all of this up is Ch 62 opens with a time skip, but because of the art style shift, it's hard to tell how long it's been since Kid was kidnapped. This point alone is debated often among fans.

It was a short enough time for Black Star to still be injured and requiring healing. So it's probably closer to weeks rather than months/years.

Ch 61 closed on a cliffhanger of Black Star and co being in an elite DWMA group formed to chase after Kid, with Ch 62 reestablishing where all the characters are.

Paralleling Ch 1, Maka and Soul have their last soul, for real this time. The Thompsons have been training solo, reestablishing that before kid they were a tough as nails team.

Black Star is now taking care of Angela. She's brought along to his training matches and seems interested in watching him. It is also brought up him not wanting to let go of Mifune's memory could be interfering with Kim's healing magic (put a pin in this). Multiple sessions have not done anything abt the gash (not a scar yet, it's still open at this point)

Note compared to previous duels, in the duel with Patty, Black Star seems overly worried about the safety of the person he's fighting. Now that he's killed someone, though still overconfident, he seems worried he might go overboard on accident and hurt someone more than necessary. So we're getting some hints that his next focus is more about control, rather than being the strongest.

His training with Stein echoes this, exploring ways he can use his power without over exerting himself like he was after fighting Mifune. (Yay for Stein, he's been trying to teach Black Star this all damn series) During their first fight, Stein used a technique that blocked wavelength based attacks by adjusting his wavelength, I'm curious if that's also something Black Star was trying to learn here.

The other thing that gets brought up is that Black Star has been spying on the teachers to keep tabs on the situation with Kid. So after fighting for Angela to stay at the school and Kid going missing on a mission, he's less trusting of the adults in the room now.

Liz and Tsubaki talk abt how Maka's not acting like herself. Unlike during the group resonance arc, Black Star trusts Maka will figure things out on her own. Liz refers to it as 'burnout syndrome' but Black Star doesn't seem to agree that Maka's at her limit just yet (later proved to be true during the fight with Gopher)

I'd like to point out that we don't know who else Liz is referring to as suffering from burnout. It could be either herself or other people on the team, she seems to think people in general are pushing themselves too hard to get ready to go after Kid. Another element that suggests it hasn't been that long since Kid went missing.

FINDING CHRONA

Black Star is tasked with finding Medusa and remarks it's odd Maka wasn't sent on the mission instead because...

A) Maka has soul perception and a fancy death scythe

B) Maka's had a vested interest in finding Chrona

Again we see Black Star questioning the adults in charge. Tsubaki tries to rationalize the decisions being made, but she goes unheeded. Black Star also, interestingly enough, brings up on sight to Chrona that acting the way they are would make Maka cry and he's pissed about this. He calls what they did a betrayal of Maka's trust. I think his refusal to forgive Chrona is what ruins Tsubaki's attempts at negotiations.

He puts into practice the things he learned with Stein in Ch 63, dodging more, saving his energy, and lessening physical contact when using a soul menace attack. The dude is finally listening to people who try to teach him.

I do think it's important Black Star be the one to confront Chrona at this moment. Since Chrona says they are alone, and that's why they had to do what they did, and Black Star doesn't buy it. He immediately rejects that as an excuse, since he also grew up alone. If Chrona really needs someone other than Medusa to rely on they could rely on him (or Maka). Chrona rejects this.

Shit hits the fan, and Black Star uses the confusion to capture a witch.

Then, he uses that as an excuse to bust in on a private meeting the adults are having with other captured witches. Dude knew this was going on, because he's been listening to what they've been planning as far as Kid's rescue goes this whole time. Bro serious brought in the thing that tipped the scale into going into the book of Eibon, it's Eruka's spell that does the trick.

SALVAGE

I'm going to skim through a lot of this arc, just because the first 5 chaps are gags, with the 6th focusing on Maka and Soul. Once they get to Greed, Goop convinces Kid to let Black Star into the inbetween where they are to test out his new powers. Like, Black Star says he wants the power to bring back Kid, but the book several times says that he's the only one allowed through because he was invited.

