Anime Review: Soul Eater, Vol. 1

[KValentine]

Anime Review: Soul Eater, Vol. 1

If only my high school had been that cool. Or had had a principal that weird.

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[Jared]

This is an epic anime, and really nothing that I disagree with in the review!

 

[NeutralDrow]

I've been interested in finding this anime for a while, but it's been low enough priority that I keep getting distracted. No more!

 

[Mstrswrd]

The major problem with the anime doesn't really hit until around episode... 25 or so, when the plot goes in a completely different direction than the Manga. The manga has such an excellent plot, and it's told quite well, but the anime goes and does its own thing.

On the other hand, the animation is always top-notch, and the coreography is great, no matter what episodes you watch. I also personally enjoy the overt Moe blob influence on certain parts of the animation, because it's used just enough to emphasize certain characters styles, personalities, etc.

Edit: Note that if you read the manga first, and then watch the anime, you will be really, really dissapointed. I didn't so I was fine with both, for the most part.

 

[Ancientgamer]

IMO Soul Eater's one of the best shonen anime to come around in years. The ending is a bit of a narrative steamroller, but it remains really great throughout the whole series.


One thing I enjoyed was that it had a remarkable more philosophical bent than most shonen anime; while it's certainly not profound, the depth and treatment of it is a welcome sight in a shonen anime(though this is probably because Ideological differences and the greys inbetween are such a central part of the show's plot.)

 

[Juion]

The production issues you mentioned, the cardboard cut outs of the other students, seemed to enhance the anime to me, rather than detract from it. In most animes like this, the other students aren't important, so it's on the edge of satire to show them as cardboard cutouts.

 

[Mr. GameBrain]

I had started to watch this series, and I was really getting into it.

Maybe one day, when it eventually comes out in the UK on DVD, (at a reasonable price), I'll buy it.

 

[CincoDeMayo]

I'm watching it for the second time now, it's a great, no, it's an AWESOME anime. The story is well written, the balance between the protagonists are great, it's beautifully animated and it has a lot of great humor, action and drama.

 

[Blanks]

Great review, i've already watched the series in japanese myself, it gets too 'naruto' by the end, thus why as usual the manga is far superior in every way

i be a tad excited for the dub though

 

[GamerLuck]

Loved the soul eater anime, up until the end. switched over to the manga after that. hope they do a kind of FMA: Brotherhood rehash for this one, cause the actual story line, ie the manga, is so much better then the end of the anime, and is still ongoing to boot.

 

[The Philistine]

The major problem with the anime doesn't really hit until around episode... 25 or so, when the plot goes in a completely different direction than the Manga. The manga has such an excellent plot, and it's told quite well, but the anime goes and does its own thing.

On the other hand, the animation is always top-notch, and the coreography is great, no matter what episodes you watch. I also personally enjoy the overt Moe blob influence on certain parts of the animation, because it's used just enough to emphasize certain characters styles, personalities, etc.

The problem isn't so much that the anime goes and does it's own thing towards the end. One point I'll give Soul Eater is that it spares it's audience from too many filler episodes just because the anime caught up with the manga.

What really causes the end to lag is the almost complete departure from the style it started off with. The character quirks virtually stop, the narrative shifts all it's weight onto one character, and it just loses the feel that makes the anime stand out from other shounen. It suffers from building up far too much tension and failing to deliver at the end.

If you're willing to put up with that, or disregard how cliche the ending is, the series is a fun watch. Really, this is probably one of the better anime to start someone off on without setting expectations too terribly high.

 

[Arisato-kun]

Glad to see that Soul Eater is really getting the praise it deserves. I've had it on hold for a while but this review made me want to start watching it again and see how Bones changed it from the manga.

 

[Weaver]

The major problem with the anime doesn't really hit until around episode... 25 or so, when the plot goes in a completely different direction than the Manga. The manga has such an excellent plot, and it's told quite well, but the anime goes and does its own thing.

On the other hand, the animation is always top-notch, and the coreography is great, no matter what episodes you watch. I also personally enjoy the overt Moe blob influence on certain parts of the animation, because it's used just enough to emphasize certain characters styles, personalities, etc.

Edit: Note that if you read the manga first, and then watch the anime, you will be really, really dissapointed. I didn't so I was fine with both, for the most part.

