Soul Eater: Definitely a Good One!
Soul Eater was one of my very first anime, and to this day, it remains to be one of my favourites. Not only because it gave me someone very special to me, but also because it is a very interesting and entertaining anime. One of the complaints I've heard about this anime is the characters. They're all so over-the-top and annoying that they made it hard to watch. Another criticism is the art style. A lot of people don't like it, and say they tried watching it, but couldn't get past the first episode because they didn't like the way it was drawn. Some people say they didn't like the story. They thought it jumped around too much to focus on the three main duos of the anime. I've even heard people say they didn't like it because it's just plain dumb. The complaint I've heard the most is how it ended.
I'll warn you now, since the biggest complaint I've heard about this anime is the end, there will be spoilers as I critique the way the anime ended.
Next step? A summary of the anime without giving too many spoilers!
The Soul Eater is about three duos of teenagers who go to the DWMA - Death Weapon Meister Academy. The goal of the school is to turn ordinary weapons into a Death Scythe. Now these 'weapons' aren't your normal every day weapon to swing around. Nope. These are humans who can turn into weapons. And these weapons can't just be wielded by any normal human. They must be wielded by a meister. A meister is a human who can wield these weapons, as not just anyone can use them. But not just any normal meister can brandish a weapon, either. Their soul wavelengths have to be in sync with their partners.
I'll warn you now, since the biggest complaint I've heard about this anime is the end, there will be spoilers as I critique the way the anime ended.
Next step? A summary of the anime without giving too many spoilers!
The Soul Eater is about three duos of teenagers who go to the DWMA - Death Weapon Meister Academy. The goal of the school is to turn ordinary weapons into a Death Scythe. Now these 'weapons' aren't your normal every day weapon to swing around. Nope. These are humans who can turn into weapons. And these weapons can't just be wielded by any normal human. They must be wielded by a meister. A meister is a human who can wield these weapons, as not just anyone can use them. But not just any normal meister can brandish a weapon, either. Their soul wavelengths have to be in sync with their partners.
The first three episodes of the anime are introducing the seven main characters; four weapons and three meisters. Soul (weapon) and Maka (meister), Black*Star (meister) and Tsubaki (weapon), and Kid (meister), Liz (weapon) and Patty (weapon). The goal of the teams is to collect the souls of ninety nine kishin - which are monsters that are created when a human eats the souls of other humans - and one witch soul. If they succeed in doing so, they become a Death Weapon; a weapon of Lord Death himself.
Episode one introduces Maka and Soul, starting with them killing the kishin Jack the Ripper. This impressive team already has ninety nine kishin souls, and is but one witch soul away from creating the newest Death Weapon. The episode follows them as they attempt to beat the witch Blair. However, it doesn't go the way they expected, and they do not succeed in making Soul a Death Weapon. As it so happens, Blair was not, in fact, a witch, but only a "Cat with a ridiculous amount of magical powers." After eating the soul of this cat, Soul loses every single kishin soul he had eaten, and has to start all over again, and eat ninety nine more kishin souls, and one real witch soul.
Episode two follows Black*Star and Tsubaki, who have not collected a single kishin soul due to how eccentric Black*Star is. Although he claims to be an assassin, all he ever does is yell about being the star of the show and bring attention to himself. While an assassin is supposed to be silent and lurk in the shadows, Black*Star is always loud and constantly makes himself the center of attention. Due to this behaviour, they have not collected a single soul. Contrasting Black*Star's loud and flamboyant nature, his weapon, Tsubaki, is quiet and shy, only speaking when absolutely necessary, to calm her partner down when he's being too loud or hush him when he's frustrated, or to praise Black*Star when he does something he finds to be exceptional.
Episode one introduces Maka and Soul, starting with them killing the kishin Jack the Ripper. This impressive team already has ninety nine kishin souls, and is but one witch soul away from creating the newest Death Weapon. The episode follows them as they attempt to beat the witch Blair. However, it doesn't go the way they expected, and they do not succeed in making Soul a Death Weapon. As it so happens, Blair was not, in fact, a witch, but only a "Cat with a ridiculous amount of magical powers." After eating the soul of this cat, Soul loses every single kishin soul he had eaten, and has to start all over again, and eat ninety nine more kishin souls, and one real witch soul.
