Johann Faust VIII

Johann George Faust VIII(ファウストVIII世, Fausuto Hassei) is a fictional character in the manga and anime series of Shaman King. He is a necromancer and an ally of Asakura Yoh.

Appearance
Faust VIII has a number of traits in his physical appearance that makes him stand out from the other characters in Shaman King. For example, he has discolored lips and permanent bags under his eyes from lack of sleep. He is also extremely thin due to malnutrition. Since Eliza passed away, Faust barely ate and have told Yoh during their first fight that he eats only the minimum necessary to stay alive. Along with his height, these lend him an intimidating presence. Another very noticeable trait is the different color skin sutured onto his chest and torso. This doesn't appear to inconvenience him in any way, but, only makes him look more scary. Amidamaru claims that Faust reeks of death.

Faust have his own battle uniform, made by Anna. It consists of a white, half-torn shirt with a pointy collar and manchetes. He wears black pants which is cut off at the knee, with a pouch filled with medical supplies strapped to each thigh. On his back is an advertisement for Funbari Onsen.

When sitting in his wheelchair, he wears his usual clothing, a large coat, a top hat and a blanket to hide his missing legs. He usually wear his skeleton medium in chains attached to his arms and hidden underneath his overcoat and Eliza's orignal skull either resting in his lap or hiden under his hat. In the second round, there's a flag attached to his wheelchair that's another advertisement for the Onsen.

Personality
Faust is usually a very detailed and patient person who thinks scientifically unless the matter concerns his beloved Eliza. He does not tolerate interruptions while working, an example was having Eliza keep the X-Laws at bay while he attempted to help Jeanne, and even less any criticism, insults or threats directed at Eliza. Despite he doesn't get upset when someone insults him.

Faust is the embodiment of dedication; he has given up everything for his wife and is willing to do anything to protect and take care of her. It is this single-mindedness and selflessness that gives him his great strength in the Shaman Fight. Beyond all the mental instability, emotional suffering and somewhat gothic moods, his greatest strength comes from his pure heart; pure because he knows that he only lives to love and protect his dear Eliza.

Faust is an insane but incredibly brilliant medical doctor who delights in saving lives. Naturally, his work reveals facets of his personality. In the anime, he cures his opponents' son after defeating them, despite many other doctors having previously given up on the boy. When he treats Jeanne of the X-laws, he does so with zeal that nears madness. During the time in between matches, he is usually reading medical books, and feeds himself breakfast, lunch, and dinner through an I.V. line.

Abilities & Powers
Necromancy, the art of reviving the bodies of the deceased, is Faust's most important shamanistic technique. He is able to animate large numbers of human and animal skeletons, but cannot by any means, arcane or scientific, bring back the dead. It should be noted, though, that during the finals of the Shaman Fights, Faust does indeed master the art of resurrection, allowing him to actually revive the dead, as long as their bodies are not damaged beyond repair.

To animate the remains, typically skeletons, he uses the skill Bone Dead Reborn, which calls nearby spirits to inhabit buried skeletons, which he can then fully command. Because Faust specifically specializes in necromancy, he can do this with only minimal furyoku, giving each skeleton only enough to allow it to move.

His skeletons have a powerful vice-like grip, and each skeleton has the strength of an adult male. Even his opponent in the preliminaries, Asakura Yoh, could not break free of the grip until a surge of pure desperation gave him barely enough strength to escape.

His strongest attack is called the "20-Ton Calcium Giant," which combines thousands of skeletons into an enormous giant, which Faust can manipulate with his spiritual power He is also able to use the bones lying in graves to create cages to encase opponents.

Faust's mastery of the medical arts allow himself to patch up his own wounds in the middle of combat. He can do (often painful) things no normal doctor can do to themselves due to the fact he is a heavy user of morphine. Before every fight, he pumps enough morphine into his system to make him feel completely numb for a few hours, which allows him to repair any damage to his body without the hindrance of pain. One instance of this was when Yoh broke his leg during their fight, and instead of letting the bone heal on its own, Faust tore the broken bone right out of his leg and had Eliza bring him another similar in size. Afterwards, Faust replaced his missing bone and was able to stand within minutes. A second instance was when the shamans were dropped out of a plane to be tested on how they would survive the great fall. Faust passed by Horohoro, laughing about how he had injected so much morphine that he would not die from the impact. He would just let himself fall, stitch himself back up, and be on his merry way.

Among other abilities, he seems to be a talented singer. He is first seen at the river bank during the start of the second round, singing about Eliza and how he lost her and later, when fighting Radim, he successfully copied the attributes of the Patch Song to create an advertisement for the Funbari Onsen, called "Funbari No Uta" to energize himself and his teammates. The song seems to work, and afterwords he is able to revive himself, a feat he had earlier stated was impossible due to lack of Furyoku.

