Soul Eater ep.13

July 2, 2008 | 13 Comments

I don't know how BONES does it on a week by week basis but I'm surprised that even after one cour, the animation still looks consistently good. I mean it's not difficult to find other series where the animation has gone downhill very quickly even after the first episode. Maybe that ka-ching injections from Square-Enix does make all the difference. In other note, I thought the new ED theme will be included starting from this episode but that doesn't seem to be the case. Maybe it'll be released next week to coincide with all of the new episodes that will be released soon. I just hope that the new ED will be better than the current one because I can't tell if there's actually some kind of semblance of rhythm with the current ED.

Episode 13

Continuing from the previous episode, Eruka manages to set Demon Eyes free but the two are quickly surrounded by guards. Much to Eruka's surprise, no matter what the guards do to Demon Eyes, they can't kill the guy because he's supposedly immortal. Demon Eyes, on the other hand, can easily kill the guards using one of his eyes. Meanwhile, Soul and Maka are getting training to synch their soul wavelength better. As it turns out, the training consists of them talking about each other's deficiencies. It doesn't take long before the two make a list of complains about each other. Soul claims that Maka has been behaving strange lately while Maka claims that she just wants to be stronger. Soul, however, is afraid of being strong after seeing the weird dreams he's been having lately. At the same time, Eruka has brought Demon Eyes to Medusa and demands the other Witch to take out the snakes inside of her.

Unfortunately for her, Medusa only agrees to take one snake per one job. As for Demon Eyes, he no longer wants to be called that and decides that his new name is FREE. Free is on a mission to face off against Maka and Soul, both of whom are now visiting London Bridge with Tsubaki and Black Star. Maka immediately detect the presence of Free but she can't figure out whether his soul is that of a human or a witch or something else. Black Star, of course, dives in first, trying to beat the guy using Tsubaki's new mode. While he's powerful and have pretty good ability, the guy immediately passes out because he still can't handle Tsubaki's new mode. As a result, it's up to Maka and Soul to face off against Free. It doesn't take long before the two find out that Free can't be killed using normal weapons. In addition to this, Free then reveals that his true form is actually that of a Werewolf. This is the reason why his soul shape keeps changing form.

Maka and Soul try to work together to defeat Free. Unfortunately, for some reason their soul waves do not match anymore. Fear tries to use ice spike to attack Maka but because he's an idiot, he ends up impaling himself. Despite not having proper synchronization with Soul, Maka insists on using him as a weapon. Eventually, Soul decides to take up the offer of the little demon inside his dream, so the demon leads him somewhere. Upon doing this, Soul can finally perform Soul Resonance with Maka. This, however, causes Soul to almost lose himself while Maka feels like she's being consumed by Soul. Despite this, the two produce Witch Hunter, which Maka uses to slice Free. She then pushes the Werewolf off the bridge but almost got dragged down if Black Star hadn't use his shuriken to cut off Free's hand. Free gets drowned in the sea when he accidentally covers himself in a block of ice. The episode ends with Maka coughing blood and much to her horror, her blood is now black.

Highlights

* Demon Eyes/Free went to prison because he wanted to try chipping off the prison wall with spoon. However, he finds out that he's been given chopstick to eat instead. Although technically, chopstick can be used as a weapon as well in prison.
* The prison guards torched Demon Eyes with flame thrower but he's perfectly fine. Even his clothes apparently is flame-resistant.
* Black Star's soul shape. This guy would have been a great character if only he shuts his mouth and is less reckless. His power and ability are actually pretty good.
* Free turns out to be even more idiotic than Black Star. At least I never saw Black Star accidentally attacking himself with his own power.

Impression

I actually find Demon Eyes to be really amusing as far as villains are concerned. The part where he said that he wanted to try digging hole in prison using spoon reminds me of story from Alcatraz. Thankfully for the technicians, he turns out to be a bigger idiot than Black Star. Come to think of it, why did Witch Hunter can slice him while other weapons can't? Is there some kind of pure silver in that particular weapon? I am just taking a wild guess here but it's well-known in many Werewolf story that Werewolves can only be killed using pure silver. Having said that, I'm not sure if that's applicable as well in this series. The other interesting part about this episode is Soul's newly obtained power. It's clear that this is the kind of power which corrupts him and not only that, it seems to infect Maka as well. It'll be interesting to see if they both will go dark because of this or if they can tap the darkness within Soul without turning evil themselves. It'll be like Naruto using his nine-tail fox power.

It's also interesting to know that Shibusen is not well-liked by many creatures, including the Witches and Werewolves. It makes one wonder if their method is as iron-clad as described or if these juvenile creatures are just making up excuses because they can't commit evil without being punished for it. At the moment, I'm thinking the later. In Free's case, it's all more apparent because he actually stole someone else's eye and doesn't even feel guilty about it. He can whinge all he wants about Shibusen but it doesn't change the fact that if Shibusen wasn't around, he'd probably kill those weaker than him just to obtain their power. In comparison to Medusa, however, he's clearly just a low level tool since he didn't even realize that he was being used by the Witch. I also thought that after taking the eye of a Witch, he'd be more careful than trusting another Witch.

Preview

Next: LOL. What's with next week's story? It looks stupid hilarious.

© memento 2003