Episode two follows Black*Star and Tsubaki, who have not collected a single kishin soul due to how eccentric Black*Star is. Although he claims to be an assassin, all he ever does is yell about being the star of the show and bring attention to himself. While an assassin is supposed to be silent and lurk in the shadows, Black*Star is always loud and constantly makes himself the center of attention. Due to this behaviour, they have not collected a single soul. Contrasting Black*Star's loud and flamboyant nature, his weapon, Tsubaki, is quiet and shy, only speaking when absolutely necessary, to calm her partner down when he's being too loud or hush him when he's frustrated, or to praise Black*Star when he does something he finds to be exceptional.
During this episode, Black*Star's mission is to kill a group of kishin in the Mafia, one of which is Al Capone. Black*Star promises Tsubaki he'll get it right this time, but ends up screwing up the mission by pulling his normal trick and crashing down through the roof, yelling "YAHOOOOO!!!!! I'M THE STAR OF THE SHOW AND I'M GOING TO KILL YOU ALL, EAT YOUR SOULS, AND MAKE MY WEAPON INTO THE NEXT DEATH SCYTHE!!!!!!" Or, something along those lines. Obviously, it does not go as planned, and he does not get the kishin souls.
Episode three follows Death the Kid, who is Lord Death's son, and his two twin pistols, Liz and Patty. While he is amazing in combat, he has a fatal flaw that has prevented him from getting a single kishin soul: he has terrible OCD. He's obsessed with symmetry. Everything has to be symmetrical and if it's not, he will either throw himself on the ground, wailing about how he is a failure as a human being and doesn't deserve to be alive, or gets mad at whoever it is who is causing the asymmetry. His victims of long lectures are, more often than not, his weapons; older sister Liz, and younger sister Patty. While he is busy lecturing Patty for her stance being off before her and her sisters transformations into pistols, the kishin that was the target of their mission escapes, and the three once again leave empty handed.
With all three of these episodes, and throughout the entire anime, there is a lot of humour, often making you laugh at the characters hysterically overdone antics. But despite all this humour, there are serious moments in which you can sympathise with the characters, as well as action packed scenes.
As you get further into the series, you meet several different antagonists; Medusa, a witch who has the ability to create shadows of snakes, as well as use her vector arrows to attack her victims, on top of her amazing hand-to-hand combat skills; Eruka, a frog witch who blindly follows Medusa in everything she does, more out of fear than respect; Free, The Wolf Man with the Demon Eye, Crona, a young, timid character who (whose gender is very debatable) who doesn't know how to deal with anything and is bullied by their weapon that Medusa fused into their back.
And then there's the main antagonist: Kishin Asura, The Great Old One. He is the oldest Kishin there is, and the most powerful. Eight hundred years ago, he terrorised Death City, the great city where the DWMA resides. He was a meister, but he was a very scared person. Scared of being betrayed, of being hurt, of every little thing there is. He was so afraid that his weapon would leave him that he ate her, and now he can use her at his own will.
Lord Death overpowered and defeated Asura, wrapping his body in a bag of his own skin, securing it with several heavy chains, hiding him deep underneath the DWMA.
As Eruka, Free, Medusa, and Crona try to release Asura, Soul and Maka, Blast*Star and Tsubaki, Kid, Liz and Patty, along with scientist and school professor Frank N. Stein and his Death Weapon Spirit Albarn, Maka's father, attempt to stop the release of Asura, but do not succeed.
The rest of the anime revolves around the students and teachers trying to stop Asura from creating chaos around the world, and in the end, the final fight between Asura and his opponents (No spoilers! (At least not right now.)) have an epic fight, and the single victor is unexpected.
So let's get on with the critiquing!
So to start, we'll talk about the characters.
Yes, the characters are a little bit over the top. But in all honesty, that was one of my favourite things about the anime. While I do love a good horror show (obviously, with my first two critiques were of this genre), a comedy is a breath of fresh air. And the characters in this show are refreshingly hilarious, and amazingly less complex than your typical horror character. While I do love a good horror to make me think, sometimes I want something easier and more light-hearted to enjoy my time. And the quirky characters in this anime do just that. With their funny lines, hilarious actions, and even more riotous interactions with the other characters, they provide the perfect comedic relief when switching from a heavier show to this.
And on top of their interactions, lines and quirkiness, let's talk about their design. A lot of people don't like the design of the anime, although I truthfully can't see any reason why. I've closely inspected the animation of several characters, and the scenery, and I see nothing wrong. The animation fits perfectly with the anime. Every anime has a different animating style that fits in with the story, and genre. While, yes in some cases, the animation can be horrible to the point where I can't finish it (Berserk is a prime example of this, in my opinion. I tried. I really did. But god it was ugly. Sorry if you don't share my opinion, but that was one of the ugliest anime I've ever seen.), the design for this anime fits it perfectly, and is very well drawn. The curves and angles on the face are fine, the eyes look good, and the shadowing is excellent, too. All in all, there's nothing wrong with the animation, at least in my opinion.
