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3.9 AVERAGE
3.9 AVERAGE
dark
funny
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
I know there are a lot of ghost story concepts in manga, there are so many I can't even begin to count. The idea of the soul is always incredibly interesting and here it's used to a fantastical end. However, I watched a good portion of the anime before reading this first volume and that without a doubt affected my experience.
The anime is beat for beat the same as the manga. That meant the Soul Eater I was first introduced to was different, with vibrate colour and great character voices, and yet very much the same. I still enjoyed reading the book! The story is interesting enough that I don't mind reliving it in manga form.
The anime is beat for beat the same as the manga. That meant the Soul Eater I was first introduced to was different, with vibrate colour and great character voices, and yet very much the same. I still enjoyed reading the book! The story is interesting enough that I don't mind reliving it in manga form.
This was one I’m very glad I saw the anime first. It took me a while to realize that this was the same mangaka who did B. ichi which I didn’t care for and twice in the book store I was warned away from this manga. I listened then and honestly if I hadn’t seen the anime this would have probably been the only one of these I got. However, I loved the anime and I read some scans online of later Soul Eater chapters since the anime varies wildly from the manga and my friends wanted me to see the manga source. It gets so much better than volume one would suggest both in art style and story content.
Not that volume one is awful but it’s a bit disjointed. This is partly because the chapters in here weren’t chapters. They were one shots that had such a good reception that a series was born. Some of the set up, however, leads to a bit of timeline weirdness and other things down the road. Also there is so much more fan service in this than the anime, a bit too much uncomfortable panty shots of Maka (who might be as young as thirteen, points to the timeline issue) and another take on tentacle almost-rape of Patti and Liz. Blair the cat is naked in both anime and manga.
So the upshot of all of this are in this alternative earth, with its anthropomorphized sun and moon, there are humans who can become living weapons (guns, scythes, knives etc) and they are partnered with another human who can wield them, known as meisters. There is a school, the Death weapon- meister academy, DWMA for short, that trains them. Their job: harvest the souls of evil humans, 99 to be exact, and the soul of one witch (default evil in this verse) and the weapon will become a deathscythe, a personal weapon for Lord Death.
It opens with Soul and Maka, who already have the 99 humans and need the witch. Soul is a scythe and Maka is his studious wielder. She’s also the daughter of Death’s current weapon, Spirit whom she’s furious with for cheating on her mother. They head out to kill Blair, the witch. The caveat is, if they mess this up they have to start all over at zero (probably something that happened once this became a series because where’s the challenge and storyline if they’re already at 100). Blair leads to a lot of naked big boobed fan service but at least Maka is normally endowed (under endowed in fact)
The second storyline followed Black * Star and Tsubaki. Black Star (I’m not putting the star in every time. Sorry no) is the last of a clan of ninja assassins and of course wants to be one usually by shouting ninja rules at the top of his lungs totally circumventing his own goals. He reminds me a lot of Naruto, who I do not like. I’m not a big fan of Black Star (not here, not in the anime, not in later chapters). He’s loud and not that bright. Tsubaki is much better in the anime than here in volume one where she is very submissive to Black Star, almost too much so for comfort. In this they are after the soul of a child witch but she has a protector, a powerful swordsman, Mifune, who may just be too much for Black Star.
The third storyline followed Death the Kid and his dual weapons, Patti and Liz (gun types). Kid is actually a shinigami just like his father, Lord Death but Kid has issues. Being OCD is just one of them. Everything must be perfectly symmetrical or Kid freaks out, gushes blood, falls to the ground and screams about how worthless he is. So he wants to forge his own personal weapons to reflect his need for symmetry. Sadly for him Patti and Liz aren’t symmetrical in human form. Liz is much taller than Patti who is far more endowed (and has the brain power of a rotted cantaloupe). Liz and Patti are street kids who still aren’t totally comfortable with a spoiled rich boy and it doesn’t help that Kid sometimes isn’t controllable (as in when he leaves them in battle to go check to see if he hung a picture levelly)
After these three ‘prologues’ (read former stand alones) we get chapter one of the series where Black Star, Tsubaki, Maka and Soul have to do a remedial lessons since they have no souls eaten to their names and can’t resonate their souls together properly (points up to that ‘weirdness’ factor. Obviously Maka and Soul should have been able to if they had been so successful before). They’re to round up a former DWMA professor, Sid, who died and is now a zombie. They have to capture him and find out who made him into a zombie. While it was nice to see them working as a team, it ended with Black Star ripping off Tsubaki’s clothing to make Sid talk and Soul pulling up Maka’s skirt. That was not cool. If I hadn’t seen the anime and knew it got better that would have been a series ender right there. I know it was supposed to be funny but it wasn’t.
So the long and short of it, don’t base your entire opinion off this volume. It’s a series that will grow in merit and complexity of the storyline. It just gets off to a pretty uncomfortable start.
I've watched the anime before so I figured I'd go into the manga and see what the difference was and honestly there wasn't much of a difference so far. There's some nudity taken out for obvious reasons but other than that the anime is very faithful to the manga.
If you like action, humor with some gore you'll love this one. On to the next book.
If you like action, humor with some gore you'll love this one. On to the next book.
I loved the anime and this is definately so much like the first 3/4 episodes but, it was just as entertaining and action-packed. Great characters, plot and.... MAKA CHOP!
I guess I just don't get it. Ugh. They do know boobs don't look like that don't they?
Including only Volume 1 for conciseness, but I read the whole thing some years ago. It was my first anime so it has a special place in my heart, but the manga is excellent as well. It has its issues, but I still overall like it and the art style is very good.
I'm not super-familiar with Manga, and the sexy cuteness of this volume introduced me to the concept of 'ecchi'. I really enjoyed the characters, the art, the story, the humor, the magic, the battles. Dynamic and engaging, I definitely want to read the rest of the volumes in this series.
A really weird mix of childish humour and narrative with a surprising amount of ecchi scenes. Overall though, it's pretty fun and the fight scenes are cool.