Soul Eater is full of a thousand anime cliches, but its weird combination of fast-paced action and over-the-top humor, not to mention the unusual visual style, helps it rise above the average. Overall, this one’s really an assault on the senses, not least with Maka’s voice, which pierces one’s ears like a knife every time she speaks. Maka is collecting some kind of red, glowing souls so that her partner/scythe weapon, named Soul Eater, can become some super weapon. (Soul looks like he was rejected from Gorillaz, lol). Weapons like guns and swords are often phallic symbols, so having her weapon literally be a guy is interesting. The second episode introduces another weapon-master, Black Star, who’s a guy and, in this case, has a female weapon. And the third episode introduces Death the Kid, who has two female weapons who become guns, so the sexual representations work both ways. Still, there must be a lot that one can read into the fact that, in Soul Eater, partnership with a member of the opposite sex is personified as using them as a weapon.
The characters in this show have very quirky personalities. It remains to be seen whether they remain one-dimensional and get boring, or if they develop at all. A potential strong suit for this series, though, is the fun it has parodying typical shounen types. Soul Eater’s concern with looking “cool,” Black Star’s boasting and Death the Kid’s obsession with order take different kinds of shounen characters to the extreme. But it pulls back from making them a mockery when they end up showing they really have fighting skillz. The strong bonds between the masters and their weapons gives everything a firm shounen base as well, so despite the wild backdrops and funny characters, we are still in very familiar territory here.
Please don’t eat the Dango!
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What the FUCK are you talking about? Maka’s voice is awesome, it’s not a moe pile of shit squealing pigglet coated in sugar so thick it’d make Hirano Aya’s penis fall off.
↑Roflmao.
I kinda agree - I don’t see why everyone hates Maka’s voice. I don’t think it’s bad at all and I think it’s kinda cute and fitting for a girl who has to wield a giant ass scythe as part of her homework assignments.
I’m on volume 8 of the manga and it gets really good so we’ll see how BONES manages to handle the rest. AN interesting thing though - Sakamoto Maaya is going to voice Chrona who will appear probably in the 2nd half of the series.
I never really understood why Maka’s voice was so wooden in the anime. It’s like I am listening to a female version of Hayden Christensen or Keanu Reeves. I don’t think it’s the voice so much as the bad acting. Who knows, maybe it will improve.
OK, then the voice is awesome. It makes me shiver with pleasure and wild desire every time I hear it. Maybe I actually like screeching nails on a chalkboard!
I agree. Maka’s voice is really awesome :D
Maka’s appearance looks woodenish to me, so I have few problems with the voice. Maybe if it was a little more smoother.
Maka’s voice reminds me of Nia (Tengen Toppa). Its sort of like her words are in staccato or something =3 which is pretty moe in my book!