Now I'll talk about the story. The complaint I hear about the story the most is that it jumps between characters too much. I agree, it does jump between the characters. But it does it in a way that helps the plot progress. It doesn't just jump around the way most media with different plot points do. "Oh, hey, look! Soul and Maka are doing this! They help the plot progress? Well, damn! Let's cut over to Kid, Liz and Patty!" That's how most media with multiple focal points go. However, Soul Eater handles the multiple stories well, and interlaces them all together somehow. Instead of "Let's switch stories right as it gets good!" it's more along the line of "It's getting good and the story is progressing? Awesome! Let's wrap this sequence up quickly, efficiently, and with a good note to leave off on." A lot of media that has multiple main characters each with their own stories don't handle it very well, and it jumps around, making it hard to keep track of and even more difficult to stay on board for the whole show, book, movie, whatever. But Soul Eater does very well with this, and the show kept me interested the entire time.
As for the "just plain dumb..." I have no comment on that. We'll just...leave that there.
And last, but most certainly not least, the end of the anime. Well...I'll admit, the end of the anime could have been a lot better. A lot better.
WARNING!!!!!!!! SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!!!!!!!!!! IF YOU DON'T WANT SPOILERS, SWITCH TO THE NEXT PART IN CAPS!!!!!!!!!!
The last few episodes are the "Final Boss," where the three teams fight against Kishin Asura inside of an impenetrable protective bubble that Asura formed around himself to safeguard himself from the outside world while he regains all of his strength and change into his "Final Form," which was his kishin form, and not his weak, thin, frail human body. As he was forming it, the seven headstrong students snuck their ways inside of this protective barrier.
As they fought, they were all beaten after fighting hard. However, in his true form, the attacks the students made on Kishin Asura were minuscule, doing no significant damage. Nevertheless, Kid, after being knocked out, went into a trance and charged up his soul resonance - which is his soul's power charging up a stronger for of his weapon's attack, or in this case, attacks - and the damage he did to Asura did enough damage to him, along with the efforts of the other students, and was able to reduce him back to his human form, leaving him more vulnerable. But despite this, he is still too powerful for them, and they're all left unconscious.
Except for Maka, who is still awake, but then forces herself unconscious, and transforms into a weapon, revealing to the audience, and Maka herself, that she is a weapon/meister hybrid. And although she is not awake to see it, she fights Asura with scythe blades coming out of her body in different places.
The weapon/meister combination is kind of a cheap move, in my opinion. But other than that, I don't really have anything to say about it.
But Asura eventually wakes her up by crushing her ribs. This is where my first problem with this scene arises. He crushes her ribs, but she gets up and keeps fighting as though nothing is wrong. Now that's a problem. If your ribs were crushed, it would be very difficult to breathe, and it's a possibility that your ribs could even puncture your lungs. But despite the clear and present danger that crushing your ribs wold cause, Maka is not hindered in her abilities at all.
I expected Asura's death to be big and epic, with a cool attack that you never saw coming, and didn't know the character who kills him, in this case Maka, could do. But the way Asura died was......kind of super lame. Like, seriously? No death could be more lame. Maka gave him this big speech about how everyone has bravery, bla bla bla. And then, she punches him. That's it. Just a good slug to the face. And of course, nothing happens and he's laughing at her. But then his entire face shatters like glass, and he starts freaking the absolute frick out. And Maka goes on to tell him that bravery is nothing special and that everyone has it. Asura's last words before he explodes are "Everyone, huh? Then it's just like madness." And then boom. He's dead.
Now I don't know about you, but I was expecting something way cooler than just a punch in the face. Really, Soul Eater? That's your big ending? I mean, I know it couldn't have ended like the manga because it's one of those anime that updated too fast for the manga to keep up and they had to diverge from the path and go their own way, but really? That's how you decide to end it? That's...kind of disappointing. I feel like the creators of the anime got bored and lazy with it and just threw together a random end. But, hey. Most good things have at least one thing wrong with them.
SPOILERS OVER!!!!!!!! YOU CAN CONTINUE READING NOW!!!!!!!!!!!
So, what do I have to say about the overall anime? It's definitely a good anime, and absolutely worth the watch. While, yes, the final boss fight ends in a really lame way with not a lot of thought or effort, the rest of the anime is phenomenal. It was one of my very first anime, and it was definitely a good one to start with. If you're new to anime, I suggest watching Soul Eater. If you've already seen a few anime but not this one, go ahead and watch it. If you're an anime veteran in search of a new anime and haven't seen this anime, check this one out. All in all, despite the way they wrapped it up in the end, Soul Eater is an amazing anime, and I highly recommend you watch it.