I haven't read the Manga, but I noticed the plot just kind of... got a bit wacky. For the 25ish or so episodes the show seemed to know where it was going, but by episode 30 they're just kind of all over the place with what's happening and why it's happening, plus it had what I felt was a bit of a dragging plot after that.

Regardless, I still had a lot of fun with the anime. Most of characters are entertaining and the fights are well animated - I despised Excalibur though. And there were like, what, three episodes focused solely on him? They were awful in my opinion. I realize they're jokes, and I also realize it's supposed to be funny - but at the 10 minute point of him just rambling on and on about the same old shit the joke got REALLY fucking stale.

 

[Pringzor14]

After I watched this anime I realized that I don't understand people. Soul Eater has a flimsy plot that drags all the way to the last episode. Around episode 25 or so they introduce a lot of new annoying characters that ends up doing nothing. Also the devil that created Excalibur needs to take a course in how to write characters that do not make you want to kill yourself.

 

[Ham Blitz]

I would have to agree with this review, I enjoyed that series and it's 53 (I believe) episodes a year ago. I haven't seen the dub, so I wouldn't know the voice comparisons, though I did consider looking at it just to compare.

 

[F8L Fool]

Soul Eater is hands down of the my favorite anime of all time. It most certainly makes the top 50, and maybe even the top 25 if I had to really dwell on it. The only bad thing about this anime is that it ends with the typical "leave more questions than answers" storyline. They finally conclude so many things, just to pose five or six huge questions (two of which are on the final episode).

Aside from that every character is fleshed out well, the animation is superb if you like the meshing of multiple styles and textures, which I most certainly do. The cast is so well done that it's hard to find a character (other than Excalibur...the douchebag...), except for the few minor ones that have like one page of lines, that couldn't support an entire spin-off by themselves.

If you like supernatural anime, OR action anime, this is a must.

 

[underdog9785]

Volume 2 is out on English. For a while now too. Curse u ep.26, ends at the middle of a good scene. Soul's voice is so weird in the English version. I mean wtf guys. Go Blair, ur sexyness is duely noted.

 

[Tribuner]

The major problem with the anime doesn't really hit until around episode... 25 or so, when the plot goes in a completely different direction than the Manga. The manga has such an excellent plot, and it's told quite well, but the anime goes and does its own thing.

On the other hand, the animation is always top-notch, and the coreography is great, no matter what episodes you watch. I also personally enjoy the overt Moe blob influence on certain parts of the animation, because it's used just enough to emphasize certain characters styles, personalities, etc.

Edit: Note that if you read the manga first, and then watch the anime, you will be really, really dissapointed. I didn't so I was fine with both, for the most part.

i would like to agree with you it is much better then the animation but it is also very good for an attempt to creating a new story line in the animation........but i still prefer the manga vertion. because there is much more of the story then the animation.
but i did feel that the animation was rushed to ending it they could of droped in some funny fillers to lenghthen it but all in all great stuff

 

[Mstrswrd]

The major problem with the anime doesn't really hit until around episode... 25 or so, when the plot goes in a completely different direction than the Manga. The manga has such an excellent plot, and it's told quite well, but the anime goes and does its own thing.

On the other hand, the animation is always top-notch, and the coreography is great, no matter what episodes you watch. I also personally enjoy the overt Moe blob influence on certain parts of the animation, because it's used just enough to emphasize certain characters styles, personalities, etc.

Edit: Note that if you read the manga first, and then watch the anime, you will be really, really dissapointed. I didn't so I was fine with both, for the most part.

And that's probably were we disagree. I watched the anime a little while after reading 2 volumes of the manga,and I gotta say....I prefered the anime's ending over the manga. Yes,I know it's a sappy happy ending,but I liked the character of Crona,and liked the direction they want with it; felt it was a better outcome than the manga portrayed it at least. You're seriously telling me, that the fans, overall, cared NOTHING for Crona, and liked the version where Maki (who had become friends with him at that point btw) would just up and kill him? Come on,are you really that cruel?

You are talking to a person who thinks NieR is one of the greatest games of all time because it's story is so relentlessly depressing and, once you really understand it and come to know what has happened, relentlessly cruel to basically everyone involved. Seriously, everything in that game, everything, seems on the surface to be fairly standard action game stuff with an overdramatic story, and then you get it, and suddenly you realize the full weight of what you have done; to your enemies, to your allies, to the world as a whole. And man, is it messed up.

So, back to Soul Eater, yeah, I guess I, and most others I've spoken to, are really that cruel.