Soul Eater ep.01

April 7, 2008 | 25 Comments

OP Theme: 「resonance」 by T.M.Revolution - AVI version (53MB) | PSP version (17.3MB)

This is quite an unusual treat for shounen series fans. It's quite unusual to see a shounen series with this kind of high-quality animation/character design devoted to it. The OP/ED themselves are quite a treat but much to my surprise, the animations within the episode itself are solid throughout. The only reservation I have so far is that the series is a bit cute for my liking although I have to admit that it's not too excessive. It's more along the lines of Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas in its character/background design. I personally like the first episode but is a bit hesitant as well because I know that shounen series can be a bit repetitive as well. I also wonder if BONES can keep up the awesome animation quality that is shown in this episode later on. The story follows the life of 3 Shinigami scythe technicians and their humanoid weapons. In this first episode, we get to follow the 1st technician, Maka and her weapon, Soul Eater, who is also the name of the series. Anyway, let me know what you think about the series and if it stays interesting in the long run.

"A healthy soul dwells in healthy heart and healthy flesh" or so the black screen says. Cut to a shot of Shinigami Buki Shokunin Senmon (Shinigami's weapon craftmanship) school aka Shibusen. A school which was built to ensure that a demon God (Kishin) which terrorised ordinary humans and destroyed the world would never be reborn. After the opening, a girl can be seen walking in the middle of the night when a monster pounced on her. After killing the girl, the monster devour her soul. It then moves on to another girl who happens to stumble upon the murder. Before he can kill the other girl, however, two figure appear in the darkness. The guy, Soul Eater, tells the girl, Maka, that it's unmistakable that the monster's soul is the egg of demon God. In other word, it's not human. Soul then transforms into a scythe and let Maka to use his scythe form to slice the monster. After the monster is defeated, only the soul remains so Soul Eater transforms back into a human form and devours the soul. Maka congratulates him on his 99th soul. This means that all it takes is for him to devour one witch's soul and Soul Eater will become a "Death Scythe". Maka then goes to find a mirror-like device which she uses to contact the head Shinigami. The head Shinigami congratulates Maka for obtaining her 99th evil human's soul. He thinks she's an awesome scythe technician just like her mother. A younger man who is the current Death Scythe tells Soul Eater to stay away from "his" Maka or else. Soul Eater retaliates by claiming that he's not interest in flat-chested Maka. Maka reacts at the squabble by telling the man that she doesn't see her papa as the fatherly type.

The head Shinigami then warns Maka to be careful with her last mission: the witch soul because he doesn't like seeing technicians lose their lives to witches. Moreover, he doesn't want the Death Scythe that her mother made (aka her father, the current Death Scythe) beats her. Maka and Soul Eater assure the head Shinigami that they'll do their best. Because of this, the two head towards a house belonging to a witch called Blair. Despite Maka's request that the two of them approach the house carefully, Soul Eater decides to charge right away. Unfortunately for him, the witch in question is in the middle of taking bath so he immediately gets a nosebleed when he lands on her bathtub. Despite this, Maka decides to continue her assault and demands that Soul turns into a scythe. Before they can do anything, however, Blair already attacks the two of them with her Pumpkin attack. The next day, Maka's dad is busy having fun at a cabaret house, accompanied by 2 cabaret girls. He, however, becomes depressed when the girls ask him about Maka. It turns out the girls know that he has no luck with girls and this is why his wife left him and his daughter swears that she'll make a scythe that is better than her father. Feeling depressed, Maka's father runs out of the Cabaret house. Meanwhile, Maka and Soul are trying to kill Blair again but despite his best attempt to stop his nosebleed, Soul gets nosebleed as soon as he sees Blair. The same thing happen the next day. The day after, the three get into a fight again and Blair expresses her desire to obtain Soul Eater for herself. Because of this, she wants to kill Maka. Despite Maka and Soul's best effort, Blair spanks their bottom well. Maka manages to destroy the Pumpking cannon but Blair manages to use another attack.

Strangely, Soul doesn't seem to react to Maka's order. Meanwhile, the head Shinigami and Maka's dad are also watching the fight from the HQ. Maka's father wants to interfere but the head Shinigami reminds him that while they can defeat the witch easily, as her father, Death Scythe Sr. should know what Maka wants. Meanwhile, Maka continues to find it hard to control Soul. The later even transforms back into a human and tells Maka that she wants to be Blair's scythe instead. Maka thinks that Blair uses her magic on Soul but Soul continues to insult Maka, claiming that he'd prefer to be with hot older woman than a flat-chested girl like her. Much to the annoyance of the head Shinigami, Maka's father encourages Soul to go ahead with the plan. Frustrated by the fool, the head Shinigami head-chop the guy. Meanwhile, Maka becomes angry and asks herself what is wrong with men. All of a sudden, however, Soul tells Maka that cool man don't mess around. He then turns into a scythe again, allowing Maka to quickly grab his hand and slices Blair. After eating Brain's soul, however, Soul doesn't feel any change. They then see a black cat on the street talking. It tells them that Blair never told them that she's a witch. They just assume that all on their own. The truth is, Blair is just a kitten with a really strong magic. Maka's dad approves this, which annoys the head Shinigami again so he head-chops the idiot again. Meanwhile, Maka and Soul are horrified because it means that Soul has eaten 99 human souls and 1 cat's soul. In other words, they have to start all over again. As for Blair, she's still alive because Cats have more than one soul.

Impression:

That was pretty funny for first episode. My only problem is that for a main character, Soul blends too much into the background (his design is not eye-catching enough). Having said that, I like the voice that his VA uses. It seems appropriate somehow. I wish I can say the same thing for Maka, who sounds a bit screechy. As for the story, I find it interesting that the human and the weapon can actually marry and have children together. Does that mean the weapons are actually humans? As a side note, this is actually the 'censored' version of the series. The uncensored version will air at 2:15 am on Friday. Personally, I don't know what else they could have added into the series. Also, Maka and Soul are just one of the three scythe tech/weapon groups. Next week we should see Black Star and Tsubaki. I just hope that the animation and character design stay good and consistent in the future.

ED Theme: 「I Wanna Be」 by STANCE PUNKS - AVI version (33.7MB) | PSP version (16MB)

Preview

Next: Black Star!

© memento 2003