It's hardly character driven, and I can feel the hand of the author trying to make it so Black Star and Kid can have their third 1 v 1 battle to fulfil the rules of threes (with the past two battles being a draw, and in Kid's favor respectively). Also adds to the contrived concept that Kid would invite him in as an equal at this point, as far as the story is concerned, he wiped the floor with Black Star and then Black Star got mortally wounded fighting someone else. He wasn't a threat to pre-madness Kid.

But, we gotta rush through this, have one line from Black Star that he thought of their last fight as a wakeup call, and double down on this new characterization that Black Star is no longer clamoring for power/ego/recognition, but the one who keeps other powerful people in check.

Ch 77 parallels the confrontation with Chrona, with Kid saying that Black Star is 'too big', a roadblock to whipping out the world into nothingness. Which is an elevated reaction to how messed up the situation outside of the book has become and the hopelessness of never being able to fix it.

Black Star is sucked into madness, denouncing any deeper motivations other than the strength to take down a foe. It's unbridled optimism against nihilism. With Kid arguing things are too messed up to be fixed and Black Star refusing to believe anything is impossible, that there are things worth fighting for. That Kid's humanity, his imperfections, are what make him admirable.

Black Star survives combat, but they appear evenly matched. A lot of harmony, symmetry and balance references are thrown around. The power Black Star seeks is the ability to build a better world. It's building off of his initial goal of restoration and redemption. Everything can be made better with enough willpower.

After this we're immediately launched into more combat scenes with no down time for the characters to unpack anything from the book of Eibon. This is what leads me to believe that Ohkubo considers Black Star's second arc finished at this point.

Black Star does not show up in Vol 20, he goes on a short mission in Ch 88 with Maka, a fun little nod that all of them are hunting the White Whale from Moby Dick and foreshadowing that Asura's on the moon (madness is 'thicker' the higher up they go) and then it's straight into...

THE WAR ON THE MOON

When I said there was less downtime compared to arc one, I wasn't kidding. We're in the finale of the manga already. Everyone argues about what to do about Chrona and Maka stumbles into finding where Asura is instead.

In Ch 90, the kids are asked to write wills with Black Star saying he doesn't want to think about that or force his way onto the Asura mission. "We just gotta tackle the mission we've been given." I think this is supposed to show him making good on his promise to support Kid's decision, but it's clunky and sandwiched in between two major plot beats where he wouldn't say that. It's an odd choice.

There are also a lot of brief scenes touching on what was brought up post time skip and go hand in hand with him taking care of Angela. LD and his old rulings are wrong, and they're the ones who should be calling the shots now that things have changed. At which point, they abandon the DWMA uniform for their own person/modified uniforms and decide they should actually go to the moon.

The B-team legit just, walks off after this.

Black Star and Maka are just... physically trying to get themselves to the moon without a ship. They do this for 3 chapters while other stuff is happening (like Kid's trial against the witches)

There's just a lot of missed opportunities, with the main cast being separated and present for blips, just to say what they're doing next. From these we can glean Black Star's listening to people more and trying to strategize, but it's brief single lines and widely spaced out.

THE DARKSIDE OF THE MOON (Chrona)

We finally get to circle back to an earlier character moment. The fact that Black Star thinks Maka has to be the one to deal with Chrona. Given how Maka's reacted to abandonment and the divorce throughout the manga, it makes sense why he'd think this is something Maka needs to do.

He's okay with someone else taking the spotlight if that's what's best for the people involved (echoing how he let Tsubaki handle Masamune)

It's paired with a moment of Maka realizing how often Black Star has been there to protect her throughout the entire series. It ties a neat bow on her earlier frustration with not understanding him, she gets it now. (also I find it funny his whole beef with Chrona stems with how it affected Maka, not him or even the DWMA as a whole)

It's nice that a lot of Black Star's second arc is mostly about him doing things for other people: Kid, Maka and Angela in the background. (It kills me Tsubaki is left out of this, but she spends so much of the back half of the manga in weapon form commentating on what's going on, it's so sad). There's more emphasis on him shielding other people in group fight scenes and listening to other people's ideas. We have growth.