While fighting his way through the Plants, Kyōyama Anna looked through the Furyoku values of Faust and the others. There it is revealed that his Furyoku is about 12,500.

Shamanic Magic

 * Bone Dead Reborn: using the basic principle of his necromancy he uses his furyoku to bring forth skeletons that are buried in the ground.


 * Bone Shell: using the skeletons from bone dead reborn he creates a massive hollow shell of bones. This defense is rather weak as Yoh was able to buste through it with little effort.


 * Skull Scrummage: Faust moves the skeletons from bone dead reborn in a high speed line like football scrimmage.

Spirit

 * See More: Eliza Faust|Frankensteiny

Eliza is Faust's first, only, and one true love. Sadly, she developed a fatal disease as a child, which would eventually have torn her away from Faust. As the only woman to care for himself, he, in return, slaved over his studies to find a cure for her, which he did find. After her recovery, they married each other and opened a clinic together. She and Faust had a happy life together, which was however cut short, by a burgulary. A robber, breaking into their clinic at night, shot Eliza, who was the only one in the clinic at the time. This wound went straight through her brain, instantly killing her. During the story, her revival is Faust's dream, which is why he works to become Shaman King. As Faust grows stronger, she becomes more lifelike. Although he was unable to revive her yet, Anna was able to summon her spirit back to Earth allowing Faust to communicate and see her. Because of this Faust's power became even stronger because of the fact that he now uses a real human spirit for his oversoul.

Past
Faust, like his family, wanted nothing to do with his ancestor's black magic. He is a direct descendant of Johann Faust, traced back in his family line, who had practiced this art as his ancestor did, Faust the First. (Faustus) It was a dark secret, and Faust's family intended on keeping it hidden.

When he was young, he met a girl named Eliza who was a patient of his father's but had an incurable illness. Because she was the only one outside of the family who ever showed care for him, Faust worked to his greatest potential to become a doctor and find a cure for Eliza. He succeeded, becoming a master of the medical field and Eliza was cured. They fell in love and were married, and ran their own medical clinic.

Faust got a beautiful mansion near the seaside, and it seemed that his life with Eliza could not be more perfect. Unfortunately, one day while Faust VIII was out in town, a burglar broke into his house where Eliza was home alone. The criminal shot her in the forehead, killing her. Faust arrived at home and saw this horrible scene, and tried all of his medical skills to save Eliza, to no effect.

He became obsessed with bringing her back to life, and thus delved into the ancient practice of necromancy. He even dug up her skeleton to at least be with her. For eight years Faust worked in his arts, never sleeping at all, which is why he has dark shadows under his eyes and purple lips. He enters the Shaman Fight in order to become Shaman King and use the power to resurrect Eliza.

Shaman Fight, First Round
Asakura Yoh and Faust VIII first meet in a cemetery of Yokohama where they are to be opponents for the Shaman Fight. Arguably one of the most dangerous shamans ever, stories hinting of Faust's power have already rippled throughout in the rumors of priests who have come to referee the ongoing Shaman Fights. One of the Shaman Fight Officiants, Silva, tries vainly to persuade Anna into making Yoh forfeit the match. He fears for Yoh's life, because Faust had proven himself merciless. He killed his first opponent and seriously injured the officiant who tried to intervene. This match's field, moreover, is obviously in any Necromancer's favor, for it is a graveyard. This is a great advantage to a shaman like Faust. However, Anna adamantly turns down Silva's request, insisting Yoh will fight well.

When Anna and Silva arrive to watch the match, they are stunned to find out the fight has already begun. Faust has summoned an army of skeletons to attack Yoh. Faust partially dissects Manta, leaving him in intense pain. Faust's actions trigger Yoh's rage. The younger shaman tries to break free of Faust's skeleton army, and succeeds, although doing so, along with destroying skeleton after skeleton, has depleted his furyoku greatly.

Throughout the fight, as the horrific truth is revealed, Faust used less than one percent of his furyoku on reanimating each skeleton. The reason given by Silva is that Faust uses very little energy to animate the skeletons. While Faust is still in mint condition for the match, Yoh has become extremely battle-weary, his energy used up, and his furyoku burning down to just a small flame of energy above the hilt of his sword. To finish Yoh off, Faust's true spirit ally finally emerges as he transfers his attention to creating Eliza's form on her skeleton. Eliza, while far from being the strongest foe Yoh has ever faced, becomes formidable now that his energy is almost gone.

