Soul Eater - Reviews

Let's talk for a moment about pacing. Pacing is the rate at which a story progresses; the speed at which the plot develops can make or break any narrative effort, but appears to me to be an acute issue in anime. The deft, non-linear approach of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni keeps its viewers on the edge of their seats. Conversely, the plodding half-formed yarn of Aoi Hana withers when almost nothing happens (even by the statue-speed standards of yuri romance, that anime fails). Of all anime, shounen shows tend to embody the worst practices of uneven storytelling: Dragon Ball Z is so ponderous that the remastered Dragon Ball Kai manages with 1/3 the original's air time; Naruto, an otherwise fun and action-packed romp, stuffs its final EIGHTY episodes with filler. EIGHTY--and don't even mention Bleach. Then, comes Soul Eater. The series' tight, energetic approach stands out despite the show's heavily derivative feel. Fifty-two half-hour segments rarely yields as satisfying experience overall. Especially in this genre.

That said, Soul Eater offers little original to anime as far as its story goes. A special school devoted to training warriors? Naruto. A virtuous organization of supernatural fighters trying to prevent humans from turning into demons? D.Gray Man. And the writers stuffed the cast with tropes borrowed from well-known horror works. Mad Doctor? Check. Zombie? Check. Werewolf? Check. Witches? Double-check. In the end, the series' execution sets it apart from its copycat foundations. After a brief set of explicit introductions, the story gets on the rails to placing the its child protagonists outside their comfort zones. The powerful cast gets more in over its head with each passing episode, which helps maintain tension in the anime and adds to the believability of the villains' repeated escapes.

If the viewer stops to think about the story, things start to unravel a touch. The twists and turns of the series' second half are hardly surprising, and the simple fact that the faculty leaves the fate of the world to a group of students seems implausible at best. BUT Soul Eater's plot lacks adequate breathing room for these doubts to ruin the experience. As each entry snaps seamlessly into the one that came before, even the over-the-top climax makes perfect sense when it arrives in context. However, the breakneck pacing paints the show into a bit of a corner, and the final episode comes to an end in a manner so disappointing and abrupt that it borders on impressive. In retrospect, however, the sting of the dismal finale fades--the juddering mess only comes as a terrible shock because everything that precedes it fits so tightly together.

Soul Eater sports a stylish look ripped right out of a Tim Burton movie. The dark background palette, unnatural angles, and stark scenery set the mood perfectly for the horror themed show. But moreso than the overal art direction, the details bring the effect home. Whether it be the creepy, anthropomorphic sun and moon, the graveyard feel of Shinigami's room, or the subtly concave perspective in Soul's mind, the animators spare no opportunity to add character to every environment. Consequently, every location feels like an organic part of the anime's world. In addition, the three primary leads maintain the series' feel by embodying the three pillars of goth style: Maka in her plaid skirt, dark greatcoat and tie; Black Star decked out in zippers and steel-toed kicks; and Kid in a plain black suit. Just like in the backgrounds, little touches like the stars on Black Star's shoes, or Kid's skull bolo-tie and rings give the characters a concrete feel that seems to say "personal style choices" instead of "designed by an artist"; these considerations extend into the villains' wardrobes as well, from Free's canine facial features to Arachne's preponderance of spider symbolism to Eruka's spotted cheeks and amphibian eyes (am I strange for finding her cute?).

In the end, however, the quality of a shounen anime's visuals depends on its action sequences, and here Soul Eater delivers with mixed results. When the series wants to, it offers up kinetic action that feels fluid and engaging. However, the overly-dramatic angles cause more than a few issues with characters deforming and also results in more than a few instances of still-frame posing in each conflict. The little details again help the effort along, whether it be the lithe motion of Medusa's Vector Arrow or Black Star's Shadow Star, or the variable forms of Crona's Black Blood.

Gusto. That describes the Soul Eater audio in one word. Each episode starts with one of the two solid opening themes, and ends with one of the fantastic endings. While in this reviewer's humble opinion, Diggy Mo's "Bakusou Yume Uta" stands out as the best, the fourth song, "STRENGTH" fits the mood of the series best--its mournful strains form the ideal compliment to the darker content at the series' end. In between the OP and EDs of each episode, the hard rock soundtrack matches the gothic visuals to a "T", making use of guitars to communicate emotion in places normally reserved for pianos and strings.