Goodbye, my lovelies! I hope you enjoyed your time on my blog! And don't forget! If you have a request, send me an email at kitty.kat.kritiques@gmail.com. Now go and do wonderful things!
Episode three follows Death the Kid, who is Lord Death's son, and his two twin pistols, Liz and Patty. While he is amazing in combat, he has a fatal flaw that has prevented him from getting a single kishin soul: he has terrible OCD. He's obsessed with symmetry. Everything has to be symmetrical and if it's not, he will either throw himself on the ground, wailing about how he is a failure as a human being and doesn't deserve to be alive, or gets mad at whoever it is who is causing the asymmetry. His victims of long lectures are, more often than not, his weapons; older sister Liz, and younger sister Patty. While he is busy lecturing Patty for her stance being off before her and her sisters transformations into pistols, the kishin that was the target of their mission escapes, and the three once again leave empty handed.
With all three of these episodes, and throughout the entire anime, there is a lot of humour, often making you laugh at the characters hysterically overdone antics. But despite all this humour, there are serious moments in which you can sympathise with the characters, as well as action packed scenes.
As you get further into the series, you meet several different antagonists; Medusa, a witch who has the ability to create shadows of snakes, as well as use her vector arrows to attack her victims, on top of her amazing hand-to-hand combat skills; Eruka, a frog witch who blindly follows Medusa in everything she does, more out of fear than respect; Free, The Wolf Man with the Demon Eye, Crona, a young, timid character who (whose gender is very debatable) who doesn't know how to deal with anything and is bullied by their weapon that Medusa fused into their back.
And then there's the main antagonist: Kishin Asura, The Great Old One. He is the oldest Kishin there is, and the most powerful. Eight hundred years ago, he terrorised Death City, the great city where the DWMA resides. He was a meister, but he was a very scared person. Scared of being betrayed, of being hurt, of every little thing there is. He was so afraid that his weapon would leave him that he ate her, and now he can use her at his own will.
Lord Death overpowered and defeated Asura, wrapping his body in a bag of his own skin, securing it with several heavy chains, hiding him deep underneath the DWMA.
As Eruka, Free, Medusa, and Crona try to release Asura, Soul and Maka, Blast*Star and Tsubaki, Kid, Liz and Patty, along with scientist and school professor Frank N. Stein and his Death Weapon Spirit Albarn, Maka's father, attempt to stop the release of Asura, but do not succeed.
The rest of the anime revolves around the students and teachers trying to stop Asura from creating chaos around the world, and in the end, the final fight between Asura and his opponents (No spoilers! (At least not right now.)) have an epic fight, and the single victor is unexpected.
So let's get on with the critiquing!
So to start, we'll talk about the characters.
Yes, the characters are a little bit over the top. But in all honesty, that was one of my favourite things about the anime. While I do love a good horror show (obviously, with my first two critiques were of this genre), a comedy is a breath of fresh air. And the characters in this show are refreshingly hilarious, and amazingly less complex than your typical horror character. While I do love a good horror to make me think, sometimes I want something easier and more light-hearted to enjoy my time. And the quirky characters in this anime do just that. With their funny lines, hilarious actions, and even more riotous interactions with the other characters, they provide the perfect comedic relief when switching from a heavier show to this.
And on top of their interactions, lines and quirkiness, let's talk about their design. A lot of people don't like the design of the anime, although I truthfully can't see any reason why. I've closely inspected the animation of several characters, and the scenery, and I see nothing wrong. The animation fits perfectly with the anime. Every anime has a different animating style that fits in with the story, and genre. While, yes in some cases, the animation can be horrible to the point where I can't finish it (Berserk is a prime example of this, in my opinion. I tried. I really did. But god it was ugly. Sorry if you don't share my opinion, but that was one of the ugliest anime I've ever seen.), the design for this anime fits it perfectly, and is very well drawn. The curves and angles on the face are fine, the eyes look good, and the shadowing is excellent, too. All in all, there's nothing wrong with the animation, at least in my opinion.
