Rating: 8.1/10
Watching a 51 episode series always seems too much a commitment for me, which is why I don’t watch too many of this length. Soul Eater managed to change this misconception I created and I’m excited to check out longer series because of it. I stopped watching about 20 episodes into the series, for no real reason and I picked it back up in an effort to continue my summer mission. Within 3 days, I watched episode after episode and it felt far from a chore, as this was an extremely entertaining series.
The story focuses on three groups of meisters and weapons as they try and collect evil souls. At the core it is an action series with some big bosses and powerups. Some of the fights seemed to have lasted longer than they should, while other fights ended with not much pay off. In all, although I don’t have much to compare it against, the fights seemed good or at least were standard and fun to watch.
My interest while watching focused mostly on the characters and their development. In that aspect this series was superb and on other levels it was at least very entertaining. I read about a lot of people complaining that the second half was lame, but I loved it. It focused so much on build-up while staying constantly interesting, which is a difficult task. The ending may have been a bit disappointing, but its not like it was bad enough to ruin the whole show. I find it would be difficult to not enjoy this series for some reason or another. The story was very imaginable and the whole concept is very original.
I really loved most of the characters. Watching them as they changed and developed their values and skills was what I liked to see most and it seems it was well thought out. There was one missing link in the collection of characters and for me that was Black Star. I am a bit biased as I never liked him much from the start, but if I try and look at it objectively, his character still didn’t do much interesting from the beginning of the series to the end except for the fact that he worked out a bit more and got stronger.
With character development, you want the character to go from point A to point B or if they are already happy at point A, they’ll probably run astray to point C and you’ll be hoping they wind up back at A. Basically, Black Star was constant. He was always arrogant and always annoying. I guess it is in his character to stay the same, but it definitely doesn’t make it easy to like him. After all, who would want to root for someone as cocky as he was?
Moving on to the better characters, as some may know from my old blog, back when this show first aired I became obsessed with Death the Kid. Checking back at that blog, one of my most popular posts continues to be Death The Kid = Awesomeness . This post from long ago still holds a lot of truth, as he continued to be a great character. Though, later in the series I became more interested by Maka and Soul. Who are clearly the “most main” of the main characters. I also loved the differently graced presence of Crona in the second half. I was hoping the best for Crona the whole way through!
The villains had a few faults by the end where they never seemed to really give all the power and punch they promise. Nonetheless, in concept they were great villains, like how each one had their own little quirk, it is just a shame they couldn’t always deliver.
The setting and animation is also something that makes this series special. It seems a lot of effort was put in giving Death City a life of its own (excuse my irony). By creating such a rich setting, it allows its viewers to really get a sense of the place and its purpose, along with making it seem realistic, much like how Hogwarts was expressed in the movies.
I like most of studio Bones work and their animation and this one makes no exception along the way. From the manga to the anime, it brings an unique style. You can instantly tell that the character designs are something new from the regular mold. The animation also keeps a bold pallet of colours throughout.
In all, watching this anime brought me so much joy. It is the kind of show where you want to watch episode after episode. Not to mention, as I think back on it, it will become a good reminder that I should check out longer series. Besides a few episodes, the whole series was always interesting and captivating. It makes me sad to know I don’t have more to watch. Although it took me a while to finally finish this one off, I’m glad I got back into it. Considering I find this to be an anime that is hard to not like for some reason, I definitely recommend it!