Well, we finally meet the major antagonist for at least the first part of this anime. The comedy in the fights was abandoned completely unfortunately, but thankfully the chemistry between Soul and Maka continued to be very enjoyable. At the moment, I can’t really place Soul Eater among the best series of this season, though. It’s good, but there are many better series in my opinion. I think that the biggest reason for this is that it spent too much time on flashy fights so far, while it could have used this time to flesh out the characters a bit more. But then again, because this series has 51 episodes, it does have much more time to do this than most other series.
I do want to say something about the use of thugs, though. Not just here, but many anime seem to be really lazy when handling them. They’re nearly all just a bunch of loudmouthed stereotypes, and unfortunately they too are just cannon fodder in Soul Eater as well. I think that that’s why the punk enemy in the Law of Ueki worked so well: he made this punk-stereotype completely ridiculous with his obsessions.
In other news, it turns out that the reason why we never see anything of Maka’s mother is because she divorced a month ago. Now I also understand why Maka’s father is so hopelessly fooling around with other women. Something’s telling me that he’s trying to forget her by doing this. 😛
>Maka’s father is so hopelessly fooling around with other women. Something’s telling me that he’s trying to forget her by doing this. 😛
Or maybe he’s only a plain latin lover, that’s why Maka’s mother left him ^^ 😛
Seeing as how Maka connected Soul going to Blair in episode 1 with how her father acts it’s obvious he’s been acting like that while married too..
Soul Eater doesn’t seem like the sort of thing you could place in a top three – instead I think it is more of an anime that serves as entertainment with merit, like Code Geass.
Not mindless entertainment, but not incredible either.
Frankly, for a shounen anime, it’s getting a lot of good treatment. The manga has been translated almost flawlessly to the anime format by BONES, and they are doing an excellent job with its art and animation.
I’m still looking forward to another fight like Jack the Ripper’s in the future, but the short bursts of action it does have are nice, and it doesn’t appear to be wallowing in mediocrity like any other eternal shounen jump adaptation that gets its production values spread very thinly by totally apathetic directors.
Maka’s parents divorce was mentioned in the first episode. I believe his fooling around with other women was a cause, not a symptom, though I could be wrong.
“Like Code Geass” in what universe is that? Please, Denizen be serious 😉 Geass is the ultimate of stereotypes and fanservice. And Leoluch is also damn annoying as a main char…
This Soul Eater is actually one of the best new series of this season and make it to the podium at the third place just after “Kaiba” and “Daughter of 20 Faces”.
I think it’s one of those series that you need to give some time. Kure nai is cool, but the main character doesn’t really interest me. I don’t know why but with these types of shows the characters stand out in my mind.
Let aside the “best” anime for this season, there is something that make Soul eater interesting: psycho character. Sure, there a bunch of stereotyped characters but also we can enjoy Death the Kid, Dr. Frank Stein and the new “boss” character of this episode. Others typical shounen don’t even try to show something new. Bleach and Naruto, for example. Its rare a character with personality and I’m talking about a really personality, not a simple stereotype. Well, at least Soul Eater make me laugh. I hope they don’t cross the path of every shounen anime and becomes something like Bleach. A interesting start, a nice plot and in the end a huge fail in inovation. Why they abuse the formula: you are weak, so you train to become strong to win and after that find someone that is more strong than you, so you train again to become strong to win…until they cut out the show with a crap end.
Well, now that Chrona and Medusa have appeared, the plot can finally start moving. Soul Eater certainly is very stylish and its characters quirky, though some elements don’t jive quite yet (Maka’s seiyuu still bugs me). The music is another huge plus (I get Gurren vibes just hearing the fight tracks) and the animation style (with its Mahou Shoujotai/Tim Burton-esque flair) is eye-catching. The whole soul resonance thing does remind me of all other shounen type anime where the hero has to train and/or power up to defeat increasingly ridiculous opponents but hopefully Soul Eater avoids the DBZ/Naruto/Bleach trap for a long while yet (judging by the manga anyway).
@ Solaris
Code Geass is good as a light watch. Anyone proclaiming as a masterpiece or “Best of 2007” is not actually crediting a show intended to be universally watchable. Why they chose awful CLAMP designs to do this god only knows, but it’s just entertainment.
Code Geass isn’t bad or great.
Soul Eater isn’t meant to be a masterpiece of storytelling either. It’s a simple plot that relies on character chemistry, appealing art and over-the-top scenes to entertain, which is what it does extremely well. But it’s not going to be in a top three.
Then again it’s all subjective, so meh.
“Why they chose awful CLAMP designs to do this god only knows, but it’s just entertainment.”
=> To attract fangirls.