Now I'll talk about the story. The complaint I hear about the story the most is that it jumps between characters too much. I agree, it does jump between the characters. But it does it in a way that helps the plot progress. It doesn't just jump around the way most media with different plot points do. "Oh, hey, look! Soul and Maka are doing this! They help the plot progress? Well, damn! Let's cut over to Kid, Liz and Patty!" That's how most media with multiple focal points go. However, Soul Eater handles the multiple stories well, and interlaces them all together somehow. Instead of "Let's switch stories right as it gets good!" it's more along the line of "It's getting good and the story is progressing? Awesome! Let's wrap this sequence up quickly, efficiently, and with a good note to leave off on." A lot of media that has multiple main characters each with their own stories don't handle it very well, and it jumps around, making it hard to keep track of and even more difficult to stay on board for the whole show, book, movie, whatever. But Soul Eater does very well with this, and the show kept me interested the entire time.
As for the "just plain dumb..." I have no comment on that. We'll just...leave that there.
And last, but most certainly not least, the end of the anime. Well...I'll admit, the end of the anime could have been a lot better. A lot better.
WARNING!!!!!!!! SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!!!!!!!!!! IF YOU DON'T WANT SPOILERS, SWITCH TO THE NEXT PART IN CAPS!!!!!!!!!!
The last few episodes are the "Final Boss," where the three teams fight against Kishin Asura inside of an impenetrable protective bubble that Asura formed around himself to safeguard himself from the outside world while he regains all of his strength and change into his "Final Form," which was his kishin form, and not his weak, thin, frail human body. As he was forming it, the seven headstrong students snuck their ways inside of this protective barrier.
As they fought, they were all beaten after fighting hard. However, in his true form, the attacks the students made on Kishin Asura were minuscule, doing no significant damage. Nevertheless, Kid, after being knocked out, went into a trance and charged up his soul resonance - which is his soul's power charging up a stronger for of his weapon's attack, or in this case, attacks - and the damage he did to Asura did enough damage to him, along with the efforts of the other students, and was able to reduce him back to his human form, leaving him more vulnerable. But despite this, he is still too powerful for them, and they're all left unconscious.
Except for Maka, who is still awake, but then forces herself unconscious, and transforms into a weapon, revealing to the audience, and Maka herself, that she is a weapon/meister hybrid. And although she is not awake to see it, she fights Asura with scythe blades coming out of her body in different places.
The weapon/meister combination is kind of a cheap move, in my opinion. But other than that, I don't really have anything to say about it.
But Asura eventually wakes her up by crushing her ribs. This is where my first problem with this scene arises. He crushes her ribs, but she gets up and keeps fighting as though nothing is wrong. Now that's a problem. If your ribs were crushed, it would be very difficult to breathe, and it's a possibility that your ribs could even puncture your lungs. But despite the clear and present danger that crushing your ribs wold cause, Maka is not hindered in her abilities at all.
I expected Asura's death to be big and epic, with a cool attack that you never saw coming, and didn't know the character who kills him, in this case Maka, could do. But the way Asura died was......kind of super lame. Like, seriously? No death could be more lame. Maka gave him this big speech about how everyone has bravery, bla bla bla. And then, she punches him. That's it. Just a good slug to the face. And of course, nothing happens and he's laughing at her. But then his entire face shatters like glass, and he starts freaking the absolute frick out. And Maka goes on to tell him that bravery is nothing special and that everyone has it. Asura's last words before he explodes are "Everyone, huh? Then it's just like madness." And then boom. He's dead.
Now I don't know about you, but I was expecting something way cooler than just a punch in the face. Really, Soul Eater? That's your big ending? I mean, I know it couldn't have ended like the manga because it's one of those anime that updated too fast for the manga to keep up and they had to diverge from the path and go their own way, but really? That's how you decide to end it? That's...kind of disappointing. I feel like the creators of the anime got bored and lazy with it and just threw together a random end. But, hey. Most good things have at least one thing wrong with them.
SPOILERS OVER!!!!!!!! YOU CAN CONTINUE READING NOW!!!!!!!!!!!
So, what do I have to say about the overall anime? It's definitely a good anime, and absolutely worth the watch. While, yes, the final boss fight ends in a really lame way with not a lot of thought or effort, the rest of the anime is phenomenal. It was one of my very first anime, and it was definitely a good one to start with. If you're new to anime, I suggest watching Soul Eater. If you've already seen a few anime but not this one, go ahead and watch it. If you're an anime veteran in search of a new anime and haven't seen this anime, check this one out. All in all, despite the way they wrapped it up in the end, Soul Eater is an amazing anime, and I highly recommend you watch it.
Goodbye, my lovelies! I hope you enjoyed your time on my blog! And don't forget! If you have a request, send me an email at kitty.kat.kritiques@gmail.com. Now go and do wonderful things!
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