THE DARKSIDE OF THE MOON (Asura)

Alright, circling back to a point I made in Part 1, Black Star wants to redeem the reputation of the demon sword. It is not lost on me, that the move he makes to try to kill Asura with, is an infinity blade style technique (reminiscent of Mifune) and named after Tsubaki's brother. He really tried to do something here, bringing up the guilt he had over failing to stop Asura's revival and that this would fix everything.

He fails, but the multiple swords follow him around for the rest of the fight.

He argues with Asura that humans aren't weak, that he's not trusting blindly anymore, and that he's trying to lift the regrets of those who came before him.

And here's where we're going to pull out that pin.

Kim's healing spells not working when Black Star feels they shouldn't. Resisting Chrona's screech beta. Repelling the madness from the Book of Eibon. Dude is resistant to wavelength techniques now. Something that had previously been a weakness (a dull spiritual sense and not gelling with other souls) is now a strength he can use, regardless of how powerful the person using it is.

On the 3rd time trying to save Maka this fight, Black Star's left arm gets pulverized and his spine is shattered. He tells Tsubaki sheer muscle and willpower is what keeps him standing at this point.

He and Kid hold Asura back while Maka goes in after Chrona. When they realize Asura's trying to seal all of them inside, Black Star attacks Asura one last time. Rule of threes again, the one time he strikes Asura to protect someone else, he succeeds. (Bonus points for it being the Mifune/Masamune swords that save people)

With Kid's help they keep Maka away from the black blood sealing up the moon.

EPILOGUE

Hear me out.

Minus all the moon is a boob stuff, there is something here.

Black Star continues to train everyday, but this time it's framed as a positive thing, as is the inhuman like abilities he's mastered. He's no longer being compared to a murderer/demon, but the likes of Kid, like he always wanted. He also gets to be happy about this, instead of bitterly pushing boulders up hill.

He hasn't lost who he was in this quest to become stronger. Angela is with him still, this time training alongside him, and I do believe this is kinda a way of healing his inner child. Like he projected onto Angela a lot, and here she is bad a magic, and he's not looking down on her or saying it's impossible to be better at it. All he does is say he has to be a better person for her. Wish we got more of this tbh.

I'm guessing Kim healed him, since he's walking around in the final pages. However, with him learning to levitate, there are many fan theories that part of his training was learning to walk again with the help of Kim or Stein.

He also finally has fans requesting duels from him (instead of him chasing people down, like at the beginning of the series). Some of them even have arm bands similar to what he and Tsubaki wear.

CONCLUSION

There are so many holes in Black Star's second arc where things happen off screen, or are summarized. That leaves a lot of holes for fanon to continue the development in a variety of directions. Arc two leaves the door open for a softer/mature Black Star in later years.

Based on what is shown on screen, I do feel that he's trying to make a better effort to be empathetic of others, supporting other people when it's their turn in the spotlight. His relationships with Maka and Kid have softened considerably, though he's still used as a comic relief character in scenarios. If he got it 100% right after a few weeks/months, it would feel too OOC.

His second arc is considerably weakened by not exploring his relationship with Angela, outside of dragging her to training sessions. The fact Tsubaki doesn't get a follow up arc when the two people she's killed now are people she knew and tried to help change before their executions leaves her completely stagnant for the rest of the manga. We only really see Black Star on missions, or getting back from missions, unlike before where there were tests and training exercises.

With less team missions: he, Kid and Maka also have less time to interact with each other. There are no new conflicts they have to solve together, it's straight to Asura and Chrona.

This arc, I believe, is where anime only and manga only fans stop seeing eye to eye on who Black Star is. And even manga fans argue on how much Black Star's bragging is cope versus genuinely believing his own hype. It is in these blank spaces that fanfic takes his character and runs in two different directions.

A) Black Star never changes

B) Black Star continues in the direction arc 2 sets him on, but never fully delivered.