Strangely enough, no one voice actor stands out above the crowd, because everyone turns in a solid performance--unusual for a shounen show. While the series' protagonists bring nothing remarkable to the table, the rouges gallery and side characters provide ample opportunities for interesting voice work. Koyasu Takehito (Excalibur), Uchida Yuuya (Franken Stein), and Koyama Rikiya (Shinigami) all bring texture and humor to the otherwise straightforward proceedings.

Since a good deal of its material appears derivative, Soul Eater goes to great lengths to set apart its characters from their source material. For every "been there, done that" entry like Mifune (samurai bodyguard--how novel!), the writers supply a quirky member like Joe Buttataki. The construction of the cast demonstrates an acute sense of self-awareness that helps to carry the whole effort. At its best, the show sinks deeply into self-parody in pursuit of originality with the horribly OCD yet undeniably cool Death the Kid, the painfully peculiar Excalibur, and the font of fan-service, Blair.

Too add some extra oomph to the series' less original characters, Soul Eater peppers its cast with interesting interactions and relationships which help add dimension to each person. From Black Star's friendly rivalry with Soul to the creepy sexual tension between Stein and Medusa, the show bristles with tiny moments of interplay that either brighten plot-related pauses in the action or ice the delicious combat cake with moments of development. Much like the stylistic enhancements in the visuals, these interpersonal moments help the actors in the anime feel like whole people and less like typical shounen protagonists.

With a good ending, Soul Eater would have jumped from "good" into "great" territory. While the show borrows heavily from other works, its execution and verve carry it off as a memorable shounen series. Unlike its brethren that tend to cut costs and pump up the episode count to maximize revenue, this anime maintains a focused agenda for two action-packed seasons, and that helps its cause. Anime like this one raise the bar for "average" by demonstrating how even a derivative effort can engage and entertain. If you're interested in seeing how fun action story with a real end and sense of urgency comes together, check this one out; You won't be disappointed.

What I always liked in Soul Eater (SE), was its ability to be one of the few fighting shonen where the power of friendship means something. Fights are all about cooperation, the characters need to have harmonic resonance in order to maximize the efficiency of their attacks, instead of getting random power ups because they want to protect their worthless in battle friends, or some shit like that. (aka Fairy Tail)

And even the cooperation part has a lot to do with the mentality of its characters. The biggest conflicts they face do not have to do with super strong opponents they can defeat only with raw power. They are about facing your inner demons, surpassing your fears, and accepting your fighting partner despite his eccentric behavior. All those are reflected in their progress as fighters, and make Soul Eater to be a lot more about internal struggles instead of generic bad guys who want to rule the world. (aka Dragon Ball)

That doesn’t mean the battles are boring, since they are actually full of dynamic motions, constant change of camera angles, and of course lots and lots of screaming. The soundtrack is adding a lot to the experience with its catch BGM, although voice acting was a bit hit-or-miss. Maka sounds weird because her voice actress was inexperienced, Black Star is trying too much to sound like Naruto on sugar rush, Soul sounds too adult for his age, etc. It’s not bad, but I have heard much better performances.

It’s also one of the few shonen with a very distinctive setting. Most of them are mundane but this one looks like a never-ending Halloween party. The scull motifs, the creepy looking moon, and the mostly dark color palette make everything to feel like they are in a constant state of paranoia. Combined with camera gimmicks, such as fish-eye perspective while zooming in to insane facial grimaces, and you get some wonderful aesthetics.

It even starts right away with the action instead of spending a dozen episodes in a slow build up where the kids meet each other in school and do basic training or something. (aka My Hero Academia)

Unfortunately, just like it happened with the older Full Metal Alchemist, the anime goes into original material in its second half and loses a lot of its nuance. We get lazy drawings and sloppy motions, plus the later songs are not as good. It felt a lot more mainstream by that point and had a very anti-climactic ending where the unstoppable final boss gets defeated with a single punch.

It’s one of those series that need a remake eventually, although I am not sure it will make a difference, since whatever hype it had, died instantly when the anime ended. I can explain it as the themes running dry, or later bad guys not being as interesting as the first ones. And I have to admit that the story is not very engaging beyond the internal conflicts of its characters. The plot is very basic and almost random in how it introduces more evil organizations that up until then were completely hidden, despite the good guys constantly monitoring the whole world.