Yoh enrages Faust by calling Eliza a 'doll' because she has no will of her own. This enrages Faust to a horrific level so that he appears an insane man. He starts to recklessly expend energy, leaving him weakened. Yoh focuses his remaining furyoku at the tip of his sword, Harusame, and cuts the legs off of Eliza's skeleton. While this attack leaves Eliza useless in combat, it depletes the rest of Yoh's furyoku. Amidamaru falls out of Harusame, and Yoh loses the match. Yoh breaks down crying at nearly losing his friend, his life, and his dream. Amidamaru tells Yoh that his philosophy of letting things work themselves out and not worrying about the outcome of events is as much a form of courage as any other.

Faust, out of pure, blind rage creates a bone yard giant, a 20 ton "calcium giant" made completely out of skeletons, with the full intend of killing Yoh for damaging Eliza. Tao Ren arrives however and destroyes the bone giant with a single attack, revealing that he did so because he needs Yoh to be alive, since he is his next opponent.

Right before the opening ceremony of the Shaman Fight, Faust is seen watching the fight between Ren and Yoh where it is revealed that he gave his legs to Eliza, and has become confined to a wheelchair.

Shaman Fight, Second Round
He is later shown at the Patch Village. There, he is found at the water side by Manta, who sees Faust stitching himself up after the long drop from the Patch Jumbo Jet. He is later seen coming towards Yoh with Manta saying that he found him passed out. He then tells Yoh that he is looking for teammates for the second event of the Shaman Fight. While Ryu and Yoh initially reject his offer to help in favor of Lyserg Diethel's, Anna explains that she has never met Lyserg, but has seen Faust's immense power and superhuman determination firsthand. She theorizes that if she uses her itako powers to resurrect Eliza with "true necromancy," Faust will allow her to develop his powers even further and give her his loyalty, ultimately hoping that Faust will be the doctor at the resort she hopes to run. Since it would also be beneficial to have a doctor on their team, Anna gets Faust to join Team "Funbari Onsen" along with Yoh and Ryu. During the two months that then passes on Faust trains with Yoh and Ryu with the Cho Senji Rakketsu.

During the first fight of the second round he sits with Anna, Ryu and Yoh. There he watches the fight of Team "The Ren" and seems to get angry at Peyote Diaz for using bones in his fight. He then announces that if they met him in the third round he will personally take care of him.

While fighting the Team "Icemen" in the third fight, he is the first to be attacked because they see him as the weakest. Crushing his wheelchair he reveals his ability to stand up with the bones of his dead dog Frankensteiny. He also reveals his new devotion to Yoh and Anna, and also reveals that he can use the bones of his dead dog as legs, that also have an incredible jumping power. He then reveals his new oversouls and christens it "Mephisto E" ("E" from the initial of Eliza's name), a reference to the original Faust legend. However, he does apologize to Eliza every time he must put her in harm's way, even though she is still a spirit. Eliza then shrugs of the attack of the Icemen. Later on he explains that the reason why he, nor Ryu has not attacked is because Yoh has declared that he will defeat the Icemen with one blow.

Invading the Plants
As Yoh and the others begin another battle they come across the Patch announcer Radim of the Ten Patch Officiants. After a very quick conversation it saddens him to fight his friends but decides he must be loyal to the Patch. He attacks and shatters Yoh's oversoul to which a fierce battle starts one even Chocolove McDonell wasn't able to win.

During a lenghty battle with Radim Faust continues to deplete his Furyoku by constantly healing himself and dies after singing the "Funbari No Uta" to Yoh and their companions. After his death Faust is finally able to be with Eliza in spirit form but continues on with Yoh in spirit form, while his and Radim's bodies are left behind. When Horohoro was hurt in his fight against Kalim and Ren in his fight with Nichrom, Yoh use Hyoui Gattai with Faust to heal them both ironically changing his role from shaman to spirit. He and Eliza later appears within the Great Spirit as conductors of the Soul Train.

Anime/Manga Difference
In the manga, Yoh managed to cut through Eliza's knees. From the knee down, the bones were rendered useless. In an act that shows just how devoted he is, Faust actually replaces the missing portions of Eliza's legs with his own, confining him into a wheelchair. After teaming up with Yoh and Ryu for the Funbari Onsen team and before fighting with them against the Icemen in the Shaman tournament battles, Faust learns to oversoul his fallen dog Frankensteiny into new legs. In the anime, both of his legs are perfectly fine as well as Eliza's, and Frankensteiny does not make an appearance. Also in the manga, Faust, Eliza, and Frankensteiny are able to create an armor oversoul.

Trivia

 * A running gag in both anime and manga is that Faust is always there when someone cries for a doctor, something that is mostly emphaphized in the anime.
 * Faust is the only member of either Team "Funbari Onsen" or Team "The Ren" to not have a pseudo-death experience because he chose to remain dead to be with Eliza