Arachnophobia felt like a lazy way for the good guys to have an army of evil minions to defeat, just for delaying the final battle. It is also very hard to accept Shinigami binding himself to the city, just to keep Ashura trapped, but when Ashura escapes, he leaves the city without a problem with Shinigami still unable to leave it. What was the point of it, if it doesn’t work both ways?

Basically, the show suffers from the same issue as Bleach. There is no sense of long-term objectives, other than dealing with ephemeral threats. Even when there is a clear final boss they need to defeat, said boss is not even present for most of the duration, making him distant and uninteresting. And when he finally makes his move, despite the build-up he gets, he is defeated with a single punch. (insert One Punch Man joke, here)

Leaving the weak storyline aside, it has good pacing to the most part, hardly any filler, and ends before it becomes unbearable. This is something very few shonen have managed to do over the years, without becoming a travesty of bad pacing and fillers ala Naruto.

This is an absolutely phenomenal anime!

It has a nice balance of characters with each making their way through their own personal conflicts which, in effect, help overcome the bigger overall conflict.

There's heated battles of clashing powers with a constant itch of what's going to happen next?

Thoughout all of it personalities shine and there is a perfect balance of seriousness and humour with it all leading to an epic climax and a meaning ending.

Honestly, I tried to watch this one because it was rated rather highly and people I've heard talk about it had good things to say but frankly, there was only one character that didn't get on my nerves completely and the rest of the show was completely pointless, repetitive, and idiotic.

There didn't seem to be any real story to it so I'm frankly bemused as to how it got 50+ eps. Perhaps it did pick up after a while but 6 eps into a show and it couldn't hook me, more over it annoyed me, kinda gives me the impression that the rest of the show isn't going to be worth my time. Especially at 51 eps...

The animation was interesting for it's uniqueness but it wasn't to my liking and I wasn't able to really enjoy the style.

The characters, as I stated before, annoyed the crap out of me and one was an obvious spoof on Naruto, aka a boisterous noisy ninja.

The sounds were even worse, I dunno why but they seemed to like to make highly annoying and loud noises randomly to the point that even I, someone that rarely pays much attention to this part of anime, got annoyed and turned the volume down. Bad sign.

Overall, I couldn't finish it, I couldn't even get through the 6th ep all the way before I just closed the window and went to find something else to do. I'm sure there are lots of people that would absolutely love this show, namely the same ones that probably loved One Piece, another show I wasn't able to get into for pretty much the same reasons.

*side note: I wasn't able to put a 0 for story so I left it blank instead*

due to a kind of overwhelming response to my review, mainly negatively toward the fact I didn't finish it I'm going to start disregarding posts. I repeat that this review is merely my opinion, it has no basis in public views, thoughts, or feelings. if you have a problem with this review, then take it up with admin for allowing -user- reviews that can be made on a uncompleted viewing.

I still thank everyone for the interest they've shown in this review and trying to defend a show they liked or a particular viewpoint they believe in. If you check out some of my other reviews you might see how I do reviews normally and that this one is by no point a true full review in my standards.

I end this show feeling as if it was rushed. They never fully explained the backstories of much of the characters besides black star, chrona, or dr stein. We never get to see Makas mother. Not to mention 3 whole episodes are wasted on excalibur and don't further the plot in any way. I rather they spent those episodes on adding more to the story or the fight but they didn't.

Also Makas relationship with her dad remains stagnant and never changes. Its clear he loves her and wants to be a good dad for her but she refuses to give him a chance. I would've liked to see them interact more positively but it never happens. Then there's still so much mystery with Death. We never learn of his past or the swordsmen guards he fought with. 

The art style is amazing and unique. It's something you will probably never see again in our current moe blob climate. I loved all of the characters and their interactions they never tired me or went too far. I found myself laughing a lot. I also can't get over the amazing animation and music of the first opening. The soundtrack and music used was good but I feel after the first opening the sound quality dropped. 

There's just so much potential here thrown away. It's a crying shame. I loved the antics and character interactions but the story didn't have enough time to shine. It's glaringly obvious, even when I first tried to watch this show 10 years ago that there is severe pacing issues. It starts up very slowly to build its world and characters, and wastes a lot of time with unnecessary villians and characters (ahem excalibur).

It was hard to stick to the story and thus I dropped it 10 years ago but I recently decided to try and watch it again. I know the anime climate back then is much different now, we expect more from anime now. But if soul eater had just a few more episodes or cut out the unnecessary bits it could be a true masterpiece. It's still good for what it is, but it could be more. I hope it gets remastered someday.